One of the reasons you always want to play both sides of the pot in Omaha high low is because you may find yourself playing for a fraction of the pot, when you could have been anticipating winning at least half the pot.
Many players play A2 hands, disregarding their other two cards to the point of being out of the tournament or losing money in a ring game, simply because they don’t realize that other players are playing the same cards, but with better potential for the top of the boat as well. It’s true that A2 is a salute to the low side, but if you call a lot of raises before the flop and the flop doesn’t work for you, it’s a useless hand.
It’s not going to work for you all the time if you don’t know how to control the size of the pot. This hand can also be worthless, even if you are declared one of the winners. In particular, it’s often a fight for a fraction of the pot when you’re up against multiple opponents. Let’s say for example you have Ac, 2h, Jh, 9s on the button and you see the flop with three other opponents on 6d, 3d and 8d. Against three other opponents, you can be almost certain with a flush flop like this that you’re instantly out of the race to win the high hand.
However, since you have the nut low, many players will think this is a good flop with your hole cards. That’s just not true, because this hand will only involve tough decisions from here to the river, if you don’t get out of the hand entirely.
If you are in a sit and go tournament, I can assure you that you are likely to lose money on this hand if you stay involved whenever you find yourself in a situation like this. The reason for this is that although you can win on the low side on occasion, you can virtually never be putting money into this pot with the expectation of winning. Scooping is the key to playing profitable high low Omaha in ring games and tournaments.
So if he can’t take a pot, he resigns himself to playing for half the pot or less. You will be surprised how many times you will play for less than half the pot. Note here that in this particular hand, there is a flush board, so you would probably also expect some aggressive betting, particularly on the turn and river, making this pot relatively large. Think about it: you are going to have to commit more and more chips on the premise that you think you are going to win half of this pot with the nut low. That’s a losing omaha hi-lo poker strategy, and you have to have the discipline to waste hands in this situation.