General Concepts for Starting Hand Selection
Play hands that will either clearly hit or clearly miss flops.
This is simply another way of saying play hands that can flop the nuts or flop draws to the nuts. When you are drawing to the nuts you will usually know where you stand. It is typically fairly easy to figure out how many outs you have. If you have made the nuts you can figure out how many cards can come that will ruin your hand.
High only hands have limited value
This compliments the first concept. With high only hands you will only win big pots when no low is possible and you are against someone with a second best high only hand. This doesn't happen very often, and your opponent knows what they are doing it will happen even less often since they won't be showing up with many high only hands. Sometimes they have almost none, as you will see later for the case of big pairs
Overplaying high hands is one of the most common mistakes beginning players make. One of the easiest ways to gain a big edge in PLO8 is by simply having a better understanding of starting hand values. Valuing high only hands better than your opponents will contribute significantly to your edge.
Stay away from middle cards
This also goes with the first concept. Having middle cards in your hand kills its strength and makes it very difficult to make the nuts. Middle cards are death in PLO8, especially nines. This will be explained in more detail in the book.
Don't play only 3 cards in a game that allows you to play 4
In Omaha games you need to make a much stronger hand by the river than you do in a game like Hold'em because everyone has 4 cards instead of 2. So when playing Omaha if you are playing hands that effectively have 3 cards, you are putting yourself at a significant disadvantage. To give yourself the best chance of making a winning hand, you want to have all 4 cards working together.
It is easier to play if you have some suited cards, even if they are low
One of the few ways in which many players undervalue their hands is by overlooking the how small flush draws contribute to the strength of a hand.
| Hand |
Equity Percentile |
Equity versus range of hands: |
| Top 5% |
Top 10% |
Top 20% |
Top 50% |
All 100% (random) |
| 2347 |
63% |
37.6% |
38.7% |
40.6% |
43.9% |
46.5% |
| 2347ss |
38% |
37.9% |
39.0% |
40.8% |
44.1% |
46.8% |
| 2347ds |
21% |
40.4% |
41.6% |
43.5% |
46.8% |
49.5% |
These small flush draws shouldn't be considered the primary feature of a hand. But they do add equity to a hand, and can add significant equity if the hand is double suited.
The primary benefit when you make these flushes comes when you make them with a non-nut low. If you are in a heads up pot with a decent but non-nut low and a small flush, there are not many hands that your opponent can hold that will scoop you. Typically you will be good for half the pot, and will occasionally scoop. In these situations you can fire away large bets in an attempt to get your opponent to fold, giving you the entire pot instead of half. But with no flush and only a non-nut you would not be able to do this, and often would be forced to fold.
Against most opponents, you will usually have more equity in a given hand than the tables shown below suggest
This is because the tables give your equity against a given range of hands, but most opponents tend to overvalue some hands and undervalue others. So they will have more weak hands in their ranges than there stats suggest. For example suppose a player is playing 20% of his hands. Your equity versus his 20% will usually be better than the theoretically best 20% of hands, because most players will overvalue big pairs and will have some these hands in their range that these tables do not assume.
Think about what you are trying to flop
Different types of starting hands have different types of ideal flop fits. The kind of flop you are looking for can also depend on how many players are in the pot and what your position is. It pays to think about what you are actually trying to flop before the flop comes out. If you do this it will tend to make your play on the flop easier and less stressful.
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