What is a wrap in poker?
In Omaha poker, there is a straight draw called a “wrap”. The term means you have more than 9 outs. An out is a specific car that completes your draw.
Some wrap hands have up to 20 outs! Not all of your outs give you the nut straight (the best possible straight), but it’s still a draw with big potential. In Texas Hold ‘em, the best possible straight draw is called an open-ended straight draw, but that only has 8 outs.
A wrap is a very strong draw in Omaha poker, especially when there is no flush draw to worry about.
Each Kind of Wrap Hand in Poker
There are a few different kinds of wrap hands in Omaha poker. Knowing how many outs you have with each wrap hand will help you make quicker decisions in online poker games.
13 Out Wrap Hand
You have three cards above two connected community cards.
- Your hand: Q J 10 2
- The board: 9 8 4
- Outs: 7 7 7 7 – 10 10 10 – J J J – Q Q Q
- Outs to the nut straight: All outs give you the best possible straight
16 Out Wrap Hand
You have three cards above two connected community cards, plus one card below.
- Your hand: K Q J 8
- The board: 10 9 2
- Outs: K K K – Q Q Q – J J J – 8 8 8 – 7 7 7 7
- Outs to the nut straight: All outs give you the best possible straight
17 Out Wrap Hand
You have two cards above two connected community cards, plus one card below. You pick up one additional out from only having two cards above the community cards, instead of three.
- Your hand: J 10 7 4
- The board: 9 8 3
- Outs: 6 6 6 6 – 7 7 7 – 10 10 10 – J J J – Q Q Q Q
- Outs to the nut straight: 11 out of 17 outs (6 6 6 6 – 7 7 7 – Q Q Q Q)
20 Out Wrap Hand
With two hole cards above and two below the two connected community cards, you hold the most possible outs for a wrap hand in Omaha poker. Only 14 of the 20 outs are to the nuts.
- Your hand: J 10 7 6
- The board: 9 8 K
- Outs: 5 5 5 5 – 6 6 6 – 7 7 7 – 10 10 10 – J J J – Q Q Q Q
- Outs to the nut straight: 14 out of 20 outs (5 5 5 5 – 6 6 6 – 7 7 7 – Q Q Q Q)
Quickly Calculate the Probability of Hitting Outs
You can use something called the rules of 2 and 4 to estimate the probability of hitting your outs. It is not 100% exact, but it's very close to the correct percentage.
To explain the rule, we’re going to be using our hand from a PokerStars PLO cash game.
- Our hand: 4 5 6 8
- The board: 7 5 10 Q
- Outs: 3 3 3 3 – 4 4 4 – 6 6 6 – 8 8 8
On the flop, we multiply our outs by 4.
13 outs x 4 = 52%
On the turn, we multiply our outs by 2.
13 outs x 2 = 26%
Your Outs Are Not Always Safe
This PokerStars hand is a great example of a 13-out wrap hand. Do you notice anything that might be concerning for us?
There are two spades on the board, meaning that some of our outs could give our opponent a flush.
With 7 Q♣ 8♣ 9♠, we have three consecutive cards above two consecutive community cards. We can make the nut straight on all of our outs, but how many complete a flush?
- Here are all of our outs: 4♣ 4♥ 4♠ 4♦ – 7♣ 7♥ 7♠ – 8♥ 8♠ 8♦ – 9♣ 9♥ 9♦
- Here are the outs that complete flushes: 4♠ – 7♠ – 8♠
10 of our outs are clean, which is a poker term for outs that don’t threaten our hand combination. In this case, clean outs don’t complete a flush draw. We also hold the 9♠ in this hand, which takes away a ♠ and gives us a clean out. Without that card in our hand, we would have 9 clean outs instead of 10.
It's important to consider the ones that could help your opponent. Flush draws are your primary concern, but full houses can also kill your action.
Wrap draws unblock sets and pairs, meaning that since you don’t have pairs, it makes it more likely your opponent does.
You don’t always have to think about folding if the board pairs, but your straight loses a lot of strength. In Omaha poker, you don’t want to put too much money in if you hold a straight on a paired board.
Ready to Play Pot-Limit Omaha?
All of the largest poker sites have good traffic at Omaha cash game tables. PokerStars is ideal for Omaha cash games because of the high player traffic and great reputation.
Pot-limit Omaha tournaments are a little harder to find since most sites prioritize Texas Hold ‘em games. You just have to know which poker rooms have a healthy number of Omaha players.
If you prefer poker tournaments, check out this next site.
888poker is one of the top places for PLO tournaments because of the wide selection and range of buy-ins. There are definitely more events at the micro and low buy-in size, with great prize pools.
Every day, there are a few Mystery Bounty tournaments for PLO players. They work like regular bounty tournaments, except that you might not know how big a player’s bounty is until you knock them out of the tournament. There are $1000 PLO Mystery Bounty tournaments with $11 buy-ins, plus several smaller events.
If you’re a new player, 888poker will give you up to an $88 No Deposit Bonus just for signing up.
