Raising strategy

[Aisthesis]

Well, this one is very conservative, but I'm basically happy with it. It's based somewhat on Phil Hellmuth's PLO chapter (which isn't bad, by the way), and it's extremely simple:

Basically, mini-raise all strong hands (for me: top 15%) in LP only. Unless you get some kind of EP/MP re-raise orgy, you can always see the flop, and you have position with a nice hand. I never raise anything in EP or MP.

Then I pretty much play the flop as usual.

There are several things I like about this, although it's pretty simplistic: First, you get a little bit more in the pot on your strong hands with optimal position.

Second, you don't tip your hand with any kind of variable raising strategy where you make a large raise on hands where you want to limit the field (such as AA) and a small value-raise on drawing hands. You just make the mini-raise on all of it. Actually, I feel like it's a good deceptive move on AA, as they don't particularly expect that kind of raise from AA.

Third, you never limit the field except sometimes getting a little dead money in there from BB and SB, who are really the only players who can by any stretch lay down. So, you're getting almost exactly the same pot odds as you would by just limping.

Anyhow, I'm sure this is open to a lot of improvement if you're willing to LAG it up a bit on the flop. But for me, it's feeling like a good solid raising strategy that's flexible and gets some extra money in there on good hands.

Just as opposite view from another expert: Berman implies that you pretty much always want to raise pot PF. But I'm just not really seeing that at the moment. On some hands, sure, but in Omaha, it seems to me like pretty much EVERY hand is a drawing hand, and I'd prefer to see the flop before deciding how to play it.

[Aisthesis]

I guess one slight addition: If it's folded around I will raise strong hands from SB or BB. Otherwise never. Again, probably overly simplistic, but it seems to work reasonably well.

[DaHitDogg]

Seems to make sense to me. Being a noob I'm still focusing more on what hands to even play much less raise. Comparing my limited PLO experience to NLH, I like this strategy because your goals/expectations are so different. In NLH you raise because you want to limit the field and isolate players you dominate. In PLO this just doensn't work because you never really "dominate" another hand and most people will call raises w/ 75% of the hands they would limp anyway. Building a pot with a "slightly" better hand that you will play more efficiently than your opponents makes a lot of sense.

[Aisthesis]

Yeah, that's exactly where I'm coming from. Basically, you never dominate. So, why not make a little pot-builder with position on nice drawing hands WITHOUT limiting the field and just take it from there?