Case Study 5
Category: Poker
In a game of Omaha hi/lo you find yourself with a very strong hand of (As,Ac,2s,3c). As anyone who knows about hi/lo Omaha can tell you, this is a dream starting hand, but if a player in early position raises the pot, how should you respond?
Some people might feel that the most obvious response is to reraise. This would have the effect of narrowing the pot down from potentially four or five players, to perhaps two or three. In many pocker variants you would say that this is favourable to prevent you being outdrawn quite so often, but in omaha hi/lo, I would offer a different opinion.
Consider the fact that many combinations of three low cards hitting the board will give you the nut low hand. In this situation, would you rather be splitting two players chips? Or four players chips? If you flat call preflop, you allow more players into the pot, but with a hand where you have a very strong chance of taking at least half the pot, and so it is worth allowing extra players in. If you reraise and push players out, you end up splitting a pot to get only your own investment back and you make no progress. Although there is extra risk involved, I think the extra chips you will probably be stacking up make it worthwhile.
Also remember that three clubs or spades arriving on an unpaired board will almost certainly win you the high half of the pot outright too, and in that case again, the more players in the pot, the better.