Omaha Hi-Lo Poker Strategy
Omaha Hi-Lo can be a wildly profitable poker game if you apply a few basic principles to your game. As you improve your Omaha skills and move up in stakes, you'll be able to make even more money off all the new and inexperienced Omaha Hi-Lo players.
Play for the Scoop
The first thing you should learn about Omaha Hi-Lo strategy is that your ultimate goal is to scoop the entire pot. If you play every hand with that goal in mind, good things will come your way. It's perfectly fine (and expected) to take what you can get as far as split pots go but always remember that a scoop is the best outcome.
Omaha Hi-Lo Starting Hands
Choosing the right starting hands in Omaha Hi-Lo will give you a great advantage over the average Omaha Hi-Lo player. You should pick your starting hands with the ultimate goal of scooping the pot in mind.
Because Aces can count as both high and low cards, you should primarily only play hands that contain an ace in them. Aces make your hand so much more likely to win both halves of the pot that you wouldn't be too far wrong if you only played hands that contained Aces.
Hands like A234 are incredibly powerful because they can effortlessly create the nut low. What makes them even better is that the Ace and all the connector cards can also give you the nut high hand. Low straights and big pairs are often strong enough hands to win the high half of the pot as well.
Omaha Hi-Lo Postflop Play
The strategy for Omaha Hi-Lo postflop play can get incredibly in-depth but there are still a few basic principles you can use to give yourself the biggest advantage possible as quickly as possible.
One major mistake new Omaha Hi-Lo players make is drawing to half the pot. This really isn't a winning strategy because draws are already losing propositions when you can win the entire pot. But if you're drawing to just half the pot, you're making an even bigger mistake. Sure, catching the cards you need is always a good thing but spending money in the hopes of just hitting half the pot is a bad thing.
Getting quartered is also a very real possibility in Omaha Hi-Lo. It's not as bad as losing a pot outright but it still costs money. If you and another player both tie for either the Hi or Lo side of the pot, you will split that part of the pot and end up with just 1/4th the value of the entire pot.
If you ever suspect you and another play are sitting on the same hand, you will want to be aware of the possibility of getting quartered. If it looks like your opponent is dead set on playing the hand down to the end, you should usually avoid making any bets or raises against him.
You need to be very careful, though, because if you have misjudged your opponent's hand, you can miss out on a lot of value by not raising. You will also want to keep in mind that if there's a chance that you can get your opponent to fold, a bet or a raise is the way to go.