Omaha Starting hand

[JungleCat03]

that's the thing about a QQ 66 hand. It's real strength is in hitting a Q, a set of is always going to look vulnerable.

In assessing the strength of your hand in omaha it sometimes help to look at the six combinations of 2 cards in isolation to see how well they function together.

Take a hand like Ah  
1. Ah
2.
3. Ah
4. Ah
5.  
6. .

In this hand 5 out of the 6 2 card combinations have some sort of coordination. Only doesn't co-ordinate in any respect. Ah is obviously pretty weak as well but at least can make a straight albeit a pretty dire one.  Still the fact that 5/6 of the two card combinations have some co-ordinated strength means it is a decent hand that can hit a lot of flops.

Now consider the QQ 66 hand. You don't say if there's any suitage going on but let's say it is:

.

So your combinations are
1. ,
2. ,
3.
4. ,
5. ,
6.

Now only 3 out of the 6 2 card combos have coordination and as discussed you can't flop the nuts  with your (unles u hit quads), and the Q high flush draw is never going to feel superstrong when you hit it unless there's an and out there on the flop too. So 2 out of your coordinated hands aren't great, 3 of the other hands are uncoordinated rubbishy hands and only the QQ has some real strength. You'll miss the majority of flops with this hand.

So really with this hand, nearly all it's strength comes from hitting a Q. As this is pretty unlikely you most often want to get in very cheap to see a flop and use the implied odds of hitting set over set, house over trips etc to make the hand profitable.

[M3boy]

Nice post Rod.

Last time - I know what MrsLime was getting at!! Was just some "warped" sense of humour.

[MrsLime]

Well, I wouldn't advise deliberately aiming for the Q-high flush draw, but the 'liveness' of a flush draw depends somewhat on the situation...

Just yesterday I played a similiarish hand to the one being discussed... except it was Omaha Hi-Lo, and I had .  I was UTG and limped, as did four others, and the blinds called, so we were six-handed.

The flop came .  The big blind, who was a moron, bet the pot, and I called, as did one other person.

The turn was .  The big blind bet the pot, and again I called; then the third guy raised the pot and was all-in; the big blind called the full amount all-in.

I didn't give anyone KK, and on this occasion I was happy to assume that my spade flush draw was live.  The pot was offering me 3-to-1, so I called.  If I hadn't had the flush draw, I would have folded (reluctantly).

As it turns out, the big blind had [for the underset and no redraw] and the other guy had [made straight and club flush draw], so I was in good shape.

On the other hand, if, in a parallel universe, I had flopped just a queen-high spade draw, I would have folded to a bet.

So, what I'm trying to say is that I think a flush draw that you pick up on the turn is a slightly different beast to the one that you flop.  Maybe I played it badly... happy to discuss.