In Pot Limit Omaha, each player is dealt four personal cards, and then five community cards (a la Texas Holdem, consisting of the ‘flop’: the first three community cards; the ‘turn’: fourth community card; and ‘river’: the last community card). The objective is to create the best possible five-card-hand consisting of TWO of the personal cards, and THREE of the community cards.
Here’s a sample hand. You are dealt, for your personal cards: Ac Ad 9s Ks. Of these four cards, you will be able to use either AA, AK, A9, K9, etc, with the community cards. The flop comes 10h, Jh, 4d, the turn 5c, and the river, Qc, for a board of 10h, Jh, 4d, 5c, Qc.
Now it’s time to mix and match. You determine (correctly) that the Ad and Ks in your personal cards sync up with the 10h, Jh, and Qc in the community cards for the nut straight: Ad, Ks, Qc, Jh, 10h.
The key strategy to Pot Limit Omaha poker is to bet the big hands big and quickly fold the weaker ones. In Omaha, there are so many variations of hands that any holdings that aren’t the ‘nuts’ (best possible hand) or penultimate nuts should be folded immediately. The downfall of most beginner PLO players is that they overvalue mediocre hands. For example, if in a ring game or poker tournament you hold Ks Kc 10d 9d and the board reads Kh 4c 5d 7s Qh, you bet into it and then someone reraises you, then you must fold! Your trips are useless. Almost surely someone has a 6,8 or 3,6 for the straight.
Bet the nuts big with huge pot sized bets but, if a straight or flush draw has come in, feel comfortable in folding beaten hands to a hefty bet. Countless tournaments have been won by PLO players who simply bet big when they have the mortal, stone-cold nuts, and fold when they don’t. The types of hands that you should play in PLO are hands that have potential to make many straights and flushes; hands like Qc 10s 8c 9s are golden, whereas a hand like Js Jh 7c 3d is practically garbage. Even if the J does hit and you make trips, three Jacks in Omaha is a precarious hand at best.
By implementing this rudimentary PLO strategy, a beginning player can clean up the lower-limit PLO games.
