Drawing hands in Omaha
Introduction
This article explains:
- The different types of draws in Omaha
- Straight draws, flush draws, sets as draws and combo draws
The following article will explain the different types of drawing hands in Pot Limit Omaha. Further explanations on how to play in these situations, including bet sizing and optimal lines can be found in the other articles, such as flop, turn and river play. This one will simply help you assess the strength of your drawing hands in given situations.
Basically, in contrast with Hold'em, all your draws should be to the nuts in Omaha. In most cases it is incorrect to invest money to only make the second-best hand. Because of the increased number of cards in Omaha it is much more common to have the nuts, at least enough to make drawing to a non-nut hand unprofitable. These concepts will be explained in the following examples. It is recommended that you read the article "How to discount Outs in Pot Limit Omaha" to fully comprehend draws.
Straight draws
This is the weakest of all straight draws, with only 4 outs to improve.
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Any of the four remaining 6's will give you the nut straight: 9-8-7-6-5.
It is almost never profitable to play this draw in Pot Limit Omaha, unless you get a free card.
A pure OESD is the first playable draw, as long as all of its outs are to the nuts. There is no difference between this and an OESD in Hold'em, you also have 8 outs to the nut straight.
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Every 9 and 4 on the turn will give you the nut straight: 9-8-7-6-5 or 8-7-6-5-4.
This is playable in multi-way pots on rainbow flops as long as you get good odds. You must consider, however, that implied odds in Omaha are significantly lower than in Hold'em, and that there is the disadvantage that in many cases, there will be other stronger straight draws that can be freerolling against an OESD. This takes away a lot of the value of an open-ended straight draw.
A wrap is a pure straight draw with more than 8 outs. There are many different forms that can have up to 20 outs. Here are a few of them:
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Every remaining J, T, 9, 6 gives you the nut straight: J-T-9-8-7 or T-9-8-7-6.
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You have 11 nut straight outs
- 4* Q for Q-J-T-9-8
- 4* 6 for T-9-8-7-6
- 3* 7 for J-T-9-8-7
6 outs to the second nuts: Every J and 9 give you the second nut straight J-T-9-8-7.
With this straight draw you have the following equity on the flop against top set (e.g. AKTT):
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Equity-table
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- Every 3 gives the nut straight 7-6-5-4-3 -> 4 Outs
- Every 4 gives the nut straight 8-7-6-5-4. -> 3 Outs
- Every 5 gives the nut straight 9-8-7-6-5 -> 3 Outs
- Every 8 gives the straight 9-8-7-6-5 -> 3 Outs
- Every 9 gives the straight 9-8-7-6-5 -> 3 Outs
- Every T gives the nut straight T-9-8-7-6 -> 4 Outs
You hold a total of 20 outs, 14 of which are to the nuts. You have an equity of over 52% against top set, e.g A
A
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7. Against two overpairs, like A A K Kyou have over 67% equity, making you a clear favorite to win the hand.
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An important factor with wraps is preflop hand selection. Let's take for example the following two hands:
Hand 1:
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Hand 2:
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Hand 1 will make a straight with any J, 9, 7, and 6, but only the 6 will give the nut straight. This is a total of 13 outs.
Hand 2 makes a straight with every Q, J, 9, and 7. All of these 13 outs bring the nuts.
Both of these hands have a wrap and backdoor flush draw. Here are their winning chances against each other, and against top set:
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While the smaller wrap has relatively good equity against top set - even slightly better than the bigger wrap - it is so dominated when pitched against the other draw that it becomes unprofitable to play. Hence it is extremely important to select hands preflop that have the gap at the lower end, which means they will hit draws to the nuts. For example, 876_4 is a much stronger starting hand than 8_654.
There are many different configurations allowing wraps that will not be covered here. You will often face them, and must evaluate whether they can be played profitably. In almost every case, it is profitable to play such a hand raise/call on the flop as long as there are no outs to discount. This is explained further in the article "How to discount outs in Omaha".
Flush draws
While straight draws are much stronger in Omaha than in Hold'em, the opposite is true with flush draws. This is because, for one thing, they have almost no implied odds, but also because flush-over-flush situations are so common that one should only draw to the nuts. Flush draws become interesting when they are combined with good straight draws and made hands like top two pair or sets. The main problem with bare flush draws is that one has no re-draws to a better hand. If you have the smaller flush, you are drawing dead.
Additionally, you must consider that flush draws hit more often in Omaha than in Hold'em. This is because there are already 7 known cards by the flop, of which 4 need to be of the same suit. There are then 45 cards left of which 9 bring the flush, as opposed to hold'em where there are still 47 unknown cards in the deck.
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You have the nut flush draw with 8 clean outs to the nuts (every spade except the Qs). This hand has very high value multi-way, especially because you do not have the K or Q of spades. This means that an opponent with the second or third nut flush will probably overplay it. A nut flush draw with A K T9 would be significantly weaker here, since no-one is drawing to the second nuts.
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You have a bare J-high flush draw. If you hit your flush on the turn and someone bets, you will not know whether you have the best hand or whether you are drawing dead. Very often you will not get a single bet out of a worse hand. This draw also has very high reverse implied odds and almost no implied odds. Investing any money with this hand would be a mistake.
Very often, one can have a small flush draw along with a made hand. Lets take for example the following situation:
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You hold the best possible hand at the moment, but will often get action from over pairs+flush draws. In these cases, your equity will be:
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Let's modify our hand a little, so that we have, besides top set, a small flush draw, which means two of our opponent's outs will be blocked. As you can see, our equity improves quite significantly:
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You gain almost 6% equity through these blocking cards that your opponent cannot use. While it is almost always a big mistake to play non-nut flush draws, it is also important to play suited hands, since they make made hands even stronger.
Sets as draws
In some situations, sets are not the best hand, if for example there are possible straights on the board, or if it is 3-suited. This means that top set should often be played as a draw, either aggressively in order to fold small straights or flushes, or passively according to odds and outs.
Top set always has 6 outs to the nut full house and 1 out to quads on the flop. On the turn, it picks up an additional 3 outs, if it didn't hit. Its equity is similar to a bare nut flush draw or OESD from the previous examples.
It is especially interesting to play top set as a draw in a multi-way pot, since it is the strongest draw. Let's take the following example:
You see the flop 4-handed:
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You hold nothing but a bare top set. You are on the button and SB donk-bets potsize on the flop. BB raises potsize, UTG calls the raise, you overcall and end up in a 4-way all-in. SB and BB have flopped the nut straight, while UTG holds A865 for the nut flush draw with a gutshot. With your full house draw, you the following equity:
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As you can see, you have very high positive expected value with a 4-way flop all-in. Even against 2 opponents it is very profitable to play top set all-in:
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Thus sets can also be very powerful drawing hands in Pot Limit Omaha, even when stronger made hands are likely. It is preferable to have a board with a possible straight, as 3-suited boards will likely only commit the nut flush all-in.
It is important to remember however, that only top set should be played all-in. Indeed, in case you go all-in with second set, you could be up against top set in addition to a straight, and therefore be drawing to only one out.
Combo draws
Another common drawing hand in Omaha is a combination of draws, e.g. a wrap with a flushdraw or a set with flushdraw on a straight-board. Most are already shown in the above examples, but the following will show some draws that are favorite against a made hand.
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Opponent's Hand:
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Even though your opponent has the nut straight as well as two of your full house outs, you still have outs to a full house, flush and gutshot for a higher straight, making you a clear favorite to win the hand.
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Opponent's Hand:
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Your opponent has one of your straight outs with the A and has the strongest redraw to a full house with his set. However you are a favorite to win the hand with the wrap + flush draw. In case a blank falls on the turn, e.g. the 3c, you still have an equity of 55%:
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Opponent's Hand:
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Equity-table
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The final two examples should demonstrate how powerful draws are in Omaha, in some cases being stronger than made hands, where they should be played all-in when possible. Strong draws are very profitable and should be played fast and strong, as they are among the most profitable hands in Pot Limit Omaha.
Conclusion
Due to the increased number of hole cards in Omaha, there are a lot more possible combinations than in Texas Hold'em. This means that there are many different draws, which can go from a simple gutshot straight draw to a 25-outer combo-draw, and as many different ways of playing them. For more information on how to play draws, please follow the links below.
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