Omaha Hi Lo Flop Strategy

Moving into a more advanced Omaha Hi/Lo Strategy, you must be able to take a solid pre-flop strategy and convert it to work out a good Flop Strategy. If you have made the right decisions and made proper moves before the flop, you will be on cruise control throughout the Flop, Turn and River. The most important aspect of this game is Hand Selection and Pre Flop Strategy. Focus on those first, and the rest will flow very well for you.

In Omaha Hi/Lo the goal is to win both the low and the high hand. Just as good, if there is no low hand, you would be happy to win the high hand. Either way, winning the entire pot is the goal during each hand. You have to keep in mind that in Omaha Hi/Lo, you will rarely win a hand because of a bluff or a good play. The main objective to win is going to be to get as much money in as possible when you have the best hand. Therefore, your Flop Strategy is fairly simple. If you hit; raise it up and keep on raising. If you miss; get out as soon as possible.

Example:

The best starting hand in Omaha Hi/Lo is AA23 double suited. If you have played it right you would have raised as much as possible before the flop. When the first three cards come up you will have a simple decision. It should involve either raising or folding. Either you hit big, or you did not hit at all.

Figure 1:

Board = A 4 5 (all different suits)

Now this is pretty much the best case scenario. You have both the highest and the lowest possible hands at this point. Not only do you have the straight for the high, but you also have three aces and a good chance to catch a full house. As for the low, you have the lowest possible hand as well with your 2 3. Now, all you need to do is get as much money into the pot as possible. It is up to you to know how much to bet and what moves to make based on the information you know about your opponents. What ever you do, it should cause for a lot of money to enter into that pot.

Figure 2:

Board = K K 10 (different suits)

This is where it gets difficult, but really…it is very simple. When something like this comes up, you have your pocket Aces and that is all. They are worthless as this point and you completely missed. No matter how much you bet before the flop, you still need to fold in this situation.

Figure 3:

Board = K 4 6 (different suits)

In this example, you are really going to need to do some math and think things through. All you need is one more low card and you will have the low hand rapped up. At the same time, you have two Aces and some other possibilities as well. It will not be worth a huge amount of money, but a few big blind bets will be well worth the call, especially if you are up against a couple of different players. Just keep in mind that you do not want to base your decision solely on the low hand, because you can still lose a lot of money if you have to split the low pot with another player.

Overall, playing Omaha Hi/Lo on the flop is all about whether you hit or miss. You will have to also read your opponents and get as much information as you can on them. This is a really hard game because you never know if your opponent is really strong or not because so many people think they have good hands in this game when they really do not. Even if they do know what they are doing, it is hard to tell if they have a strong high hand or a strong low hand. Sometimes they may even have both. You have to do your best to get that kind of information and use it to make good decisions.

Omaha Hi/Lo comes down to good decision making. You have to make more good decisions than bad decisions. If you can do that, the idea is to hopefully make more money in the end than you lose. If you have gotten past the flop, chances are you are not going anywhere after. Keep that in mind when you are making your decisions. Sometimes it is better to just take your losses and get out, instead of losing even more. There will always be another hand that will be just as exciting, especially in Omaha Hi/Lo.

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