Pot Limit Omaha Tournament Strategy

"Pot Limit Omaha" is the second most popular form of poker after Texas Holdem. The two games are similar to one another but the strategy for them is completely different. Omaha tournaments require a unique skill set so you'll find quite a few inexperienced opponents. If you learn the proper strategy and practice often, there is a lot of easy money to be made in Pot Limit Omaha Tournaments.

With all the weak, loose play in pot limit Omaha tournaments, you'll want to implement a tight, straightforward strategy. There's no point in bluffing or tricky play because you'll get lots of calls. Remember that with four hole cards, each player in the pot has six different combinations of cards.

Bluffing in Pot Limit Omaha Tournaments

It's difficult enough to pull of bluffs in Omaha cash games but it's even harder during tournaments. Bluffing is usually a bad idea in Pot Limit Omaha tournaments because there are so many hands out there that are either already strong or have strong draws. Bluffing in Omaha tournaments is usually a waste of chips.

Instead of bluffing and stealing to get chips, you're going to have to play a smarter game than your opponents. Most of the big pots you win will come from opponents who have strong but second-best hands. It takes practice to find the right times to get your chips in but you'll usually want to have something very close to the absolute nuts before getting your chips in the middle.

As the blinds get bigger, however, you're going to have to make the occasional well-timed steal to stay afloat. During the early stages of a tournament, you should pay close attention to your opponents so that you'll know who's tight and who's loose. When the blinds get bigger, you'll know who to steal from.

Early Stage PLO Tournament Strategy

During the early stages of a Pot Limit Omaha tournament, you'll need to play a tight, straightforward game like we discussed earlier. Lots of players like to play a lot of hands and try to get lucky since the blinds are small but that is actually a losing strategy.

Play a normal, tight preflop game and stick with strong starting hands during the early stages. If you start playing lots of marginal hands, you'll get yourself in trouble with hands that are still marginal after the flop.

Let your loose opponents play lots of hands and get themselves in trouble instead. If you just play a normal game, wait for strong hands and bet them, you'll still get plenty of calls from your opponents. This is the easiest part of the tournament if you have a little patience.

Pot Limit Omaha Tournament Strategy - Middle Stages

As the blinds get bigger towards the middle stages of an Omaha tournament, the players with small and medium stacks will start feeling more pressure. Every pot will be quite a bit bigger so you'll start to see more all-in bets both before the flop and after the flop.

At this point you're going to have to walk a very careful line between playing tight and stealing as many pots as you can. The blinds are now big enough that they are worth stealing but you're going to have to be extremely careful when choosing who to steal from.

Hand values in omaha poker run closely together so there are not many hands that are major favorites over other hands. In Texas Holdem, you can get it all-in with hands that are 80% favorites but that is not the case in Omaha.

Your best bet in collecting chips during this stage is to pick on the tight, medium stacked opponents who are just trying to fold their way in to the money. What you don't want to do is be the person making big calls. It's always better to be the one pushing all in than it is to be the one making the call.

Omaha Tournament Strategy - Late Stages

The late stage of an Omaha tournament begins during the bubble and lasts until the end of the tournament. Right before everyone makes it to the money, you'll notice the play tighten up considerably as all the small and medium stacks fold hand after hand in the hopes of outlasting just a few more opponents.

This is the best time for you to increase your chip count by stealing blinds. Your opponents will be sitting their guarding their stacks while you go out and take their blinds. You'll still have to pick your spots carefully because some of the more desperate players will know they are probably not major underdogs against whatever hands you are raising with.

If you're lucky enough to make it to the final heads-up battle, the key to winning is aggression. Raise from the small blind as often as you can get away with and whittle your opponent's chip stack away bit by bit. If you get short stacked during heads-up play, just start pushing all in with every semi-decent hand you get. You'll never be much worse off than a coin flip if you get called.  Visit our online poker strategy guide for more information