Having four hole cards in pot-limit Omaha — as opposed to just two in Texas hold’em — means a player has six different two-card combinations to choose from when forming a five-card hand with the three community cards. As such, Omaha affords much greater opportunities for drawing to many different hands at once.
To focus only on straight draws, PLO provides opportunities for a number of different straight draws not available in hold’em. In hold’em, one can only really have three kinds of straight draws: an inside straight (in which one is drawing to four outs), an open-ended straight draw (in which one is drawing to eight outs), or a “double belly-buster” (in which one is also drawing to eight outs).
However, in PLO there are many more possibilities for straight draws besides these three. Before we take a look at these other straight draws, we should note the relative value of straight draws in PLO as opposed to hold’em.
Like in hold’em, the inside straight draw (to four outs) is a pretty weak one to consider. However, while in hold’em the open-ended straight draw or the double belly-buster draw might be thought to be a decent draw, in PLO it usually is not considered such a good strategy to go after eight outs like this after the flop. One should instead wait for better drawing opportunities, including those in which one has an advantage, statistically speaking, over made hands.
A nine-out draw can occur whenever a player is holding three consecutive cards and the outer two poker cards have appeared on the board. For instance, if you hold 10-9-8-2 and the flop comes J-7-5, any ten, nine, or eight will complete your straight.
A thirteen-out draw is an even better one to pursue. Indeed, if one flops a thirteen-out draw, one is often about even money against most made hands such as a flopped set. One example of a thirteen-out draw is when one’s hole cards “wrap” around two of the community cards. For example, you have 10-9-8-6 and the flop comes 7-5-2. In this case, any of the three nines, the three eights, the three sixes, or the four fours will give you your straight.
A seventeen-out draw is another situation in which our hole cards “wrap” around the community cards. These big straight draws are often called “wrap” draws for just this very reason. An example of a seventeen-out draw would be one in which you hold 10-8-6-3 and the flop comes 9-7-2. Any of the jacks (4), nines (3), sevens (3), sixes (3), or fives (4) would give you your straight.
Finally, a twenty-out “wrap” draw is also possible in PLO. An example of that would a hand in which you hold four cards with a two-gap like 10-9-6-5, and both the cards in the middle appear on the flop, e.g., 8-7-2. In this case any of the jacks (4), tens (3), nines (3), sixes (3), fives (3), or fours (4) would give you your straight.
You can see why PLO is sometimes called a “drawing game”!
