[Iceman]

“and so hands that don't make the nuts have little to no value...”

Nonsense. (Pardon me, but that statement really is baloney).



Yes, you want to play starting hands that have a good chance of scooping and also a good chance of making the nuts. You want to play starting hands such that after the flop you are likely to be drawing to the nuts. Yes, when you are drawing after the flop, you like to be drawing for the nuts. However when you don’t make the nuts, your hand does not necessarily have “little to no value.”

When the board enables low, a straight, or a flush - and when somebody comes out swinging - you especially want to have the nuts (or favorable odds for a draw to the nuts).

However, when the flop is 4h-4c-Ad, you usually don't need the nuts (which would be a pair of fours here). AAXX is a superb high hand here, even though in a very loose (no-fold-'em) nine or ten handed game, someone will come up with the pair of fours roughly one time in twenty. But the other nineteen times out of twenty your non-nut aces full are golden and even A4XX is a very, very strong high hand, a probably winner, although it will probably be the fourth nuts by the time you get to the river. Anyone dumb enough to take the pressure with a pair higher than fours may draw out on you by the time you get to the river, but over the course of the playing session you should more than hold your own playing against someone who flaunts the odds. My point is you clearly don't need the nuts to win when the board is paired. Usually someone will win for high when the board is paired with less than quads (the nuts).

Let me clarify. I don't mean that you need the absolute nuts in all situations - that would be ridiculously weak-tight. I mean that in many situations, when many players take the flop, only the strongest made hands and draws that will make very strong hands have any real value. With an unpaired board with a 3-flush, the ace-high flush is the only high hand you could play strongly. Middle set is much weaker than top set, and bottom set should often be checked and folded in a loose game. Non-nut straights should often go in the muck. And while second-nut lows have some value, regularly playing worse lows than that will get you nailed. So you want to focus on combinations with potential to make those strong hands: A2, A3, suited aces, broadway cards, and the highest pairs.



“ (so even in the loosest Omaha-8 games you can't loosen up much).”

From my own perspective, it’s not just how loose the game is. It’s also who is loose and how the looseness is manifested. I realize that’s very vague. Let me try to make it clearer. Some players are loose before the flop but are then tight and/or tricky after the flop. There is a huge difference between these players and calling stations.

If you are a decent player you may be making a mistake yourself by playing too tightly against loose opponents who make mistakes on the later betting rounds. You can’t win much if you don’t play much. (I’m aware that you can’t lose much either). I don’t mean to imply you should go overboard by playing too loosely, but I think when you can easily outplay seven or eight of your opponents after the flop, you may do better by playing almost as loosely as they do before the flop.

When an Omaha-8 game becomes looser, whether preflop or postflop, the increased profit from that looser play goes almost entirely to the best hands. You'll make far more on your nut lows, nut flushes, broadways, and AA/KK full houses due to their bad play, but it doesn't make the mediocre hands much better. Yes, sometimes it would be worth calling along with a second-nut low or middle set, and you might limp in with hands like 2346 or As4sKJ, but it's not a huge difference from standard play as it would be in an overly loose holdem game.

Obviously a normal beginner isn’t able to out play his/her opponents after the flop. A beginner in a low limit Omaha-8 casino game probably would do better by playing more tightly than his/her opponents.

Agreed. Tight play alone is usually enough to beat a soft game.

“ Also, another difference between the games that impacts how many hands you play is that you can almost never win without the best hand in most limit Omaha-8 games ”

What do you mean by "the best hand"?

I mean that you usually need to show down the winning hand at the river to win, while in holdem you often have many chances to win through bluffs or through aggressive play that knocks out a better hand.

Obviously you can't mean the best starting hand since even AA23-double-suited doesn’t always connect with the flop or board on the river. You also must not mean the best hand after the flop, or even after the turn, since "getting rivered" is a common occurrence in Omaha-8.

Of course not. Many times both before and on the flop, it's correct to play a hand that you know is not best at the time - as you said, Omaha-8 is a drawing game.

Even if you mean the best hand left on the river, pressure from more than one low hand, or even from only one low hand, will sometimes cause holders of non-nut high hands to fold. The same is true, but to a lesser extent, for non-nut low hands on the river.

While this does exist, it's a much more minor aspect of Omaha-8 play than it is of games like holdem and stud.



“while bluffing and aggressive play are important aspects of most holdem games”

I’ll agree that bluffing is more frequent in Texas hold ‘em games than Omaha-8 games.

However, I hope you don’t mean to imply selectively aggressive play is not an important aspect of Omaha-8 games because it certainly is. And while you do want to be careful about bluffing in Omaha-8 (because you can’t bluff somebody who has the nuts), bluffing and semi-bluffing have their place in Omaha-8. In addition, you certainly want to be able to handle bluffs and semi-bluffs coming from your opponents.

In shorthanded pots or tight games, yeah, but in loose-passive games, you mostly bet draws for value rather than to knock players out.