Omaha Hi/Lo

Now granted poker odds aren’t the only consideration while playing, however, they can give you a good judgment in a situation game such as this. As you learn how to calculate your odds you should also use an odds calculator to make sure you’re doing it correctly. There would be nothing worse than miscalculating and losing a good chunk of your chips because of it. Since Omaha Hi-Lo is such a situational game we’re going to look at post odd flops.  I’m assuming you’ve read my beginners guide to Omaha Hi-Lo, or you have a good grasp on hands pre-flop that you should and shouldn’t play. When it comes to pre-flop raising knowing the strength of your hand is the best thing you can have on your side.

We’ll first look at how to calculate your odds of hitting your hand. Let’s say that you’ve been dealt Ac-Ks-4s-4d. Let’s also say that the flop comes and hits as 4h-Js-10s. So you have a set of 4’s which isn’t a whole lot to go with, however, you’ve got a gut shot straight draw and the second nut flush draw. You even have the possibility of hitting a full house. So next we now need to look at how many cards can help your hand.

If the final four comes you’d get 4 of a kind. They may only be fours but a 4 of a kind in general is usually a winner. There’s also any queen can give you a straight so there’s 4 outs there. You also have the chance of the board pairing for your full house. Granted there’s some risk of someone having a higher full house with another J or T, so that’s 6 more outs. (Just pay attention to bidding in these instances.) Any spade that would materialize will give you the second nut flush, which is another 9 outs. (13 total spades minus the 2 in your hand and the 2 on the board is where the 9 comes from.) Same thing here with the full house since you have only the second nut flush watch the betting and judge it. So you have 1+4+6+9=20 outs. In any poker game especially Omaha this is a pretty strong hand because if you take your outs 20 divided by 45 (total remaining cards after the flop) 20/45 = .4444 which when you change it to a percent by moving the decimal to the right 2 spaces is 44.44%. That’s pretty good odds if you ask me. Obviously not all hands are going to have such good odds however, if you can get your outs above 10 the hand should be worth playing strong.

Calculating pot odds are a little more complicated for players however; if you understand how to calculate your odds from above this shouldn’t be too hard. Let’s use the same example from above. So your hole is Ac-Ks-4s-4d and the board shows 4h-Js-10s. So all of the sudden someone bets money and you’re trying to decide if you should call or fold. With 45 cards that are not known and you have 20 outs. So with only 25 cards that are of no use to you your odds are 25 to 20. So your pot odds are 1.25 to 1 meaning that you should call any bet if the pot is 1¼ or larger than the bet. (These pot odds are extremely high as well.) So back to your opponent betting, if his bet is $20 the pot should contain at least $25 for you to call. (In this scenario, it most likely will if he’s betting that amount because that means the pot would only have to have $5 already in it.)  On another note if you end up with pot odds of 2.7 to 1 than you should just round it up to 3 to 1 to make the math easier. Meaning if his bet is $20 you should only call it if the pot is $60 or more.

As you will guess though in Omaha Hi-Lo there is a huge catch. If you are trying to win either the high or low hand and the possibility exists on the board for there to be another winner, than you should double your odds to make sure you’re not short changing yourself. That means if your pot odds are 3 to 1 and someone bets $20 instead of looking for it to be $60 in the pot double it if there’s a chance for another winner to $120. Take this into account when calculating your pot odds in Omaha Hi-Lo.