Perry Friedman

The big difference between big-bet (Pot-Limit or No-Limit) Omaha Hi/Lo and Limit Omaha Hi/Lo is that the former plays much more like Omaha High. Low hands become much less valuable because of how often they get quartered.

If you get quartered in Limit games, you may not lose too much of your overall chip stack because the action is capped on every street. In Pot-Limit games, however, getting quartered can be much more expensive because you may have had to call big bets on both the turn and river before the hand ended. Losing half your stack in this situation could be your best-case scenario – and getting completely felted if your hand is counterfeited on the river is a real possibility.

Because the high end of the pot is often more valuable in big-bet games, I recommend looking for hands that play well both ways or for hands like J-J-T-9 that just play high. Hands that are going to scoop or get ¾ of the pot are true monsters. While scooping is the best-case scenario in Omaha Hi/Lo, it’s much more important to lock up the high portion of the hand in Pot-Limit games because of how expensive playing for the low can be.

While something like a naked A-2 can be a very strong PLO hand before the flop, I see a lot of people get in trouble with this hand on later streets when they feel committed to put their chips in the middle in hope of hitting their low. Without any potential for hitting the high, these players are putting themselves in situations where they can easily go broke.

In PLO, the best A-2 hands are either suited or have good connectors like 3-4 or 5-6 that will give you straight draws. If you flop something like 4-5-9 with a hand like A-2-3-6, any Ace, 2, 3 or 6 gives you a straight, as well as the nut low. However, even if you have the A-2-3-6 on a flop of Q-9-5, you have to fold if someone else makes a big bet as it’s likely they’ve already made their high hand. Putting your chips in the pot in hope of chopping is not a worthwhile play.

Pot-Limit and No-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo are all about the nuts. If you’re not holding them, you should be looking to draw to them. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t commit your chips to a hand – especially when your best result may only be winning half the pot. If you’re in a hand and are just playing for the low, my advice is to muck your cards and wait for a more profitable situation.

Ben Roberts

About two years ago, I wrote On Cavemen and Poker Players, which talked about the importance of learning to control your emotions at the poker table. Since then, I’ve had time to further refine my views on this topic, especially when it comes to the concept of tilt.

To begin, let me state the obvious: tilt happens to everyone. In fact, it’s safe to say that tilt is one of the most feared words – and concepts – in poker. So, what causes tilt? Well, that’s different for everyone. For some, it’s a bad run of cards or continuously getting unlucky when you’re opponents hit their miracle two and three-outers on the river. For others, it’s just playing poorly for an extended period of time.

No matter the cause, however, the fact remains that once most players do finally go on tilt, all bets are off and their games suffer. They end up playing the wrong cards in the wrong situations or at the wrong times and losing a lot of chips. For some players, this can be the beginning of a vicious cycle that feeds upon itself and, eventually, destroys their confidence along with their bankrolls.

Knowing what causes tilt is one thing, but the bigger question is, what is tilt? Personally, I believe it’s a chemical reaction that takes place in your brain. It’s similar to the primal emotion of being in danger, coded into our DNA just as if we’re in the forest being hunted so many thousands or years ago. Instead of being chased by some wild animal, we’re being hunted by other players looking to gun us down with another bad beat.

The effect of this primal emotion is enormous – your whole chemistry changes and you go into a different frame of mind that will completely change the way you play the game. The key to stopping this from happening and going on tilt is the ability to separate yourself from that emotion. Rather than playing based on that primal instinct, you should continue to play smart, thoughtful poker without worrying about your short-term results.

In order to achieve this, you must train yourself to believe that winning and losing at the poker table, at least over a short period of time, both have the same meaning. This might seem counterintuitive at first, because the object of the game is always to win. But you have to accept the fact that you can’t win every hand and that losing is a part of the game.

Look at how you approach a coin flip situation. If you’re winning at the time you’re faced with a coin flip, you’re going to be more hesitant to take that chance because you don’t want to risk losing what you’ve already won (and possibly more). If, on the other hand, you’re presented with the same situation when you’re losing, then you’re probably going to be more willing to take the risk and go for the coin flip because you want to win your money back. Either way, I think both cases are detrimental to your game because in either situation, you’re more worried about the short-term outcome rather than about playing solid poker over the long term, which is what being a winning player is really all about.

When you become indifferent to winning or losing over the short term, you won’t have to worry about going on tilt because you’re focusing simply on playing good poker. That’s all that matters at the end of the day – playing well. As poker players, we can do nothing more than to play our best game and let the cards fall as they may. When you adopt this attitude, your long-term results will take a turn for the better, no matter what kind of variance you face over the short term.

Scott Fischman

Most people are familiar with the differences between one-table Sit & Go tournaments (SNGs) and other forms of poker. Because these tournaments only pay the top three finishers at a nine-handed table, the standard strategy is to play conservatively until the tournament becomes short-handed and then become more aggressive during short-handed play.

Many newer SNG players favor these nine-handed tournaments because the blinds only increase every six minutes, providing a good amount of play. While these are great tournaments, I also encourage people to try other types of SNGs, including turbos where the blinds increase every three minutes, and six-handed games where you start off playing short-handed and only the top-two finishers are paid.

For really fast-paced excitement, however, I play six-handed turbo SNGs where I’m facing both short tables and quick blinds. The structure of these SNGs forces me to play each hand more carefully as the combination of fast blinds and short-handed play means one mistake can be crippling or even fatal. They also let me finish in time for dinner.

Succeeding in these tournaments requires making some adjustments to your standard SNG strategy. As with any short-handed table, one of the most important things you need to do is open up your starting hand requirements – but not too much. You shouldn’t be playing trash, especially in early position, but you should be willing to see more flops in hopes of hitting a big hand. That said, you shouldn’t play with the intention of stealing blinds – especially in the early going – as there’s just not enough value in that play to make it worthwhile.

This leads me to the biggest mistake I see many people make in these kinds of games, which is playing too loose. For some reason, people think they have to go crazy at short-handed tables in an effort to pick up chips early on. Generally, one or two players go broke right away and, all of a sudden, you have four people left at the table with only two spots getting paid.

Once you’ve lost a couple players, there’s usually one person who’s built up a big chip stack and plays too aggressively in an effort to bully the rest of the table. You have to hang tough in this situation, even if you’re sitting on just around 1,000 chips. The bully wants to double you up, so you might as well let him.

If you are lucky enough to double up or accumulate chips early on, don’t give them up easily. Instead of siphoning off your chips by calling raises out of position or trying to steal too much, pick your spots carefully and continue to play tight, aggressive poker.

Because these short-handed tournaments only pay out two places, you should begin applying more pressure on your competition as you approach the bubble. Your goal should be to finish first, as you’ll earn three times your buy-in as opposed to just doubling your buy-in for second place. Look for the player who is just seeking to squeeze their way into the money and attack their stack as much as possible in order to force their hand and hopefully, induce a mistake. At this point, the quickly rising blinds should force the bubble boy to push all-in with a less than stellar hand.

Overall, it’s a simple but effective strategy. Play relatively tight and put yourself in a position to double up through the table bully in the early to middle stages, and then attack when you reach the bubble. This will put you in position to make the money and play heads-up for the win.

Brandon Adams

Bluffing can be one of the most profitable plays in poker. However, its success is often blunted by the fact that it’s also one of the most misunderstood and over-used plays in the game.

In Omaha, players may find even more reasons to bluff – and to get themselves into trouble – than they do in Hold ‘em because four starting cards can lead to huge draws and present almost irresistible opportunities to try and steal pots from opponents. The key to bluffing successfully in this game comes from knowing when to make the play and who to make it against.

One of the best bluffing opportunities in Omaha comes on paired boards, but to pull this off, you have to know what kinds of paired boards to look for. Let’s say you’re involved in a hand with two other players. You’re in late position and have called a pre-flop raise only to completely miss on a flop of K-K-8 rainbow. The flop is checked around to you, and you consider bluffing to see if you can steal the pot. My advice – don’t do it.

If your opponents are experienced and knowledgeable players who generally play premium starting hands, one of them probably connected with the board and is likely slow-playing a monster. Bluffing here gives him a chance to come over the top or just flat call and let you keep throwing chips into his made hand.

Now, let’s take the same scenario and change the flop to something like 3-3-7 rainbow. Bluffing on this board makes much more sense because it’s likely that opponents who are playing strong starting hands failed to connect on this board. Experienced players may read your bet here as being credible because you could have very easily called a pre-flop raise with a small hand and hit the board hard.

If you happen to connect with trips or a full house on a board like 3-3-7, you should bet your monster in hope of getting called by someone with a worse hand or to induce a bluff re-steal into your made hand. Conversely, you should be wary about betting this kind of board if you have a mediocre hand like T-T-9-9, as your bet will give your opponent the chance to play perfectly against you; he’ll call or raise when ahead, fold when behind, and occasionally bluff you with a worse hand. My advice is to check this type of hand and reassess on the turn.

As a rule of thumb in Omaha (and in Hold ‘em, for that matter), I find that low and messy flops are easier to bluff at than bigger boards because most players are looking to play more premium hands that are more likely to connect with higher cards. Sure, you may get called by over-pairs or big draws on occasion, but you’ll also win the hand often enough to make this play worthwhile.

While paired boards provide some of the best bluffing opportunities, flush boards can also offer some interesting opportunities. For example, let’s say you’re just holding the Ah and the flop comes with three other hearts. You can’t make your heart flush to win the pot outright, but you can still steal it away from an opponent who has a lower flush since they’ll be wary about betting or calling into the possible nuts.

This play takes some courage as you may have to bet each street in order to win the pot, but it can also be very profitable against solid opponents because it’s unlikely that they’ll call on the river if you’ve represented the Ace-high flush throughout the entire hand. Be careful about betting your naked Ace too often though as seasoned opponents will eventually read your bluffs and counter-play by calling more often. Of course, this also means that you’ll likely get paid off when you make the same kind of bets and really are holding the nut flush.

Picking the right boards and situations is just one part of successfully bluffing in Omaha and in other games. Equally important is picking the right players to bluff against. If you’re in a hand with a calling station who’s unlikely to ever lay down a hand, your chances of bluffing them off a pot are pretty slim. On the other hand, if you’re facing a solid opponent who may reasonably believe he’s behind in a hand, your bluff is much more likely earn you some valuable chips.

Bluffing is an important part of any player’s arsenal and keeping these thoughts in mind the next time you sit down for a game of PLO can help you out-gun the competition.

Chris Ferguson

In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart tried to define what may or may not be considered obscene under US law. In the end, he determined that no definition existed, but that when it comes to obscenity, “I know it when I see it.”

The same holds true when you’re talking about running badly at the poker table. You may not be able to identify what’s going wrong, but you know its happening. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no single definition or criteria for “running bad” because it means something different to everyone. For some players, it’s posting 10 or 12 losing sessions in a row. For others, it’s losing a dozen coin-flips during a single session. “Running badly” depends on the individual and on the metrics they’re using to judge their performance.

Whatever the definition is, the fact remains that everyone runs bad at one time or another. What separates successful players from those who go bust is how they handle themselves and their bankrolls when their cards go dead. For me, running bad doesn’t mean having a few losing nights or taking a few bad beats over the course of a session. That’s variance and it’s an inevitable part of the game. In my mind, running bad is something bigger that happens over the long term.

If you’re not sure whether you’re really running bad or not, start by stepping back and analyzing your results over a statistically significant timeframe. If you see a consistent pattern of losing sessions over a matter of weeks or months, then it’s likely that you’re having some real problems with your game. The key to getting back on track is figure out what’s actually going wrong.

For many players, running badly is a vicious circle; they suffer a few losing sessions and begin to tilt, which leads them to alter their playing styles in order to change things up. Soon, they do actually start playing badly, which leads to more losing sessions, and a continuation of their downward spiral. They lose because they’re running badly and they’re running badly because they’re losing.

If you look at your game and believe that you’re actually playing well but are just getting unlucky, then maybe you are. Aces get cracked by lower pairs. Sets get beaten by flushes, and hands get drowned on the river more often than you might think. My advice in these situations is to walk away from the game for a while. Take a break, regroup, and come back when you’re mentally refreshed and are ready to start playing again. Don’t, however, begin changing your game to compensate for bad luck. Focus on the fundamentals, look for good starting hands, and try to play the most solid poker you can. In time, your luck will change.

Whatever you do, however, don’t try to step up in levels in order to try and recoup your losses. I’ve seen many players go bust at times like these because they’re too focused on trying to rebuild their bankrolls by gambling rather than by playing smart poker and moving down to play at a lower level. Think about it; if you’ve been losing, chances are that you’re playing on a smaller bankroll than normal, which means that you’ll be risking a higher percentage of your remaining funds by playing at higher stakes. With a smaller cushion behind you and more of your bankroll at risk, it doesn’t take long for things to go from bad to worse and for you to lose everything you had left.

On the other hand, by moving down a level or two, you’ll be risking less in the short term while you try to rebuild your bankroll. Sure, the pots you win may not be as big as those you win at higher levels, but weighed against the odds of going broke, it’s a trade-off I’m willing to make. What’s more, by moving down, I may only have to play at a lower level for a month or two to recover my losses whereas if I go broke after moving up, it could take me a year or more until I’ve recovered. That’s a pretty persuasive argument if you really value your time.

While I can’t tell you whether you’re really running badly or not, I can tell you that your mental state does impact your game. If you’re feeling good, chances are you’ll play well and, if you’re not, chances are you won’t. Rough patches are part of the game and learning how to handle short-term adversity without losing your confidence or your bankroll will make you a better player in the long run.