Basic Strategy I

If you've never played Omaha before, you're going to want to get your feet wet playing the most straightforward and (relatively) risk-free version of the game, limit high-only. After enjoying an initial surge of interest when it was first introduced into casinos in the 1980s, the popularity of limit Omaha has been on a long slow decline ever since. For every 20 tables of Omaha/8 or pot-limit at a typical online poker site, there will only be one table featuring limit high, and yet the game survives, not solely as a relic from a past era but also as a necessary stepping-stone along the path of every Omaha player's evolution.

In limit, nearly every hand results in a showdown on the river so you get to see what types of hands your opponents play. By watching the way other players play, you will learn what works and what doesn't. You'll see what sort of hands they like to play before the flop, how hard they'll chase a draw, if they like to bluff or not — all valuable information. By closely observing your opponents, you'll hone your ability to read other players, and in poker that's one of the most important abilities you can have. Interestingly, you can learn just as much from studying bad players as you can from studying good ones.

In this way limit Omaha is very similar to limit hold'em. It's the kiddie pool where you learn to splash around before venturing into the deep end. You can't get hurt too badly in a foot of water. When I played it for the first time, we were playing for dimes and quarters. That's how long ago it was. Dimes and quarters. Some beginning players are too impatient to start at this level. They want to jump right into the biggest game of pot-limit they can find, but the lessons they learn at the higher levels can be very damaging to their egos as well as their bankrolls. Playing pot-limit with little or no experience is like choosing to jump into the middle of the ocean with a severe nosebleed for one's first swim. The sharks are going to smell you from a mile away.

This is not to say that limit Omaha is an easy game. It's not. In fact, I find it more difficult than pot-limit because it requires so much patience, and I'm not a very patient player. I like to take chances, and in a limit game you simply can't do that. You have to play by the book. You have to play the "right way."

Because you bet in such small increments in a limit game, each decision you make seems fairly trivial. That's the trap that most beginning players fall into. They'll call a bet on the flop with nothing more than an inside straight draw and justify their decision by remarking how small the bet was compared to the size of the pot. They think that making a few bad calls like this isn't going to hurt them very much, but those players aren't thinking beyond their current session. Professional poker players think of poker as one long game, and over the course of a lifetime all these bad calls will eventually amount to staggering losses.

Chip Reese, one of the greatest limit players in the world, once described this disparity well. "In no-limit hold'em you can make some mistakes and come out smelling like a rose because it's no-limit," he said. "You know if you make the wrong move at the right time and win a big giant pot, you're fine. But in all those limit games? They are a little more precision-type games where there are little decisions you make that's a difference between one bet or two bets and ... those add up."

The most important thing to remember while playing limit Omaha is that you can't give your chips away because you won't get many opportunities to win them back. It's the same way in any limit game you play. You have to play like a Rock. You have to play good starting cards. You have to use your position at the table to your advantage. And you should play draws conservatively and made hands aggressively. This is the right way to play the game. And in limit poker even I play the right way.

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The first step to becoming a successful limit player is making yourself play great starting cards, in general the higher the better. In pot-limit I play all sorts of hands, but in limit I don't. For example, I'll almost always play a hand like 9-8-5-4 in pot-limit, but in limit I'll just throw it away. In pot-limit I'll play 7-6-5-4 every time. In limit I won't. Why? Because these are "gambling hands," hands that might win you a big pot once in a while but are big losers in the long run. You can get away with playing gambling hands in pot-limit because the reward often outweighs the risk, but in limit you can't. If you want to play limit the right way, you should always fold your gambling hands before the flop. In the long run you simply can't win with these cards. The better starting hands will inevitably take all the money.

Which hands should you play? I'll go into specifics in the next chapter, but the general rule is the bigger the better, and ideally they should be "suited," that is having two cards of the same suit. Being "double-suited," having two cards of one suit and two cards of another, makes a hand even stronger. The main reason you should try to avoid playing small cards is that you could make the low end of a straight and end up paying someone off who made the high end of the straight with his bigger cards. Or you could make bottom two pair — a bankroll killer in Omaha — and end up losing to top two pair. In the long run, playing little cards will cost you a lot of money.

As important as it is to play good starting cards, I value good position even more. Some believe that position is less important in Omaha than it is in hold'em, but I'm not one of those people. In fact, I think sitting in late position is the strongest advantage you can have in any form of poker. Being the last one to act gives you a huge edge over your opponents. Getting to see what everyone else at the table does gives you all the information you need when deciding how to play your hand. If everyone checks to you and you have a strong hand, you should bet, but if everyone checks to you and you only have a weak draw, you should check and take a free card.

In Omaha free cards are extremely valuable. A lot of players sitting in early position will check, hoping you'll bet so they can raise you, but if you check behind them, you can really punish them. Let's say a player in first position flops top set and checks, and it comes to you, and all you have is an inside straight draw. Check and take that free card. If you make your straight, you're going to be able to punish that player for his mistake. You can also pick up backdoor flush draws this way. If the flop completely misses you, and everyone checks to you, and you check, and...