The Wrap Straight Draw

What makes Omaha such a great action game is the balance between draws and made hands. In Hold’em or Stud, a great draw is usually just 8 or 9 outs, which means the made hand is almost always at a big advantage. Not so in Omaha, where it’s easy to have multiple draws because of the extra two cards in your hand. Made hands will often be up against someone with a straight draw and a flush draw, or a sort of super straight draw called a “wrap” draw.

“Wrap” refers to the way the cards in your hand wrap around the community cards on board. There are a few types of wrap draw. When you are playing poker, imagine your Omaha hand contains a 6,7 and 8. The flop comes 59x. You can make a straight with any of the three cards you hold, a 6,7 or 8. That gives you 9 outs, one more than an open-ended straight draw, the best kind you can have in a non-Omaha game. The inside wrap draw, while still decent, isn’t that strong a hand, and isn’t really a wrap draw. The cards don’t really wrap around, they fit in the middle, but many Omaha players will still call it a wrap, and it does give you more outs than a regular open-ended draw. The chances of making a 9 outer like this are 36.4% if you have two shots at it (the turn and the river).

A stronger type of wrap draw occurs on a board with two connected cards when you hold the three cards above or below. If you hold AKQ and the flop comes JTx, any 9, Q, K, or A will give you the straight. That’s a total of 13 outs. The probability of hitting on the turn or river with this hand is 49.9%, virtually 50-50. With this type of wrap draw it’s often correct to go all-in on the flop, especially if there was significant money in the pot before the flop or if you have a chance of stealing the pot with your bet. Keep in mind though that if you’re up against a set (which will be common if there’s heavy betting), your opponent has redraws to the full house, so your actual percentage is under 50%. In this example, against a set of jacks, you would have an approximately 40% chance including redraws.

If the two straight cards on board are two gappers, i.e. 47, you can make a wrap draw with the two middle cards and the higher or lower card, in this example 568 or 563. In either case, you have the same 13 outs as in the example in the paragraph above, and the percentages are the same as well.

The strongest type of wrap draw occurs when the straight cards on board have one gap or are connected. For instance, imagine the board shows 9Jx. If you have 8TQ in your hand, a 7,8,T,Q or K will make your draw. This is a true wrap; you have 17 outs! There are four 7s and four Ks, as well as three 8s, Ts and Qs that make your straight. This draw is better than a straight-flush draw, where you have only 15 outs. It’s one of the strongest draws you can have. With 17 outs, your chances of hitting on the turn or river are 61.8%, well over 50-50. With a draw like this you should be happy to get the money in on the flop (assuming there’s no pair or flush draw on board).