Big Slick Poker

Interesting in giving pot-limit Omaha (PLO) a try? This is one of the most popular variants of poker, and it seems to only get more popular by the day! PLO is somewhat similar to no-limit hold’em. There are five community cards in the middle. The key difference is that players are dealt four cards instead of two. And you must use two and exactly two of your cards in coordination with three and exactly three of the “communal” cards to make the best five card poker hand.

Get Started

First, try sitting in a play money game so you can grow accustomed to how the game is played. It would be disaster to sit down in a real-money game while still not yet understanding that you only get to play two cards from your hand.

Basic Strategy

In PLO, you want hands with four cards that work well together. Being double-suited is valuable since it gives you two different ways to make a flush. Having four consecutive cards (ie: 9876) is also very strong since it gives you multiple was to make a straight.

PLO is a Turn and River Game

No-limit hold’em is all about flopping strong hands. PLO is about flopping strong draws. Often when you flop a hand like two pair, you can actually be behind another player due to the strength of their draw. With that in mind, don’t over commit yourself on the flop with a hand like two pair, or even bottom set, since often times you’re an underdog to dodge all of the outs that improve your opponent(s) hand.

Play Big Draws Fast

When you flop a monster draw (ie: a straight draw and a flush draw, or a set with a flush draw), don’t be afraid to play the flop very aggressively. You might not technically have anything yet, but you have so many outs that you’re often a favorite versus a “made” hand like two pair. Conversely, if you have a made hand like two pair, consider trying to keep things cheap on the flop and waiting to see a safe turn card before building the pot.

Be Aware of the Nuts

In PLO, you should always be able to identify the “nuts” (that is, the best possible hand). This is a game where often a person betting large sums will be holding the best possible hand. Don’t treat a non ace-high flush with as much confidence in hold’em as you do in Omaha. That’s a recipe for losing money hand over fist.

Aces Are Not the Nuts

The biggest mistake new Omaha players make is playing Aces too fast. They see a hand like Ace-Ace-Seven-Six and immediately they want to re-raise preflop. If you can get most of your chips into the pot with Aces in Omaha, by all means, go for it. However, the pot-limit style betting usually means you can’t get the majority of your stack into the pot preflop unless there are a couple raises and calls.

So with that in mind, you want to play Aces for their set value, or for their bluff-catcher value (in a two way pot). Just call raises preflop with Aces. If a player behind re-raises and a couple players call, then you’ll probably be able to re-raise all-in for most of your chips.

H.O.R.S.E. (an acronym for Hold’em, Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, Stud, and Stud Eight or Better) is a game that has rapidly increased in popularity over the past 3-4 years. The game is played by rotating through those five different poker variants in an orderly fashion. The rotation can be done either by time (ie: game switches every 15 minutes) or by hands (ie: game switches every 10 hands).

Here is a crash course for some things to keep in mind when playing HORSE. Realize that the aim of this article is to give you a basic concept of how to play the game so you don’t get destroyed at the table. Entire books could be written about HORSE if you really wanted to dive into specifics.

Hold’em

This should be the variant most people are comfortable with. However, hold’em in HORSE is played with limit betting, which is something that many aren’t used to anymore since most games are played as no-limit hold’em. Some basic tips to keep in mind are pot odds and position. Pot odds make it so that you can call river-bets with fairly marginal hands since the pot will likely have already ballooned to a handsome size. Position is crucial in these games as well.

Omaha Hi-Lo

Don’t show up without an Ace in this game. You want a hand that has a chance at “scooping” (winning both the hi and lo parts of the pot). “Lo” hands involve all five cards being an Eight or lower (no pairs). Any hands with an Ace and a Two are great for drawing to a low. The best hand in this game is something like AA23 double-suited. Hands like JT97, which have no chance of winning the low and very little chance of winning the high are the worst hands in this game.

Razz

Razz is Stud Lo. The best hand is A2345. The key to this game is making sure that your three starting cards work well towards a low. If they do, continue with the hand, if they don’t, fold. This is a very easy game to learn since it’s usually pretty obvious who has the best hand based up on the “up” cards.

Stud

This game has two “down” cards (initially) just like hold’em. Put quite simply: play your hand like you’d play a hold’em hand. Also, pay close attention to the other players’ “boards” so you know when it’s time to fold or raise.

Eight or Better

This is a combination of Stud and Razz where the pot is split by the person who makes the best hand in each variant. However, unlike Razz, the highest card in a qualifying Lo hand has to be Eight or lower. A great hand to start with in this game is Ace-Ace with a Two “door card” (which means the first card face-up). “Rolled up” Aces are very powerful since you already have a pretty good Hi hand a good start at drawing to a good Lo hand. The key to this game is to not get caught drawing to a Lo hand when you know you have zero chance of taking the Hi hand.

One of the big advantages of online poker over brick-and-mortar poker is the ability to play “small ball”, so to speak. Understandably, casinos don’t want to deal with spreading penny-ante games and they certainly aren’t going to take the time to run small freeroll promotions. However, online poker rooms are able to do these things since they don’t have the overhead costs associated with running a casino. It cost an online poker room almost nothing to run a $.01/$.02 Texas hold’em game, whereas a casino would have to give up precious floor space, hire a dealer, etc. In effect, no casino wants to deal with minuscule games and promotions.

Thanks to online poker, it is possible to build a nice gambling bankroll from next to nothing. Some players have built massive bankrolls from a start of literally $0! Of course, going from, say, $50 to $10,000 is much, much easier than going from $0 to $10,000. If you’re serious about trying to accumulate a big bankroll via online poker without making much of an initial investment, it is still advisable that you commit at least a hundred dollars or so to the quest. Trying to win a handful of change through tiny freerolls is a pain-staking, time-consuming process.

Find Good Promotions

Several poker portals offer exclusive online poker promotions. These are a great way for a beginning player to get good value off of their first-time deposit at an online poker room. Online poker rooms don’t take their customers for granted. They’re usually willing to give up a little something in order to get your business. Do some research and find an online poker room that offers some competitive sign-up initiatives.

Usually these sign-up initiatives are found at large poker information websites. You won’t see anything like that on this site because it’s quite small. But for example, PokerTips.org, which is a large poker strategy site, has a deal with Pacific Poker that awards their readers with two weekly seats to the $140 buy-in Deep Stack tournament. Look around for deals like that before signing up directly with an online poker room. The added value in promotions like this can be the make-or-break difference for a player trying to get on their feet with a small deposit.

Play Within Your Limits

In order to build a big bankroll from a small investment, it is imperative that you play within your limits. Even the best online poker player in the world could go busto from a $50 start if they were immediately jumping into $10 buy-in tournaments. Leave yourself some room to absorb the inevitable variance of poker. If you’re playing tournaments, you should have a bankroll of 50-100 tournament buy-ins. For cash games, leave yourself at least 20 maximum table buy-ins (but preferably more).

The most likely way to move up the ladder is to make yourself earn your way up the ladder!

Poker is a game of exploiting your opponents’ mistakes. When you slip, they profit, and when they slip, you profit. With that in mind, it’s important to pinpoint ways in which your opponents are profiting off of your mistakes. Of course, I can’t know what mistakes you are most prone to making… but if you’re anything like most poker players, you’re probably vulnerable to committing the following four mistakes from time to time.

Playing too many hands from the blinds

It’s a big temptation for a lot of players to call raises from the blinds. The logic goes, “well I’ve already got $x invested in the pot… so why not put in a few more chips to see if I get lucky on the flop?” This line of thinking has led a lot of people to losing a lot of money. In general, playing hands from the blind positions is the least profitable position at the table. Of course, that seems sensible since, even if you do fold preflop, you’ve lost some chips from the blind you posted. However, don’t add insult to injury by playing “catch up” with marginal hands from the blinds. You’ll be out of position for the rest of the betting rounds. Being out of position is something you should avoid as much as possible.

Playing too many hands from early position

There are two primary things to consider when weighing whether or not to play a hand: the hand’s absolute value and what position you’re in. A common novice mistake is to disregard what position you’re in and only evaluate hands based on some rigid, absolute scale. In other words, certain hands are always played and certain hands are always folded; position doesn’t matter. This is a very sub-optimal approach to poker. In reality, the value of a hand is very much determined by the position you’re in. Without getting too specific (and thus ignoring other necessary variables), a hand like pocket fives could very easily be folded in early position but played for a strong raise on the button. The rule of thumb is that hands tend to be much less valuable in early position since you’ll be first to act on all subsequent betting rounds.

Overplaying TPTK

TPTK is poker lingo for “top pair, top kicker”. For example, if you have Ace-Nine and the flop comes Nine-Four-Two, you have TPTK. Generally speaking, players tend to overvalue these hands. To be sure, they have value, but they’re not necessarily a “close your eyes and get all of the chips in” type of hand. In a tournament where the stacks are short, it is generally more understandable that you’d play that type of hand for your whole stack. However, in deep stack cash games, be careful how eager you get with these hands. In some circumstances, it might not be a bad idea to slow down at some point and limit the amount of bets that make it into the pot.

“Seeing a lot of hands” early in tournaments

One common “fish strategy” in tournaments is to “play a lot of hands while the blinds are low.” In theory, this isn’t necessarily a bad strategy. However, in practice, the types of players who tend to be attracted to a strategy like this are the types of players who don’t know how to implement it very well. I would recommend beginner- to intermediate-experienced players avoid these cutsie “play a bunch of hands” styles of poker. Until you’re really experienced, it’s a good rule of thumb to keep your decisions infrequent and relatively simple.