Avoid being “Raked” in Omaha High/Low (H/L) cash games

Omaha H/L is a great game to play because it gives you the opportunity to play two types of games per hand. The best “high” hand receives half of the pot and the best “low” hand receives the other half of the pot. It also works well in cash games sessions, but there’s one small problem…THE RAKE!

Typically in Omaha h/l, the best strategy is to try and get a three-way situation where the odd man (the person who lost and high and low hands) is the loser. Often times thought, you’d find yourself in the two-way situation where one person has the best high hand and the other person has the best low hand. In non-cash game sessions, this situation really doesn’t matter because you’d receive your money back, but in cash games, you’d receive less money because of the rake (the money that is taken out of the pot by the site).

This can prove to be a very costly mistake to everyone at the tables because most Omaha h/l games end up being in a two-way situation and both people are moving all in with best hands only to split the pot, minus the rake, and have less money than before that started the hand.

The strategy here is to try to keep the hand with three people or more in the pot. This means that even though you may have the nut high or low, you don’t push people out of the pot. You always make marginal bets to keep everyone interested in the pot.

If you find yourself in a two-way situation, even if you have the best high or low hand, you check/call through the rest of the hand. Again the key point here is that you stopped growing the pot once the three-way + situation ended.

You only want to push in a two-way situation when you have an opportunity to win both high and low pots, or if there will be no low qualifying hand. The extra loss of the rake is worth the opportunity to take down a big pot if you have a strong high AND low hand.

Good luck and keep your bank rolling!