Omaha

[Steven Punk]

What is the most common mistakes that hold'em players make when starting to play Omaha for the first time.

I will ignore all flames

[GWB]

Remembering that you must only include 3 board cards in your winning hand.

[sucka]

I think a common misconception (in hi/lo) is that players like the game because they can 'play more hands'. In actuality, in a hi/lo game you are playing even fewer hands than you would in a straight-up HE game because in hi/lo you are playing starters that have the ability to scoop the entire pot - meaning to win both the high AND low hand.

In home games, people always want to play Omaha 8 hi/lo because they want to play more. I'd like to explain to them what I just described above - but taking there money seems to be a better option. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

A second one is that, in hi/lo once again only, that you can use any combonation of 2 cards to make a high OR a low hand.

So for example, if you are dealt AA23 and the board is 47826 then your AA could be the winning high hand and your A3 could make a nut low hand of A2346. Thus, you would scoop the pot here.

[Ruddiger]

Playing too many hands, drawing to non nut hands, overplaying hands without redraws raising too much with marginal high hands with pairs

[crockpot]

there are three big ones:

-playing too many starting hands. it is easy for a lot of hands to look good because they have one working two-card combination, but you need to have multiple working combinations before you have a good hand.

-drawing to non-nut hands. you need to not only hit your hand, but also get action from worse hands. the conclusion is that non-nut hands can rarely be played with any confidence.

-not knowing (or ignoring) the odds. plays like calling pot bets with flush draws in pot-limit, or paying too much to draw to win half the pot in hi-lo, are common and costly. make sure you know the math going in.

[James Boston]

Many other responses have hit these probably:

1) Draw to the nuts, not the second nuts
2) In Omaha high look for 6 premium hold em hands, not 1 or 2
3) In high/low play hands that can scoop, not just win half the pot

[Schmed]

If you're talking about high only the most common mistake I see is people thinking 2pr is any good. Heck top 2 isn't any good let alone bottom 2 yet I see players calling down the entire way praying to hit their FH. A lot of times they hit their FH's and it still isn't any good. If they don't they call on the river facing flushes and str8s "just in case". I don't play Omaha Hi as much as I used to but it's pretty much the single most common mistake I see. The other one is calling with a str8 when there's a flush out there.

If you're talking O8 the most common mistake I see is betting and calling with 2nd or 3rd nut low. Jamming the nut low with less than 4 is another mistake I see in this game but it's not as common.

[NJchick]

They play too many hands.

They play too many non-nut flush hands, str8 hands...calling with bottom sets etc.

Too much emphasis on AA raising and then missing the flop but still playing strong....

Too many other examples to mention.