Omaha Tournament Strategy

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Make The Shift To Pot Limit Omaha Poker Tournaments A Profitable One
With My Quick-Start PLO MTT Strategy Guide

One of the biggest leaks in a Pot Limit Omaha player's game is overvaluing starting. Speculative hands become less playable during the middle stages of a fixed-limit Omaha Hi-Lo tournament. Key strategy considerations include being in control of the hands you do play at this stage. Instead of limping and playing pots multi-way you should look to raise those hands you are willing to play. After reading this introduction to Omaha tournaments we would advice you venture over to the Omaha MTT strategy section. Omaha tournaments are offered in the same formats as Texas Holdem poker tournaments, with both scheduled tournaments with larger entry fees and bigger prize money, and sit and go poker tournaments, which take less time to complete, are generally limited to a single table, and start as soon as the table is full, unlike the bigger tournaments. In Omaha multitable tournaments, it’s important to use an Omaha Hi-Lo poker tournament strategy. This can help you to go deep into the tournament, and to successfully reach many more final tables. You’ve essentially got to balance premium starting hands with a solid understanding of how low hands work in.

Omaha Tournaments are more than just an entertaining variation from NL Holdem, they can be very profitable too. After reading this article you will understand the key differences – and be ready to take full advantage of some of the more common ‘adjustment’ mistakes your opponents will make.

There are 3 focus areas for this article. First, the closeness of starting hand strengths makes a BIG difference to your approach to PLO poker tournaments. Secondly, the ‘Pot Limit’ betting requires you change up your game at certain key points. Third, I will focus on those opponent mistakes – showing you how to spot and exploit those people playing ‘Holdem Hands’.

PLO Poker Tournament Strategy – Close Starting Hands

Since you have to play 2 cards from your hand and 3 from the community card board in PLO, it is essential that you choose hands with some ‘structure’. What you need is the ability to hit nut hands (or nut draws) on a variety of flops. Having 4 cards which work together in terms of suits, connected cards and / or high cards + pairs gives you the maximum number of ‘combinations’ of 2 cards which can hit. Just a single unconnected card will reduce the number of active combinations you hold from 6 to 3…

With suits and straights involved, most matchups will be no better than 65% / 35% in PLO. This results in 2 changes in play, especially at the lower limits:

  1. A lot of players will try and limp in or otherwise see a cheap flop
  2. Your need to accumulate chips early is bigger than in Holdem, since you will need to survive some close encounters through the mid to late stages… and if you wait then a big stack will be happy to look you up – since they will know that they are rarely that far behind.

You can often ‘punish’ or isolate limpers from position. In the early stages this will often result in several calls, as you get into the mid-stages and beyond it will be more difficult to call these bets. Aggression + position are more important in PLO. You not only need to accumulate chips, you will need to be prepared to use them to win pots throughout the game – Omaha is not a game for the faint of heart!

Planet Mark Recommends: 888 are an easy top pick for Omaha tourneys in 2018. While sites like PokerStars have a lot of 'specialists', 888 is the home of recreational type players. Sure, you'll need to adjust your strategy (bluff loose / passive fish less - value bet them a lot bigger and more often)... though I belive anyone with a little PLO strategy knowledge can crush the 888 games. – check out the awesome Omaha tournaments at www.888poker.com for yourself now!

PLO Tournament Strategy 2 – Pot Limit Betting

Betting only the size of the pot makes for some interesting play in Omaha poker tournaments. You can not give your opponent worse than 2-to-1 odds on a call and can often not get all your chips into the pot as fast as you would like.

Omaha Tournament Strategy

Pre-flop you can only bet a small proportion of your stack. With several betting rounds to come you do not want to give away your hand while the pot is small… if you only raise with aces (for example) you will get called in a lot of places and find you only get action from hands which have you crushed after the flop.

There is also risk in re-opening the betting, since your opponents will then be able to come over the top for a far bigger bet. While you must continuation bet a lot in PLO (both to protect and to get value from big hands / draws), you need to ensure that you check behind often enough that observant opponents do not check-raise (or bet 4-bet) as a default against you.

If you do have a monster hand and want to get those chips into the middle, then an easy rule of thumb is to go ahead if the pot pre-flop will be bigger than your remaining chip stack. Your plan is to get the chips in on any flop… by doing this you would have been able to turn up your cards before betting, announce that the rest go in on any flop, and your opponent would still not be able to get a mathematical edge against you!


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PLO Tournament Strategy 3 – Common Opponent Mistakes

My favorite thing about PLO tournaments is that you will see some horrible mistakes! Many of these involve misjudging hand strengths or giving away hands too easily.

Players more familiar with holdem will play Aces like they are a sure thing a lot of the time. A-A-2-7 with 4 suits is ok if you get the chips in pre-flop against some bad kings… however against 8-9-10-J with 2 suits it is only just a favorite. Combine this will a player who refuses to fold on a draw-heavy flop and you can see why these players are good to play against. Ace-only raisers are gold in PLO MTTs!

It is not just the aces you need to watch for, opponents will overvalue all high pairs (even uncoordinated ones). They will often play smaller pairs too, trying to set mine with them. As you gain experience with Omaha’s set over set vs big draw showdowns you will quickly realize that smaller pair starting hands are basically unplayable without some seriously coordinated backup.

In PLO games, especially in the early stages with multi-way pots, if a draw comes in then you have to assume someone has it. Many opponents will keep drawing to the low end of straights or bad flushes, or play trips to the end on a 3-suit board. In Holdem there is a good chance nobody hit, with just 2 cards each – with up to 6 combinations of 2 cards in each players hand, you could be playing the equivalent of 12, 18 or even 24 holdem hands… thing everyone missed the flush and your small set is good now??!?

The final mistake I like to look for is differences in bet sizing. ‘Reading’ PLO hands is hard, there are too many combinations. What many players will do is signal their relative strength for you. For example, a player might insta-pot the flop when weaker and pause then bet 2/3rds when strong. Some players will always bet half pot on the flop in position when they took the lead pre-flop… if they are tighter (only playing high cards or big combos) and you feel the flop missed them then you might be able to take the pot right there. Some players will check with the nuts, always looking for that check-raise (this is generally a bad idea in Omaha – betting a lot of hands is a better disguise, though you should change it up sometimes!). If these same players lead out into you then you can be sure they do not have the current nuts.

Omaha Tournament Strategy – Summing It Up.

Omaha Hi-lo Tournament Strategy

With mistakes as big as the ones you will find in some online pot limit Omaha tournaments it is no wonder they are growing in popularity. These games are not for the shy types – you need to go to war with your stack to ensure you have enough in your stack to cope with a couple of reversals (those close starting hands...).

What you will find is a lot of players who give away either the content of their hands, or their relative strength after the flop. If you stay observant you can find ways to pick up a lot of pots… hopefully on the way to that final table!

One more tip – there is a clear leader when it comes to what PLO tournaments are offer at the various poker sites, it can pay to seek out the games with the least experienced opponents. I strongly recommend you check out the games at 888 Poker. Compared with PokerStars the play is a lot more recreational there, and those mistakes will translate into bigger chipstacks for you more often than not!

New players at Full Tilt Poker can claim up to $88 in free play (which comes in cash game buy-ins and tournament tokens) – check out the soft PLO tournaments while you clear your bonus, click here to visit 888 Poker now!


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  • Quick Start Tournament Strategy Guide (Stage By Stage)

Fixed Limit Omaha Hi-Lo is an exciting poker variant that enjoys a great deal of popularity among poker players all over the world.

If Omaha players use the following tips and strategies, they can definitely play a winning game of Fixed Limit Omaha Hi-Lo.

Tournament Omaha Poker Strategy

Valuable Strategies

A typical Fixed Limit Omaha Hi-Lo tournament comprises three major stages:

  • Early Stage
  • Middle Stage
  • Later Stage

Needless to say, the strategies that players must use vary from one stage to the other, and players should learn the art of employing the correct strategy at the correct time in order to win the fixed limit tournament.

Early stage – Players need not have the ideal starting hand to get started. In fact, they can make their way to the flop even with a mediocre hand, provided they are ready to fold if the required card does not fall their way. Players should also focus on hands that have the potential to win at least half the pot, if not the entire pot.

Baseball Tournaments In Omaha Nebraska

The tables are populated with loose, inexperienced, and weak players during the early stages of the poker tournament, and players should observe their opponents carefully and analyse their behaviour so that they can make the best moves and eliminate some of the fish.

Middle stage – The blinds begin to rise during the middle stages, and players must now start focusing on their chip stack. They should also not hesitate to fold if their hand is not showing any potential of winning. On the other hand, if they have a really good hand, they should not hesitate to raise as this is a nice way to build the pot.

Later stage – Players in the later stages of a fixed limit Omaha Hi-Lo tournament often wonder if they should slow play and build the pot or just rush the game to the heads-up phase. Again, players need to have a really good hand if they want to call or raise in the later stages of the tournament.

Discover How to Play Omaha Poker with exclusive tips from the below video

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FL Omaha Hi-Lo Tips

Here are a few tips to help players win a Fixed Limit Omaha Hi-Lo game.

Hand Strength – Hand strength is of great importance in case of this poker variant, and players should make sure that their starting hand has the potential to win both halves of the jackpot.

The best starting hands comprise suited aces as players can use these to make either a flush or a good low hand. Since the win percentage of strong hands is only 30%, players should ensure that the cards they require are not on the table before attempting to play a flush.

How to avoid quartering – Players are said to be quartered when they lose the strong half of the pot and share the low half of it with an opponent. This happens when players play a hand containing only an ace and a deuce and no other low-value card. If players make sure that they have at least another low-value card along with the deuce and the ace, quartering can be avoided.

Pot Limit Omaha Tournament Strategy

Complementary starting hands – The rules of Omaha Poker require players to create a hand using 2 cards from their hand and three community cards. So players must make sure that each card in their hand can work collaboratively in helping them create a good hand.

Using position to advantage – Many Omaha beginners make the mistake of playing too many hands when they are in the early position. Players in the early position should play a tight game; in other words, they should fold all hands that do not have the potential to win. They simply cannot afford to take chances with mediocre or weak hands because their position is not in their favour.

Omaha 8 Or Better Tournament Strategy

Players who are in a late position, however, can watch their opponents make a move and then come to a decision based on their opponents’ moves. If too many opponents raise, players in the late position had better fold weak or mediocre hands; otherwise, they can risk playing a mediocre hand.

Omaha Strategy Poker

Bluffing – Since Fixed Limit Omaha Hi-Lo tables are populated with fish, sharks can always try a bit of bluffing to steal the pot. If the fish refuse to fold, players can cut down on the bluffing and try placing more bets to scare them off the table.