I good way to learn how to play a new kind of poker game is to watch good players play it. That’s why I made a Youtube playlist of the PLO 10k event of the WSOP 2008.

Enjoy!

Because of the close hand ranks and the important role of drawing hands in PLO, the game becomes a high variance poker game (much more then NLHE for example). Because of this high variance factor bankroll management is very VERY important if you want to become a winning Pot Limit Omaha player.

Here are some basic guidelines you should follow if you don’t want to go busted (by simply being unlucky):

In a Pot-Limit Omaha game swing can be very big. That’s why you need a buffer that’ll prevent you going broke by simply catching a bad run of cards. I would suggest bringing only 3% or 4% of your total bankroll at a table. And whenever your stack represents more then 10% of your total bankroll, you should quit, to avoid losing your profit with a single bad beat.

In a Fixed Limit Omaha game you should simply follow the ‘300 Big Bets’ rule: make sure you always have 300 Big Bets of the limit you are playing in your bankroll, and everything should be fine in the long run.

I hope these simple and basic, BUT very effective, guidelines can help you build a healthy Omaha bankroll online.

Trap hands are hands that look good, but can easily cost you your whole stack, because when you make your hand it more than often proves to be second-best.

In Pot-Limit Omaha there are three kinds of trap hands:

Small-Pair hands
Hands with small-pairs will often flop bottom or middle set, which are very hard hands to get away from when you’re beat. Hands like 5543 can be easily dominated on a flop such as KQ5, and can suddenly be drawing to one out. So always think twice before comitting chips with bottom or middle set.

Low-Wrap hands
Another dangerous type of hand is the low four-connected hand, such as 5432. Although it looks like they have great potential, it’s very simple to flop or draw to a low end of a straight. Which most of time means you’re drawing dead.

Small-Flush hands
Small-flush hands are risky hands. When you flop a flush with a hand like 5432, you can’t commit a lot of chips, because when you get any action at all, you’re likely drawing dead. So avoid small flushes!

In Pot-Limit Omaha the value of a starting hand depends on the possible 2-card combinations your 4 hole cards can represent. For example:

AAJT
This hand has some nice 2-card combinations:
AA
AJ
AT
JT

These two short movies nicely show the difference between a good and a bad pot-limit omaha starting hand.

At the Aussie Millions 2009 cash game Dwan and Antonius played some mixed NLHE and PLO heads-up, with as much as 2,5 million dollars on the table.

This results in some very interesting poker. Check it out!

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4