In the previous article, ‘Basic PLO strategy’, we covered some key dos and don’ts of Omaha and examined the importance of knowing your starting-hand requirements. Now we’ll look at putting some of that into practice in the early and middle stages of a PLO Sit & Go. The pot-limit nature of Omaha combined with the fact that no hand is a massive preflop favourite means you will be playing a lot more flops than in hold’em. Playing in position is just as, if not more, important though, so don’t be scared of coming in cheaply with position and outplaying loose and passive opponents.
Early stages
In the early stages, playing tight and waiting for strong starting hands should stop you from bleeding chips. That’s not to say you should be playing passively, but raising out of position and calling with raggy hands are both big leaks. Obviously if you only raise with A-A-x-x your game will be easily exploitable, so you should mix it up by raising with a range of quality hands including double-suited high-card/pair combos and run-down hands (Q-J-T-8). Play your big draws aggressively but you want to hit the flop hard before you commit a lot of chips during the early levels.
Middle stages
In addition to having built yourself a tight-aggressive table image during the early levels that (hopefully) you can now exploit, you’ve had ample time to study how your opponents are playing and should know who is more likely to fold to a reraise. At this stage you should avoid calling if a bet will commit you to the pot – you should either be reraising or folding preflop. This is where the three-bet comes into its own; not only does it increase your chances of taking the pot heads-up, thus increasing the value of your draws (your non-nut flush/straight draws are more likely to be good), it also traps dead money in the pot as many players in early/middle position will fold to a three-bet. Awareness of stack size and position becomes crucial at this point and you should be considering your plan of action on the flop. Call/folding out of the blinds is weak play and you should be looking to put the pressure back on your opponents. Observing the tendencies of your opponent becomes a key factor at this stage. If your opponent is more likely to check to you if you have position then consider reraising preflop –you can then put them to the test by shoving the flop.