In recent years, Pot Limit Five Card Omaha Hi-Lo (or as it’s much more widely referred to; Big O) has become an increasingly popular variant in cash games at the WSOP, cardrooms across the US and online poker. Whilst still lacking its own bracelet event, the game’s popularity has been recognized by featuring in the two Dealers Choice bracelet events ($10,000 and $1,500) as well as the Omaha Hi-Lo mix ($1,500) and the Big Bet Mix ($2,500) events this year. For those looking to learn a new game and for those already versed in mixed games who are not fully familiar with the game, I’m going to go over the rules along with what I believe to be solid advice for hand selection, using some easy to consider factors.
The betting structure is the same as all pot limit games that use a small blind and big blind, with all players being dealt five cards. The game is a split-pot game, where players must use two cards from their hand and three from the board to contest both a low and high side of the pot. The best possible low is 5432A, the wheel. A qualified low consists of five unique cards 8 or lower.
Equities typically run very close in this variant, which can lead to a very aggressive game with lots of big pots and all-in coinflips. This aspect of the game appeals to the real gamblers but that doesn’t mean a more conservative player cannot thrive and take advantage of the loose play of their opponents. As is the case in many variants, starting hand selection is an essential foundation to any serious player’s game plan and that will be the main focus of this article.
If coming from a Hold’em background, a helpful way to consider Omaha (or Omaha Hi/Lo) hands is to view your hand as a selection of different Hold’em hands, where only one will play on the river (in the case of Hi/Lo variants like Big O, this is true for both the high and low side of the pot). In four card Omaha variants you are playing 6 combinations, in five-card Omaha, this increases to 10.
For example:
AKJT can be thought of as AK, AJ, AT, KJ, KT and JT in four card games
87654 can be thought of as 87, 86, 85, 84, 76, 75, 74, 65, 64 and 54 in five card games
For the high side of the pot, we should essentially consider each combination like we would consider a Hold’em hand.
The factors that we should be considering are:
Pairs - Pairs have showdown value on their own this shouldn’t be overplayed in Omaha games. The more cards each player has, the more likely a nut or close hand is to be the winner at showdown. Their main value is their ability to turn into sets, full houses and quads. Given that we must use exactly two cards from our hand, trips in our hand are usually useless and quads can never be profitably played in any situation. Note that a pair will duplicate combinations and therefore will reduce our connectedness
Highness - The higher the cards in our hand, the more likely we are to make the higher two pair, higher sets/trips, straights, flushes etc. In Omaha variants, there will often be three or more straights on the board, meaning it will often be suicidal to draw solely to non-nut straights, even with a highly connected wrap
Connectedness - The less gaps in our hand, the more often we will make straights. It’s crucial in Omaha variants to have as few gaps as possible. A hand like 9875 with the gap at the bottom is much stronger than a hand like 9765 with the gap at the top, as the former has the ability to make more nut straights. Whilst a relevant consideration in Hold’em, it is absolutely crucial to pay respect to this concept in Omaha variants
Suitedness - All hands are improved by being suited or preferably, double suited. We prefer exactly two of one suit as we must use exactly two cards from our hand. Having three to a suit is not the end of the world though and having four to a suit is preferable to rainbow hands of course. It’s important in Omaha variants to be drawing to the nuts as often as possible, therefore suited aces are extra valuable.
In Hi/Lo variants like Big O we must also consider:
Lowness - Whilst there are situations where high only hands can be played very profitably, in general, we want to at least have some kind of shot at the low side of the pot. A2 is the best combination for making the nut low. A3 is the second best and if our hand is otherwise considered strong it is a fine alternative. Strong high hand foundations like AA in either PLO8 or Big O are greatly improved even by the presence of an 8.
It should be stressed that all of the above factors are greatly intensified by the presence of a fifth card (and sixth and seventh if you find yourself at a particularly gamble-friendly cash game in the small hours in the Pavilion Room of the Rio [Massive O, Enormous O?]). In the long-run you will be punished for drawing to non-nut straights, flushes and lows.
In general, I recommend playing a reasonably tight strategy pre-flop in Big O, especially to players who are new to the game. AA and A2 are great building blocks to a starting hand and I recommend looking first for these combinations (without overplaying them of course) before considering the above factors. Generally, it’s preferable to have some low back up, A23 will make the nut low (when one is available) very often. It’s also preferred to have cards that interact with high boards. AJT32 double suited is an example of a hand that provides both of these.
If you feel a situation is close, ask yourself these two simple questions:
Does my hand have multiple ways to frequently make the nuts (preferably including nut low)?
Am I drawing to both sides of the pot?
If the answer to both questions is yes, you will usually have a playable hand.
Big O is a very interesting game and there are many possibilities and scenarios that can occur post-flop. Whilst some of these can be very complex and require experience to analyze skilfully, choosing good starting hands will give you less tough decisions and should make you a favorite more often than not when the money goes in.
