No-Limit Omaha High-Low

I recently played no-limit Omaha high-low for the first time in the final stages of an Omaha high-low tournament aboard a cruise ship (see my column in the May 25, 2001, issue). Furthermore, I actually liked it!

Although I have played a lot of pot-limit Omaha high (in both U.S. and European environments), I have always believed that pot-limit or no-limit Omaha high-low must be a crapshoot. Quite the contrary. No-limit Omaha high-low is not much worse than no-limit hold'em in regard to the game being a crapshoot.

The following hand taught me an interesting principle that applies when winning three-quarters of the pot is reasonably likely. In the big blind ($200), I pick up the A 4, and an 8 and a jack. I am currently the chip leader at my table with about $10,000. The next-highest player (with about $9,000), who had been raising before the flop frequently, makes it $400 to go. I am the only caller, defending my blind.

The flop comes 7-6-3 offsuit with one diamond. He bets $400, and I call with my second-nut low. This opponent has a tendency to make small bets.

The turn card is the 10. He bets another $400, and I call.

The river card is the 9 – giving me the nut high! He bets $500, and has about $7,000 left. How much should I raise?

With this particular opponent, it is difficult to judge whether he is betting slow out of habit or baiting me with a great hand. But since I rate to get at least half the pot (at worst, I would get quartered if he had exactly A-2-8-J), this now becomes a problem of extraction – how much to raise – given that I would like to get called!

Since he had committed only $1,700 to the pot at that point, he might well fold if I pushed in my stack. But I did not want to bait him with a small raise, since I probably would not get reraised (unless he had half the pot locked with an A-2). So, the question was, what did he most likely have and how much would he be willing to call?

Since he raised before the flop into traffic, he probably had an ace (almost all Omaha high-low raising hands have an ace). If he also had a deuce, nothing mattered since we would split. But if he had an 8-X (making a lower straight) or a 5-4 without an ace, he might call anything.

I finally chose to raise him a tempting $2,000, which is about what I might raise if I was bluffing (enough to fold a medium or bad hand, but not a disaster if I ran into a lock). He thought about it for a while, then called with his A-3-3-4 (a set and an A-4 low). So, I ended up winning three-quarters of the pot, or a net win of about $2,000.

It was then that I noted in retrospect that if I had foreseen the possibility of winning three-quarters of the pot, I had not bet enough! If I had bet more – for example, $3,000 – I would have netted more if he called, but if he folded, I would have won about the same $2,000 (that is, the whole pot – the $1,700 and the blinds). Otherwise put, his calling my $2,000 bet cost him very little.

Thus, in no-limit Omaha high-low, when both your high and low holdings can be tied, winning three-quarters of the pot is a foreseeably likely result. In such a situation, you should raise an adequate enough amount such that three-quarters of the pot, if called, would net you considerably more than the whole pot if folded.