Tips For PLO Tournaments
PLO tournaments are fun to play and offer a great EV (expectation value) for players with some basic skills in PLO games. We recommend reading our article on pot limit Omaha cash game strategy.
If you decided to play for instance $10 tournament then you can expect half of the field to be less skilled then average in tournaments of any kind. Players will just try it out because of boredom or because they want to learn the game. This gives you a great chance to progress up the ladder in the tournament and make some decent cash. This poker strategy article was written by someone who plays in Omaha tournaments every day.
The most important thing in PLO tournaments is hand selection. Unfortunately for them a lot of players treat PLO tournaments like Texas HoldEm tournaments and play any pair or any form of aces regardless of the rest of the cards. This is something you can use against them as they will be unable to let these pairs go after the flop even if another ace has not hit the flop. I'm more of a no limit Holdem player myself but I really like PLO.
To find these players it is commonly very handy to just look at pre flop action. Texas players are more inclined to raise pre flop then Omaha players. This is a good giveaway of a HoldEm player at the table.
Once you know these players it is very well possible to isolate them in a hand when you are holding a perfect Omaha drawing hand. These hands are normally 7-8-9-10 or hands with suited connecting aces like Ad-Ac-Kd-Qc.
Of course you don't get these hands dealt frequently, but when you do it is vital to make sure you get paid if you hit the board with them. This means a raise pre-flop of at least half the pot and hoping for 2 or 3 callers. Even if you don't hit the board hard enough to be sure of the win there is still a good chance you might have the best drawing hand. The problems will only start in these cases when the board is paired. This makes it much harder to know your position in the hand as the other players could well be playing hands like 2-4-6-6 and hit for instance their 6 with a paired board. Personally I shy away from continuation bets or too much commitment when the board has paired no matter how nice the draw looks because of the cards on the board.
Depending on your stack size you can make bets pre flop to portrait a high pocket pair or to show strength in the drawing hand. The flexibility of hands is much greater then in a Texas Holdem tournament as there are many suited and/or connected cards that make a play worthwhile.
In HoldEm events there are in general 7 or so hands worth raising with (AA,KK,QQ,JJ,AK,AQ +?)
In Omaha this goes up to more then 30 hands that merit an instant raise. Never mind hands that are “playable” and “excusable” if raised with.
This makes it a lot harder to “put” players on hands. Guess why PLO tournaments and cash games also become more and more popular. The fact that mathematics and skill are becoming more and prevalent in Omaha tournaments makes it more and more the choice of the players. The boredom factor in HoldEm plays a big part in this rise of PLO Tournaments online and also in brick and mortar casino’s.
In the first 3 or 4 rounds of the blinds you will find that players are willing to gamble all their chips on a second best draw or with an inferior hand all together. Because PLO is a game of mathematics you can work out for yourself if you want to put your chips in at this stage with the best hand. Do they have enough draws to convince you of folding? or do you have enough draws to make it worth gambling at this early stage in the tournament? The benefit of doubling up in these tournaments is obvious. You will get more chances of relaxing and waiting for premium Omaha hands and you will also be able to exert pressure on the smaller stacks right from the beginning.
the other positive thing is that if you loose the hand you will actually have time to spend with the family. This is also an added bonus if you have one of course. Otherwise.. Buckle up and start the next one.