The playable Omaha hands are on par with the weakest of these Hold'em hands, but there are more of the Omaha hands. You don’t go into a coma (well, maybe you get close to a coma),. Omaha Holdem Poker Rules. Omaha Hold'em, or commonly referred to as Omaha, is not quite as popular as it's cousin, Omaha hi/lo split, but it does have many fans, especially online and in west coast card rooms. Omaha Poker has become one of the professional players' favorite games.
Are you new at poker and want to learn how to play Pot Limit Omaha (PLO)? Or is Texas Holdem your typical game and you want to add to your repretoire? If you are among the latter folks, pay special attention to the tips below because Omaha players are on the lookout for common Texas mistakes.
Below we introduce PLO strategies for starting hand selection and assessment, bankroll management, equity, backdoor outs and kill cards, and hand reading.
Basic PLO Strategy & Tips
Many players give PLO a try as a refreshing change from Texas Holdem. With 4 hole cards and betting limits fixed by the size of the pot, there are new strategy considerations to keep your mind fresh. This article covers some of the key strategy tips you’ll need to keep in mind when your first move over. Remember that experienced PLO players are on the lookout for people making ‘Holdem Player Mistakes’ and are ready to take advantage.
There are 3 main areas covered in this article. First the setup of starting hands and the importance of betting with combinations of cards that work together. Next you’ll find tips covering the relative strengths of hands at showdown. After that some advice on how to avoid giving away the content of your Omaha hand too early.
Pot Limit Omaha Strategy Tips – Starting Hand Selection
In PLO poker, a showdown has very specific rules. You can use 2 and only 2 cards from you own 4 hole-cards, and 3 and only 3 cards from the 5 community cards. Reading the board comes easily with practice, though the effect on starting hand selection is more subtle.
The best Omaha hands are those which have the largest possible number of 2-card combinations which work together – in addition to some high card strength. The best hands are A-A-J-10 with 2 ace high suited pairs, and A-A-K-K also double-suited. Both of these can make top set, straights and nut flushes. Other super-strong hands in PLO are called ‘Rundowns’ and include hands like 9-10-J-Q double suited. Here you have 6 combinations of hands working for you and you can flop draws with up to 21 outs – making you a favorite over a set.
Even one unconnected card halves the number of combinations you have working for you. The really dangerous Omaha starting hands contain small to medium pairs. Sure, you can flop a set now and again, but when the betting gets extra heavy in this game – middle or bottom set is a trap hand. If you are not already beaten by a higher set then you could be facing one or more massive draws which are favorite to beat you.
Pot Limit Omaha Strategy Tips- Relative Hand Strength At Showdown
Hands shown down in PLO are much stronger than you will be used to in Texas Holdem. If you think that each player starts with up to 6 potential 2-card combinations, then it makes sense that hands shown down will be close to the nuts. Just imagine betting into 3 players in Texas Holdem holding 18 hands – one of them must have hit the flop.
If you can get your aces all-in pre-flop then you should do that, however unimproved over-pairs are very unlikely to win the pot when there has been significant action.
Coordinated flops mean you need to make a decision on whether to continue immediately. The betting gets exponentially bigger on each round with pot-limit rules and ‘just calling to see what happens’ can lead you to hit a low straight, non-nut flush or two pair – which will cost you money more often than they make you any.
A good rule of thumb for new players is to only draw to nut hands. The highest straights, nut flushes and the best full-house should all be included. Once you get used to how different opponents are betting in different situations you can add in some non-nut draws like the underfull or King-high flushes.
Pot-Limit Omaha Strategy Tips – Don’t Give Away That Hand Too Early
A common mistake new Omaha players make is to limp or call pre-flop with a wide range of speculative hands – and then suddenly raise with a pair of aces or kings. This is so well known among regular players that many specifically watch for these raises. What you will find is that you instantly end up with 5 callers, and are quickly checked to on the flop.
If you did not improve on the flop you need to be wary, your opponents will know what you have (well, half of your hand at least) and will be ready to build a big pot if they have you beaten. Once you gain some PLO experience of your own you can join in the profitable pastime of watching for aces-only raisers.
Even players who raise a wider range of coordinated hands can fall into this trap sometimes. This happens when only aces are used to re-raise. If you are going to give away your hand in this way you need to make sure that you have no more than one pot-sized bet left after the flop – otherwise it is easily exploitable by observant opponents.
Omaha is a fantastic game and has developed a loyal following online. These tips should keep you from losing too many easy chips while you learn to beat the game.
Advanced PLO Strategy
Once you have learned the basics of starting hand selection, drawing to the nuts and pot-limit betting – you are ready to add some advanced strategies to your PLO armory. This article covers a range of tactics that will help you increase your win-rate in lower buy-in Omaha hi games online.
First you’ll find out how to spot situations where a combination of your current equity and ‘backdoor outs’ make it profitable to call when you are not favorite to win the hand. Next some notes on reading your opponent’s hands. After this I have covered how to distinguish hands which do better heads up from hands which perform well multi-way. Finally some notes on good bankroll management, which is a key skill in the high-variance game of pot-limit Omaha.
Equity, Backdoor Outs and Kill Cards
In Pot-Limit Omaha there are many situations where the pot has gotten so large that you have an easy call with a hand which is likely behind. This is not just for the mega-draws like wrap + flush draw hands, it can be for a simple flush with the pot offering you compelling odds.
What many new players miss is that there is often extra equity from backdoor draws. For example with a flush draw + top-pair hand, you will have chances of trips or even a runner-runner full-house, you may also have straight possibilities. These extras can often add the few percentage points to your equity, which make a fold into a call.
Conversely, there are often cards in the deck which are not clean outs. For example in a classic flush draw against set all-in on the flop, the set has outs to make a full house (7 on the turn and 10 on the river) which effectively kill your flush. Being outdrawn by a flush when you hold the nut straight has the additional risk of higher straight cards appearing as well as the board pairing.
You’ll need to spend some time with an Omaha poker calculator to get used to these kind of match-ups.
Hand Reading in PLO
In my article on Basic PLO Strategy Tips, I outlined how people who raise (or 3-bet) only with hands containing aces will find themselves in trouble in PLO games. There are several more ways you can learn to read the hands of your opponents in Omaha.
Key here is to start with the shape and strength of your opponents hands. You can often find bet sizing tells will give you a clue starting before the flop. For example, some players will only ever re-raise premium hands and will be more likely to raise pair or high card hands and instead call with their rundown hands.
After the flop some players will bet out every time they have a draw, while others will check and call with non-nut (though still strong) draws. With careful observation you can easily pick up patterns. If you are not used to this I recommend you start by focusing on how different opponent play their Aces hands – followed by double suited run-downs. Once you figure whether someone is drawing or ‘protecting’ a made hand from the bet sizing, your decision making process becomes significantly easier.
Multi-Way and Heads-Up Hands
Some Omaha hands perform better in multi-way pots, while others are at their strongest when heads-up. Examples of multi-way hands include the higher rundown hands, preferably double suited. If you hold a high pair with little in the way of coordinated backup then you will ideally find yourself heads-up and with the initiative in the betting. If you miss the flop and face resistance, then high pair hands should usually be ditched.
Simply deciding whether your hand would prefer to be heads-up or multi-way can help you choose a good pre-flop betting strategy. Make sure that you mix things up sometimes though – or observant opponents will know what type of hand you are holding from your betting style.
PLO Bankroll Management
PLO is a high-variance game. You can play great and find yourself missing big draws, having your big sets cracked and find your bankroll going down fast. Of course, this will be balanced by times when you run great too!
In Texas Holdem, the agreed safe bankroll level is 20x your buy-in, so you only have 5% of your bankroll in any one game. In PLO I recommend that you play a little more conservatively with your bankroll, instead opting for 3% on any single table or 30 buy-ins minimum. This will mean you can ride the variance which is natural in this game without having to worry about your entire bankroll disappearing.
How to Play Omaha Hi-Lo Poker
Omaha Hi-Lo is a poker game that uses community cards – These are cards that all players at the table can use in conjunction with their own hole cards, which in the case of Omaha Hi-Lo Poker is 4. The aim of the game, as with any poker game, is to make the best possible 5 card poker hand. However, where Omaha Hi-Lo differs from most is that you sometimes need to make 2 poker hands, a Hi hand and a Lo’s hand. More of this later.
Omaha Hi-Lo Poker is not as popular as some version of online poker such as Texas Hold’em and Omaha. The rules are the same as in Omaha for the Hi hand. In Omaha Hi-Lo, as in Omaha, all players receive 4 ‘hole’ cards at the start of a hand. An important thing to remember for Omaha Hi-Lo is that you must use 2 of your 4 hole cards for the Hi hand and 2 for the Lo hand where applicable. You cannot choose 3 of your hold cards and 2 of the community cards for example. You can choose 2 different cards for the Hi hand and the Lo’s hand if you wish, but for each, you can only select 2 hole cards and 3 community cards.
In a cash game, you can sit down with your own money and leave at any time with the chips that you have in front of you. If you choose to play either a multi-table tournament or a sit and go, you will all start with the same number of chips for the same buy-in and play continues until one player has all the chips in play. Money is paid to the best-placed players, the number of players who end up ‘in the money’ depends on entrants, but winnings are only paid once the tournament has finished so you cannot walk away at any time with funds like you can in cash games.
Omaha Hi-Lo Rules
Omaha Hi-Lo uses one deck of 52 cards. All cards count at their respective values with Aces counting as either high or low for both hands which can be very important in this game.
The rules in terms of betting rounds are essentially the same as for Omaha except when it comes to determining the winning hands.
A player is designated as the dealer for each hand. This player has a ‘button’ in front of them to signify this. Although this player won’t physically deal the cards, the position of this button determines other actions like who will receive cards first and who will be first and last to act. The cards are dealt with each player starting with the player on the left of the dealer. This dealer button moves around the table after each hand in a clockwise direction.
Before each hand commences, the player to the dealer’s left places a bet known as a ‘small blind’. This is necessary for them to be dealt into the hand. This amount is the same each hand in a cash game, the amount depends on the table limits, whilst in a tournament, these bets increase at predetermined intervals which ensures the tournament will finish as players bet higher and higher amounts. The next player to the left of the small blind, effectively 2 places to the left of the dealer, pays another forced bet, this one known as the big blind. This is usually twice the amount of the small blind. The dealer button moves around the table after each hand to ensure all players take their turn at placing these bets ensuring fairness in the game and also that there is money in play for each hand.
When these 2 bets have been placed, all players receive 4 cards face down that only they can see. The player to the dealers left, the small blind, gets a card first with play continuing in a clockwise direction. The dealer is the last to receive cards.
It is now time for the 1st of 4 betting rounds. As the 2 players to the left of the dealer have already placed a bet, the player to the left of the big blind is the first to act now. This gives an advantage to those in the blinds as they will be the last to act and will, therefore, have a better idea of what other players have.
There are several options each player has at this point. They can ‘Call’ the current largest bet (place a bet equal to the largest one so far, this will be the big blind unless someone else has previously ‘Raised’), Raise (place a bet of more than the previous highest bet, different table limits have different rules about how much this can be, it normally needs to be at least double the big blind amount) or Fold (if you don’t feel it is worth Calling the highest bet as your cards aren’t that good, you throw your cards away and are out of the hand without the need to pay any further funds).
Play – otherwise known as action – now continues to the next player on the left of the previous one until all players have either Called the highest bet or Folded and left the hand. If the action gets back to the big blind, who is the last player to act in this betting round, and no one has Raised, the big blind can ‘Check’ which effectively means he Calls the highest bet without needing to put more chips in as he has already matched the highest bet with his big blind bet.
When all players have either Called or Folded, 3 cards are dealt face up in the middle of the table. This is known as the ‘Flop’ and the first of 5 Community cards that all players can use.
We now have a 2nd betting round for all remaining players. This is the same as the last betting round except that action starts with the 1st player to the Dealers left who is still in the hand, the player who placed the Big Blind. The first player can ‘Check’ if they wish as no forced bet is in play in further betting rounds, this means they effectively Call the highest bet which is currently nothing. No chips need to be added at this point, although if any other player Raises, all players need to place chips of this value to continue in the hand.
As before, the betting round ends once all players have either Called or Folded. If there are at least 2 players still remaining, we go to the Turn, which is a 4th community card dealt face up for all players to use. A 3rd betting round now takes place the same as before with one difference, which is the minimum bet from now on is twice the value of the big blind, therefore if a player decides to Raise, the minimum they can bet is twice the big blind for that hand.
Omaha Poker Plo Strategy
When this hand has been completed, a 5th and final community card is dealt, the River. This completes the cards available to use so at this point you will know your best hand for the Hi hand and whether it is possible that a player can have a qualifying Lo hand. More of that in a moment. There is then one final betting round the same as the last one.
If 2 or more players are still involved after this betting round, we go to Showdown to determine the winner/s. If all except one player has folded, that remaining player wins the pot.
The winning Hi hand is determined by the best 5 card poker hand using 3 of the 5 community cards and 2 of the 4 hole cards available to the player. Please remember that it needs to be this combination and you cannot use 0, 1, 3 or 4 hole cards, it needs to be 2 of your 4 hole cards and 3 of the 5 community cards.
Here is where Omaha Hi-Lo differs from Omaha, the Lo hand.
A qualifying Lo hand is one that contains 5 separate numbers from 1 (Ace) up to 8. Pairs of numbers don’t count, there need to be 5 unique values.
If 3 of the 5 community cards have separate values of between Ace up to 8, then it is possible for a Lo hand to be made. In this case, half of the pot goes to the best Lo hand and a half to the best Hi hand.
The best Lo hand is determined by the lowest values in the hand.
If 2 or more players have a qualifying hand, the lowest number is compared. If 2 or more players have a hand with the same lowest card, the 2nd lowest is compared. This continues until one player has a lower value card than the other, this hand is declared the winner of the Lo hand, if more than one player has the same value Lo hand in terms of all 5 cards, that part of the pot is split equally.
When deciding your best Lo hand, you can use the same 2 hole cards as for your best Hi hand or different cards for both. The same rule applies though that you need to use 2 of your 4 hole cards and 3 community cards for each.
Take a look at the example below.
This is the Showdown and there are 3 players left, Adam, Harry, and Alex.
As there are 4 cards valued at 8 or below in the community cards – Ace of Spades, 3 of Clubs, 5 of Clubs and 8 of Clubs, a Lo hand is possible.
Players need to use 2 of their 4 hole cards to make a hand, therefore only Adam with his 2 Diamonds and 6 of Diamonds has a qualifying Lo hand of Ace, 2, 3, 5 and 6. He wins half the pot for the best Lo hand.
However, he only has a pair of Kings for the best Hi hand and is beaten to that by Harry who has a flush, using the Jack and 10 of Clubs from his hole cards along with the 3, 5 and 8 of Clubs from the community cards. He, therefore, wins half the pot as the best Hi hand.
Omaha Hi-Lo can take some getting used to, so we suggest you try it for free at one of our recommended sites before you start playing for real money.
Omaha Hi-Lo Poker Strategy
Omaha Hi-Lo is totally different from most forms of poker and a lot harder to master.
That being said, because of this even if you only get a good grip on the best way to play, there is still money to be made against less experienced players.
The key thing to remember is that there are 2 hands that you are looking to make, so you need to consider the Lo hand at least, if not more than, the Hi hand.
Omaha Hold Em Strategy For Beginners
An Ace is a great card to have in any form of poker, this is especially the case in Omaha Hi-Lo as it is the best Hi card and the best Lo card.
In fact, many players would not consider putting money into the pot pre-flop without an Ace in their hand.
It is only after the Flop though that you get a real feel for how the hand is likely to go and if there is likely to be a Lo hand or not.
30% of the time, there is no possibility of a Lo hand and therefore the best Hi hand will take the pot.
The top 10 starting hands in Omaha Hi-Lo are open to discussion, you won’t go far wrong raising though with any of the following:
AA23 DS
AA24 DS
AA23 Suited
AA25 DS
AA24 Suited
AA34 DS
AA23 Non suited
AA22 DS
AA35 DS
AA26 DS
DS = Double suited, so 2 cards of 1 suit and 2 cards of another
Suited = 2 cards the same suit, 2 cards of different suits
Non-Suited = 4 cards of different suits or the non-aces suited
Omaha Hold Em Strategy Charts
Other playable starting hands (ones to play when in late position if no raise has been made)
AA2x
AA3x
AA45
A23x
A2KK
A2QQ
A2JJ
A345
AAxx
A2KQ
A2KJ
A2xx (with suited Ace)
A3KK
A34x
2345 (fold if no Ace appears on the Flop)
JQKA
TJQK
KKQJ
QJT9
234x (fold if no Ace appears on the Flop)
Any 4 cards between T and Ace
*x represents any card
Omaha Hi-Lo Tips
A2 is the new AA – In most games, a pair of Aces is the hand you are looking for to start. However, due to the nature of the Lo hand in Omaha Hi-Lo Poker, A2 is the one to look for. You would almost always want to see the Flop with these cards as you are guaranteed at least a share of the Lo pot if 3 of 3,4,5,6,7, or 8 appear on the board
Look for connectors – the closer together your cards are the better as Omaha Hi-Lo is very much a drawing game. If these are double suited, so much the better
Don’t bluff – in some forms of poker, bluffing is a key part, this is not the case with Omaha Hi-Lo though. As there are 2 hands to consider most of the time, it is going to be harder to bet a player off the pot if they have, for example, A2 and there are 2/3 Lo cards on the board, you are much more likely to get your fingers burnt if you bluff against them
Don’t stay in without a premium Hi or Lo hand – if you have a good Hi hand and a good Lo hand, the chances are neither will be good enough to win, especially if there are several players left in the pot. Stay in only when you have at least one hand which is the nuts or close
Be selective with your starting hands – The higher number of options all players have to mean the winning hand is likely to have to be much better than in Texas Hold’em, therefore avoid calling with low cards that aren’t double suited or consecutive
Get to know the players – Whilst this is important in all forms of poker, this is especially the case in Omaha Hi-Lo, if you can spot those players that call or raise with anything, you could well have a good advantage against them when you hit something good
Respect most big raises and bets – Again, true for all forms of poker but unless you have an exceptional hand or a lot of draws, get out if a big bet comes along
Do not overestimate your hand – The nut flush for example in Texas Hold’em would normally be an excellent hand and give you a great chance of winning, this is not the case in Omaha Hi-Lo especially if the board has paired as winning hands are normally a lot better
Work out your outs – A hand with 8 outs in Texas Hold’em would normally be worth playing, however, due to the increased number of starting combinations in Omaha Hi-Lo, it is possible to flop a hand with 13, 17 and 20 way Straight draws meaning it a lot less likely your hand will hold up
Do not always play unsuited Aces – AA preflop would be great in Texas Hold’em, in Omaha Hi-Lo though if you don’t have another card of the same suit, you need to really hit one of the other 2 Aces on the Flop otherwise there is little else to improve your hand
Be cautious in multi-way pots – If more than one other player is in the hand with you, the likelihood is that you will need the ‘nuts’ – the best possible hand – to ensure you win, don’t invest too much if you don’t have a chance of getting it
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