Pot-limit Omaha is ideally suited to cash game play. It offers more action, bigger pots and, for those who do a little homework, a bigger edge, as there are more and more inexperienced players making the move from the no-limit hold’em tables. While you are never going to make your fortune playing micro stakes ($0.25/$0.50 and under), these tables are where many players learn the skills needed to take their game to the next level and are a great place to pick up a major edge. Stick to solid hand selection and a few basic ground rules and you’ll see your skills increase in relation to your bankroll.
PLO top tips
- Be selective with your starting hands
The earlier your position the better your cards need to be. Playing poor cards out of position increases the number of tough decisions you will have to make as the hand progresses.
- Pump or dump
PLO is a game of odds and probabilities, more so even than hold’em. Either fold or raise when the odds are in your favour; avoid calling unless you have a good reason such as trapping or pot-building when you have a monster draw.
- Pay attention
Who is playing poor hands and calling too much? Who folds to aggression? Who bets their draws? Who likes to bluff and who can be bluffed? Who will fold their blinds? Changing your game and starting hand requirements against different players will maximise your win rate and make you harder to read (against those players who are paying attention anyway).
- Practise good game/table selection
Pick a table that suits your style of play. Tight players often do well at loose tables and vice versa. Different playing styles are suited to different games and there is a big difference between playing at a six-max table and in a full-ring game. Experiment with both.
Full-ring
Players with a TAG (tight-aggressive) style may find their game more suited to full-ring play, where the action is usually tighter. Position is especially important here and will affect the hands you play. A tight approach in early position should keep you out of trouble, while adding more hands to your repertoire as your position improves should see more chips going your way. It is important to remember that Omaha is a postflop game – bigger hands generally win at showdown and while calling in position is fine, playing hands in late position that are not dominated by an early-position raiser will pay dividends. For example, it is better to call on the button with a hand like J-T-9-8 rather than weak Ace hands and unsuited raggy overpairs. There is generally less bluffing in PLO than in NLHE, especially in a full-ring game where it is more likely someone is drawing to the nuts or is already sitting on a monster. Remember to draw to the nuts in multi-way pots; committing chips with non-nut draws can frequently get you in a heap of trouble.
Six-max
Six-max games are generally more aggressive and encourage a looser style of play, as it is less likely that your opponent has a big hand in a short-handed game. One approach that lends itself particularly well to micro-stakes PLO games, especially the six-max tables, is short-stacking. Here you are only buying in for the minimum – $5 at $0.10/$0.25, though you can stretch to $10 if you want a bit more play – and are only playing premium hands, committing yourself to a pot either preflop or on the flop, thus taking away the need for tough decisions on later streets. Patience is the key here – you are waiting for hands like double-suited Aces or Kings and double-suited run-downs where all four cards work well together.
Preparation and table selection are also important. Tables with a high average pot and a low players-per-flop percentage usually means less variance (the easier it is to get your hand heads-up or three-way, the less likely it is that your big hands will get cracked). Picking a table with aggressive players, especially those who like to raise and reraise to isolate preflop, increases your chance of taking your hand heads-up, where your penchant for picking strong starting hands gives you an edge over the starting hand ranges of a LAG (loose-aggressive) player.
Bankroll boosting
An important thing to consider when making the switch to PLO cash is the increase in variance. Not only does ‘set over set’ occur more frequently, but situations such as top set vs. combo flush and straight draws or a large wrap (where you have loads of outs to complete a straight) also arise with more regularity. This means your Omaha bankroll needs to be a little bigger than your roll for playing NLHE, and you must exercise good bankroll management to avoid going broke. Normally, to play at the $0.25/$0.50 tables you need a bankroll of at least $1,000, where a single buy-in is $50 or around 5% of your roll. This means that if you’re planning to multi-table your roll needs to be $2,000 minimum. At the $0.10/$0.25 level then, your bankroll should be between $500 and $1,000, but $750-$1,500 will give you more room to manoeuvre, especially if you’re playing more than one table.