Slow Play In Omaha High

One of the most common mistakes beginners make in Omaha High is overplaying pocket aces in deep stack situations. When it is a low stack game and you can get a large amount of chips in the middle preflop, it makes sense to make a pot size bet with pocket aces.

Now I'll show you a perfect example of how you can maximize your win with pocket aces in Omaha High.

The game is $2/$4 Omaha High with 6 players. The cutoff player makes a min raise to $8 (his stack size is $801.70) and I sit in the hijack with AsQhAc7h and a $348.80 stack behind me. There are two more players after me. A pot size raise would not involve a large amount of my chips preflop and my pair of aces does not have the best connecting cards. I decide to make the $8 call and wait for what the other players do. The cutoff calls but the blinds fold. The pot is $30 and the three of us are still in action.

A draw heavy combination of cards hit the board: 3cAd6c. The original bettor bets two-thirds of the pot, $20. I reraise to $90 and the player in the cutoff folds.

This is when my preflop play can pay out very well since I did not show any sign of strength preflop. Therefore my opponent is not likely to put me on a set of aces. The conclusion is that he might reraise with two pairs or a small set. If the board were 3cAd8h then my opponent could be more suspicious because there are not many draws on the board and a set of aces has a higher probability. On the other side the 3cAd6c board gives so many draws that someone with two pairs or a small set might think of being ahead.

My opponent reraises to $300, I push all-in and he makes the call. He turns up Ah7c6d8h. This is the best possibility that I could have imagined! He has no straight or flush draw. As I hoped he only has two pairs and he put me on a draw because of my passive preflop play. He only has a backdoor straight draw or runner-runner sixes and no other possibilities. The turn card is the Jd and it already wins the hand for me. The river card (9d) is irrelevant and I win a $711.60 pot.