KEY ELEMENTS
Over the past decade or so, Omaha games have been the fastest-growing form of poker, while pot-limit Omaha (PLO) has often been the highest-stakes cash game in most poker rooms in which the game is spread. The hallmark of Omaha lies in its ability to generate massive draws on the flop that can be a favorite over even a set; this in turn leads to the classic all-in confrontations on the flop between big hand and big draw that typify the game.
And the key feature of Omaha that produces those massive draws are the straight draws -- whereas in hold'em and most forms of poker, the biggest straight draw is generally an 8-card draw (either an open-ended or double-gutshot), in Omaha, it's possible to have straight draws on the flop with up to 20 outs, in which complete a straight by the river up to 69.7% of the time! Add in a flush draw, and look out!
The key to Omaha is that the big draws can be played aggressively. And even more so than in hold'em, the primary point of attack in Omaha is the flop.
To date, a number of attempts have been made to adapt Omaha to the casino floor, and all have failed to properly capture the essence of Omaha, Here's why:
The problem with short-arming is that you completely destroy the very thing that makes Omaha Omaha: The big draw. In Omaha, a 13-card wrap (e.g. Q-J-10-2 on a 9-8-3 flop) will complete a straight by the river 49.9% of the time -- but that is with two cards to come. With only two flop cards it is very difficult to flop such a draw, and with only one card to come you've just killed the value of all drawing hands.
Super Omaha Poker™ solves those problems, in a package intended primarily for electronic format.
Origins: Super Omaha Poker™ Prototype
(Five-card hands, player qualifier, scalable betting and scalable payoffs)
In the original prototype for Super Omaha Poker™, the player started with a single Blind wager. The player and dealer were both dealt five hole cards and a three card flop, at which point the player could bet 1x-4x the Blind or fold. If the player bet, the dealer would turn up his hole cards and reveal the turn and river cards.
The player would need to make a straight or better and beat the dealer, with all wagers paying according to a paytable
Super Omaha Poker™ Prototype: Sample Paytable
And the key feature of Omaha that produces those massive draws are the straight draws -- whereas in hold'em and most forms of poker, the biggest straight draw is generally an 8-card draw (either an open-ended or double-gutshot), in Omaha, it's possible to have straight draws on the flop with up to 20 outs, in which complete a straight by the river up to 69.7% of the time! Add in a flush draw, and look out!
The key to Omaha is that the big draws can be played aggressively. And even more so than in hold'em, the primary point of attack in Omaha is the flop.
To date, a number of attempts have been made to adapt Omaha to the casino floor, and all have failed to properly capture the essence of Omaha, Here's why:
- Pre-flop wagering is pointless. In contrast to hold'em, there are few reasonable hand matchups in Omaha where one hand is as much as a 2:1 favorite over any other hand, while most head-to-head matchups are in the 60/40-50/50 range; in fact, even A-A-K-K double-suited -- the strongest starting hand in the game -- is only a 3:2 favorite over 9-8-7-6 double-suited. The reality is that those all-in pre-flop confrontations you see in NLHE tournaments on TV are completely atypical of Omaha games in general -- Omaha hands don't really start until the flop, particularly in PLO high. As such, for a casino Omaha high adaptation, it is completely pointless to make the player bet pre-flop, which is precisely what game designers who don't understand Omaha try to do anyway.
- Lack of variable betting on the flop, the primary action point in all Omaha games. If you flop that big hand or big draw, you need to be able to make a bigger wager.
- Potential for dealer error leads to bastardized designs. Omaha hands are notoriously difficult to read -- even seasoned professionals sometimes make mistakes reading hands. To compensate, a game designer may be motivated to simplify the game, which leads to the next problem.
- Short-arming results in game designs that fail to capture the essence of Omaha. To simplify the game for the sake of a live dealer, a game designer may be tempted to use fewer cards -- for example, use only three community cards instead of five -- with a two-card flop and one-card river -- or give the player three cards instead of four, perhaps with only four board cards.
The problem with short-arming is that you completely destroy the very thing that makes Omaha Omaha: The big draw. In Omaha, a 13-card wrap (e.g. Q-J-10-2 on a 9-8-3 flop) will complete a straight by the river 49.9% of the time -- but that is with two cards to come. With only two flop cards it is very difficult to flop such a draw, and with only one card to come you've just killed the value of all drawing hands.
Super Omaha Poker™ solves those problems, in a package intended primarily for electronic format.
Origins: Super Omaha Poker™ Prototype
(Five-card hands, player qualifier, scalable betting and scalable payoffs)
In the original prototype for Super Omaha Poker™, the player started with a single Blind wager. The player and dealer were both dealt five hole cards and a three card flop, at which point the player could bet 1x-4x the Blind or fold. If the player bet, the dealer would turn up his hole cards and reveal the turn and river cards.
The player would need to make a straight or better and beat the dealer, with all wagers paying according to a paytable
Super Omaha Poker™ Prototype: Sample Paytable
|
Hand
Royal Flush Straight Flush Quads Full House Flush Straight *Must beat the dealer |
Pays*
10 to 1 5 to 1 4 to 1 3 to 1 2 to 1 1 to 1 |
What I was really looking to do was produce a game that:
Driving Max-Bet Frequency
The second point in particular requires a bit of explanation. PLO (and really, poker in general, but especially PLO) is meant to be played aggressively. PLO attracts players who want to play a lot of hands (it is easier to find playable hands pre-flop in Omaha than most other forms of poker, which breeds more multi-way pots), and also players (like myself) who want to take a strong drawing hand and bet strongly on the draw, and not just with made hands.
To date, most casino poker games focus the betting on made hands, which has the effect of stunting action. For example, in Three Card Poker and Crazy 4 Poker, you already have your complete hand before you make a play wager.
Still other games have the player bet one street at a time (one card at a time), which devalues drawing hands and also has the effect of stunting action. This is the case in Mississippi Stud, where the player is only correct to max-bet (3x) on the first two cards if he has a pair (5.9% of hands), when the player really wants to be able to take a hand like AKs and max-bet (3x), but shouldn't because it's the wrong play.
That said, this initial variation of Super Omaha Poker™ employs two mechanisms to drive max-bet frequency:
The table below gives an idea of the impact going from hold'em to traditional 4-card Omaha starting hands, to juicing Omaha by giving the player five hole cards. Going from hold'em to 4-card Omaha starting hands produces 6 two-card starting hand combos instead of one, and 60 five-card combos on the river instead of 21; giving the player five hole cards gives the player 10 two-card starting hand combos and 100 five-card hand combos on the river, significantly improving the player's chances of both flopping a big hand or big draw on the flop, or completing one by the river.
- One forced bet. I wanted to produce a game that worked off a single forced bet (in contrast to UTH and Crazy 4 Poker), but still produced a high max-bet frequency.
- Had a single betting round with a focus on the flop as the point of attack. The point was to bypass the pre-flop betting round completely.
- Allowed the player to bet both big hands and big draws aggressively, and thus maximize max-bet frequency. More on this in a bit.
- Featured both scalable betting (the 1x-4x bet range) and scalable payoffs (all wagers pay according to a paytable). Few games do both, and the only prominent game with both scalable betting and scalable payoffs is Mississippi Stud. One of the benefits of doing so is that the player could flop a straight which pays 1 to 1, bet the max (4x) and have a potential freeroll at a flush or some other hand that pays 2 to 1 or more. And thus, the idea behind the player qualifier (paying only on wins with a straight or better) was to enable this.
Driving Max-Bet Frequency
The second point in particular requires a bit of explanation. PLO (and really, poker in general, but especially PLO) is meant to be played aggressively. PLO attracts players who want to play a lot of hands (it is easier to find playable hands pre-flop in Omaha than most other forms of poker, which breeds more multi-way pots), and also players (like myself) who want to take a strong drawing hand and bet strongly on the draw, and not just with made hands.
To date, most casino poker games focus the betting on made hands, which has the effect of stunting action. For example, in Three Card Poker and Crazy 4 Poker, you already have your complete hand before you make a play wager.
Still other games have the player bet one street at a time (one card at a time), which devalues drawing hands and also has the effect of stunting action. This is the case in Mississippi Stud, where the player is only correct to max-bet (3x) on the first two cards if he has a pair (5.9% of hands), when the player really wants to be able to take a hand like AKs and max-bet (3x), but shouldn't because it's the wrong play.
That said, this initial variation of Super Omaha Poker™ employs two mechanisms to drive max-bet frequency:
- Two cards to come. This dramatically enhances the value of drawing hands. For example, a hand like J-10-7-2 on a 9-8-3 flop has a 17-card wrap that will make a straight by the river 61.8% of the time (with two cards to come) and thus is a favorite, but will only complete by the turn 37.8% of the time, and thus is a dog with one card to come. The point being that by placing the final wager on the flop rather than the turn, we are enhancing the value of the drawing hand and thus turning the better drawing hands into aggressive max-betting hands.
- Five hole cards instead of four. In this initial design, the player needs to make a straight or better and beat the dealer. The problem is that the player then needs to be able to flop a hand or draw to a straight or better; in this scenario, the player would need two pair or better (draws to a full house or better), a flush draw, or any straight draw to play. And in turn, the problem with that is the frequency with which those hands occur on the flop -- the player wouldn't be able to play enough hands to make the game interesting. The solution was to give the player five cards to enhance the probability of flopping such hands.
The table below gives an idea of the impact going from hold'em to traditional 4-card Omaha starting hands, to juicing Omaha by giving the player five hole cards. Going from hold'em to 4-card Omaha starting hands produces 6 two-card starting hand combos instead of one, and 60 five-card combos on the river instead of 21; giving the player five hole cards gives the player 10 two-card starting hand combos and 100 five-card hand combos on the river, significantly improving the player's chances of both flopping a big hand or big draw on the flop, or completing one by the river.
|
Two-card starting hand combos Five-card hand combos on river Biggest straight draw (outs) Hit rate from flop |
Hold'em
1 21 8 31.5% |
4-Card Omaha
6 60 20 69.7% |
5-Card Omaha
10 100 20 70.8% |
In fact, even the draw completion rate improves from going to 5-card hands starting hands from 4-card starting hands, given that there is one fewer unknown card. This is enough to turn a 13-card wrap from a slight dog (49.9% hit rate in 4-card Omaha) to a slight favorite (50.1% hit rate), and thus generally a max-betting hand instead of a min-betting hand.
The next step was to test how the game plays.
This starts with the strategy, which is easy to figure out if you understand Omaha. In fact, that's kind of the point -- this game is built around the strategy, in contrast to most casino games developed these days...
We have four basic categories of hands:
To get an idea of what this looks like, I dealt myself a 1,000-hand sample, yielding these results:
The next step was to test how the game plays.
This starts with the strategy, which is easy to figure out if you understand Omaha. In fact, that's kind of the point -- this game is built around the strategy, in contrast to most casino games developed these days...
We have four basic categories of hands:
- Made Hands (4x): Straight or Better (~5% of hands). You're clearly going to max-bet with a straight or better. These hands benefit from magnified payoffs (for example if you flop quads you can bet 4x at a 5:1 payoff, eqivalently to 25:1 on the intial Blind bet), and also freeroll or near-freeroll potential (you flop a straight and bet 4x at a 1:1 payoff, which is likely to win; but if you also have a flush draw or a set or two pair to go with it, you may have a freeroll to a flush or better with a 2:1 or better payoff).
- Big Draws (4x): 13+ Effective Outs (~20%-25% of Hands)
- 13-card draw hits 50.1%; as such, any hand 13 or more effective outs (i.e. factoring payoffs) is generally a money favorite and should be max-bet (4x).
- 20-card wrap (J-10-7-6-x on a 9-8-2 flop) hits 70.8% of the time.
- Set is 34.7% (~2:1 against) to improve, but full house pays 3:1 and quads pays 5:1, and thus is a money favorite factoring payoffs.
- Flush draw has 9 outs and is 37.1% to hit (better than 2:1), but a flush pays 2:1; a bare nut flush draw thus has 18 effective outs (9 x 2) and is a max-bet hand as a money favorite (smaller flush draws may be min-bet hands).
- Pot Odds Bets (1x): Too Much to Fold (~20%-25% of Hands)
- Player is not a favorite, but has a positive expectation to call 1x minimum
- Two pair is 5:1 against improving to full house or quads, but pays 3:1 on full house and 5:1 on running quads; as such, you are essentially getting better than 6:1 to call (full house pays 3:1 on two units, for 6 units total versus one to call; plus a bonus for running quads for better than 6:1)
- 8-card straight draws are 33.4% (2:1) to improve, but min-bet on flop has 3:1 effective payoff and is a call.
- Everything Else (Fold)
To get an idea of what this looks like, I dealt myself a 1,000-hand sample, yielding these results:
|
Betting Frequency
51% |
Max-Bet Frequency
28% |
Win Frequency
23% |
Payoff Frequency
24% |
On the plus side, the player is correct to max-bet (4x) in the neighborhood of 28% of hands. But you can already see clear issues: The player is only correct to play around 51% of hands on the flop, and only won 23% of hands in this sample.
And then there are other issues that as a player you know you just aren't going to like, including:
This demands a bit of restructuring.
Super Omaha Poker™: The Final Variation
(Four hole cards, no qualifier, sacked ante, single 1x-3x betting round, flat pays)
After some thought, I figured out a set of solutions.
In the final version of Super Omaha Poker™, the player starts with a single Ante (Blind) wager. The player and dealer are each dealt four hole cards (instead of five), and a three card flop. At this point, the player can now bet 1x-3x (instead of 1x-4x) or fold. As before, if the player bets, the dealer will turn up his hole cards and reveal the turn and river cards.
There's no qualifier. The 1x-3x Flop wager always plays, and winning wagers all pay a flat 1:1 (instead of a paytable). The Ante pays according to paytable, pushing on wins less than a flush (a method I call "sacking the ante"), and with a top payout of 5o-to-1 for a royal flush.
What happens is that by removing the straight-or-better qualifier, the five hole cards are no longer necessary. Also, the 1x-4x bet range of the prototype is not solvent, necessitating the 1x-3x flop bet range.
But the result is an exceptionally clean game, where it's as simple as if the player has a better hand, the player wins. And statistically, the results are impressive by any metric: The player can bet 82.9% of hands (more often than Crazy 4 Poker), meaning that the player can play more hands than any established game with a single 1x-3x betting round; the player can max-bet an absurd 47.3% of hands -- higher than even Three Card Stud Triple Draw™ -- and far higher than any established game. Moreover, the player wins 45.1% of hands, pushing another 1.2% for a payoff frequency of 46.3% of hands, putting Super Omaha Poker™ among the top established games in both categories, and higher in both categories than any other established game with a single forced bet.
And then there are other issues that as a player you know you just aren't going to like, including:
- You can win the hand and still lose because you didn't make a straight; this is a common occurrence.
- Related to the above, you can flop two pair or a set (hands you'd expect to win with), but those are still just drawing hands in this game given the payoff structure.
This demands a bit of restructuring.
Super Omaha Poker™: The Final Variation
(Four hole cards, no qualifier, sacked ante, single 1x-3x betting round, flat pays)
After some thought, I figured out a set of solutions.
In the final version of Super Omaha Poker™, the player starts with a single Ante (Blind) wager. The player and dealer are each dealt four hole cards (instead of five), and a three card flop. At this point, the player can now bet 1x-3x (instead of 1x-4x) or fold. As before, if the player bets, the dealer will turn up his hole cards and reveal the turn and river cards.
There's no qualifier. The 1x-3x Flop wager always plays, and winning wagers all pay a flat 1:1 (instead of a paytable). The Ante pays according to paytable, pushing on wins less than a flush (a method I call "sacking the ante"), and with a top payout of 5o-to-1 for a royal flush.
What happens is that by removing the straight-or-better qualifier, the five hole cards are no longer necessary. Also, the 1x-4x bet range of the prototype is not solvent, necessitating the 1x-3x flop bet range.
But the result is an exceptionally clean game, where it's as simple as if the player has a better hand, the player wins. And statistically, the results are impressive by any metric: The player can bet 82.9% of hands (more often than Crazy 4 Poker), meaning that the player can play more hands than any established game with a single 1x-3x betting round; the player can max-bet an absurd 47.3% of hands -- higher than even Three Card Stud Triple Draw™ -- and far higher than any established game. Moreover, the player wins 45.1% of hands, pushing another 1.2% for a payoff frequency of 46.3% of hands, putting Super Omaha Poker™ among the top established games in both categories, and higher in both categories than any other established game with a single forced bet.
|
Version
Original 5-Card Prototype (Estimated) New 4-Card Version (Actual) |
Betting Frequency
51% 82.9% |
Max-Bet Frequency
28% 47.3% |
Win Frequency
23% 45.1% |
Payoff Frequency
24% 46.3% |
