My local poker rooms (three of them) have caught bomb pot fever. The player(s) with the bomb button (which rotates) can call the game, and the most popular choice is 5-2-2 Omaha: five cards to each player, two boards, two winners. Some also opt for a one-winner version.

These are normal 1/2 games, but the usual amount to enter the bomb pot is $5. There's no preflop betting, and action moves clockwise from the button as usual.

Now, it seems to me that with everyone having fifteen(!) cards to make their best hand, this would be a 1000% "nuts or nothing" game. But there are usually five or six players seeing the turn, and three or four players seeing the river, even if there are huge raises to be called. Players who hit one board hard try to blow everyone off the other board so that they won't have to split the pot. It never works. These pots routinely exceed $500.

Does anyone know of any kind of strategy for this abortion of a game? It seems ridiculous to me, but good God, a lot of money goes into the middle, and people have to be playing utter crap like one pair, straight draws, etc. It seems to me that it would be smart to shove if I flop the nuts, call if I flop a good draw to the nuts, and otherwise check-fold.

Anyone else familiar with this?

Play hands that hit both boards hard.

If you stone nutty, no redraws against you on one board then try to build a pot/squeeze.

Bomb pots in one room I frequent can see 2-3K in the middle in a 1-2-(5) PLO. It's incredible.

When you play double board, ultimate high/ultimate low, it can get even crazier. Ultimate high/low meaning the best high from either board and best low from either board. If no low is completed then it's just the best high hand.

How to print money in this game:

- hit both boards. Unless you flop something unbreakable on another board, just fold if you don't have a piece of both boards
- play strong hands pre-flop. Because you need to hit two boards, quality hands become stronger than in one board games. Because it seems to play multiway with lots of money going in, drawing to the nuts goes up in value

I play occasionally in a UK room where one of the DC choices is 6 card, eight boards, ultimate high/ultimate low.

[ ] strategies work
[ ] players fold
[ ] is not fun

Is that Heads up game or 104 card deck??? lolololololol

7 handed

Deal 9 cards face down in a 3x3:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

Flop: turn over cards 1, 2, 4.

Turn: turn over cards 6, 8, 9.

River: turn over cards 3, 7, 5.

Spend 5 minutes working out the ultimate high and low across the eight vertical, horizontal and diagonal boards

And that's not even the craziest game on the paddle...

FYP

yeah i mean if a strategy that involves playing higher quality hands isn't winning, i'd say that's a "you" problem and not a strategy problem.

What you and another poster missed (went whistling far over your head) is that in a bomb pot game, there IS NO PREFLOP BETTING. Everyone antes $5 or whatever. So you play whatever you're dealt. No "strategy" element to that at all.

in this particular game, no you can't pick your preflop but you can choose how you want to continue past the flop.

the point clearly is that in these crazy multiple card/multiple board type games is that being selective with your continues is a more viable strategy than not.

I've heard of this. A guy in a game the other day said they play this in a home game and call it "Hollywood Squares". Him and another player at the table also referred to it as crack, and one of the only reasons some people show up to the home game.

Someone else also mentioned this, but it's an ante pre-flop. Everyone that antes goes to the flop.

So to add to the strategy, which is everpresent in all games no matter how marginal the gains are as a result of its employment, we should have the ability to fold when we completely whiff one board, and don't really have great equity on the other board. 75% equity on one board equates to 37.5% if you can't make squat on the other. Novice players continually commit piles and can't make 2, 5-card hands worth a damn.

Also, being able to determine what board(s) your opponent(s) (you're probably always multiway) are strong on, really helps.

Mark my words, bomb pot tournaments are coming to a felt near you.

I didn't realize there isn't a possibility of folding pre-flop. Still, the claim made by another poster that "strategies don't work" is of course ridiculous. If you can't play tight pre-flop, you can still fold on most flops instead of pouring money in bad like other players do.

Yes, but "be selective" is about as vague and useless as "play well."

The only real question is: how solidly do you need to connect with only one board to be able to continue? Then: how well do you need to connect with both boards to continue? For example (and I'm not suggesting this), you might say, top two pair or better for a single board, top pair or a nut draw on each board, to continue, otherwise fold.

I'm even leery of draws, because it seems to me if you make your draw and the board pairs, you're almost always toast. As with many Omaha-type games, quite often you find yourself rooting for the board to brick.

This game is very, very new, and maybe not all that common yet, so I doubt anyone has really researched, let alone written or posted, a viable, logical strategy. I'm sure someone is making an obscene amount of money at this game. The players at my club have no. idea. what they're doing.

Oh the strategy itself is rather simple and has been already outlined ITT. You are having difficulties in understanding hand strenghts, which is more complicated than in many other games.

not sure how you agree with my point but miss it at the same time.

i'm strictly referring to the idea that a strategy in which your continuing hands are higher quality is one that will be more effective than one that is not. it's a response to another poster saying that there is no strategy that works in these games, which literally can't be true. for one thing, that's not useless. for another, my own commentary isn't referring to any specific strategies anyway. for that just look at what amok said.

I understood you perfectly. I don't agree with that other poster, or I wouldn't have made the post that began this thread.

However, I reiterate that "play higher quality hands" is so vague as to be useless, especially in a game where you play every hand (at least to the flop) regardless of its quality!

You are having difficulties in reading comprehension. I understand hand strengths just fine. However, you should learn that hand strengths vary among different games. In hold 'em, top pair is a strong hand. In Omaha variants, it's just a decent hand.

Therefore, there are, or at least there should be, criteria for determining when a hand is strong/playable (postflop, obviously, since you don't get to choose which hands you play preflop). That's a fundamental part of the proper strategy, which you claim you already know but didn't bother to enlighten us.

This is going to seem like an obvious/useless insight, but I'll say it anyway.

The two main categories of mistakes you can make here are (1) folding when you had enough equity to continue, or (2) calling when you didn't have enough equity to profitably continue.

In bomb pots almost everyone is making Type 2 errors (sticking in money when they're behind/dead). Almost no one is making Type 1 errors (folding when they could have profitably continued). So I think you're correct to (when in doubt) err more on the side of folding since you'll end up playing closer to the optimal balance of Type 1 and Type 2 errors than your opponents. By doing more folding, you'll occasionally fold a potentially profitable hand, in exchange for losing far, far less money with all of your second- and third-best hands compared to everyone else at the table.

Yes, when five or six players persist to the river, I'm usually thinking, "how can everyone have connected with these boards well enough to justify continuing?" The answer, of course, is that they mostly haven't.

Another element that should be considered is that when multiple players stay after the flop, quite often, they have each others' out cards. So a premium flopped hand might hold up more often than you would think, even with four or five players shooting at it.

I've adopted a crude version of the strategy you suggest: hit one board hard, hit both boards well (at least), or muck the hand. Playing this game very tight postflop may be the best approach, since when you do hit, you get paid off. Always (at least where I play).

Given that I get to enter pots for $5 that routinely bloat over $500, and given the atrocious play I've seen, I think this might be a HUGE moneymaker. It reminds me of the days when "plain old Omaha" first appeared: no one had a clue. There was much money to be made.

First you say you "understand hand strengths", then go on to explain that you don't understand them in this game. Understanding hand strengths would probably make you a big winner, so I'd work on that.

Well much more than top pair. Eg. you have top set on a rainbow dry flop:

ProPokerTools 5-Card Omaha Hi Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: Kx7y2z

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
KK	74.56%	445,757	3,211
*	8.46%	47,228	7,122
*	8.50%	47,447	7,213
*	8.48%	47,393	7,067

...so that gives you ~38% equity in the pot 4 ways going upto ~45% HU.

BUT even this depends so much on what the other board is, if it's 222 then you might be getting freerolled HU and if it's 765 there are a lot of obviously really bad turn cards for you if it goes multiway.

In general I'd assume you'd want to have nut straight and flush draws on both boards. I would also be wary of amock's "print money" statement, that might be true relative to everyone else playing but maybe not objectively.

This is bad human reasoning about randomness, unknown cards are unknown without more information. By the same logic you could say top set is obviously bad because all your board pairing cards "must" be dead.

I think you are saying if the money goes in on the flop you always have the current nuts, and thus. want the board to brick?

I would disagree and would also say this thought points to a significant problem with your strategy.

Part of me has to ask ... what's the craziest game?

Since I wasn't referring solely to the flop, and in fact, you "make your draws" much more often on the turn (or river, but that's not what I'm talking about here), that "significant problem" you perceive is a phantom.

What I was trying to make clear is that "the nuts" with either one card or two cards to go is never actually the nuts, and draws that make often get killed by redraws. So I don't like draws to "the nuts" on the flop because when they hit and there's still action, they often get crushed on the river. Obviously, made flushes are a little less vulnerable than made straights.

Thus, my money would almost never go in on the flop unless I had flopped huge, like a boat on one board. A draw to "the nuts" (and there IS no other kind of playable draw in this game) is far less valuable than in Hold Em or even plain old Omaha.

37.5% equity when every pot is very multiway sounds like a Brinks truck visiting. But I'm guessing it's fairly rare to be 75% on either board, because it generally is in any Omaha variant.