Ohama 8 stragegy question

[rookieplus]

A recurring theme I see from the more acomplished players is "raise or fold, don't call." The logic: by raising, the other guy might fold, by calling you can only win a showdown.

Early rounds at PP in Omaha 8 every hand ends in a showdown. So here's my question. If you like your hand, is it better to just call and keep the pot sizes manageable? With so many loose callers if you raise into them, the pots get big and more players get pot committed resulting in more players being around for the showdown.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Phill S]

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The logic: by raising, the other guy might fold, by calling you can only win a showdown.


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Early rounds at PP in Omaha 8 every hand ends in a showdown.

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these are clearly conflicting statements. if you cant get them to fold, then dont raise to try.

since omaha is basicly a game of the nuts, i dont think its that dangerous to allow extra players to come along for the ride. in the early stages you should only play great, if not excellent hand, in the hope of taking a big pot from an omaha.

stick to hands with four cards ten plus, and four cards 5 minus (including an ace for both ways if you can).

its my (unqualified and unsubstanciated) opinion that you can wait out the game and four or five players will be lost before the blinds even become that high. its after this you need to start to loosen up.

however coming full circle to your question, personally id play the hands cheap with a limp, and id respect small raises a hell of a lot less than in holdem.

this is due to you:
a, probably having the best hand, most people cant grasp what a good solid omaha hand is
b, if you hit the nuts or nut draw, what the other guy has is pretty irrelivant

get in cheap, then evaluate your holding on the flop. this is not to say you shouldnt value bet preflop, just dont go overboard.

Phill

[Irieguy]

The key difference between holdem and omaha-8 is that you can never be a very big favorite pre-flop in omaha (with the exception of AA-low-low against another pair with no low). So preflop raising loses it's value-oriented benefit. If you can isolate with a raise preflop shorthanded, it's an important weapon, but it's rarely a good idea to raise preflop early in any kind of omaha-8 tournament.

Omaha is all about play after the flop, and a small pot makes that easier. There are several top omaha experts who do very little raising in the early stages of a tournament, and that would apply to the first few levels of a SNG.

Irieguy