Pot-Limit Omaha Strategy and Tips
Poker is one of the most popular card games, and one of its many interesting features is the system of betting called “pot”, which differs from other games only by the way it is won. Essentially, poker is any of a large number of card games where players wager on which hand lies with the strongest likelihood of winning over the others in certain ways, as opposed to the rules of the game. The basic betting format is simple enough: with each card dealt out separately, each player passes his hand across the table, and the person with the strongest “poker face” is the player who goes “out” and announces that he has “won” the pot – which is, in fact, the entire contents of the pot – including all tournament fees and interest. Naturally, there are many different styles of poker playing and different types of betting; consequently, there are also a wide variety of poker betting systems. If you’re interested in exploring the possibility of earning money through poker, you should be aware that there are various different types of poker betting systems available, each tailored to meet the particular needs of individual players.
One type of betting system is known as “wild cards”. In this system, a player bets without actually having the cards in his hand. Instead, he hopes to achieve some kind of advantage by guessing which of the cards is the wild card. If this turns out to be impossible, the bet is still placed, but this time the cards are dealt face up, rather than being revealed to the other players. Wild cards are generally used when a player is very high on cards – because they are more likely to be picked than other cards, giving the feeling that someone else might have a wild card or better cards than he does.
A variation on the wild card strategy is what is sometimes called a full house. In a full house poker game, the last two players in the hand usually end up with equal hands. Thus, in a two-flush, the last two players are considered to have held a flush, and any cards that are either advanced or already played are not brought into play. A full house poker game is very common at live poker tournaments, when a player has advanced cards but no actual cards in his hand.
Another variation of the wild card strategy is what is sometimes referred to as the “two pair.” With the two pairs, a player bets (without having the cards in his hand) that he has a possible hand of three cards. If any of the cards turned out to be a wild card, then that player has to get rid of that card (if it was a top card) or re-raise the original amount for another possible hand. The re-raise is considered a new hand and is subject to the same “full house” rules as the original raise. This can sometimes prove to be quite difficult, and can oftentimes leave the inexperienced or newer poker players at a serious disadvantage.
Hand histories are important to the skilled poker player. By looking at a hand history, a skilled player will be able to tell exactly which cards were present in previous hands, and will be able to make an accurate determination on which cards are high, low, or fair. A poker player will be better able to judge when a hand has been lost, because with a full house, a hand with high cards can be deemed to have been lost, even if the highest card (the high card) was in fact higher than the low cards in the hand.
The biggest draw to playing with the Wild Card as a poker strategy is that with no cards in your hand, you are facing an unknown or potential opponent who may have the Wild Card. This gives the Wild Card player the opportunity to make plays based on what the other players may not want to see. For example, if there are several players all betting low to beat the odds, a player with a Wild Card may decide that he wants to play a bet with a low pre-flop value, especially if there is an offset on his hand. On the other hand, a player with a Wild Card may simply be waiting for another player with a Wild Card to show so that he can try to steal a pot from behind. As long as the other players don’t know exactly what you have, your Wild Card hand may very well prove strong, especially if the flop hits either a straight or a flush.