Four Killer PLO Habits That You Can Apply To Your Game

At first glance, Pot-Limit Omaha looks like Hold'em with more cards.

It plays like a different game. The habits that made you a winning Hold'em player are exactly the ones that may drain your stack in PLO. While those two extra hole cards add options, they also change what a good hand is and how often you're actually ahead. Also, how brutal the swings can get.

Good news. Most of the money can vanish through a handful of fixable habits. Fix these four and you could plug the gaps that sink many crossover players. Don't stress, there are no charts to memorise. Rather, these are cleaner decisions you can make in your next session.

A quick reset before the habits, because all four make more sense once you see why Omaha is different.

You must use exactly two of your four hole cards. No more, no less. That trips up newcomers often: one heart in your hand is not a flush, even if there are three more on the board. You need two.

Aces aren't kings of PLO.

Pocket aces are a much smaller favourite than they are in Hold'em. In the multiway pots, PLO usually produces they're often not ahead at all. They need to improve to win. Big pairs with weak side cards make few nut hands and get trapped.

And equities run close. In Hold'em you're often getting it in as an 80/20 monster. In PLO, "the best hand against a draw" is often a coin flip. Let's say, closer to 55/45. And, pots are usually multiway, which punishes marginal made hands and weak draws.

Remember those three facts and the habits below start feeling natural.

This is the single biggest leak, and the easiest to fix. In PLO, the pots go to the nuts and near-nuts: sets, nut flushes, nut straights. A single pair almost never wins a contested pot, and second-best draws are a bankroll killer.

The trap is drawing to a hand that can improve and still lose. You flop a king-high flush draw, hit it on the turn, get all your chips in. Then you run straight into the ace-high flush. You made your hand and lost the pot. Let's also take the low end of a straight. you fill up, feel great, and pay off the higher straight.

It's a good habit to build. If you're drawing, draw to the nuts, or to a hand with nut redraws behind it. When the pot is small, a second-nut flush is fine to see a card with. When the pot balloons, treat non-nut draws with suspicion. The bigger the pot, the more certain you need to be that your made hand is the hand (or very promising).

A good PLO hand is four cards that cooperate. A bad one is three good cards and a passenger.

That passenger has a name: a dangler. A dangler is a card that doesn't connect to the others and adds no meaningful outs. In a hand like A♥A♣2♦8♠, that lonely eight is doing nothing; you're playing three cards and hoping.

The fix is to favour hands where all four pull in the same direction.

Let's take rundowns (four connected cards like 9-8-7-6) or double-suited holdings that can make two flushes. Even better if it has an ace for genuine nut-flush potential. And, the combinations that can flop straights, sets and flush draws together.

One refinement worth knowing on rundowns: you'd rather have the gap at the bottom than the top. A hand like 6-8-9-T is stronger than 6-7-8-T. Why? Keeping your high cards connected means the straights you make are more often the nuts.

A gap up top can downgrade your best straights into second-best ones. It's an example of the hands that could cost you money in Habit 1.

This is also where you retrain the ace instinct. Bare aces a pair of aces with two weak, unconnected side cards, look powerful and play subpar. They flop fewer nut straights, cover fewer boards, and lean on a pair that often isn't good by the river.

Aces are worth a raise, but are not always a reason to build a big pot on their own.

Position matters in every form of poker. In PLO it matters a lot, because there's more to figure out on every street.

Four-card hands make far more combinations, more draws, and more coordinated boards, so postflop decisions are more complex. Acting last, with all that information in front of you, gives you an advantage on the flop, the turn, and the river.

It's a habit of playing more hands in position and tighten up out of position. Being first to act, you're guessing more and controlling less. Speculative hands that look fun to play lose value fast. Avoid bloating pots out of position with holdings that need to hit well to continue. It's that's how you end up committed, guessing, and paying off the nuts.

Let position decide which pots you build.

Equities run close and the pots run big and multiway. So, PLO swings are harsher than Hold'em swings. That's not a reason to avoid the game. Try your best to prepare for the variance that awaits.

Two linked habits handle it. First, keep a deeper bankroll.

Where a Hold'em player might get by on fewer buy-ins, PLO rules of thumb often start around 100 buy-ins for cash. Many times more for the higher-variance five- and six-card versions. It's a type of risk management. Think a cushion that lets normal downswings play out without threatening your ability to keep playing.

Second, stack off tight. The flip side of a deep bankroll is not needing to gamble it. Get your money in with the nuts and near-nuts and strong nut redraws; step away from the coolers you can avoid.

You don't have to win every big pot. You have to make sure that when the money goes in for stacks, you're the one holding the hand that's supposed to win it. Win the money in good, and let the other players donate theirs by ignoring Habits 1 through 3.

Look back at the four and you'll notice three of them all say the same thing. Drawing to the nuts, choosing coordinated hands, and stacking off tight. In PLO, quite often selectivity and nut-awareness beat clever, fancy play (in most cases). However, with the best players, adjusting tactics is always required.

A rule of thumb is to have the discipline to enter the right pots with the right hands. This will help you get the money in when you're ahead. Once these four are automatic, it's worth exploring other factors.

For example, using blockers to bluff, three-betting bare aces for balance, and other higher-level ideas that dedicated PLO coaching courses teach well. But those are refinements on top of a solid base.

Get the habits here right first, and you'll already be in a great place.