Raising hands?

[stickdude]

Ok, after 600 or so hands of Omaha, I'm just beginning to get a feel for what hands are playable. However, I have absolutely no idea how to evaluate the strength of a starting hand, and consequently I have an extremely low PFR%.

1. How can I figure out what hands are strong enough to raise with?

2. If someone else raises/3-bets, what kind of hand range can you put them on?

[briachek]

here's my theory for plo high - don't raise preflop I don't as I have a .04 preflop raise % and those are only with good AAxx hands that I'm trying to isolate with when there is a raise and calls or reraise and I can pretty much get all in heads up. Other than that, i just call and look for a good flop since its a postflop game.

Pros - adds deception since people won't know if you have aces, a good wrap, ect. People that don't know you will not put you on AAxx if you flop top set because they will have expected a raise preflop. You let people overplay their hands and see if they are strong by letting them bet for you and just trap when you hit. You will get paid off by a bigger variety of hands because people that shouldn't have seen the flop will and chase things that they shouldn't why you have or are drawing to the nuts.

Cons - you don't reduce the fields so you are more likely to be sucked out on and if a draw is out there, someone likely has it. You will have to learn to try and make people pay the wrong price by check raising and always max raising. It can be expensive when you hit a bad run but good when you hold. You will have to learn how to fold hands or this game isn't for you.

That's my take. Its worked very well for me but raising obviously has worked very well for others.

[stickdude]

[briachek]

[JDLush]