OmahaPoker.com

Never Play Three of a Kind in your Starting Hand

This is slightly rare, but a good thing to file away in the back of your brain. If you play enough Omaha you’ll eventually be dealt a starting hand like Kh Kc Ks Qd.

Don’t get too excited. While this hand looks great at first glance, you can only use two of your cards, so you simply have a pair of kings, not three of a kind. What’s worse than that, though, is that there’s only one king left in the deck, so your odds of improving and catching another king on the board are much lower than if you only had two kings in your hand.

It’s tempting to play starting hands with three of a kind, especially if they’re queens, kings, or aces, you should always fold these hands. Three aces is the only one you should consider playing, and even then you should only play it if it’s cheap to call pre-flop, and should fold it to a raise.

It’s frustrating but you just have to fold these hands, as they’re not as good as they look at first glance and it’s almost impossible for you to improve to a better hand, since you already have one of your outs in your hand yourself.

• Print