Best Pre-Flop Starting Hands
The pre-flop best hands are pretty easily determined, however, Omaha being the post flop game that it is, makes the “best hands” always changing. So, keep in mind that the best starting hands in Omaha should still try to see a flop first. We’ll take a look into a couple classifications of hands and break it down to make it understandable.
The first set is known as the premium hands. Which include high pairs such as AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010, and high suited cards with aces such as AK, AQ, AJ, A10 (suited of course). Also, there’s another set referred to as a premium hand. These hands have an ace in them and they are typically suited connected cards. The reason for this is because these hands have the best chance for scooping the whole pot from the high end and the low end. An example would be if you were holding Ah-2d-4h-Jd Ace and one other suited and the flop comes 3d-5h-9h. This setup protects you if a 2 comes on the turn or river causing an Ah-2d to no longer be the nut low (since they are community cards) and an Ah-4h becomes the best hand. However, a bare A-2 or A-3 with no help from other cards should be played very cautiously. Only play that set from a late position because these hands can cause you to get quartered.
Other strong hands include high paired cares that are double suited. There are several of them here A-A-K-K (double suited), A-A-J-T (double suited), A-A-Q-Q (double suited), A-A-J-J (double suited), A-A-T-T (double suited), A-A-9-9 (double suited), A-A-x-x (double suited), J-T-9-8 (double suited) including any hand that has cards that are four in a row and are higher than six and double suited (like K-Q-J-T and 6-7-8-9). Those are the top of the line hands. However always remember the golden rule the goal is to have the hand with the most options to hit the nuts under any circumstance.
With that being said, it makes the biggest key card in Omaha when having a starting hand the ace. This is because the ace can go either way to make the high or low, and it’s the nut card in both cases for straights and flushes.