Introduction to Omaha HUDs

Most Omaha aficionados played a little bit too much Hold’em and want a game that is a departure from their usual nitty grind-a-thons.  Omaha is a game that offers a bigger edge, bigger swings, and the possibility of a much higher win-rate, making it very attractive.  Most online poker rooms have their bread-and-butter Hold’em games that carry the bulk of the traffic, but the second most popular poker game is Omaha.  Now that PokerTracker and Holdem Manager support Omaha, there’s an opportunity to have an edge that other players aren’t utilizing in your Heads-Up Display (HUD).

The first thing that you are going to want to do is set up an Omaha-specific HUD.  You’re not going to want to mess up your gorgeous Hold’em HUD, so let’s just make sure you leave it alone.  One of the best HUDs we’ve seen for Omaha comes from a well-known coach at one of the big training sites.  We’ll omit his name and site to make sure that we don’t show any bias in this article.  During his videos, he has an HUD with tons of stats, which was different than some of the other coaches we scouted.  The first row of stats will be something very familiar to you:

Total Hands | Voluntarily Put Money into the Pot | Preflop Raise Percentage | Net $ Won | BB/100

These are all stats that you know like the back of your hand and give you a very simple sense of who you are facing.  If you see 100/100 over 505 hands, you know you’re playing a maniac.  The final two stats tell you the story of whether the player you are facing is a winner and, if you have a decent number of hands, if this is someone you should watch out for or target while playing.

The next line broke down as:

Went to Showdown | Won at Showdown | Cold Call

This information will let you know how often a player went all the way to showdown and how often they are winning.  This can be helpful to see if a person shows up light a lot or loves to see showdowns.  The Cold Call stat is helpful to see if a player doesn’t respect raises and typically sees the next street.

The next line:

Attempt to Steal | Fold the Small Blind to a Steal | Folds the Big Blind to a Steal

Any decent Hold’em player knows these stats and has them in their HUD already or looks for them in their pop-up.

Next line:

Aggression Frequency at Flop | Flop Aggression Factor | Check Raise the Flop | Folds to a Flop Bet

These are extremely helpful HUD stats to have and although they might start to take over your table, since most Omaha games are played in a six-max style, you should have ample room.  This set of stats will give you insight into your opponents’ street-by-street tactics and you will quickly spot tendencies.  Some opponents will play very strong on the flop and simply give up on the turn (or have a monster), while others will play very passively, but never fold.  You’ll see more “types” of players, but these stats will help you out on every street.

The HUD wrapped up with Total Aggression Frequency and Total Aggressio, but if you have the numbers of every street, these might be a little much.