Pot Limit Omaha 6 max strategy

Introduction

A lot of poker players wonder: "How do I become a good PLO 6max player?". NL Holdem players tend to find the transition very challenging. This series is intended as a guide for these players.
Some basic knowledge about NL Holdem, PLO and poker statistics is required to fully understand the concepts in this article. If you don`t know much about these subjects yet we suggest that you read the basic material on this site first.

Preflop

In PLO, position is more important than your actual hand. That doesn`t mean you should play any four off course, but the player in position controls the hand, more so than in a Holdem game. This is because much more scare cards can come down, which creates a lot of good bluff spots.
As a consequence, its very important to take advantage of your position when you`re on the button (or the cut-off). But even more importantly, you should never play marginal hands out of position! Low pocket pairs, bad suited aces etc. should be folded! They look nice, but its impossible to play these type of hands out of position. Tighten up in the blinds!

Because position is so important, you should choose your seat on the table accordingly. You don`t want to have a descent player to your left. If you can`t avoid this, adjust your game by raising a tighter range and by limping the small blind. This will prevent you from getting into a lot of tricky situations when called or reraised. Against tight or weak players, you can open 40% on the button (open every double suited hand for example). Against opponents who 3bet a lot you should play tighter or limp more hands.

As opposed to NL Holdem, its hard to say what the optimal VPIP/PFR percentages are. Instead, take a look at the following guidelines:

VPIP

< 15 too tight
15-25 tight
25-35 normal
35-45 loose
> 45 too loose

A VPIP outside the 15-50 range is not playable. You can (and should) play more hands compared to NL Holdem.

PFR

< 5 passive
5-10 normal
10-15 loose
> 15 loose aggressive

In NL Holdem its very important that the gap between your VPIP and PFR is very small. This is not true in PLO. Some winning players hardly raise at all! Its ok to play 20/10, but 45/5 is possible as well.

Holdem Manager is currently the only software that supports Omaha. It can be purchased separately or as add-on.

3betting

You should never 3bet bluff, as your opponents will always get the odds to call your 3bet. There are three valid reasons to 3bet: value, isolation and deception.
PLayers tend to disagree on whether you should 3bet out of position at all. Some say its never profitable to do so, others say you should do it a lot. In any case its better to 3bet out of position with a marginal hand than to call, as this gives you initiative.
When you`re up against a bunch of short stacks, its obviously a bad idea to 3bet other than for value.

Postflop

In general, postflop play is more difficult than in NL Holdem, because your opponents ranges are much wider. We recommend this site to get an idea of your equity in certain common postflop situations.
Its very important to pay attention to the way your opponents are playing and to make notes! For example: Does the betsize correspond to the strength of the hand? Does a player bluff missed draws on the river?

You can bluff occasionally, but most of the time you should bet with the nuts and with strong nut-draws. If you have a weak draw to the nuts, you should generally call. Occasionally you should call with a very strong nut hand. Fold everything else!
Note that this means you should never draw to a non-nut hand, especially multiway!

One last bit of advice: a nut flush draw is a very strong semi-bluff hand in PLO, because you have more equity than almost any combo!

Good luck!