Scooping

Scooping refers to winning both the high half of the pot and the low half of the pot.  Scooping is your goal.  Winning half of the pot is not going to make you money in Low Limit Omaha!  For that reason you need to value hands that not only have very strong low potential but that also have good high potential. 

Hands that contain pairs, straight wraps and suited aces are excellent scooping hands.  High hands are also excellent scooping hands!  Many people will not play high-only hands in Omaha-8 but this is a big mistake.  Yes, frequently the flop will come down low and you will have to dump these hands, but when the final board consists of three or more high cards then there is no low possible and you have excellent chances of scooping the pot with a strong high hand.

Scooping is more than twice as good as taking half the pot because of the ratio of your bets to the final size of your portion of the total pot.  For example if the final pot is $200 and you have contributed $50 of that money to the pot then if you get half the pot ($100) your winnings are $50, but if you scoop the whole pot ($200) your winnings are $150.  In the first case you are getting even money on your bet for a split pot and for a scoop you are getting 3:1 odds on your bet, a massive improvement.