Omaha Starting Hands

[winningedge]

I've been getting into other varieties of poker for sometime now, and I would be interested in hearing from any Omaha players how you choose your starting hands. What are your favorite types of hands to play? What characteristics do you look for in a starting hand?

[pinnie]

I think I can quote myself from other omaha topic:

"As we know, in Omaha, differences between starting hands are nothing like diffenrences between best and worse hands in texas hold'em. Big pairs are always good (flopping top trips). Hole cards close to each other are good (e.g. QJT9, T986), making lots of straight draws on a good flop. Keep in mind that you want every card to support other hole cards in some way (e.g. A6s78). Two pairs in your hole cards are good too (e.g. 7799), propability of flopping a set is 1:4.

Don't overvalue AAxx; only exception is if you get to raise all in or almost all in with it. Make raises and reraises with other hands than AAxx too to keep your game unpredictable."

[winningedge]

sorry if this was unneccesary topic post, i didnt remember anythig about starting hands in your other post so I figured it warrented another topic... heres something I would be curious to know, though.. what hands do you consider to be raisable preflop in omaha?

[winningedge]

also, ive been wondering, how much value do you place on suited cards.. ie, Ah3h5d7c? would you consider that worth taking a flop for cheap?

[BoilermakerPup]

I play .5/1 pot limit omaha, these are the hands I would def. raise with preflop, and I would also rearaise with many of them as well depending on suits, table, players, stack size etc,

1. AAKK 11. KQJT 21. QQAK
2. AAJT 12. KKTT 22. QQAJ
3. AAQQ 13. KKAQ 23. QQAT
4. AAJJ 14. KKAJ 24. QQKJ
5. AATT 15. KKAT 25. QQKT
6. AA99 16. KKQJ 26. QQJT
7. AAXX 17. KKQT 27. QQJQ
8. 89TJ 18. KKJT 28. QQ99
9. KKQQ 19. QQJJ 29. JJTT
10. KKJJ 20. QQTT 30. JJT9

I would also raise/reraise w/hands like 6789 because it has alot of disguised value. if you hit a 569 flop and bet pot most people will re-raise w/a set (or air) because they put you on AA.XX

As far as the question of seeing cheap flops in Omaha, I highly recommend it. There are some hands to throw away immediately like 259K off suit, but any hand like A877 can be very profitable in an unraised preflop pot. Trouble hands that look nice are low suited connectors like 2345 , because you need a very precise flop here to make the nuts, and even if the flop comes A23 you are a huge dog to a freeroll hand like 4567.

Hope this helps, g/l all

[emoneypitt]

That was really helpful Boilmaker. I may just not call Omaha the Devil anymore if I start having some success now on the off occasion that I do play it

[Calmplay]

My favorite starting hand in omaha is AAKK suited

[specialfrank]

just played a classic omaha hand and got felted holding middle set. i made the classic omaha mistake of getting involved with a hand i would struggle to win a big pot with. it is important to remeber that small pairs can be big trouble so do not attach too much value to small or even medium pairs particularly if you have a big load of chips in front of u that warrant a little protection. on the other hand as a short stack, i would advise playing these litlle pairs for little sets as much as you reasonably can.

[emoneypitt]

Well I had one earlier tonight where I hit top pair. Had an 88, flop came up 368, no flush draw.... beautiful right? Well the villian kept calling and ended up sucking out the straight on the river. That's what really sucks about this game sometimes any why I only occasionally will play it at just .05/.1 blinds.

[kingsup56]

I find that if I just fold those 1 & 2 gapped low,middle connectors (suited or not) and small pairs my win rate is up in PLO. especially in early postion. of course if the the pot odds are telling me to take the flop I do, just proceed with caution and be careful of flopping bottom 2 pair...anyone have the same results