Good poker players try to avoid “fishing in”, that is, calling (”chasing”) with inferior cards. Calling is often perceived as reluctantly fishing along, wasting money, contributing to a bettor who is driving a winning hand. Some offensive purists subscribe to the theory that calling is unsound, and that if a hand is good enough to call, it should be good enough to raise. Most of us agree that there is at least a grain of truth in that statement. But this purist mentality fails in Omaha! In Omaha, the infamous last card changes the winner more frequently than in any other form of poker! Therefore, in Omaha, it is simply not that bad to be a chaser. In Omaha the essence of the game is to correctly evaluate the potential of your four cards with the flop and thus determine what, if any, further investment is justified by the percentages. There are many hands where it is simply best to call.

Most come hands are natural calling hands (although good tactics frequently require betting or raising). Certainly we all like drawing to four card “nut” flushes (ie. the “nut” flush draw would be to the ace or highest card not on the board), or drawing to open ended (”two way”) or multi-way straights. But where do you draw the line with come hands? What constitutes a sound percentage investment as opposed to an against-the-odds bad call, that is, fishing in? The answer is, of course, it all depends. The two main factors are your winning percentages (how much you have to invest compared to your expected value) and the likelihood of raises (which is very dependent on position).

One of the more frequently asked questions is whether or not it is correct (percentagewise) to stay in to play for an inside (”gut”) straight. The answer is it is usually wrong, but, again, it all depends. Since the odds of making an inside straight on fourth street are about ten-to-one against (discussed in example below), it depends, first of all, on if there is enough money in the pot to get sufficient odds on your prospective investment. This also depends on the likelihood of the inside straight holding up to win the pot - if it is made. The presence of certain higher cards (that might “connect” for a higher straight) or two cards of the same suit seriously detract from your prospects. If there is a pair on board (full boat alert!), forget about straight comes! But absent the threat of higher hands (that is, pairs or suited cards in the flop), it depends mostly on the likelihood of raises. Note that one or more raises would quickly make drawing to the inside straight quite anti-percentage. And, of course, the likelihood of raises depends mostly on our old friend POSITION, that is, your position with respect to the button and the bettor.

Since these concepts are difficult to discuss in general, here is a typical example. You are playing in a ten-handed high Omaha game. Eight players call to see the flop, but no raises (yes, this is a nice loose game). You hold the king and eight of spades, and the queen and five of hearts. The flop comes up “young” with the two of hearts, the four of diamonds, and the six of clubs. In other words, your only real prospect is to turn a seven to make a winning (high-end) inside straight (DO NOT play hands with draw for low-end inside straight in Omaha). Since the remaining deck can consist of any of the forty-five unknown cards (52 minus your 4 and the flop 3), the odds of the top card being one of the four sevens is four divided by forty-five, or about one out of eleven (about nine percent), or about ten-to-one against. IF you are sitting in the LAST calling position and the pot has about ten times the amount of money that you are about to put in, a call is clearly a percentage winner. The additional money that you rate to win if you hit, more than offsets the possibility of losing on the last card (to a pair, backdoor flush, or higher straight).

But your view of the pot as seen from LAST calling position is tremendously different from your expectations in an early position. If you are sitting in first or second seat after the bettor, YOU SHOULD GENERALLY FOLD all inside straights (without other good prospects) because of the raise threat. Even just one raise makes your call anti-percentage, and one raise might well touch off a typical “capped” round after the flop. You do not like to find yourself in the middle of big betting with little cards! This is why it is right to take the early out - to avoid the situation where you get sucked in to protect your previous investments.

If you are sitting in a middle position or near last position, this is the marginal situation where judgement prevails. The two main factors are the proclivity of your left hand opponents toward raising and the type of flop. If you are (happily) seated with several non-frequent raisers behind you or have some other reason to judge that a raise is unlikely, you might risk a call. Note that in the example flop the two, four and six were off suit (which happens only about forty percent of the time). If two of the cards were suited, not only would that negate one of your four sevens and lessen your percentages, but it would substantially increase the likelihood of someone in back of you raising. But if it turned out to be an “inhibitory” raise (see Cappelletti on Omaha, page 33), this would greatly increase your chances of your getting a free look at fifth street - if no one else forces you out with a reraise. But all-in-all, playing for an inside straight is a marginal proposition at best. If you like rules, the rule should probably be, don’t fish in with inside straights unless you have other additional equities or unless you are in last or near last position.

With many hands in Omaha, there is frequently a thin dividing line between making a sound percentage investment and foolishly fishing in. Most frequently the difference is your “position plus”, namely, your position plus the various other equities (some mentioned above) that affect your dollar expectations from any given pot. Tactics and personalities also enter into the calculations. For example, flopping the high and low two pair is another marginal CALLING hand, but especially if the high pair is aces or kings, many of us think you can win in the long run IF you can make an EARLY tactical raise (similar to with the two high pair).

As we noted earlier, in many forms of poker, the offensive theory is essentially, “bettors win - callers lose”. High Omaha has opened up some new frontiers for callers. How about, “good investors, mathematicians and psychologists win - bad ones lose”.