why raise in omaha 8 pre-flop?

[Nelson 0]

From a mathematical perspective, no hand in Omaha 8 is more than 54% before the flop vs a random hand. So with such a narrow margin pre-flop; why raise other than to take the lead? Anyone have some ideas?

[Boothy 0]

The main reason would be pot manipulation to give you more options post-flop in pot limit games.

[Nelson 0]

The main reason would be pot manipulation to give you more options post-flop in pot limit games.

Yeah, i've seen this. Raising a $2/$5 game to $10-15 pre-flop makes the flop bet big enough to actually put pressure on the callers where just calling pre-flop leaves that pot at $25-30 for an easy 4 way call.

[akishore 0]

sorry, didn't realize you made a seperate topic for this. i posted some tips in my other thread, take a look.aseem

[akishore 0]

or i could just paste it. here:i pre-flop raise every time i have a scooping hand, be it AA23 double-suited or AK24 single ace-suited or even AKQ2 single-suited. i also raise with any dominating high-hand , and dominating low hands. really, i'm going to post this big thread about common mistakes and some advanced strategies, but real quick, here's some quick points about why pre-flop raising is so important: - some hands will really do a LOT better than others. AK24 dominates AJ95 madly, even though the statistics might not say so. AK24 will scoop many more pots, and has much more power to really play correctly post-flop. you have the strongest hand, so make them pay pre-flop. if some hands are much better off pre-flop, doesn't it make sense to get money in pre-flop even though you haven't seen a flop? granted, you will miss some flops, but in the long run, not raising hands like AK24 is like not raising AK or AQ in hold'em because you might miss. - high connecting cards are monsters, because of two reasons. first, if 0 or 1 low cards land, you've made the low-only draws pay double pre-flop and they'll be forced to lay down their hand or go for runner-runner, and better yet, you're aiming to win the whole pot now, so your pot odds double and your implied odds TRIPLE or more depending on how many people are in the hand. second, they offer nut flush and nut straight values, because any high cards above 8 that land will give you good wraparound draws, and if you have AKQ9 for example, you will always have the nut straight. - by raising scooping hands, you build up the pot for both ends of your draws. even if you don't scoop, you get as much money in the pot as possible since winning only half the pot makes it even more important to get people to pay as much as they can (which is easy to do since nobody folds to a raise pre-flop in limit omaha hi/lo unless they were planning to fold anyway--which itself is rare). - by raising strong low hands like A234 or A245, etc., you're building up the pot for your draw, which as we said, is important since you're only aiming to win half the pot. but be careful!! too many people raise with A2xx which is a massive mistake--you have no counterfeit protection and A2xx is the most common quartering hand. only raise when you have a STRONG low hand with counterfeit protection, preferably double, and both low, e.g. A234 or A245 or A246 or A235, etc. it's best to do it with A2 hands rather than A3 or 23, because you're drawing for 4 outs to be the nut low, which is not a good thing. hope this helps, aseem

[bsabres81 0]

From a limit Omaha 8 player's perspective:Never raise in early position. The reason for this is that in early position you should only be playing good multiway hands. You want others limping in. You don't mind if someone raises behind you, in fact you may want to reraise with a hand like A 2 3 3 . The proper time to raise is when several people have limped in and you have a hand such as the one I mentioned or something like K K A 2 . The other time to raise is when you are the first person in, in late position, with very good high possibilities, and mediocre low possibilities. An example of this is A A J 4 . Of course, if hold a monster, such as AA23ds you have to raise in most positions unless you are almost sure it will be folded around.For PLO8 advice on this subject, listen to akishore.