I have had a number of inquiries about raising before the flop in four-card high limit Omaha. The two most important strategic reasons to raise before the flop are to “reduce attendance” and to “loosen up the game” (see my book Cappelletti on Omaha, Quartet and Trio Straight Holdings). Please note that getting MORE MONEY into the pot is NOT always an important objective! It is nice to have more money in the pot, only if you happen to win it. But extra money in the pot makes the pot harder to win! There are two reasons why this is true. First, you are LESS LIKELY to SKILLFULLY STEAL a bigger pot. Secondly, more money in the pot CHANGES THE CHASE ODDS and you are less likely to drive out extra callers, who might hang around and beat you on the river. Although extra money in the pot obviously increases your payoff in the (lesser number of) pots that you do win, there is a crossover point where extra callers can actually decrease your likelihood of winning the pot to BELOW the minimum acceptable return level. This happens mainly with lesser driving hands against many callers. Thus, in Omaha, the negative implications of more money in the pot do affect your before-the-flop raising strategy, especially with the high cards/pair type holdings in later positions.

If you have trouble digesting the concept that more money in the pot can be bad for certain holdings, try looking at it this way. In four card Omaha it is often correct to chase after the flop, IF there is ENOUGH MONEY in the pot. If it is mathematically cost effective for the chaser to chase, then it must be negative equity against the driver (the leading bettor). It is easy to constuct situations where the driver with the best hand on FOURTH street, has little (or even no) chance of winning the pot because most (or possibly ALL!) of the LAST cards will improve one of the chasers. In Omaha, too many chasers often create this monster situation where the driver’s incremental rate of return (ie. the odds the driver is getting on his current bet, as determined by the number of callers) is quite less than his odds of winning the pot.

So what can or could have been done about all this and how does it affect your before-the-flop strategy? To some extent, it depends on the tightness or looseness of the game. First, let us noste realistically that no human or no computer can perfectly evaluate certain marginal Omaha hands as to whether or not these close hands SHOULD call the bet after the flop. Loose players call too many hands; tight players call too few. Part of the driver’s edge accrues from this fact (analogous to the increased house edge in blackjack because most players do not play perfect basic strategy).

Accordingly, one of the key evaluations which you must make about the game you find yourself playing in is are the loose players more apt to “fish in” (incorrectly call) on bigger pots or are the tight players more likely to make incorrect folds in smaller pots? This evaluation guides your raising before-the-flop strategy in all close situations. It has been my experience that most “good”
(ie. tightish) games tend toward the latter. Note that when the pots are big the fish are often mathematically correct to call. Thus, if you judge that more money in the pot tends to get the tight players to correctly call (as opposed to incorrectly fold), and tends to make the loose chasers’ calls more correct, then you should not raise before the flop in close situations.

When you sit down to play four card high Omaha, your basic strategy, including your raising before-the-flop strategy, greatly depends on the type of game you are playing in. If the game is wildly loose, usually you adopt a sit-back-and-play-only good-hands strategy (discussed later). If the game happens to be squeaky tight, your strategy usually is to raise before the flop almost every time you choose to play, and try to muscle the hands where there is not much competition. All good players find ways to cleverly (or luckily) back into pots with not so good hands. Usually some amount of skillful betting (driving) and/or raising is required to win more than half the pots that you win with a lesser hand.

When you have these lesser hands, it is clearly desirable to get the competition out. This is Omaha and your lesser hand will surely lose if there are too many last card callers. That is why in these situations you must bet and raise fiercely. But if too many chasers DO call you (often because the pot is large due to before-the-flop raising), your prospects of winning with lesser hands USUALLY ARE GREATLY DIMINISHED, often to the extent that you do not even belong in the pot. Hopefully you can diagnose these situations on the turn (too pretty a card, but not for you) and back off before the fourth street betting.

The principle stated is, if there is less money in a pot, then the driver (leading hand) is more likely to get tight chasers to fold; if there is more money in that pot, the driver might get several extra callers and become a mathematical underdog. Thus, if you have raised before the flop, in many cases you have actually DECREASED your expected value on certain hands. Whereas in most forms of poker the driver generally likes callers to chase and contribute because his leading hand will usually hold up enough percent of the time, in four-card Omaha too many chasers can be a mixed blessing indeed. If you have one of those types of hands that rates to be in this potentially negative driving position much of the time, you should anticipate the extra winning potential you get by keeping the pot smaller. Otherwise put, if you have a lesser hand, it is easier to win a lesser pot.

So what TYPES of hands should you restrain from raising with? It is a matter of BOTH TYPE and POSITION. If you have a high pair type hand in an EARLY position, then of course, you should raise and hope to “reduce attendance” here and now before the flop. But in last or near last position with this same high pair type hand (that rates to be frequently driving after the flop), you should NOT raise (!), since no one folds one raise before-the-flop in Omaha once they are already in, AND, you would rather have less money in the pot - since more money usually attracts several extra callers whose combined presence would SUBSTANTIALLY LESSEN your chances of winning the pot with a lesser hand.
Remember, “good” flops with straight and flush potential greatly outnumber the “junk” flops where you actually like to push high pairs. Tight straight come holders and low flush holders will often let you buy an unraised pot.

Thus, it is usually correct NOT to raise before the flop in LATE POSITIONS with hand holdings that frequently attempt driving after the flop with high pairs (eg. a high pair or three high cards), since your “skillful efforts” success rate is inversely proportional to the size of the pot. On the other hand if you have a come type hand (eg. several cards in a row or suited holding) that rates to be drawing on the river (fourth street and last card), then you like more money in the pot (unfortunately much of it is yours) to attract other chasers and increase your odds. But then again even some very good hands can be jeopardized by too many chasers - remember we are playing Omaha, the game that makes you shake your head.

It is very hard to accurately assess exactly how important it is to get dangerous chasers out versus getting the extra dollars in. Clearly, it depends on what kind of hand you have. Whenever you have ANY LESSER type hand IN OMAHA, you simply want as much competition OUT as possible AT ALL COSTS. Again, lesser hands should be CONTENT to win lesser pots. With hand holdings that tend to be “lesser”, you actually prefer smaller pots. Another way of looking at it is that in practice, it is better to WIN any given little pot than to get in a position where it is QUITE LIKELY that you will be “last carded” (the polite professional term for getting shafted on the last card) out of a bigger pot.

To illustrate the above, you are playing in a ten handed high four-card Omaha game and pick up two aces and two other medium cards. If you happen to be sitting in an early position (say first to third seat to act), you always raise before the flop, because if you can get MANY players to fold NOW, your aces might even hold up against FEW players (or work with a low pair on board). If you catch an ace on board, but the board does not pair, there is usually a possible straight, and your chances of winning increase greatly with FEWER players. But let’s say you were in a near last position and six players have already called. If you now raise, probably no one will fold and the larger pot size might well keep in several extra chasers after the flop who together often put you in a negative expectency position.

If you play around with hypotheticals based on the above, you will probably conclude that the extra dollars generated by the raise and subsequent extra calls do not quite counterbalance the pots lost. Again, this is particularly true in tight games where tight players do not properly evaluate their cards and drop hands that are percentage calls (much more frequent in unraised pots). But if you have both a high pair AND very good come-type holdings (eg. two aces both suited) then you always raise before the flop because of your extra come action, even though the extra money in the pot may lessen the effectiveness of your aces. Excellent big pot potential obviously take precedence over little pot strategy.

Whereas all good money players love wild games where we can sit back and play the odds with good cards, good players should also recognize that the more money in the pot, the more LUCK will decide who wins it. Big pots are usually not up for grabs. You usually need the best hand to win a big pot. Although good players get some (skillful) edge by getting involved in these bigger pots with generally better cards, in Omaha, the flop often turns medium hands into super hands and premium before-the-flop cards into chasing hands. These chasing hands, by definition, are not favorites, but with large amounts of dollars in the pot, they often are mathematically good investments and should be persued. Thus you are sucked in and at the mercy of luck. This happens to everyone, good players included. Thus if you are one of the more SKILLFUL players, it is usually not desirable to encourage that situation by “pumping up the pot” and getting it capped, since your SKILL will be less consequential and you will be more dependent on LUCK to win. Thus, since skillful tactics are more successful against fewer players in small to medium pot situations, skillful players get much of their edge in these situations and hence should emphasize these situations.

Many players intuitively feel that the way to win is to sit back and wait for that one big pot. And many are still waiting. Good players should realize that anyone can win in Omaha when they are dealt winning cards. The real skill is to handle the marginal cards correctly. Raising before-the-flop strategy has a direct bearing on what probably is the good player’s SECOND BIGGEST EDGE in Omaha over the less skillful players, namely, the capability to skillfully win pots that are up for grabs with skillful bets and raises. Of course, your biggest edge in Omaha is simply “knowing when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em”, especially before and just after the flop.