Omaha high and Omaha high/low are both a variation of Texas Holdem
offered in many poker rooms and in almost all online rooms. It can be very
profitable, possibly more so than holdem to a skillful player. Omaha is a more
mathematical game and has less short term variance (luck) than holdem.
Omaha is similar to Holdem in many ways. The differences are that each player
receives four hole cards and you must use two cards from your hand and three
from the board. This is very important so I will repeat it. You must use exactly
two cards from your hand. You cannot use one card or play the board.
Because each player receives four hole cards instead of two, the winning hand is
often the best possible hand (the “nuts”) or close to it. Most of the money I
make playing Omaha is from players chasing second and third best hands that even
when they hit their hand it isn’t the best. A perfect example is a person on a
flush draw when the board is paired. Realize that if the board is paired,
someone almost always has a full house.
Omaha high (often just referred to as Omaha) is played for the best high hand
just like holdem. The most important thing to remember is only play when you
have the best hand (or most likely) or have a draw to the best hand. To clarify
the statement “most likely” above, if you have A A J T and the board reads A 5 5
on the flop, the best possible hand is quad 5’s (four of a kind). You have the
second best possible hand, and once in a blue moon someone will have the other
two 5’s. But in this situation you should bet and raise as if you have the best
hand because you will make much more profit in the long run from the times
someone doesn’t have the 5’s as you will lose the one time they do. In addition,
an opponent will have the other A and a 5 slightly more often as someone will
have the other two 5’s and you will win a good pot from them as your full house
is better than theirs.
Omaha is often played high/low with a qualifier of 8 or better for the low which
is abbreviated to Omaha/8 or O/8. This means the pot is split evenly between the
best high hand and the best low hand and the low hand must contain no cards
higher than an 8 and must not be paired. The best low hand is 5, 4, 3, 2, A and
the worst low hand possible is 8, 7, 6, 5, 4. Because each player must use three
board cards to make their best high and low hand (you don’t have to use the same
three cards for each hand) there is often not a low hand possible (for example,
a board of K Q T 9 3 or Q J T 2 3) and the high hand will “scoop”, or win the
entire pot.
Omaha/8 is the second most popular game available online so
the strategy discussions will be presented for it in both limit and
pot-limit forms.
To determine which low hand is lowest of two or more combinations, you read the
hands backwards like a number. Here are a few examples.
8 7 6 5 4 is read 87,654
8 6 5 4 2 is read 86,542
8 4 3 2 A is read 84,321
7 6 5 4 3 is read 76,543
6 5 4 3 2 is read 65,543
5 4 3 2 A is read 54,321
The lower the number, the better the low hand.
Texas Hold'em Rules & How To Play