In this article, let’s look further at the basic strategy involved in step one, which, although conceptually simple, is where most players go wrong. First, there is a basic principle common to all poker with blinds (as opposed to poker with individual antes) that you should NOT put your initial money into the pot unless you have a GOOD starting hand. The basic strategy of step one in Omaha is to get involved ONLY with hands that are likely to FLOP a playable hand more than about thirty percent of the time. The importance of hitting the flop should be self evident. It does you no good to have the best hand after fifth street, if you had to fold the hand after the flop.

A flop is playable if it works with your hand so that you have at least one good come. We define a “good come” as a draw which is likely to hit (AND frequently win when it hits) about one third of the time or better. You should shy away from lesser comes (for example, inside straights, which are about five-to-one against with two cards coming) because of raise possibilities and the likelihood of bad-percentage fourth round situations (see Fishing In, on page 13).

In Omaha, because you must use two cards from your hand, a good starting hand consists of at least SEVERAL USEFUL (of the six possible) TWO card combinations. Although most good Omaha players simply eyeball their four cards and use their expert judgement to decide whether to play or fold, there are several mathematical approaches which allow you to evaluate the total potential of your hand before the flop with reasonable accuracy by adding up the six two-card potentials.

One method, which is rather tedious but educational, is to actually calculate the likelihood of getting a playable flop, and then, further estimate the likelihood of hitting and winning the hand. For example, suppose you hold the ace and queen of spades and the seven and six of hearts. Note that of your six two-card combinations (ie. AQ, A7, A6, Q7, Q6, 76) only two combinations have straight or flush potential (both the AQ and the 76 happen to have both straight and flush potential). Let us look at each of these two-card combinations more closely to see how they contribute to your expectations of hitting the flop and winning. As you read the following, hopefully you will get a better feel for how all Omaha evaluations are directly related to these two-card combinations.

Let us first approximate the odds of the ace-queen of spades winning the pot by making a flush. The board will flop three spades less than one percent of the time; but, will flop two spades about eleven percent of the time. This four flush come will become a flush (on fourth street or last card) about thirty-six percent of the time. But even this “nut” flush (ie. highest flush) will sometimes lose to a full house or higher. Overall, the nut flush draw will win the pot for you only about four percent of the time.

The ace-queen will flop a high straight much less than one percent of the time (about .37%). This holding cannot flop a four-card multiple straight come. If only two of the three other straight cards are in the flop, conditions will often prohibit your staying in to draw for the inside straight. But, high straights do seem to win a lot of pots, so let us estimate (less than) one percent wins for the ace-queen making the high straight.

The seven-six holding will flop a straight (do not count the eight nine ten “ignorant” straight - it is seldom worth playing) less than one percent of the time. But, a playable two-way or better straight come will flop about eight percent of the time, which will become a straight (on fourth street or last card) about a third of the time (or more for many-way straight comes). However, straights in general have a high mortality rate and lose close to forty percent of the time (mostly when the flop contains two suited cards or a pair). Let us estimate about a two percent win rate for the seven-six straight holding. And since the seven and six were both hearts, let us estimate about a one percent win rate for a flush (mostly the “backdoor” flush, ie. made on 4th and last card). Seven high is not likely to win the “direct” flush competition.

Finally, since none of the other four (A7, A6, Q7, Q6) two-card combinations have any straight or flush potential, let us evaluate what is sometimes referred to as “single card” potential, which is essentially the likelihood of matching pairs or trips in the flop. Any single card will match a pair in the flop about .77% of the time. Thus, any four non-paired cards will make trips with a pair in the flop about three percent of the time. Any four cards will make two pairs with the flop about twelve percent of the time, but the two low pairs should not be played (without other equities). Thus, trips plus the two high pairs (about 4%) and the high and low pairs (which if played, should be played very aggressively and often must be folded) together give you the standard “single card” potential of about ELEVEN percent likelihood of post flop playability (which every non-paired hand has). Having an ace and another high card and no real low cards probably improves your overall winning chances by a couple of percent. BUT note that even high trips require something good happening to win the pot (namely hitting a full house or no one having flushes or straights).

The IMPORTANT MESSAGE to grasp from all this is that there is no magic about what sort of hands are likely to hit a good flop in high Omaha. The frequency of getting a good flop is DIRECTLY RELATED to the number of good two-card combinations. Thus the frequency of getting a good flop with the example hand (AQ76) can be approximated as follows. Combining the twelve percent for flushes, nine percent for straights, and the standard eleven percent “single card” potential, the overall likelihood of hitting the flop is slightly less than thirty percent (the mathematical probablility is 1 -.88 x .91 x .89). This is a borderline flop-seeing hand. But because of the ace and queen high card potential, and two straight flush potentials, you should probably make a loose call. Note that many holdem players might even think that this is a good hand.

By using the above approximations not only can you estimate your likelihood of hitting the flop, but you also can roughly calculate the odds of actually hitting a good hand (which will frequently win). In the above example the likelihood of ending up with a flush, straight or higher hand totals somewhere between ten and fifteen percent. But your odds of actually winning the pot are somewhat better, since more than a third of all hands are won with lesser hands (highly dependent on the characteristics of the particular game).

Using the above approach, any Omaha hand can be evaluated for flop potential and for final winning potential. Unfortunately, it takes quite a while to perform these calculations and hence this approach, while quite educational in retrospect, is not practical for evaluating hands at the table. In order to quickly evaluate the total potential of a four card Omaha hand, it would clearly be more practical to have some simple systemic method for adding up the potential of each of the two-card combinations.

Thus, another approach to evaluating four card Omaha hands is to formulate some appropriate value for each possible two card combination (based on BOTH flop expectation and overall winning potential) and then add up these values. Although I did not intend to make this article a commercial for the point count
system in my book, that point count system is probably the fastest known method today for assessing the overall potential of a four card Omaha hand (by simply adding the points of the six two-card combinations). Using my point count system, which recommends calling on hands that add up to eleven points or more, the above example hand computes to about thirteen points (6 points for the Ax flush, two points for the AQ, two points for the 76, two points for the A and Q high cards, one half point for the 7, and perhaps one or more indirect “intangible” points for the straight flush bonus).

But whether you evaluate your initial four cards using some kind of mathematical device or simply have years of gut experience (hopefully good experience), the bottom line is you MUST play ONLY good hands with DEPTH (ie. at least several good two-card combinations) to be a winner. Anyone who has experienced the last card blues in Omaha knows that it is highly recommended to go into the last card with one or more good comes IN ADDITION TO whatever temporary stuff you may be betting. GOOD COMES COME FROM GOOD STARTING HANDS. And that indeed is your basic strategy before-the-flop.

In the next issue, Step Two, the basic strategy underlying getting further involved after seeing the flop will be discussed.