The Enigma of Split-Pot Poker Games: Aggression

When most players think of split-pot poker games like Omaha 8 or better, or Stud 8, they often think of loose/passive games where poor players back into half the pot, leaving solid, good, players with little profit potential.

While the first part of the previous statement is certainly true -poor players are often rewarded with half the pot for chasing-the latter part is also inarguably false -split-pot games can reap windfalls of profit, if you know what you are doing!

The first thing you need to understand is that Omaha 8 games differ greatly from Texas Holdem games. In Texas Holdem sheer aggression can often win the day, but this is not the case in Omaha 8. In Omaha 8 you have to hit the flop HARD in order to become aggressive. Let me give you two reasons why sheer aggression doesn’t work in Omaha 8:

• Most of the time you actually want more players in the pot

In Texas Holdem the majority of hands end without a showdown, but this is not the case in a typical Omaha 8 game. To win money in Omaha 8 you need to have a good hand at showdown, your value comes from holding a nut-hand and being called by lesser hands. Because of this, most of the time you will be trying to pull more players into the pot, not push them out.

The only time you want to be aggressive in a loose Omaha 8 game is when you can raise for value after other players have already committed chips to the pot.

• ½ the pot is not ½ the money

This is a tricky concept to understand, but it has to do with looking at overall profit, instead of the actual size of the pot, and it greatly affects your pot odd calculations. Suppose you are playing in a $10/$20 Omaha 8 game, and three players have each contributed $100 to the pot from start to finish. You have the lock-low, which wins you half the pot, but how much did you really win? In this scenario you risked $100 to win $50, or 2.5 Big Bets; you’re not exactly going to become a world beater winning these types of pots!

The trick to being a successful Omaha 8 player is to understand your true pot odds when you are drawing to ½ the pot. Often times it is correct to fold a low draw with no backup, or the nut-flush draw, when the pot is short-handed and a raising war breaks out. Not only do you have to worry about your low being quartered or counterfeited on the river, but you are risking quite a bit for a very minimal gain.

It gets even worse if one of the players drops on the flop or the turn, leaving you heads-up trying to fade a counterfeiting card! Think about this scenario: Four players see the flop for $10 each, you flop the nut low with no high potential -figure the board is 3-suited, and you and another player are the only players to see the turn. Obviously your opponent will keep betting his nut-flush, and you have to worry about being counterfeited so you can’t drive the betting -not that you would want to anyway. In this case, by the river you will have risked $60 or so to win $10! Oh yeah, minus the $3-$5 in rake to boot!