Best Hand of 2016 so far

I love omaha.  Big hands, big draws, lots of fun.  Have been discussing the fun and subtleties of omaha with my friend Mike who rocked some omaha free rolls lately for real money.  What most folks don't understand that with hold em there are only 169 different starting hands.  With omaha, there are 270,725 possible different hands.  Big difference.  When you factor in the high/low situation you can see that it becomes a little crazy.  Little wonder that it is a game that has been described as "designed by sadists and played by masochists".

This hand came yesterday.  I flopped the nut straight, while my opponent hit two pair.  This is the usual start of a big pot and we certainly rammed and jammed right away.  I knew that I was dodging a possible set or two pair, but with the nut flush draw I was good to go.  The turn was air, but brought another flush draw.  Oh well, in for a penny in for a pound.  Ram and Jam again.  The river paired the board (thankfully not with the ace) so my opponent thought he had hit the gin card.  Not so much. Perfect storm giving me the royal flush and a monster pot.  I must admit that my starting hand choice was not optimal as the 6 of spades is a "dangler", not fitting in with the other 3 cards.  Really good omaha players are fairly tight and some won't play a hand without an ace/2 or A/3, or double suited.  Analysis has shown that there is a fairly small set of cards that will show a profit over the long run, and all of them contain an ace.  The game I was playing was 6 handed, which I believe changes your hand selection dramatically.  I like to see a lot of flops, but tighten up after the flop or turn.  It seems to work with me and have rocked some big pots with sub par hands like this one.

The top 30 Omaha starting hands are as follows:

1. A-A-K-K	11. K-Q-J-T	21. Q-Q-A-K
2. A-A-J-T	12. K-K-T-T	22. Q-Q-A-J
3. A-A-Q-Q	13. K-K-A-Q	23. Q-Q-A-T
4. A-A-J-J	14. K-K-A-J	24. Q-Q-K-J
5. A-A-T-T	15. K-K-A-T	25. Q-Q-K-T
6. A-A-9-9	16. K-K-Q-J	26. Q-Q-J-T
7. A-A-x-x	17. K-K-Q-T	27. Q-Q-J-9
8. J-T-9-8	18. K-K-J-T	28. Q-Q-9-9
9. K-K-Q-Q	19. Q-Q-J-J	29. J-J-T-T
10. K-K-J-J	20. Q-Q-T-T	30. J-J-T-9