Omaha Strategy Tip: Buy a Lot of Chips
Money management is an important part of any form of poker, but Omaha more than most. Omaha Highly Only is not a forgiving game for those who mismanage their chipstack.
The first and worst way to mishandle your bankroll in Omaha is to sit down at a table without a lot of chips. If you are going to play Omaha, you simply have to buy enough chips to give yourself a chance of success, otherwise you might as well not even take a seat at the table.
Online, the option to buy more chips than your opponents may not be available, as most online poker rooms state a maximum amount for the table that cannot be exceeded by any new player. Nevertheless, the deep stack principles discussed in this article still apply to online Omaha.
Here are a few reasons why having a large enough chipstack is so key to playing Omaha:
Rich Europeans
It is well-known that Omaha High is a popular game among Europeans. Rich Europeans to be specific. Rich Americans also like this form of poker, as do rich Brazilians, and so forth.
All in all, Omaha High is popular with wealthier poker players, people who prefer not to see the Hold'em yahoos and math nerds sitting across the table from them.
One way for Omaha players to maintain this culture is to require higher betting limits at the Omaha tables, and if you go into a casino during a busy day you may notice this fact.
The worst thing you could ever do, in a poker game, is to obviously care more about your money than the next guy. When you play Omaha without a large chipstack, you're doing that bad thing.
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Nuts Bets Are Strong Bets
Also well-known, and also extremely pertinent to our advice to enter into Omaha games only when you are sufficiently stacked, is that Omaha High Only is a game whose fundamental goal is to be either in possession of or drawing to the nuts, i.e. the best hand possible.
Because you start with four hole cards, it's likely that someone at the table will succeed in building a nuts hand, so you have to be prepared to win at showdown.
When players are either in possession of or drawing to the nuts, you find that players are not in the habit of giving out free cards. This means that if you are drawing to the nuts yourself, you will have to pay for the privilege--after the flop, pay, after the turn, pay, after the river, pay.
Hand after hand, pay for the privilege to see the next card. If you hit your draw one out of four times, that leaves another 75 percent of the time that you must pay to play and still lose.
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The All In Factor
These bets that you must call as a hand of Omaha progresses will be expensive, too. Rare is the Omaha game where a late position player does not put in a pot-sized bets after the turn.
Many Omaha hands see players go all in with their entire chipstack.
If your bankroll is not sufficient to handle this fact, the stress on your face may be noticeable as someone richer than you stares at you and smiles, knowing that you cannot afford this bet.
The thing about Omaha, though, is that if you cannot afford this pot-sized bet, if you cannot stand up to this all in situation, what will you do the next time?
Because the next time isn't that far off, in fact it may be the very next hand.
When you sit down to play Omaha, do yourself a favor and bring a lot of chips. Or if you are going to attend the table shortstacked, make sure it's a strategic decision: you're trapping other players into thinking this small money is your whole bankroll, when in reality you, too, are rich.
That can work too.
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