Omaha High Strategy

• In all poker games, position is important

In all poker games, position is important. Generally, you want to act last or close to last on every betting round. However in limit Omaha high, position is not as critical as it can be in other forms of poker (position is extremely important in pot-limit Omaha). The reason for this is that limit Omaha is a nine-card drawing game, where you and everybody else are drawing to the nuts.

Everybody can see what the nuts are, and the nuts are usually out there, somewhere. The nuts usually get paid off in a showdown, since someone with the second best hand will call due to pot odds. Position might earn you an extra bet, or save you one bet. But position will almost never win the whole pot on a bluff, as it might in Texas Hold'em or pot limit Omaha.

This is usually the main problem Hold'em-players have taking up limit Omaha high because two of their weapons at the poker table are taken away from them- the bluff and position play. For them, tough limit Omaha high games are sometimes unbeatable. However, they can increase their chances for winning if they do a few things to give themselves an extra edge.

Starting Hands

• The Selection is the Key to Beating the Game

In Texas Hold'em, there are three groups of hands. Great hands (i.e. AA, KK, QQ, AK), marginal hands (for example AQ, JTs, 99) and trash hands (the rest such as 94). The marginal hands are playable only under the right conditions, generally speaking in late position or in pots without too much action. The marginal hands are also great for trying to steal the blinds with a raise, or to play heads-up against a "maniac" (raise or re-raise to get head-to-head with the "maniac", see the discussion at Hold'em For Experts)