Omaha Starting hands?

TOURTHELANCE

One of my friends and i had a friendly debate about starting hands playing a 1/ 1 cashgame lastnight. Player raises pot to approx twenty (last to act) with AKQJ and is called by two to three players he then has to fold to a pot size bet on a ragged flop and our debate starts about what starting hand you would prefer Preflop Hand 1 AKQJ against AA67 or Hand 2 KQJT against QQ91o or something similar to these, I would have said id prefer to go in with the pocketpair but would like some views on these type of ranged hands please

DeadParrot

You post makes no sense whatsoever
1/1 and pot bet is 20 preflop?
and am intrigued which kind of deck has a 1 of whatever

sock.rocker*

best omaha hands are double suited connectors i think. eg. 7c8d KdQc

am i wrong?

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

eoghan104

sock.rocker* wrote:

best omaha hands are double suited connectors i think. eg. 7c8d KdQc

am i wrong?

yes you need all 4 to be connected eg. Ks Qh Js 10h

eoghan104

What??? Very hard to understand what you mean here but if your asking do I prefer hand like KQJ10 or AA67 then it depends on position, stack sizes and players in pot. Generally though I prefer KQJ10.

max_power

LuckyLloyd wrote:

I would rather hold low double suited connecting hands like 7654 than a big pocket pair type hand.

I get what you mean but does sooootedness really have that much of a bearing if your holding 56xx or whatever, your not gonna be winning any pots with a 5 high flush. Or is it more for the freerolling factor ye?

sock.rocker*

eoghan104 wrote:

yes you need all 4 to be connected eg. Ks Qh Js 10h

i wudnt have thought that actually.. if u can only use 2 cards for a straight, isnt it bad having 1 or both of the cards ur looking for sitting in ur hand unusable taking down ur odds of hitting.

i dont know much bout omaha, its jus good craic but unless i studied starting hands properly, i'm lost

Flipper

People get too caught up in thinking about starting hands in PLO. As I've often said, if you never folded a hand pre-flop, you wouldn't be wrong (as long as you're playing deep). Obviously, big pairs are good and rundown hands play well in most spots. I could go on forever about starting hands etc and I'd have acheived nothing by the end of it. One thing that I have noticed in the last 6 months is that AAxx has gone from being horribly over-valued to terribly under-valued. AAxx is still my biggest winning hand by a long way. Ribbo from 2+2 (Ribs on Stars) posted his PT stats on AAxx and it was by far his biggest winner (something like +35k as opposed to +9k for KKxx). I don't have a link for this thread but if someone knows what I'm talking about, post it up.

I've been asked by two people before if I'd do PLO coaching but I said no at the time but lately, I've been thinking that it would be something positive I could do. If you're interested, PM me.

busted flush

hi flipper,
im mostly a holdem player however have dabbled in the round of each game from time to time in the macau. whats your general stratgie (if u have one), or is it impossible to catogorise stratgises as in holdem eg tag lag? i would be interested in your opinion here! also i have always felt that omaha is a flop game and tend to agree with your eariler comment about it not being wrong to play every hand pre flop if you have a big stack, however im not usually ever in a position to sit into these games with the required amount you talk about, i mostly will sit down with 100/150 how would you play this kind of stack in a normal macau game (which as im sure you will agree tends to be mad)! thanks in advance!
bf

TheRock

Top starting hands in PLO are supposedly the below. I say supposedly as as already said so much depends on the action before you, your position and whether your playing a short or big stack approach.

Big pairs play out well if you can get all or a big portion of your stack in preflop against 1 or 2 max players. Suited rundowns playout better in multiway pots imo.

You looking for hands where all the 4 cards work well together.
AK87o is only 2 connected 2-card hands.
AAJ10 double suites, gives you the rockets drawing to a set or better, 2 suited nut flush draws and several ways to make top straight.

Hand Ranking
1 A-A-K-K double suited
2 A-A-J-T double suited
3 A-A-Q-Q double suited
4 A-A-J-J double suited
5 A-A-T-T double suited
6 A-A-9-9 double suited
7 A-A-x-x double suited
8 J-T-9-8 double suited
9 K-K-Q-Q double suited
10 K-K-J-J double suited
11 K-Q-J-T double suited
12 K-K-T-T double suited
13 K-K-A-Q double suited
14 K-K-A-J double suited
15 K-K-A-T double suited
16 K-K-Q-J double suited
17 K-K-Q-T double suited
18 K-K-J-T double suited
19 Q-Q-J-J double suited
20 Q-Q-T-T double suited
21 Q-Q-A-K double suited
22 Q-Q-A-J double suited
23 Q-Q-A-T double suited
24 Q-Q-K-J double suited
25 Q-Q-K-T double suited
26 Q-Q-J-T double suited
27 Q-Q-J-9 double suited
28 Q-Q-9-9 double suited
29 J-J-T-T double suited
30 J-J-T-9 double suited

TOURTHELANCE

DeadParrot wrote:

You post makes no sense whatsoever
1/1 and pot bet is 20 preflop?
and am intrigued which kind of deck has a 1 of whatever

Easy Deadparrot its a 1 1 cash game with a live straddle so 20 preflop could even be mild sometimes....:D

Killme00

Most of you wont play deep so starting hands are important to you. Not as important as your post flop play but nonetheless still important. If you have a big stack you can afford to take the hit from the nuts changing from the flop to the river but if you are playing not so deep (200 to 300 with 1/1 Blinds) you cannot afford to take this hit. Therefore if you pay attention to your starting hands and hit the nuts on the flop, then they are mor elikely to hold up because of your starting hand. ie you played suited or double suited connectors and hit the nuts with outs as opposed to the bare nuts.


All this without actually answering the OP's question!! Play anything that looks pretty but dont play with a pair when its obvious your villian has a bigger pair. Funnily enough this works for all walsk of life, not just jamahaha. me i have a big pair

TOURTHELANCE

Thanks appreciate all the feedback, Very good reply from the rock and flipper as you said there can be such a huge range of starting hands i just wonder'd what players would choose and it seems to be pretty 50/50. Also find with the ROE games that the holdem tends to die a little or maybe this is just the experience i have had in the games so far?, Flipper check out mansion poker Fo Tournys for the WSOP its quite impressive. pointed out to me by tipp86.

yahoo_moe

TheRock wrote:

You looking for hands where all the 4 cards work well together.

That's what's always made sense to me too for non-big pair hands - when it comes to calling raises, the better your combos, the more potential your hand has to outdraw a raising hand...

4 starting cards means 6 possible pairs of cards that you'll be adding to the 3 best on board at any stage so, for example, KQ78 isn't as good as KQJ10 because K-7 and Q-7 don't perform as well together as K-J or K-10 would...

eoghan104

No its better to have 4 cards working together because it gives you a chance to have a "wrap" on the flop which is where there is an abundance of cards that can give you a straight. You only get 2 straight combos with 34910.

for example, you have 8 9 J Q and the flop is 10 7 K. This gives you 16 clean straight outs and if you have a flush draw aswell you will be Favourite against any set or two pair. Thats just one example.......

tipp86

i am the one who started the argument about starting hands last night my argument is that i would prefer to play AKQJ,910JQ,4567 etc.. as opposed to AA56,KK910.I agree with flippers post about AA making money but he is speaking mainly from a online point of view where stacks would not be as deep,would he value AAXX in a live game in the macau as much as he might on full tilt i dont think so.The game i was playing when this discussion took place was 1-1 optional 5 live with stacks ranging from 150 to 400 no preflop raise had gone higher than 30 so this is why i would not have valued AAXX so highly just my opinion maybe im wrong

jimmii

You want hands that can make as many "nut" hands as possible so double suited hands with royal cards are nice. If you have a paired hand you need to get as much in as possible and really need to hit your set in a pot with more than one other person especially if you are OOP. With regards to your hands I think the paired hand plays better OOP whereas the draw heavy hand plays better in position as you know exactly what you need with the paired hand whereas the draw hand means you can control the pot more in position.

Flipper

busted flush wrote:

hi flipper,
im mostly a holdem player however have dabbled in the round of each game from time to time in the macau. whats your general stratgie (if u have one), or is it impossible to catogorise stratgises as in holdem eg tag lag? i would be interested in your opinion here! also i have always felt that omaha is a flop game and tend to agree with your eariler comment about it not being wrong to play every hand pre flop if you have a big stack, however im not usually ever in a position to sit into these games with the required amount you talk about, i mostly will sit down with 100/150 how would you play this kind of stack in a normal macau game (which as im sure you will agree tends to be mad)! thanks in advance!
bf

As I said in the other thread about shortstacking, I don't really have strategy for playing a 100/150 stack. In that game it's difficult because it's nearly always 7-10 prelop so seeing flops is out of the question. Your best bet is to get get at least half your stack over the line preflop with the best of it and cross your fingers. There isn't much skill in playing this way but some players do it very well. Maybe someone else on here would be better able to advise on shortstacking. Hope this helps