Omaha8 question why you don't want a 9 in your hand

[Gooch]

can someone tell me all the reasons why you don't want a 9 in your hand when playing omaha8. i understand it can't make a low and won't make you a nut straight unless a low is out and no pair or set of 9's is safe. did i just cover it all?

[Gooch]

another thing, what are the best playable hands with a 9 in it?

[crockpot]

well, i would hope you're playing AA29, A239 and A249, especially if they're suited and there's been little action preflop. i think you pretty much covered the reasons why 9s are bad; a 9 is about as bad a card as you can have in your hand. really, does the 9 serve any purpose in the above hands that could not be served better by any other card in the deck?

[chaos]

I might also play some high only hands with a 9 in good position. They are not as good as having all four cards 10 and higher.

With these high only hands you are hoping to flop a straight draw and two pair or a set. Then you can play the hand strongly. I only want a single gap in the sequence other wise it is too hard to flop a straight draw. Being suited or double suited adds some value. But you will not likely be drawing to the nut flush so their value is better when the flush draw is backdoor.

Some exmaples without pairs are 9TJQ, 9TQK, 9TJK, and 9JQK.
Hands with pairs include 9TJJ, 9TQQ, 9JJQ, and 9JQQ.

I do not give much value to having a pair of 9s or 10s. Even the hands with a pair of Jacks are marginal. But in position in an unraised pot, I think it is worth seeing a flop.

[Buzz]

Gooch - I play hands with nines. But then I’m not a beginner.

It’s not so much hands specifically with nines that you want to avoid as hands with middle cards - nines, eights, sevens and sixes. Ray Zee addresses this topic in his book (High-Low-Split Poker) and gives a number of examples of starting hands you generally want to avoid playing.

“Don’t play hands with nines” sounds like advice for beginners. As such, it doesn’t seem unreasonable advice - so long as it's not applied too rigidly. In truth, you should properly play some starting hands with nines. For example, the tightest expert player posting on this forum is probably not going to usually fold double suited aces with a deuce and a nine, AA29d (d means double suited). AA29d is a premium starting hand, a 99th percentile starting hand. AA29d figures to be the best hand you'll see in a four hour long playing session. To fold AA29d just because it has a nine would be foolish and show a lack of common sense.

Sixes can be good cards in hands if you also have one or more of the following: A2X, A3Xs, A34, A35, A45, 234, 235. Sixes often work well with wheel cards to get you 3/4 of the pot when an opponent makes the same low as you. And, although you can never make the nuts for low with a six, a six does provide some back-up protection for a nut low that gets counterfeited. However, without two or three wheel cards (as noted above), sixes may be worse than nines. For example, KQJ9d is a better, more playable starting hand than KQJ6d.

AA29d is probably generally my first choice for a starting hand with a nine - at least in most situations - but A239d might be my first choice in a very loose game with beginners who chase all the way to the showdown with anything. However, as Crock mentions, you’d rather have almost any other card than a nine.

I actually have a slight preference for A239 over A238 or A237 - and for AA29 over AA28 or AA37. The reason is you have a slightly better chance to make the nut low when you don’t hold all low cards as when you do - and the seven or eight usually doesn’t make a good “emergency” low when you are double counterfeited with A23 or single counterfeited with AA2. In these cases someone with a live four, five, or six usually makes a better low. Finally, a nine is a better card for high than six, seven, or eight when nobody makes a straight or better. For example, when the board is A579Qn and you hold A239, you'll beat someone holding A237 for high (and split the low).

Just my opinion.

Buzz