Omaha 8’s a nutty game. Put another way, “Omaha is about having the nuts.”

It sure is. If the fish think small pocket pairs are surefire winning Hold ‘Em hands, then surely A2 is the Omaha 8 equivalent. This makes for some really amusing outcomes:

[ 8h, Kc, 7h ] [ 4d ] Betting is Capped! [ 3s ]
Low #1 bet $6.5, collected $5.46, lost -$1.04
Low #2 bet $6.5, collected $4.89, lost -$1.61
High bet $5.8, collected $9.2, net +$3.4

[ 4c Ad 7h ] [ 5c ] [ Kd ] Betting is Capped!
Low #1 bet $6, collected $5.47, lost -$0.53
Low #2 bet $4.38, collected $3.84, lost -$0.54
High bet $6, collected $9.32, net +$3.32

If you’ll notice, people like to cap with the nut low. They throw in all their chips so they can lose half a bet.

Here’s a tip:

If you’ve got the nuts, but it’s a hand that can be counterfeited (especially the nut low, but sometimes the nut straight, etc.), you want as many people contributing to the pot as possible.

Both the examples above are cases in which the people were involved in a three-way pot with one high hand and two lows. The high hand contributed one-third and took one-half the pot. The low hands contributed one-third and took one-quarter of the pot. Actually, less because of the rake.

You would need four people in the pot to break even, but I’ve also seen low pots split 3 ways, and who the hell wants to risk his chips just to break even? If you just check-call with the nut low, you might get someone with the second nut low to stay in and ease the pain of chopping. You’re not likely to cause the high hand or the other nut lows to fold, so raising is -EV.

But that’s a terrible situation to be in. You really want to scoop the pot. So stick to hands that can win the high and the low and have draws to the nut straight, flush, or boat. That said, I saw a lot of flops today. 😉 My highs were profitable, my lows were break-even, and some outcomes surprised me entirely:

1. I folded to a bet on the turn with a pair on the board. He had AJ and took the high. My AK would have been good.

2. I ended up with the best low while the other two split the high. When I saw half the pot coming my way, I thought my trip sevens had held up!

3. I called down a guy who check-raised the turn when I had a boat (hey, this is Omaha, he might have had the better boat). He just had trips and spiked the second best boat on the river!

Anyway, my first foray into Party Omaha 8 was interesting. I managed to more than double my buy-in, which is a lot more than I can say about my recent Hold ‘Em sessions.