Omaha Starting Hand Rankings

Omaha holdem poker starting hand ranks. The 1st Part

Pot Limit Omaha Starting Hands. In PLO there are a total of 16,432 different starting hands, made up of all the possibilities that result from the 270,725 stochastically possible combinations. So how do you decide what starting hands to play and what not to play. This is also the reason why there is no clear cut starting hand chart for PLO.

When holdem players turn to playing Omaha they usually know what to do when the flop is opened but they don’t know how to consider starting hands in Omaha holdem poker. They may have correct thoughts about playing from the flop till the end or may not, but they all are not sure which starting hands are considered good.

• Omaha Hi-Lo Preflop Hand Values There are 16,432 different starting hands in Omaha Hi-Lo Holdem (considering equivalence relations). The table on this page shows the top 5% of hands dealt, click here to see all of the hands, the page is almost 2MB so may take a while to load.
• Making strong hands is relatively easy in PLO, so it is preferable to play hands that can.
• For a Royal Flush you need an Ace King Queen Jack Ten all of one suit, hearts or clubs.
• Starting Hand Ranking in Omaha Hi According to Edward Hutchinson. Unlike holdem poker in which winning combination may be formed using two, one or none of hole cards in Omaha there have to be used two hole and three community cards. On those who play Omaha after playing holdem poker these four cards play a mean trick.

It is harder in Omaha holdem poker to learn how to rank starting hands. “You reap what you sow” – is exceptionally right in Omaha. Before we start discussing the right methods of ranking starting hands, let us have a look at several wrong views widespread among beginners, used to playing holdem.

Wrong opinions in ranking starting hands in Omaha poker

1) “A good four-card hand of good starting values in holdem is also a good hand in Omaha.”

This theory seems to be the most popular criterion among holdem players. They evaluate a starting hand like almost equal to a pair of jacks in holdem. We don’t say that one mustn’t play this hand under any circumstances, but it didn’t even lie anywhere near the value it is assigned by a holdem player. Any hand with two useless cards can’t be considered a good hand in Omaha.

2) “Two decent hands for holdem in one four-card hand make good hand for Omaha.”

It can’t be seen by a beginner, but this view is also incorrect.
Let’s look at such hand: – it consists of two for a holdem quite good hands: Ace-Queen in different suits and a pair of sevens. In Omaha such hand is just a “pig”. The reason for it is that a holdem player sees only two of six possible combinations existing in the given hand.

He forgets about other card combinations, not quite well connected to each other:
¯ , ¯ , ¯ , ¯ . The ace is not suited and it is a disadvantage. Actually this hand is even worse than a pair of jacks in the previous example – that is our thought.

The correct view is this: “In a good hand for Omaha all four cards are connected”. This is the only statement calling for common sense if to think of it for a moment. A hand with six working combinations is a super hand. For example let us look at such a hand:
.
Each card has a working value for every other card of the hand. One can imagine the powerful flops which will open for such a great hand. If there appear two pairs during the flop, you still have an opened straight draw or a finished straight. There exist a lot of flop variants giving you an opportunity for 13-sided or 17-sided straight. And if you get a flush draw on this flop it is the better. Such starting hand is likely to turn in a multisided hand at the flop, and a multisided hand is exactly what we hope for in Omaha.

Omaha Starting Hand Rankings

For continuation see Part II