Starting Hands for Omaha H/L

This strategy is for low limit Omaha High/Low. These are the type of starting hands you should look for and the positions you should play them from. When you get a playable four card Omaha H/L hand you need to catagorize the hand and know exactly what kind of flop you are looking for. You need to know if you are playing a High only hand, a Low only hand, or a Scoop hand (a hand that has the possibility of winning either the High, Low, or both pots).

LOW-ONLY HANDS: Something like A234. This is a really good low hand, you might want to limp in with this hand from early position and raise this hand from late position. Since you are more than likely only playing for half the pot you need to have a lot of players see the flop to build a big pot. With this hand you can also get “lucky” and hit the wheel (Ace through 5 straight) and take both pots.

Be cautious of playing hands like A2J9 or basically any A2xx hand for just the low end. First, is the fact that in order to qualify for low there must be three more low cards on the board. This is not always the case and if three high cards come on the flop you are in big trouble. Another reason not not to play any A2xx is that if an ace or a deuce shows up on the board your hand will be counterfeited as you no longer can use your A or 2 unless a fourth low card shows up on the board by the river.

Another reason not to play any A2xx is that any other player that is dealt A2xx will also be playing it. So when you do make a hand with it you will only win a quarter of the pot a good majority of the time.

I think protection is very important in playing low hands. I don't feel good about a low draw unless I've got three cards of it, for protection against counterfeiting (one of your cards appearing on the board). A23 is the best, but A24 and A34 are playable.

Hands containing A35 and A45 need to have something else going for them. Maybe 2345, but I need a lot of limpers and probably suited.

HIGH-ONLY HANDS: A high-only hand is AKQQ, preferably suited or double-suited. High-only hands can be underrated in Omaha HL. If you take a high-only hand and improve it by flopping more high cards there’s a really good chance that you are going to scoop the pot because there is a good chance that there will be no qualifying low hand . Furthermore, people will chase backdoor lows and other draws they shouldn't, so they'll pay you off in the long run.

SCOOP HANDS: Your ultimate goal in Hi-Lo is to scoop the pot. Since you have four cards in your hand you can use any combination of two for the high hand and low hand. You may use two cards for high and two different cards for low. The ideal situation in Omaha is to have a hand that will win both the high hand and the low hand. The other way to win the whole pot is to have the highest hand and have no low hand possible.

A very good one is A2A3 double-suited. You've got two nut flush draws for high, a protected low draw, and a pair of aces. I don't think big pocket pairs are all that valuable in Omaha-8 because if you don't flop trips it leaves you with very few outs to continue in the hand.

I like to raise with this hand in late position or from the blinds, and limp with it in early position. Why? Because I want to build the pot, but not thin the field.

Playing for Flushes: One suit is good. Two suits are better. A third card of the same suit weakens the hand's flush potential -- you don't want to be holding your own outs. Needless to say, four cards of the same suit is a trash hand.

Obviously you want suited aces, to aim at the nut flush. When playing for flushes you want the Ace high flush, once your flush is Queen high or worst you are flirting with disaster.

Suited cards below queens, I only view as a secondary feature of a hand. I wouldn't play a hand where mediocre flush draws were the hand's best feature (say QJ76 doublesuited). But if you start with AQ42 and the queen is suited, it helps the value of the hand a little.

Playing for Straights: With straights, you're looking for "wraps", or four-card hands where any of several cards will give you the straight. In Omaha staights really are not that strong of a hand because of the high possibility of someone hitting flushes or full houses. If you play a Omaha H/L hand to hit a straight you want to play high cards that will hit the nut straight and hope their isn't a qualifing low so you can scoop the pot.

Choosing a starting hand: One method for choosing a starting hand is to use a point count method. To do this each card combination in your hand is assigned a value and you add together all the points to determine the strength of your four card hand.
When I started learning Omaha HI-Lo, I picked up Wilson’s Turbo Omaha Hi-Lo Split software program to practice with. In the manual was a simple point count system that is very easy to learn and has helped me in choosing a starting hand. Here is how it works.

Easy Point Count

For High:

Pairs:

Aces count as 30 points. Kings = 13, Queens = 12, Jacks = 11 and all other pairs equal their face values. A pair of 5’ is worth five points.

Flushes:
Two card flushes count 10 points with an ace. All others count 4 points . Three or four of same suite count as half.

Straights:
Two card straight with no gap or one gap count as 2 points. (Ex: 8-9 or 8-T, )

High Cards:

Unpaired Ace = 4 points, King = 2points. For Low:
A-2 = 20 points
A-3 = 15 points, 2-3 = 10 points
A-4 = 10, 2-4, 3-4 = 5 points 2-3 = 10
A-5, 2-5, 3-5, 4-5 = 5 points

Add up the points for your four cards for the high count and the low count. Add them together. It takes 25 points to call, 40 points to raise and 50 points to reraise. If you are in the small blind you can complete your bet with 10 points.

I found this method one of the easiest ways to give me a practical estimation of my hand strength and was surprised by how I did when I used it. Give it a try the next time you play Hi-Lo. You might see and improvement in your game.

Article Source: http://www.poker30.net/gambling-articles

Alan Bloomfield is a winning player and he writes for and manages the web site www.pokerall-in.com

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