Playing Drawing Hands in Pot Limit Omaha
In sorting through my voluminous stacks of fan mail this week, I have been surprised to notice a certain particular trend making itself known. In retrospect, perhaps it should not be so surprising, because it seems that every so often a group of committed players (none of whom have any way of knowing each other, as far as I can tell) all find themselves asking the same question in regards to a particular aspect of game play or strategy. Seeking an educated and reasoned answer, naturally they find themselves forwarding their questions to me. Thus, my poor wretch of a postman must trudge up the walkway to my trailer with sacks of mail heavy enough to give a sumo wrestler a hernia.
Anyway, this week’s sack seems to be filled with quite a few serious inquiries about what the proper strategies are for playing drawing hands in pot limit Omaha. I cannot fault any of those individuals who have taken the time to set pen to paper and contact me on this matter, because it is one that has stymied even the great Floyd Manning on occasion. No amount of expertise or sheer intuitive knowledge can provide a comprehensive answer that will satisfy every possible situation in which this challenge might arise. Nonetheless, as I never shrink from a tall order, allow me to elucidate some basics on the matter.
The key thing to keep in mind when playing drawing hands in pot limit Omaha is to have a firm understanding of the overall game play. What I mean by this is that it is not sufficient to strictly base your judgments and calculations upon what you are holding at any given moment. You must make a strong, crystal-clear assessment of how the other players have been performing and how the cards are running in general.
Let’s just say for the sake of argument that your starting hand is incredibly poor. You have no suited cards in the hole, nor any chance of building a consecutive draw. So, you probably will decline to raise on the pre-flop and do no more than call on the flop betting round. After all, you may be successful in mounting a bluff, but you don’t want to put an inordinate amount of your own chips at risk when you’re holding something of very low value.
Here is where the opportunity of drawing hands becomes your best ally. Because in the flop and consecutive rounds, pot limit Omaha provides a tremendous amount of opportunity to literally build something from nothing. Therefore, my general advice is to aggressively play drawing hands in pot limit Omaha, as much as possible, even more than you are likely to in other community card variants. Why? Because you opportunities for creating a winning hand, even with a slow start, are viable indeed. It is all what you make of it, in poker as in life.
Grab the opportunities and collect information while playing on the flop in fixed limit omaha .