Suited cards in Omaha holdem poker
How important is it in Omaha holdem poker rules to have suited cards? Some players think that if they have cards for a flush without drawing, suited cards lead only to trouble. Let’s for example consider such deal:
| Your hand | Flop |
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To a holdem player such combination of a flush draw with four top cards may seem quite impressive, but an Omaha player sees the perspectives of this hand far from being very good. The possibility of someone’s having a big flush draw is too high and you are going to need luck in the form of a pair to win the pot. However it is wrong to think that suited cards, not being from a monster combination, are not valuable in Omaha.
Though you would not like to play with a small flush draw itself, there are many options of playing on it together with other reasons, stay in the pot and fight for it.
Flush and flop example:
| Your hand | Flop A | Flop B |
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Flop A gives you: two high pairs, a gutshot straight and a flush draw from a queen. Flop B gives you: a high pair, an open-ended straight and a flush draw in addition to it.
The given example illustrates one Omaha’s feature – the possibility of combining with the flop in different ways! It is advisable to create an open-ended hand. It’s difficult to discount a hand, which can attack in several ways, and to resist which one is going to need two or more opponents.
In a pot-limit game open-ended hands are especially valuable, because they have better chances to reduce a number of opponents. If you have an open-ended hand drawing to a monster hand, you should put all your efforts to reducing opponents. If you have only one opponent, it is possible that he has a pat hand and you have a “live” flush draw hand and a lot of single cards.
The necessity of suited cards in Omaha holdem poker rules is obvious even when you have middle cards in your hand. And especially if consider the great value of the hand, combining a flush draw with a straight draw or a pat hand or even both. In the case of one-on-one or three-handed game a 9-8-7-6 starting hand doubles its value if the cards are double-suited. In a pot limit game with such a hand you can even reraise. Such a move “narrows the clearing” and may force your opponents to come to the wrong conclusions, because they may think that you’ve got two aces.
After noticing such a skilful manoeuvre your opponents will never be able to play against you being completely sure about knowing your cards when you raise a bet in preflop.
