Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha: Small Ball and Short-Handed Play

For those of you that found Jeff Hwang’s Pot-Limit Omaha Poker, was their PLO bible, now the man has brought out a follow up covering more advanced principles of this brilliant game. In his first book Hwang  covered the how to get the most from your big drawing hands, in this book he goes into such topics as using your positional advantage, stack-to-pot ratio and a host of advanced skills. This book is not for the new Omaha player, but if you are comfortable with the concepts in Jeff’s earlier book, this will take your Omaha play to a new level.

This book will explain how to incorporate advanced bluffing techniques into your play, and how to use these techniques together with your positional advantage to force weaker players out of the pot. 

The book uses over 200 hand examples and walk throughs to clearly demonstrate the strategies and advanced concepts that are tackled in it’s pages. We will have a full review coming soon on our Omaha Books Review Page.  

Click Here to Buy Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha: Small Ball and Short-Handed Play

We have stated before that if you are holding a top pair (A-A, K-K, Q-Q) preflop your hand will be stronger if your other two cards connect with your pair in some way. If your aces or kings do not improve on the flop, they are big underdogs to take the pot, so your pairs really do need some sort of back up with the other cards you are holding.

Any pair that you are dealt in PLO  really does  need some kind of connection with the other cards you are holding, because even if you hit a set on the flop, any overcard could give an opponent a higher set, so that means you are have just one out in the whole of the remaining deck and that is not a very good position to be in. You really need to be very cautious if you decide to play any pair lower than a nine, as you are always going to be vulnerable to any overcards that hit the board and any connected cards on the flop means that you could also be up against flush or straight draws as well.

It is in situations like these that you really need to be able to read the board and get an  idea about what sort of hands you could be up against. It can be so hard to fold a flopped set to a a big raise. If you are holding 2-6-8-8 and the flop comes K-J-8, if your opponent makes a pot sized raise he could be holding a pair of either kings or jacks, the best you can hope for is that he is holding two pairs, even then they could hit a full house.  Any opponents that have connected cards like Q-K-A-X  means that your set is very vulnerable to straight or flush draws.

If you want to fine tune your Pot-Limit Omaha skills and sit on the rail as the pros play the High Stakes tables, go to Full Tilt Poker.

The durrrr challenge has been on the back burner for the last few weeks due to the WSOP. But it appears Tom Dwan has already set up a new challenge, this time to be played live in London. This September Tom Dwan will be playing a series of  $500,000 heads up challenges against four different opponents.

The matches will be played over 500 hands and the opponents will have the choice of either pot-limit Omaha or no-limit holdem, with a buy -in of  $500,000 and blinds of $500/$1000. The event will be produced by Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Sport  television production company.

If you look down at your four hole cards and see you are holding four  connected cards, you have the potential to make a very good winning hand in the pot-limit Omaha, especially if your cards are suited as you will have the chance of hitting a flush when the community cards are shown. Not having suited cards will weaken any straight draws or wraps you may have, because as soon as there are more than one card of the same suit on the flop your hand is going to be the underdog to take the pot.  

If you have four connected high cards such as 10-J-Q-K, or 9-10-J-Q, these hands should be played strongly before the flop, even more so if you have position.  Hands like these are going to give you chances of hitting a nut straight or nut flush. With a good flop you could could be holding a hand that will have more outs to help you hit a winning hand.

If you are holding a strong hand like 10-J-Q-K double suited, it is worth making a small raise that will not drive your opponents out of the hand and it will help build the pot, also if one of your opponents is holding A-A-x-x, they will not be able to reraise too much before the flop.

Lower connected cards whether they are double suited or not, are really only best played if you are able to get a good read on the range of starting hands your opponents will see the flop with. A lower wrap like 3s-4s-5d-6d may look like a good starting cards that will give you a chance to hit a number of straights or flushes, but a flop like 7-8-9 will certainly give an opponent a chance of a higher straight. In PLO you need to be able to make the best hand possible, or the high end of the straight or flush.

Tom Dwan was reportedly down over $4 million in the early part of the year, but his luck has definitely changed over the recent weeks, not only did he manage to overhaul Patrik Antonius’s $400k plus lead in the durrrr challenge, then he managed to turn his  cash game losses into a profit of over $1,5 million for the year so far.

 The session at the end of June saw him take on Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies at the $500/$1000 PLO tables and Phil Ivey at $500/$1000 HA mixed game, half Omaha, half holdem. Dwan managed to take $700,000 off of  Sahamies at the PLO tables after playing for some huge pots. Phil Ivey managed to keep his losses against the in-form Dwan, down to just $90,000.

Matt Graham managed to overturn a 13:1 chip deficit to take the $10,000 World Championship of Pot-Limit Omaha title. Graham is no stranger to winning a WSOP bracelet the hard way, last year he fought his way back from being 8:1 behind to win the $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout. 

The final table included players such as, Barry Greenstein, Vitaly Lunkin, David Williams,  Josh Arieh and 2009 WSOP  $5,000 winner Richard Austin. Matt Graham held a small going into the final table and still had a small lead when he reached the heads-up stage against Vitaly Lunkin. A monster pot decimated Graham’s chipstack and all but handed the win to Lunkin. But Graham even though down to just $600,000,  would not give up without a fight and three double ups later, he had managed to regain the chiplead.

Thirty minutes after having his stack crippled, Matt Graham hit a set of tens that would seal the win. Lunkin took home $419,832 for his second place finish, while Graham collected the top prize of $679,379 and his second WSOP bracelet.

The $5,000 pot-limit Omaha tournament was decided on the third day when Richard Austin took the bracelet with a surprise double elimination in the last hand, knocking out both Cliff Josephy and Sorel Mizzi.

Day 1 started with 363 players starting the event, partly due to the elimination of rebuys from the 2009 WSOP. Among the players at the tables were Omaha specialists like Erik Seidel, Barry Greenstein, John Juanda and Erik Lindgren.

 Defending Champion  Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond would not be reclaiming his title, as he was busted on the first day. The final hand proved something of an anti-climax as Sore Mizzi, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy and Richard Austin were at the three handed stage. Mizzi and Josephy were both all-in on a flop of  Kc-9d-3c. Josephy had hit top set, but Austin holding Qh-Js-8c-5c, only needed a ten or a club to take pot and the tournament. The turn showed a harmless 8s, but the 7c on the river gave Austin his flush and the title.  At first the tournament director was about to award a split pot between Josephy and Mizzi, before realising that Austin had the better hand and was now the tournament winner. Austin collected $409,484 for the win and the WSOP gold bracelet.

Tom “durrrr” Dwan had managed to cut Patrik Antonius’s lead during the last challenge session, but last night he managed not just only to overturn the Finn’s lead, but to blast into an even bigger lead himself. The session lasted for an amazing fifteen hours and the pair managed to play over 4,500 hands and at the end of play Dwan had taken a lead of $726,000.

With a session like this there was always going to be a lot of big pots to be won, the largest of the session going to Antonius. Dwan got all his money in on the turn with a 6 over 9s full house, only to see it beaten by antonius’s Qs over 6s full and the Finn took the $477,556 pot. But even with that loss it did not stop Dwan retaking the lead of the challenge, as he managed to collect 7 of the 10 biggest pots of the session, giving him a $764,000 profit.

Seems that things are going Tom Dwan ’s way at the moment, not only has he managed to gain a big lead in the challenge, but he has also reduced the losses he suffered at the cash tables earlier in the year. Will he top this run of success off with a WSOP gold bracelet?.

JC Tran won his second gold bracelet of this years WSOP by taking the $2,500 pot-limit Omaha tournament. He came into the final table fourth in the leaderboard, which was lead by the Hendon Mob’s Ross Boatman. Tran fought his way through the final table and actually eliminated five of his last eight opponents.

Dane Theo Jorgensen was Tran’s victim, when he missed his flush draw and Tran made his straight draw on the river. Tran’s pair of kings then bust out Chad Layne in seventh place. While holding the chip lead Tran lost a size able amount of chips when he was involved in a three way pot which saw Jean- Phillipe Leandri triple his stack and Rami Boukai bust out.

Boatman’s better two pair was no good as Tran hit a runner-runner flush with a spade on a river, and he went out in fourth.  Leandri was next to go leaving Tran and Jeff Kimber face each other heads-up. Tran went into the heds-up stage with a 2-1 chiplead and within less than half an hour he had increased it to 5-1. The final hand saw Kimber drawing dead against Tran’s eight over sevens full house.

Although all the top poker players are in Vegas at the moment, it seems a few players are giving more attention to the big high stakes online and in the casinos. Gus Hansen has only entered one event so far, Tom Dwan and Sam Kelopuro have entered two each and Patrik Antonius has so far still not entered a tournament, though Phil Ivey is having a great WSOP this year with two gold bracelets so far.

On Monday Gus Hansen was entertaining Brian Hastings at the ” Hansen Knockout”  table on Full Tilt Poker, playing heads-up $500/$1000 pot-limit Omaha. Hastings did not have the best of sessions, losing all of the six biggest pots. When he did make a hand, he came up against Hansen hitting big draws and taking the pots. After little over fifty hands Hastings was already $350,000 down.

On the same night, there were several games of short-handed $500/$1000 PLO playing at the Full Tilt tables. The lineup included Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Hac “trex313″ Dang, his brother Di “Urindanger” Dang, Gus Hansen, “Bomberman” and Sami “LarsLuzack” Kelopuro. It was the two Finns Antonius and Kelopuro who profited the most with wins of over $400,000.  Dane Gus Hansen also came away with a good profit. While at the other end of the scale it was Bomberman who seemed to supply a few of the winning players with their chips.