Strong Drawing Hands: Pot Limit Omaha

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Pot Limit Omaha is a completely different game than Texas Hold'em. One of the main differences is the value of strong drawing hands skyrocketing in Omaha, while drawing hands that one might play in Texas (like an open-ended straight draw) drop in value like the stock market on Black Tuesday. In Omaha, the strong draws are the so-called wrap straight draws. In Texas, an open-ended straight draw equals 8 outs. In Omaha, the wrap straight draws equal 13, 17 or even 20 outs!

 

To value drawing hands in Omaha is hard in the beginning. A 13-card wrap is in the low scale of good drawing hands. To play a wrap like this, we often want a flush draw to go with it. And Omaha being a game of nuts, it is important that our 13-card wraps make nut straights. Look at the following example:

 

The flop is 982 rainbow. A hand like QJT6 is relatively strong, giving us 13 outs, all of them making nut straights. However a hand like A765, which is also a 13-card wrap, is more or less worthless, since it makes so few nut straights! If we are to play a 13-card wrap, it is crucial to instantaneously spot if we hold the "high" or "low" wrap. With the high wrap, we can almost always at least call a bet, but the low one should be played as a gutshot straight draw in Texas - tossed in the muck!

 

A 13-card wrap is, as I already mentioned, not a that great hand. Whether to get all of the money in the middle or not depends on our own style of play, the opponent, stack sizes and the pot size. However, should the flop come 982 with two hearts and we have a flush draw to go with our wrap draw, we are suddenly in much better shape! Sure, a few hands have us in extremely bad shape (like A993 with A3 of hearts), but generally speaking it is a very good draw that should be played aggressively.

 

But now to the even bigger wraps. Let us take the same flop, 982 rainbow, and switch our hand to JT73 instead. Now we suddenly have 17 outs: 4 sixes, 3 sevens, 3 tens, 3 jacks and 4 queens! Against a set, we are flipping coins. This is a draw that we would like to get all our money in the middle with. However, be careful should the flop contain a flush draw that we do not have. That diminishes the value of our hand greatly, because many of our outs may very well be contaminated, giving us a straight but at the same time making a flush for our opponent.

 

A 17-card wrap is easily identifiable: on a coordinated board, we have two connecting cards above and one below (JT72 on 983, 983 on 762 etcetera).

 

The best wrap straight is the 20-card wrap. On the same example flop, 982, it would be JT76. 20 cards give us a straight: 4 fives, 3 sixes, 3 sevens, 3 tens, 3 jacks and four queens! With a 20-card wrap, we are a favorite even against a set.

 

But enough about wrap straight draws. There is one more great draw, and it is the set and nut flush draw combination. Suppose we hold A882 with A2 of hearts on an 876 board with two hearts. If there will be action on this flop, our opponent likely holds a straight. But it doesn't matter, since our set and nut flush draw is a favorite - we will win the pot 60% of the time!

 

Omaha is a complicated game, but by learning to evaluate the value of drawing hands we have come quite a bit on the way of mastering this oh so exciting game of poker!

 

 

Written by Andris Kangeris for 24hPoker.com