Poker Lesson 37: Quartering in Omaha

People do not start playing poker because they are good at sharing. Most poker players are selfish, and want every cent of the pot for their own. Any player worth their salt would rather wax their nose hairs then share money with one of their opponents. That is why Omaha players simply cringe at the idea of Quartering.

Quartering in Omaha Hi/Lo is when you tie with another player for half the pot (perhaps the Lo part) while they win the other half of the pot outright (for the sake of argument we will say they won the Hi part).

Let's assume you are holding:

... The final board gives you:

... In this situation you have the best possible Lo (A2367) and a pair of 9's representing your Hi. The cards clutched in your opponent's sweaty little hand are:

... You now have a problem because they have tied you for the Lo. What is worse is that they have two pair (7s and 6s). This beats your lousy pair of 9s, so not only do you split the Lo part of the pot, you have lost the Hi part. Your opponent walks away with 3/4 of the pot while you get the remaining 1/4.

Because most players consider this an intolerable situation, they play their nut lows very cautiously. This is often the wrong thing to do.

If you have the lowest low hand possible and any high hand worth mentioning, it is often in your best interest to play the hand very aggressively from start to finish. This is especially true when there are more than two people in the pot which is almost always the case in Low Limit Omaha.

The reason why aggression is the right play in this circumstance is that while you may be quartered you will often lose very little (if anything) from this by the end. If you manage to quarter someone else though, you'll stand to make a very good profit.