One reason PLO8 isn't played much in casinos is because skill wins. Bad play and bad players are annihilated, and fast too. PLO8 games peopled only with good players are tediously bad.
For more on the different betting structures in poker, check out our guide to Poker Betting Rules. Pot Limit Omaha is commonly called “PLO”, and is the second-most popular poker game in the world, behind Texas Hold’em. Omaha is played using the buttons and blinds system seen in many other poker variants. Polo is played on a Polo field that is 300 yards long and 200 yards wide, although this may be just 160 yards wide if it is a boarded pitch. The goalposts have a width of 8 yards and are open at the top. Each Polo match shall consist of 4 chukkas (plays), each one lasting 7 minutes of actual play. Here We Introduce The Basics Of Short-Stacked PLO Strategy. Many of the characteristics of Pot-Limit Omaha make this game particularly suited to short stack play. This involves buying in for the minimum amount and exploiting some of the plays that deep-stacked opponents will make when (correctly) playing pots with other deep stacks.
Some good PLO8 games are available at a few online cardrooms. One reason that PLO8 continues to exist online is simply because online games have the whole world to draw on in terms of players. Another reason is that online PLO8 games usually have a cap on the amount players can buy-in for. This leveling the playing field mitigates, a lot, against the standard pot limit phenomenon of good players buying lots of chips and poor players buying tiny stacks. Money goes to money in big bet poker.(This article is about ring game PLO8, especially where the player stacks are fairly deep. Tournament PLO8 and games where players only have relatively small amounts of chips require somewhat different approaches -- although obviously some of the concepts apply no matter what the format.)
The most important reason PLO8 games exist as much as they do online is: a high percentage of online poker players drastically overestimate their skill level. While this is true of all games online, this overestimation is more concentrated in big bet games. Mediocre players suddenly think they are God's gift to poker, the second coming of Bret Maverick, when confronted with the complexities of PLO8 -- lots of cards, variable/progressive betting, high and low ways to win (and lose) pots. It's one thing to be a mediocre juggler. It's another thing indeed to be a mediocre juggler who insists on juggling seven flaming machetes. (The other place where mediocre players drastically overate themselves online is at head-up games.)
So, the first thing to understand about online PLO8 games is many of your opponents have poor judgment in terms of true value. People with poor value skills are good people to play against in big bet poker. That understanding should underlie everything you do in the game.
You should be trying to play more hands in most PLO8 games than you do in limit Omaha8 or PLO High (unless a game has an unusual amount of pre-flop raising). Speculative hands that are garbage in Limit can be profitable in PLO8. The most obvious one is 23xx. In Limit Omaha8, this is by far the #1 sucker hand. In pot limit the hand sometimes can be played for a limp, if you play well, because of the implied action you will get. Compare having A2xx on a flop of 873 to having 23xx on a flop of A87. You WILL get more action from players holding aces and eights or aces and sevens than you will from players holding eights and sevens or eights and threes. I've seen a player go for all his chips, putting in the fourth raise on a flop like this where he had AAA. Suicide. He put in all his money just to get it back. Aces have the magical ability to make people play worse.
Most players greatly over-fixate on winning pots. If they put a nickel into a pot, you darn near need a crowbar to pry them away from pouring millions in to chase that nickel. Proper PLO8 play is directly counter to this, which is why most players are not suited for the game. You should easily fold most of the hands you saw the flop with. Proper PLO8 play is mostly a game of homeruns. Big pots. Big edges. Big betting. You aren't looking to make hitting PLO8 doubles your focus. Occasional doubles are fine, especially with the obvious hand of A2, but you don't want to mix it up in a lot of marginal pots. Your hope is to get out early, or be gladly shoving all your chips in by the end.
The only way you want to hit singles in PLO8 is by making bets on the flop that nobody calls. This can occur two ways. The first is obvious, you bet a hand that should be bet and nobody calls. You can't put a gun to people's heads and make them call, so just take the pot and wait for the next time. The other small pot/singles to look for are 'orphan' pots -- pots nobody seems to want. These are pots you can make one bet at, and then you are done. If you win the pot, great, if you get called you back off and very seldom continue to try to win the pot. A simple example, the flops is Q♠J♠9♠. You have A♢2♢5♡K♠. You have two opponents. The first opponent checks. You bet. You should win this pot right here more than half the time. If you get called or raised, you just give up. You are bluffing these pots, but you are bluffing when your opponents have very little. Their very little just happens to beat your very little.
Betting and taking orphans should keep you hovering around playing breakeven poker. The key pots are where you look to get your profit. Also, you need to bet at orphan pots because you don't want to always and only be betting when you have an enormous hand.
While bet-ability is the overriding concept at work in PLO8, there are two specific situations you should look for: the freeroll and the 3/4. Getting in situations where you do one or the other of these is the reason to play the game.
Plo6 Rules
The Freeroll. While 3/4ing is important, freerolling is much more so. Freerolls come in a variety of types, but the common theme is you are getting a free shot at your opponent's money. (For practical purposes, the idea of a freeroll should also include 'near freerolls' like on a flop of QJT and you have AKQQ while your opponent has AK22. He can beat you by making four deuces, but despite that ability to make a 1000-to-1 shot, we will still consider that near freeroll to be a 'freeroll'.)Some freeroll examples:
Flop - Q♠J♢T♣; Opponent - A♣K♢2♡3♠; You - A♠K♠Q♣J♣
Flop - 3♠4♢5♣; Opponent - A♣K♢2♡Q♠; You - A♠2♠7♣8♣
Flop - A♠8♡7♡; Opponent - A♡A♢K♡Q♠; You - 2♠3♠5♢6♢
In each of these examples, your opponent is drawing 100% dead. He cannot beat you no matter what cards come on the turn and river. AND, you will get action from most opponents who hold these hands... especially from bad players who will often intentionally go for all their chips, particularly with the first hand.
The Ace-high Broadway straight is similar to how 23xx is in Limit Omaha8. Weak players lose more money with this hand than any other. Good players win their money when freerolling these hands. AK on a QJT flop, AQ on a KJT one, AJ on a KQT one, AT on a KQJ one... these are the hands that separate the adults from the kiddies. Weak players not only commit suicide on these hands, but also can't even comprehend that they should often be folding the current-nut-hands like they were poison. All forms of Omaha are about making the best hand, not what is currently best. There is no leader money in poker. The ability to fold the current nut hand is absolutely critical in PLO8... and fortunately, most players are simply incapable of it. When you flop one of these Broadway straights, you should ask yourself 'what am I trying to make?' If the answer is 'I want to make only the same straight as I have now', in other words, you are drawing to a blank on the turn and a blank on the river, you don't have much of a hand.
Another type of freeroll is the 'freeroll to a bluff':
Flop - 6♠7♠8♢; Opponent - 9♠T♢J♣J♡; You - A♠2♡3♢4♣
In this hand, neither one of you has any chance at all of making a hand that beats the other one. Big, fat zero. But you have a freeroll to a river bet where you should be making significant money. No matter what the action is on the flop and turn, if the river card comes a board pair, or a flush card (especially if it is a flush card that pairs the board), a pot-size bet by you will force your opponent to fold -- and even if he calls, that is fine because that means he will call you when you happen to have the flush or full house.
Notice in this example how important pot manipulation is. If you have intentionally bet yourself all-in before the river card, you are an idiot. Your chance to win money here is by betting the river (or turn) card and getting a fold. You can't get a fold if either you or he is all-in! On the other hand, you want the pot big enough so that you can make a large enough bet to get him to fold. There is a definite science to getting pots the right size when you are on a freeroll to a bluff. Also notice, it is much better to error on the side of not building the pot big enough, and thus not being able to make a big enough bet to get a fold. That error is much less bad than the error of getting one or the other of you all-in. You can never win when somebody is all-in. When you can make a river bet of any size, you will win sometimes. Even if a pot is $400 and you can only bet $100 on the river, you will still win some percentage of the time greater than the 0% of the time you win when one of you is all-in.
A final freeroll example is the most obvious:
Flop - 6♠7♠8♢; Opponent - 9♣T♢J♠J♢; You - A♠2♠3♢4♣
5 Card Plo Rules
Here, opposite of the freeroll to a bluff, you want to get all the money into the pot as soon as you can. Your opponent can never beat you, but you will scoop him once in awhile. Notice in the above example I've contrived the hands to where your opponent would make a backdoor flush if it came, which would make your ability to bluff a river card that didn't make you a winner tougher. Suppose he didn't have those diamonds. Now, by betting him all-in and winning when you make your spade flush, you are GIVING UP your chance to win the pot via a freeroll bluff on the river if it comes a diamond or board pair. What you have is TWO freeroll opportunities that work against each other! This game is starting to get complicated... :) You have two bet-ability issues here that you have to balance given your opponent, his betting habits, how deep the stack sizes are, how poorly your opponent plays (a terrible opponent could easily go broke the very next hand, so I would lean to putting him all-in and hope I make my flush and get all his chips, rather than look to make a smaller amount of chips via occasional river bluffs when I miss but it comes a card he doesn't like), etc.
Of course, not all freerolls are this obvious. In the previous example you are vulnerable to being 3/4ed by hands like A238. You can't see your opponent's cards, so you seldom get super-obvious freerolls. However, not only do fairly clear freerolls present themselves, you need to be thinking how sometimes you ARE freerolling when you don't know it. The freeroll should be the concept in the front of your mind... which also means: DON'T GET FREEROLLED! On a 678 flop, you should fold 9TJJ to almost any bet. It may be the nuts, but you are probably drawing dead. You may have to put in many chips to split a puny amount already in play. You may be freerolled and 3/4ed at the same time by A29T.
Folding the nuts is something you should do fairly often in PLO8, and it doesn't have to be high-type hands like the JJT9. On a flop of 8♠7♠6♠ you should usually toss A♢2♢K♡Q♡ into the muck when faced with any bet. Don't get freerolled.
3/4ing a pot. Though dwarfed in significance by freerolls, 3/4ing is more common. 3/4ing usually occurs when two people both have the nut low, but it also happens sometimes when both players have the same high and one makes some kind of low. A much longer discussion than we have space for here, clearly it is a huge skill in being able to correctly discern when you are getting 3/4s as opposed to when you are getting 3/4ed. Some situations are obvious, like when you make the nut flush to go with a nut low, but most of the time your hand won't be nearly so defined. When you have A238 and the board is 348QK, are you getting 3/4s or getting 3/4ed? How about 348Q4? Do you bet the pot? Do you make a smaller bet? Check? Raise if an opponent makes a small bet? There is a bottomless pit of situations and subtleties to be considered, but a player who makes bets when 3/4ing and who checks when being 3/4ed will do a helluva lot better than a person who does it the other way around!
Just like when you have the nut Broadway straight you should ask yourself what you are drawing to, when you have the nut low the first thing you should ask yourself is: what is my high hand? And then, what is the high hand I am trying to make? The nut low aspect of the hand is relatively unimportant (even if most players fixate on low).
The key word in PLO8 is 'and'. When you show down you want to be saying, 'I have low AND...' If there is no 'and', you usually don't have much. 'And' is what to focus on when you have nut low. If you have no 'and', checking and even check/folding will often be your correct action. Don't get me wrong though, before the showdown 'and' can include the fact that you are drawing to a bluff. A naked nut low plays fine against people who don't have nut low!
Correctly value-betting hands like two pair, like when you hold A24Q and the board is 478KQ, or even one pair like when you have A237 and a board is 457KQ, is a challenge you have to strive to accomplish. Reading opponents, especially when you are out of hand, is a task you should always be working on when playing PLO8. 'Better betting' when doing the 3/4ing and when getting 3/4ed should be the result of a never-ending study of your PLO8 opponents. It is the ongoing challenge that every player can do better and better.
One thing that should be clear from both the discussion of freerolling and 3/4ing is the dramatically more important role suited cards play in PLO8 compared to Limit. You want 'and'. Flushes are just another way to make a bettable 'and'. And flushes are never 3/4ed. They are either good or they aren't.Besides their 3/4ing value, flushes can turn splits into scoops. Suppose you make the nut flush on the river against an opponent who only has the nut low: Board - 4♠5♣8♢K♠Q♠; Opponent - A♣2♣3♢J♡; You - A♠3♠6♢7♣
In this case the river card changed things not at all, but you now can safely make a pot size bet. Say the pot is $1000, and you bet that. The best your opponent can do is get half. If he calls, he gets $1500. But he has to consider that if he calls and gets 3/4ed, he gets back $750, so calling the $1000 bet costs him $250. You will get your opponents to fold some amount of time over 0% in situations like this. Pure profit.
Similarly, suppose instead you hold A♠2♠4♢T♣. In this case the river card again didn't change things. You had your opponent 3/4ed already with a pair of fours. But how often are you going to be able to value bet a pair of fours? How often should you TRY to value bet a pair of fours? By making a much more bettable flush than your measly pair of fours you now can bet the $1000 pot. When you do, if your opponent calls, you make that extra $250. And, if he doesn't call, making the flush won you the $250 that was already in the pot (his 1/4 share of the pre-bet $1000 pot).
Suitedness makes hands more bettable, and it makes another way you can make an 'and'. A♠2♠3♢4♢ is a much more profitable hand than A♠2♡3♢4♣. If you could just wish it and have it be so, you would want your cards to always be suited and your opponent's cards to never be suited. Don't fall into the trap some inexperienced players do when they see 'action-killing flops' of three of the same suit. They wrongly conclude suits won't bring you much. That is silly. Pots on the flop are relatively small. We don't much care about on-the-flop pots. We care about being in a position to bet hands on the river, when the pot and bets are biggest. Make-a-flush-on-the-river boards are where the clearest exchange of money/value takes place in PLO8. You can't tie flushes, only one winner. And, betting/pseudo-bluffing opportunities present themselves where pure low hands can blow high hands out of pots. It's an oversimplification, but it could be asserted that when you aren't suited you want pots to be decided on the flop and turn; when you are suited, you want to be putting in action on the river -- and again, the money in the game is in making river bets when the pots and possible bets are biggest.
If any game is NOT the game of the future, this is it. But when the game is played, and non-good players are involved, it presents an excellent opportunity for solid, positive expectation poker by focusing on a few key concepts: bet-ability, 'and', suitedness, 3/4ing, freerolling.
Are you new at poker and want to learn how to play Pot Limit Omaha (PLO)? Or is Texas Holdem your typical game and you want to add to your repretoire? If you are among the latter folks, pay special attention to the tips below because Omaha players are on the lookout for common Texas mistakes.
Below we introduce PLO strategies for starting hand selection and assessment, bankroll management, equity, backdoor outs and kill cards, and hand reading.
Basic PLO Strategy & Tips
Many players give PLO a try as a refreshing change from Texas Holdem. With 4 hole cards and betting limits fixed by the size of the pot, there are new strategy considerations to keep your mind fresh. This article covers some of the key strategy tips you’ll need to keep in mind when your first move over. Remember that experienced PLO players are on the lookout for people making ‘Holdem Player Mistakes’ and are ready to take advantage.
There are 3 main areas covered in this article. First the setup of starting hands and the importance of betting with combinations of cards that work together. Next you’ll find tips covering the relative strengths of hands at showdown. After that some advice on how to avoid giving away the content of your Omaha hand too early.
Pot Limit Omaha Strategy Tips – Starting Hand Selection
In PLO poker, a showdown has very specific rules. You can use 2 and only 2 cards from you own 4 hole-cards, and 3 and only 3 cards from the 5 community cards. Reading the board comes easily with practice, though the effect on starting hand selection is more subtle.
The best Omaha hands are those which have the largest possible number of 2-card combinations which work together – in addition to some high card strength. The best hands are A-A-J-10 with 2 ace high suited pairs, and A-A-K-K also double-suited. Both of these can make top set, straights and nut flushes. Other super-strong hands in PLO are called ‘Rundowns’ and include hands like 9-10-J-Q double suited. Here you have 6 combinations of hands working for you and you can flop draws with up to 21 outs – making you a favorite over a set.
Even one unconnected card halves the number of combinations you have working for you. The really dangerous Omaha starting hands contain small to medium pairs. Sure, you can flop a set now and again, but when the betting gets extra heavy in this game – middle or bottom set is a trap hand. If you are not already beaten by a higher set then you could be facing one or more massive draws which are favorite to beat you.
Pot Limit Omaha Strategy Tips- Relative Hand Strength At Showdown
Hands shown down in PLO are much stronger than you will be used to in Texas Holdem. If you think that each player starts with up to 6 potential 2-card combinations, then it makes sense that hands shown down will be close to the nuts. Just imagine betting into 3 players in Texas Holdem holding 18 hands – one of them must have hit the flop.
If you can get your aces all-in pre-flop then you should do that, however unimproved over-pairs are very unlikely to win the pot when there has been significant action.
Coordinated flops mean you need to make a decision on whether to continue immediately. The betting gets exponentially bigger on each round with pot-limit rules and ‘just calling to see what happens’ can lead you to hit a low straight, non-nut flush or two pair – which will cost you money more often than they make you any.
A good rule of thumb for new players is to only draw to nut hands. The highest straights, nut flushes and the best full-house should all be included. Once you get used to how different opponents are betting in different situations you can add in some non-nut draws like the underfull or King-high flushes.
Pot-Limit Omaha Strategy Tips – Don’t Give Away That Hand Too Early
A common mistake new Omaha players make is to limp or call pre-flop with a wide range of speculative hands – and then suddenly raise with a pair of aces or kings. This is so well known among regular players that many specifically watch for these raises. What you will find is that you instantly end up with 5 callers, and are quickly checked to on the flop.
If you did not improve on the flop you need to be wary, your opponents will know what you have (well, half of your hand at least) and will be ready to build a big pot if they have you beaten. Once you gain some PLO experience of your own you can join in the profitable pastime of watching for aces-only raisers.
Even players who raise a wider range of coordinated hands can fall into this trap sometimes. This happens when only aces are used to re-raise. If you are going to give away your hand in this way you need to make sure that you have no more than one pot-sized bet left after the flop – otherwise it is easily exploitable by observant opponents.
Omaha is a fantastic game and has developed a loyal following online. These tips should keep you from losing too many easy chips while you learn to beat the game.
Advanced PLO Strategy
Once you have learned the basics of starting hand selection, drawing to the nuts and pot-limit betting – you are ready to add some advanced strategies to your PLO armory. This article covers a range of tactics that will help you increase your win-rate in lower buy-in Omaha hi games online.
First you’ll find out how to spot situations where a combination of your current equity and ‘backdoor outs’ make it profitable to call when you are not favorite to win the hand. Next some notes on reading your opponent’s hands. After this I have covered how to distinguish hands which do better heads up from hands which perform well multi-way. Finally some notes on good bankroll management, which is a key skill in the high-variance game of pot-limit Omaha.
Equity, Backdoor Outs and Kill Cards
In Pot-Limit Omaha there are many situations where the pot has gotten so large that you have an easy call with a hand which is likely behind. This is not just for the mega-draws like wrap + flush draw hands, it can be for a simple flush with the pot offering you compelling odds.
What many new players miss is that there is often extra equity from backdoor draws. For example with a flush draw + top-pair hand, you will have chances of trips or even a runner-runner full-house, you may also have straight possibilities. These extras can often add the few percentage points to your equity, which make a fold into a call.
Conversely, there are often cards in the deck which are not clean outs. For example in a classic flush draw against set all-in on the flop, the set has outs to make a full house (7 on the turn and 10 on the river) which effectively kill your flush. Being outdrawn by a flush when you hold the nut straight has the additional risk of higher straight cards appearing as well as the board pairing.
You’ll need to spend some time with an Omaha poker calculator to get used to these kind of match-ups.
Hand Reading in PLO
In my article on Basic PLO Strategy Tips, I outlined how people who raise (or 3-bet) only with hands containing aces will find themselves in trouble in PLO games. There are several more ways you can learn to read the hands of your opponents in Omaha.
Key here is to start with the shape and strength of your opponents hands. You can often find bet sizing tells will give you a clue starting before the flop. For example, some players will only ever re-raise premium hands and will be more likely to raise pair or high card hands and instead call with their rundown hands.
After the flop some players will bet out every time they have a draw, while others will check and call with non-nut (though still strong) draws. With careful observation you can easily pick up patterns. If you are not used to this I recommend you start by focusing on how different opponent play their Aces hands – followed by double suited run-downs. Once you figure whether someone is drawing or ‘protecting’ a made hand from the bet sizing, your decision making process becomes significantly easier.
Multi-Way and Heads-Up Hands
Some Omaha hands perform better in multi-way pots, while others are at their strongest when heads-up. Examples of multi-way hands include the higher rundown hands, preferably double suited. If you hold a high pair with little in the way of coordinated backup then you will ideally find yourself heads-up and with the initiative in the betting. If you miss the flop and face resistance, then high pair hands should usually be ditched.
Simply deciding whether your hand would prefer to be heads-up or multi-way can help you choose a good pre-flop betting strategy. Make sure that you mix things up sometimes though – or observant opponents will know what type of hand you are holding from your betting style.
PLO Bankroll Management
PLO is a high-variance game. You can play great and find yourself missing big draws, having your big sets cracked and find your bankroll going down fast. Of course, this will be balanced by times when you run great too!
In Texas Holdem, the agreed safe bankroll level is 20x your buy-in, so you only have 5% of your bankroll in any one game. In PLO I recommend that you play a little more conservatively with your bankroll, instead opting for 3% on any single table or 30 buy-ins minimum. This will mean you can ride the variance which is natural in this game without having to worry about your entire bankroll disappearing.