Playing the Turn in Fixed Limit Omaha
The other night I had a few war buddies over for cocktails and chocolate fondue. This is a tradition that I have been part of for many years, ever since the termination of the bloody Laotian conflict in the late ‘60s. Very few members of my brave platoon still walk this earth and draw breath every day, and I certainly consider myself tremendously fortunate to be among their number. Thus, I place a very high premium on my annual gatherings with the other stalwart individuals who trudged with me through the muck and gore back in those wild old days.
When we get together, in addition to getting blind drunk and playing “pin the tail on the donkey,” we always indulge in a few a friendly hands of fixed limit Omaha. I make a point of playing fixed limit as opposed to the pot limit version of this game, because everyone sitting around the table is usually packing lead. Yes, it is a tradition for all of us to show up at the gathering with our service revolvers intact, and it would be the height of folly to assume that they are unloaded. Lord knows, mine never is.
Therefore, it only seems like common sense to play the fixed limit game of Omaha, in which the pots are less likely to grow out of control and tempers to spiral beyond the point of peaceful interaction. And it was at my most recent gathering that I discovered a very deep truism about playing the turn in a game of fixed limit Omaha.
Prior to that night, I had generally taken a somewhat brazen view towards keeping an aggressive betting pattern going into the turn, regardless of what my hole cards happen to be. In a pot limit game, I am decidedly more conservative in this arena, but fix limit Omaha always seems to bring out a certain sort of recklessness in me. Either by virtue of blind luck or a brilliant strategy I did not fully comprehend, I usually did quite well with this aggressive strategy.
But the other night I learned my important lesson, that I will be sure to bring to my future games of fixed limit Omaha, whether loaded weapons are in play or not. I will always want to have some suited cards, and preferably a series in running order of three or more, in order to bet aggressively on the turn. While I generally avoid strict rules of thumb in any sort of poker play, preferring to rely on a mix of strategy and intuition, I believe this rule will serve me quite well. I suggest you adopt the same.
When approaching the turn, look for a strong combination to be built by hitting the flop to at least a reasonable percentage of your expectations. Otherwise, unless you’re bluffing skills are really strong or you happen have a particularly precise read on the psychology of your opponent, I would consider getting out at this point. I have learned through the years (as the process of maturity unfolds) to be a bit more cautious than in my wayward youth. And since there’s nothing more boring them listening to an old veteran tell his war stories, I will allow you to go out and test this theory on your own.