Regle Poker Omaha Hi Lo
Omaha Hi Lo is a fun and potentially profitable poker
variation.
- What I mean by 'Omaha' here is: Limit Omaha High-Low (aka Omaha8, Omaha Hi-Lo Split, Omaha Eight-or-Better). Omaha is also played Limit High Only, Pot Limit High, Pot Limit High-Low and occasionally No Limit. While concepts here are sometimes applicable to the other variations, sometimes they definitely are not.
- Omaha Hi-Lo, also known as Omaha High-Low, O8 and Omaha 8-or-Better, is one of the most popular and entertaining forms of poker in the world. If you’ve played Omaha High or Pot-Limit Omaha before, Omaha Hi-Lo is played according to almost identical rules. The only time the High and Hi-Lo differ rules-wise is at the showdown.
It offers a nice change of pace for Texas holdem players and
when you learn the best way to play can be more profitable.
This page includes sections on how to play and strategy. If
you’re sure you already know how to play you can skip to the
strategy section, but if you have any questions at all about the
exact rules it’ll only take a couple minutes to read through the
how to play section.
Did you know you have to use exactly two of your hole cards
and exactly three of the board cards to form a hand? In Texas
holdem you can use any number of hole cards and up to and
including five community cards.
If you didn’t know the difference read the rules section
before moving on.
Omaha hi lo or 'Omaha 8' is similar to PLO / pot-limit Omaha (Omaha 'high'). Except Omaha hi lo is the split-pot version where players compete for both the 'low' and 'high' halves of the pot. Like in PLO, hi low players get four hole cards. They need to use two of them combined with 3 community cards to make a poker hand.
How to Play – Omaha Hi Lo Rules
Dealer Position & Blinds
One player is designated as the dealer position, usually
shown with a white button with the word dealer on it. The player
to the immediate left of the dealer position is the small blind
and the player to the immediate left of the small blind is the
big blind.
The dealer button is passed one player to the left after each
hand is completed.
The big blind places a forced wager set by the table limits
and the small blind places a bet usually half the size of the
big blind. In limit games the small blind is half the big blind,
but in pot limit and no limit games it can be different.
In a 10 / 20 limit game, the big blind is 10 and the small
blind is 5.
Dealing a Hand
Starting with the player in the small blind, each player
receives four cards face down, dealt one at a time to the left
around the table.
Pre-Flop Betting
After each player receives four hole cards the player to the
left of the big blind may choose from one of the following
options.
- Fold (discard their cards and sit out the rest of the
hand) - Call (the amount of the big blind)
- Raise
Play moves to the next player to the left who either folds,
calls the largest previous wager, or raises. After each player
has the opportunity to act the play moves on to the left. When
play reaches the small blind she either calls the remaining part
of the largest bet above her blind amount, folds or raises. Then
the big blind can check if the hand hasn’t been raised, fold if
the hand has been raised, call a raise, or raise.
Play continues to the left until every player has folded or
called the highest wager.
The Flop
The next step is the three card flop. The flop is the
beginning of the community card area.
Community cards are used by all the players remaining in the
hand to form a five card high hand and a five card low hand when
possible.
After the three cards on the flop are turned face up the
first player to the left of the dealer button remaining in the
hand is the first to act. This player has the following two
options.
- Check (passing the option to bet onto the next player)
- Bet
Play continues to the left with each remaining player having
the option to check if a bet hasn’t been made, or to call a bet,
fold, or raise.
Play continues to the left until each player remaining in the
hand has called the highest bet amount.
The Turn
The fourth community card, called the turn, is then dealt and
another betting round structured the same way as the one after
the flop is conducted.
In a limit game all bets are a set amount. Using the same 10
/ 20 example from above, all bets before and on the flop would
be 10. All bets on the turn and river are 20.
The River
After betting is completed on the turn the fifth and final
community card, called the river, is dealt face up. A final
betting round, identical to the one following the turn, is
conducted. After this round of betting the remaining players
show their cards and the winner or winners are paid from the
pot.
Making a Hand
Each player must use exactly two cards from her hand and
three of the community cards to form their best five card high
hand and best five card low hand if a low is possible. You don’t
have to use the same two cards to form a high and low hand.
Here are a couple of examples.
Your Hand:
.Community Cards:
You’d use your
and
with the
and
to form a low and your
and
with the
and
for a high hand.
Your Hand:
Community Cards:
On this occasion you’d use your
and
with the
and
for both your high and low hand.
The only time a low hand is possible is when at least three
unpaired cards eight and below are on the board.
The biggest mistake Omaha Hi Lo players make is
forgetting they have to use exactly two hole cards and three
board cards to form a hand.
If no low hand is possible the entire pot is awarded to the
player with the best high hand. If two or more players tie for
the best high hand they split the pot.
When a low hand qualifies, the pot is split between the best
high hand and the best low hand. If more than one person ties
for the best high or best low hand the half of the pot that is
tied is split between the players who tied.
How to Read the Board
Most players don’t struggle much when it comes to determining
their best high hand, but figuring out the best low hand can be
tricky until you get used to how to read the board.
The easiest way to read low hands and figure out which hand
is lowest is to take each players five lowest unpaired cards and
read them backwards like a number.
Here’s an example.
- A 2 3 4 5 = 54,321
- A 2 3 4 6 = 64,321
- A 4 5 6 7 = 76,541
- A 2 3 7 8 = 87,321
Once you get used to reading low hands it’s pretty easy, but
don’t hesitate to ask the dealer to wait at the end of a hand
until you clearly see the value of each hand.
Variations
The two most popular variations of Omaha Hi Lo are limit and
pot limit. It can be played for no limit stakes, but most online
poker rooms only offer pot limit and limit.
Even the few that have no limit capabilities rarely have
players at the tables.
If player interest is high enough most land based poker rooms
will spread a no limit Omaha Hi Lo game, but you’re more likely
to find a pot limit game.
Though most dealers don’t have any problems with pot limit
games, it’s more difficult than no limit games and it can be
slower. Poker rooms don’t like anything that slows down the
games because the fewer hands per hour they run the lower the
rake they make from each table.
Why Omaha Hi Lo Can Be More Profitable
Most poker players started playing Texas holdem. In holdem,
you receive a two card starting hand so at the beginning of the
first round of betting you don’t know where any of the other 50
cards are located.
As players make bets, calls, and raises you can get an idea
of a range of starting hands they may hold. When the flop is
dealt you know the value of the two cards in your hand and the
three cards on the flop, for a total of 5 known cards and 47
unknown cards.
You know one more card value on the turn and another on the
river. After the river card is dealt you know the value of 7
cards and you don’t know the value of 45 cards.
In Omaha Hi Lo you know the value of two more cards on each
round of betting. While this may not seem like much, it’s
actually a considerable advantage.
Here’s a chart comparing the percentage of known cards at
each level of a hand in Texas holdem and Omaha.
| Texas Holdem | Omaha Hi Lo | |
|---|---|---|
| Before the flop | 3.8% | 7.7% |
| After the flop | 9.6% | 13.5% |
| After the turn | 11.5% | 15.4% |
| After the river | 13.5% | 15.4% |
Notice that in Omaha you have twice as much information
before the flop as you do in Texas holdem and after the river
you know almost 5% more. These higher percentages make Omaha Hi
Lo a more predictable and mathematical straight forward game.
Smart players use this extra information to make better
decisions and make more money than average players.
If you’re asking why this makes a difference, because
everyone has the same amount of information, you need to
consider this a different way.
Everyone has access to the same amount of information, but
most players don’t know what to do with the information.
Because you have more information by knowing a higher
percentage of card values than in holdem, you can determine the
mathematically correct play more often playing Omaha Hi Lo.
Omaha Hi Lo Strategy
The same basic strategies used in most forms of poker are the
ones you should use while playing Omaha Hi Lo.
The Omaha Hi Lo specific strategies that you need to combine
with common poker tactics are covered in the sections below.
Scooping
The most important thing to remember when deciding what to do
in Omaha Hi Lo is that you need to put yourself into position to
scoop pots. While you can make a little money winning half the
pot, the real money is in scooping and winning three quarters of
the pot.
You have two ways to scoop pots. You can win both the high
and low part of a split pot or have the best high hand in a pot
that doesn’t have a low possibility.
Every decision you make needs to be made with an eye on
scooping possibilities.
Of course most hands don’t play out in a way where you have a
choice, but if you had to pick having a best high hand or a best
low hand you want the best high hand. High hands are rarely
split while low hands are split often.
To give yourself the best chance to scoop a pot you need to
play high only hands and two way hands.
A high only hand has high pairs, face cards, large suited
cards, and other combinations that give you a strong chance to
have the nut high hand on a high only board.
Two way hands almost always have an ace in combination with
one or two low cards and one or two high cards. If the ace is
suited to one of the other cards it makes the hand stronger.
Examples of high only hands include:
Examples of two way hands include:
Getting Quartered or Worse
Most Omaha Hi Lo players enter any pot where they hold an ace
and a two, so low hands that don’t have an ace and two on the
board are often split between two or more players. In this case
the player with the best high hand gets half the pot and the two
players with the tied low hand each receive a quarter of the
pot.
Sometimes a player will tie for low and have the best high
hand, receiving three quarters of the pot.
You want to avoid only winning a quarter of the pot, called
being quartered, as often as possible. Unless a great deal of
money is in the pot from early in the hand from players who
don’t win part of the pot, it’s difficult to come out ahead in a
hand where you’ve been quartered.
If three players tie for the best low hand it’s even worse.
This is the main reason when you consider starting hands it’s
important to have some chance at a high hand when you have a
strong low starting hand. You need to win the high half of the
pot in combination with the low half, or part of the low half,
in order to turn a consistent profit in the long run.
The Nuts and Second Best Hands
Texas holdem players often see top pair top kicker hands hold
up and usually win with a flush, even if it’s only jack or ten
high or when the board pairs.
In Omaha Hi Lo you rarely win with hands like these.
While the nuts aren’t always required to win a hand, the
average value of winning hands is higher than in Texas holdem.
Anything below a set is unlikely to win a high hand.
Straights and flushes are closer to the average high hands and
if a full house is possible try not to bank on winning the
high half unless being the one with the full house.
A full house is only possible when the board pairs because
you have to use two hole cards to form a hand.
The rule of thumb is if you’re drawing you need to be drawing
to either the nuts or a strong enough hand that you’re a huge
favorite to win when you hit.
When the board is paired the nuts is four of a kind, but the
top possible full house is good enough to draw to if the pot is
offering the correct odds.
The next rule of thumb is never draw to a low that isn’t the
nut low. You end up getting quartered with low hands too often
to take the chance to draw to a second or third best low hand.
If you have a two way hand it can be profitable to draw to a
second or third best low, but only if the high half of your hand
is strong.
Drawing to a second best low and a second best high can be
marginally profitable in some games, but it can cost you a great
deal of money at times.
After the flop we had a set of kings and a draw to the second
best low with two other players in the pot. It was a limit Omaha
Hi Lo game and we bet and raised a few times before the turn.
The turn added a draw to a straight and bets continued being
made. The turn completed the low, so we had the second best low
and the second best high hand. The betting was capped on the
river and we ended up losing both sides of the pot.
We got stuck in the hand because by the time the river card
was dealt the pot held enough that in the long run we had to
stay in the hand. The only thing we could have done differently
was minimize our exposure early in the hand, but at the time we
had the best high and a draw to the second best low.
In other words, we lost a big pot but will play the hand the
same way in the future.
If the board had paired on the river instead of completing
the low we’d have scooped a big pot. The board will pair enough
times for the play to be profitable. We’ll also win either the
low or high enough times for the play to be profitable in the
game we was playing.
The secret is to know the best way to play a hand and then
play it that way no matter what the outcome. We lost a big hand
but won’t let that change how we play in the future.
Starting Hands
Starting hands need to have four cards that work together in
some way.
Hands with three strong cards and an unrelated fourth card
can sometimes be played, but overall they’re much weaker than
cards with four cards that support each other.
The hands listed above in the scooping section are all good
starting hands. If you skipped that section go back to see
examples of strong high only hands and good two way hands.
The player entering the hand with the best Omaha 8 starting
hand is going to win more often than the players with the weaker
hand. This means that you need to start concentrating on playing
better hands than your opponents. The only way to do this is to
play fewer hands.
You need to play fewer hands than most Texas holdem players
play, not more. Just because you have twice as many starting
cards doesn’t mean you can play twice as many hands.
We’ve played in many pot limit games profitably while seeing
close to 15% of the flops. 20% is a good percentage to shoot for
in a full ring game, but at the lower levels you should be able
to play profitably as long as you stay at 25% or lower. As you
start facing better competition you’ll probably need to get
tighter unless your post flop play is very strong.
Some players can play more starting hands profitably, but as
you’re learning to play you’re not one of them. Until you get
really good at making the correct plays almost every time after
the flop you need to concentrate on entering pots with better
hands than your opponents.
Here are some examples of starting hands that work together.
You have three great cards to a low, two different high flush
possibilities and an ace and king for an outside shot at a high
straight. When you start playing you get excited when you see
starting hands like this but then half the time the flop doesn’t
help. It’s ok to get excited, but the hand still needs to
improve to win.
A double suited pair of aces with a 2 and a 3 is the best
possible starting hand in Omaha Hi Lo. But don’t get attached to
it after the flop. A flop with a high pair and nothing to help
you with four opponents is bad news.
This hand needs help to win in the form of a 2 on the board
for a low hand and / or a queen for a high set. It’s still a
nice two way hand and worth seeing the flop with, especially in
a heads up situation.
Here are some examples of starting hands that have a small
problem but can still be played from late position.
This hand doesn’t have a flush possibility but does offer a
chance at the nut low and has two high cards in the ace and
king. The 8 is almost worthless, but in a heads up hand it can
offer a small amount of counterfeit protection. The ace and king
will rarely combine for a winning high hand so this hand is one
of the weaker ace two hands. You can play most ace two hands in
most low limit games, but we’ve been in games where this hand
should be folded from early position or when facing a raise or
two.
The seven is worthless except it’s suited with the ace. If
the flop doesn’t have a two helping you on your way to a
possible nut low or at least two spades you probably need to get
out of the hand quickly. This hand should only be played from
late position in most games.
You don’t want to play the second set of hands from early
position unless you’re able to play a strong game after the flop
and get paid off when you hit. If you have any questions about
whether or not to play a hand you should fold.
Position
If you’re an above average Texas holdem player you probably
understand how important position is when playing poker.
Position is not as important in Omaha as it is while playing
Texas holdem, but it’s still important.
The simple fact is if your opponents have to act before you
have to act you have more information than they do when you have
to make a decision.
Omaha is a game of information. The player with the most
information has the best chance to win in the long run.
When you consider your position at the table in every
decision you make your Omaha profits will start climbing.
Combining proper starting hands with positions awareness
creates the first steps in profitable Omaha Hi Lo play.
Beginning Strategy
As a player trying to learn beginning strategy, you’ve
already learned about most of the important things to
concentrate on.
At the lower limits if you play 20% of your starting hands,
learn how important position is, and concentrate on finding
opportunities to scoop pots you can quickly become a break even
or winning player.
In most low limit games you can break even by just playing
fewer hands and playing straight forward poker. Much of the low
level competition is so bad that you just need to follow the
directions on this page and pay attention.
Track every hand you play and pay attention to the other
players. Know exactly how many flops you see and which opponents
have poor playing habits.
If you learn an opponent always calls down with second and
third best hands you know he’ll pay you off in scooping
situations. If you learn an opponent only plays ace two hands in
low pots from early position you’ll know to avoid second best
low hands when facing her.
You can find a million things about your opponents that are
helpful if you just start paying attention.
Intermediate Strategy
Intermediate Omaha Hi Lo play is when you’re able to break
even or start playing for a small profit. You understand
position, have a solid starting hand understanding, and can
recognize scoop situations and when you need to get out of a
hand most of the time.
At this point you’re starting to understand Omaha Hi Lo
better and feel like you can beat most of the games filled with
poor players.
We’ve listed four different areas intermediate players need
to understand to advance to the next level. They aren’t the only
intermediate strategy ideas in the world, but each of them is
important if you want to win in the long run.
Knowing When to Fold
One of the big turning points for most Omaha Hi Lo players is
when they realize how much it’s worth to know when to fold after
the flop instead of chasing long shots and second and third best
hands. In many pot limit games you can win a few big pots that
can make a session profitable even if you don’t win any small
pots.
Just because you have a pair of aces before the flop doesn’t
mean the pair of kings on the flop didn’t give your opponent a
set. The less money you put in the pot after a bad flop the more
you’ll have to play pots that have scoop possibilities later.
Table Selection
We almost included this in the beginning section, but almost
every beginner ignores advice about table selection so we’ve
included it here where we hope you’ll learn from it. Take a few
minutes to consider the competition at the table before you
start playing. If most of the players at the table are worse
players than you it’s bound to increase your chances to win.
We’d rather play with eight players who weren’t as good as us
than eight players who’re better than us. Even if it takes extra
time, find games that offer the best chance to win.
Watching out for Counterfeiting
When you have a low hand and one of the low cards in your
hand lands on the board it’s called getting counterfeited.
Here’s an example.
You have and the board is so you have
the nut low. The turn is the so you still have a low but it’s no longer the nut low.
If you had a 5 instead of the jack it would have offered
counterfeit protection.
You don’t have to only play hands with counterfeit
protection, but if you get involved in a big pot with only a low
possibility you need protection. Beginning players don’t tend to
think ahead too far in the hand, but at this level you need to
start seeing things like this and planning for the possibility
of getting counterfeited.
Adjusting for Heads Up Play
Heads up hands are closer in value than in Texas holdem. In
holdem a pair of aces is dominant over a hand with a 9 and a 5.
The pair of aces will win a high percentage of the time.
In Omaha Hi Lo, the best hand isn’t nearly as dominant
against the weaker hands in heads up play. This is especially
true if the weaker hands have any possibility of low. Even a
hand with 5 and 8 or 6 and 7 can make a low if the opponents
hand doesn’t have a low possibility or gets counterfeited.
As three or more players enter most hands at low and medium
levels, you can’t play your poor hands, but you need to
understand the possibilities when hands get heads up.
If the hand gets heads up on the turn or river, your fourth
best low with your second best high is probably enough to call a
bet.
Advanced Strategy
When poker players get to an advanced strategy stage the game
has gone beyond simple steps and discussions. In order to get to
an advanced level of Omaha Hi Lo play you have to move to a
state of mental awareness about the game and your opponents.
Advanced players enter every hand with a plan for every
possibility. You need to consider what you’re going to do if an
opponent raises and what you’ll do when you miss the flop, when
you hit the flop, or when you flop a good draw.
You want to get to a point where everything you do at the
Omaha Hi Lo table is because it’s the best play in the long run.
You won’t always know exactly what your opponent holds but
you’ll be able to narrow her possible holdings down to a few
possible hands.
Every decision has a most profitable or least costly way to
play. Some decisions lose money in the long run, so in these
situations you need to find the least costly way to play.
Here’s an example of a situation that loses money in the long
run.
Any time you’re in the small blind with a terrible hand
you’ll lose money no matter what you do over the long run. In
order to lose as little money as possible, the correct play is
to fold in the small blind with poor hands.
Amateur players look at the money in the small blind as a
commitment to the pot. They think it’s only a half bet to see
the flop and anything can happen on the flop, especially since
they have four cards instead of two.
As players advance beyond the beginning stage and start
learning more about the game they often still end up playing
hands from the small blind that cost them money in the long run.
They play hands that aren’t terrible, but because they have to
play the rest of the hand out of position are unprofitable
Once you understand that you should fold almost any hand from
the small blind that you would fold from early position you’ve
started moving into advanced play. The money you put in the pot
in the blinds is just a small fee required to have the
opportunity to scoop huge pots at other times. Once the money is
in the pot it’s no longer yours.
The same thought process is needed in the big blind. If an
opponent raises and you have a poor hand simply fold. Don’t
defend your blinds with weak hands unless you’re a top player
and know your opponents very well.
When you’re in the big blind and the pre flop play is checked
to you with a weak hand you’ll see the flop, but don’t invest
another dollar in the pot without a monster flop for you.
The blinds are just two examples of how your thought process
needs to be in order to play Omaha Hi Lo at an advanced level.
As you advance from the low limits to the medium limits your
opponents get a little better, but the game and correct
strategies are much the same.
But when you start playing at the highest limits the game
changes quite a bit.
Before going on, you should know that plenty of really good
players stay at the medium levels and make good money. You don’t
have to play at the highest levels to be a pro and be
profitable.
At the highest levels most pots are contested heads up or at
the most with three players seeing the flop. Almost all hands
are played with at least one raise pre flop.
Think about some of the ways this changes the game. When
you’re playing heads up the second best high and the second best
low will almost always win at least half the pot and will have a
good shot at a scoop.
It’s difficult to cover advanced Omaha Hi Lo strategy in
print because you either have enough experience to understand it
or you don’t.
The good news is if you’re a beginning or intermediate player
you can work toward advanced play. Concentrate on the other
things covered on this page including starting hand selection,
position; always trying to make the best possible play in every
situation, and develop a plan in your mind for every decision
and you’ll be well on your way toward winning play.
Summary
You can find entire books written about Omaha Hi Lo, but if
you start using everything you’ve learned on this page you
should be able to break even or start turning a small profit at
the lower levels. As you gain experience you’ll get better and
start being able to move up to higher levels.
I am also often asked about writing my own book on Omaha. This is not a book. It is not meant to deal with all the advanced and difficult skills that the strongest Omaha players master. This is an introduction to the key strategies behind the game. While it's not meant to deal with the most complex concepts, it does deal with concepts that should benefit many experienced players too, not just novices.
What I mean by 'Omaha' here is: Limit Omaha High-Low (aka Omaha8, Omaha Hi-Lo Split, Omaha Eight-or-Better). Omaha is also played Limit High Only, Pot Limit High, Pot Limit High-Low and occasionally No Limit. While concepts here are sometimes applicable to the other variations, sometimes they definitely are not. Check out the several other articles linked on the Omaha Poker Tips page for strategy ideas on the other variations. Also check out Omaha Myths, which deals with common misconceptions about the game, and The Secret of Omaha, for a starting hand approach to the game.In general, in all forms of Omaha, players who treat the game as a party are dominated by players who treat the game as business. Optimists enjoy Omaha; realists dominate Omaha. Players exercising mathematical realism, discipline, adaptability and creativity get the money from players out to have fun and gamble to get lucky.
Two cards, always two cards... Omaha hands consist of three of the five community board cards, plus two cards from each player's hand -- always three off the board, always two out of the hand. You can use the same or different card combinations to make your high hand and your low hand (if any), but you always use two from your hand, three from the board. This is important not just from the perspective that it is a rule and you have to do it, but also in thinking about how your hand must integrate with the board. Your hand must cooperate with the board. (Cooperation is a recurrent Omaha principle.) You should never think of your hand in isolation. It needs three cards from the board for high, and needs three cards for low. (Some new players find it helpful to focus more on 'three from the board' rather than 'two from the hand.')
Nut low means best possible low... Reading low hands often confuses newbie players -- experienced ones too -- but there is an easy way to do it. First, you must remember the two cards from your hand, three from the board rule. A board like 87532 might make 2367 somewhat hard to read but you read your low hand simply by taking the lowest card combination to be found using three cards from the board and two from your hand.
But what is the lowest? What about when your cards are paired (counterfeited) on the board? Think of it this way: the lowest/best possible hand is a wheel, a 54321 -- or 54,321. The highest/worst possible qualifying low hand is 87654 -- or 87,654. Read your low hand as a number, starting with the highest card and working down. The player with the hand/number closest to 54,321 wins (or ties if someone else has the same hand/number). Omaha players often speak of 'the nut low.' This is the best possible low in this particular hand. While A2 combined with an 876KQ board creates the best low possible, 54 combined with a board of A23KQ makes the nut low in another case. And, 23 combined with a 764KA board makes the nut low (64,321), not an A2, which only can make a 76,421. If you get confused by how your cards are paired or counterfeited by the board, at the showdown, show your hand and ask the dealer to read exactly what your low hand is.
Omaha is a game of nut hands, so as hands unfold, practice reading what the nut low hand is. Then start thinking of your low hand in relation to the nut low. It's not important to know how low your low is, what matters is how low your low is in comparison to the nut low.
Why play Omaha?... While some newbies reading this Introduction will be hard pressed to do it right away, the aim is to win at Omaha -- not have fun, or even to irritate yourself. Frankly, at lower limits, winning at Omaha is easy, if you really are trying to win because most Omaha players play terribly, much worse than they play Hold'em (which is not so good to start with).
In many ways, lower limit Omaha is mathematically simple. If you play only good starting hands and your opponents see fit to play almost every hand, and don't care whether they play for one bet or four, soon the math of that will work in your favor. Omaha is a great game to make money if you have a small bankroll. $3/6 Omaha should require less of a bankroll for a sensible player than $3/6 Limit Hold'em, but generate a higher hourly win rate.
Bad players have virtually no chance to beat Omaha over any meaningful period of time, but they can win big pots, and have really good sessions. This is true of Hold'em too but to a much smaller degree, because Hold'em edges are generally small in loose games. Weak Hold'em players can 'school' together and get pot odds on their poor draws and therefore not be playing all that bad. On the other hand, there is no parallel schooling phenomenon in Omaha where very often five players draw stone cold dead while two players have all the outs between them (for example, on the turn the nut flush and the top set are the only live hands, and five other players with two pairs and baby flushes are drawing dead).
Loose game Limit Omaha is a game of massive edges; loose game Limit Hold'em is a game of smallish edges. Low limit Omaha games are the easiest poker games to beat -- if you play properly. Most players do not have the ability, or more important, the desire to play properly in low limit Omaha games. If you are playing to win, generally Omaha games are the place to play because they are cheaper (less bankroll), more profitable (higher hourly win rates) and have weaker players playing much more poorly. It's deadly dull tho. What winning loose-game Omaha is not is a barrel of laughs.
So, for less experienced players, there are some contradictions at work here. Omaha is a great game for good players... but most inexperienced players are not good... but it is very easy to teach a player to play way-above-average Omaha... but the basic advice is to play with great discipline... but having discipline is an advanced skill... and is boring as paste.
Omaha is a game of non-random accuracy... One thing to understand about Omaha is that since you get a higher percentage of your final hand sooner, your hands are generally much more defined than in Hold'em or Stud. After all, 7/9ths of your hand is known on the flop. Then, when it comes to the betting, the outcome of an Omaha hand is often precisely known. A player that can count twenty, or ten, or four outs to the nut hand often has exactly that many outs to win.
In Hold'em random outcomes are common. Facing several opponents, they can win by hitting oddball kickers or spiking an underpair. On the other hand, Omaha is far more concrete. You know often your precise outs -- how many cards make you the nut hand. In loose games there is very little mystery. In tighter games you often don't need to make nut hands to win, since you face fewer opponents, but in lower limit situations, there is usually little randomness to the game. Unlike Hold'em, before the river card is dealt, usually you should know exactly how many possible cards make you the winner, and how many don't.
Omaha is a game of information. Hold'em is a game of uncertainty. That's how they were designed! Loose game Omaha is about ending up with the nuts. Loose game Hold'em is far more shadowy and difficult.
Many players seem to draw the wrong conclusions from the greater certainty that is part of Omaha. They think because their nut flush on the turn gets beaten on the river when the board pairs that Omaha has some mystical randomness to it. The opposite is true. There are a precise number of cards that pair the board, and make you lose. There are a precise number that do not pair the board, and make you win. On the turn, if you have the nut flush, with no cards in your hand paired on the board, and your opponent has a set, with no other cards paired on the board, there are exactly forty possible river cards. Exactly ten pair the board to make you a loser. Exactly thirty do not pair the board and make you the winner. That's it -- pure, basic math. In the long run, you win three out of four. This is known. This is Omaha.
Do not let yourself be confused by irrelevant concepts. What matters in any form of poker, but particularly in Omaha, is the probability of winning -- not who is temporarily in the lead. Whether you flop a made hand or a draw or a backdoor draw is irrelevant, what matters are your prospects, your probabilities, of having the winning hand on the river. What counts is how many cards, in what combinations, make you the winning hand. Know how many cards make your hand, and then know that in the long run you will win pots in the mathematically appropriate percentage: if you have x% chance of making the winning hand, you better be getting at least the correspondingly appropriate pot odds.
Omaha is a game of accuracy, clarity and concrete information. Sure, sometimes you get unlucky, and since Omaha edges are so huge, when you get unlucky it can be hard to swallow, but since the edges are usually so big, if you play good starting hands in Omaha, and get unlucky, you can still win. You just have to keep your discipline.
Starting hands... Unlike Limit Hold'em, where post-flop play is far more critical, winning Limit Omaha High-Low is fundamentally rooted in starting hands. Starting hands exist before the flop, which is where you get enormous edges in Omaha against a field. On the turn you will often have times where some players are even drawing dead, and that is clearly the juiciest money in the game, but the simplest, most direct, most necessary way to beat these games is to not play crap hands and to get more money in the pot when you have A255 and several of your opponents have hands like K965. Getting garbage hands with a low winning expectation to pay as much as you can before the flop when they are large dogs is a big part of winning Omaha.
Not counting AA and perhaps KK, in looser, multiway games, Limit Texas Hold'em hands run much closer in actual value (that is, value that comes from betting/calling/playing hands to their conclusion) than Limit Omaha High-Low hands do -- regardless of what urban myths claim. If you don't know and appreciate this basic concept, you are going to be in trouble in Omaha. In multiway pots, Omaha has a fairly large group of hands that will win at double the rate of randomish hands. Few Hold'em hands can say the same. Only playing good starting hands (the vast majority being 'five card hands', raising before the flop with most of them) is the basic path to of winning.
Schooling in Omaha... 'Schooling' is a common phenomenon in loose-game Hold'em. When several players play badly by calling with weak draws, like gutshot straights or backdoor flushes, these players partially protect each other by making the 'price' on each of their calls better. If only one player calls with a gutshot draw, usually that is a significant mistake, but if several players make similar calls, now the pot is big enough to make the calls profitable, or at least less bad. Properly understanding the strategy involved in schooling is a key skill in loose-game Hold'em. (See Hold'em schooling.)
There is no parallel schooling phenomenon in Omaha -- quite the contrary. In Omaha, schooling benefits the favorites, not the underdogs. This reverse schooling phenomenon is what makes Omaha often mindlessly profitable. Players with four outs or less call bets from players with twenty outs, and no matter how many people call, the twenty outs player continues to have twenty outs. Despite the definite reverse profitability of 'schooling' in Omaha, poor players engage in it all the time. They look at a big pot and call bets hoping to get lucky, even though they may be drawing totally dead.
Suppose you flop a top set of three kings against seven opponents. The true enemies of your KKK (or any strong Omaha hand) are the first two callers (meaning the two opponents with the most outs). On a flop of KsQd7c for example, we are afraid of AJTx wrap-straight draws. That's the first caller or two. Then we have open-end straight draws. We are the favorite over those (and all the rest of the draws). Next are backdoor flush draws. Then we worry about the lame backdoor straight draws around the seven. Naturally, many of these longshot draws overlap each other. For instance, if the Ace-high spade flush draw calls us, we certainly love the five-high spade flush draw to call, drawing dead. Yes, they may win sometimes, but we love these sixth, seventh, and eighth callers!
With the KKK, if we assume we won't win unless we fill up, and we don't fill up on the turn, we will have ten outs of the forty-four possible cards, meaning we will fill up 23% of the time. Even if we lose to quads the 3% part of that, that's still a one out of five win percentage, for a scoop, while getting six, seven or eight way action. Additionally, we'll normally have our own backdoor draws. If we have two backdoor King-high flush draws, this will further destroy what little power the sixth, seventh and eight callers have, as their backdoor baby flush draws in our suits are contributing totally dead money on that aspect of their hands.
So, building a pot with a raise before the flop in Omaha does not benefit schooling opponents, it benefits players with good hands that are more likely to make nut values. The flip side of this phenomenon exposes another key difference between Omaha and Hold'em.
In loose Hold'em games, there are a lot of hands you can profitably add to your arsenal, most obviously Ace-rag suited and suited connectors. This is not true in Omaha. Again, the difference in value of hands multiway in Omaha is much more dramatic than in Hold'em. The majority of hands simply are never playable (outside the blinds). If you are on the button and everybody limps in, 3456 is still a worthless piece of garbage. It does not matter if you have three opponents or seven, the hand stinks. You can play a small number of additional hands, but for the most part, no matter how loose your opponents are, you can't add many more hands to your playable repertoire.
The thing to 'loosen up' in such a game is to want to play for a raise most every hand you play. In tight games, calling when someone limps in front of you is sometimes the right play. In a loose game, raising is usually the correct play because you are playing a hand with way the best of it. You want dead money in the pot, and you want dead hands hopelessly chasing it! And they will.
If you build it, they will come... drawing dead.
A 'river' game?... Some people call Omaha a 'river game' because the last card often determines the winning hand. While that is true, the thinking behind this 'river game' idea is very flawed. Poor Omaha players wait to the river to bet -- when they know they are going to win (or lose). That's just not sensible or profitable. Omaha is not a 'river game'; it is a game of preparation.
Before the flop: you should play hands that have a high expectation; you should manipulate the pot size; you should try to manipulate your opponents so that when you have a hand that plays well against fewer opponents you are playing against fewer opponents and when you have a hand that plays well against a full field you are playing against a full field.
After the flop: the flop is critical. Here you should roughly calculate your various probabilities and deduce how favorable your chances are to win. Again, here a player should be manipulating the pot -- get more chips in when the odds favor you, try to minimize when you have a longer shot.
The turn card is the least important aspect of Omaha but it's the end of the main math part of the game. In loose games, you can pretty much calculate precisely your chances of winning some or all of the pot.
Whether a player then makes or doesn't make their hand on the river really doesn't matter. You do everything right mathematically up to this point, and lose to a one outer, that is fine -- just do the same things again and again the next times. Omaha (and all the other games) is about having the best of it in the longrun. There is no 'leader money' in poker. The 'best' hand is the one with the highest winning potential (including the understanding that some hands will win more bets than others). Don't think what just happened was an aspect of a 'river game'. I can't emphasize this strongly enough: All the truly important actions in this hand occurred before that river card happened to bring you bad luck.
Another thing to consider is that only a tiny percentage of money action is on the river in Omaha. Poker is about money. Omaha is not about the river. That's naive. Omaha is about getting money in the pot in a mathematically advantageous way before the river. Limit Omaha High Low is an anti-river game!
Put another way, if you play a coin flip game against a guy, and he says he'll give you $5 for every time it comes up heads, but you have to give him $1 for every time it comes up tails, it would be wrong to refer to this situation as 'a flip game'! The key part of the game was in the pre-negotiation, not in the flip itself.
Driving the pot... Loose game Omaha is mostly about nut hands. If there is a flush, you sure want the nut flush. If there is a low, you sure want the nut low. The obvious reason, of course, is because you have the winning hand rather than the second or third best hand. But that's not the only value to playing nut hands.
Again, winning Omaha requires pot manipulation -- get more money in when you have clearly the best of it; play for cheap when you don't. Nut hands and nut draws using quality cards can 'drive the betting' where non-nut hands cannot.
For instance, let's look at the enormous difference between KK and JJ -- not in terms of how much more often KK makes the winning hand, but in terms of the difference in the pot sizes. KK is a much more valuable holding in part because KK can drive the betting in many pots that JJ can't -- like on a turn board of KQQ7 versus a board of JQQ7. The difference between those two situations is enormous. There are other reasons why KK is a major holding while JJ is a minor one, but the difference in how each can drive the betting (or not) offers an excellent illustration of what situations you want to be in when playing Omaha.
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Likewise, there is a very large difference between A23x and A2xx on a 87K flop. The latter hand should win less money, not just because it will be counterfeited sometimes and not make the winning hand, but because it cannot drive the betting nearly as much (if at all) as the A23x can. A256, A247, A269, all these hands should win extra money not just because you make winners more often, but because you should be driving the betting with them far stronger than with the one-dimensional A2.Cooperation... Greedy players make lousy Omaha players. Foolish greed often costs players bets because they simply don't recognize that the game frequently requires cooperative betting.
Suppose there are three people in a pot. On an 8♠7♠5♣ flop, Player A bets and is called. The 9♡ comes on the turn. Player A bets again, Player B calls, Player C raises, Player A reraises, B calls, C caps, A and B call. Now the river card pairs the board with a flush card, the 9♠. What now? Often Player A will bet, with no high hand, and Player B will raise, with no low hand. This will drive Player C with a straight and a weak low out of the pot. Translation: stupid Player A and Player B.
Instead of cooperating to get at least one bet from Player C, they got none. If Player A stupidly bets, Player B should call, and hope to get one bet from Player C, or perhaps an idiotic raise. The better play though would be for Player A to check, have Player B bet, get Player C to call, then Player A checkraise, and have Player B now call. This way you get at least one bet from Player C, maybe two. Think about how you can use cooperative betting between high and low hands to extract bets from players in the middle. Don't be greedy and cost yourself money.
Luck... While the emphasis on the non-random mathematical nature of the game above makes the point, I'll mention a few things about luck as it applies to Omaha. All poker has luck involved. Omaha is the most mathematically straightforward poker game -- very little randomness, very much known information. So, when someone makes a miracle one-outer on the river, some people will mistakenly think of Omaha as having a high degree of luck, when the opposite is plainly true.
Omaha is a bit like a roulette wheel. If you have bets on all the numbers except one, when it happens to come up that other number that is really bad luck. But, now suppose the person who bet on that one number also put up as much money as you did. You had thirty-six chances to win, he had one, playing for the same prize. The longrun outcome of this game is surely not going to be determined by luck! You will crush your opponent, either very soon, or a little while later. When he gets lucky, he gets super-lucky, but that's just fine, as long as he is willing to keep making the same bet over and over.
Hold'em has far more random luck than Omaha (or Stud). That's why it's the most popular game. Poor players can do better, longer. Winning Hold'em is a game of exploiting tiny edges often. Winning Omaha is a game of exploiting huge edges less often.
In most ways, Omaha is a far simpler game. When played by good players, Omaha games are horrible -- unless the blinds are huge, forcing players to gamble. This is why Omaha is often played with a kill, to generate action in a game that should have very little.
This is also why Omaha will never be 'the game of the future.' Poor players have no chance. Good players eat them alive. In many localities, Omaha games burn brightly for a while, and then burn out as the bad players go back to Hold'em games where random luck gives them a fighting chance.
Quartered... In loose games you should hardly ever think about being quartered (when you have the same low hand as another player). It's almost never very costly to be quartered in limit Omaha. In loose games, one of the principal plays you should always have on your mind is how you can get three-quarters of a pot with hands like nut low and one pair. Too many weaker players obsessively fixate on being quartered with this sort of hand instead of focusing on getting three-quarters of the pot occasionally. The quickest way to get over a pathological fear of being quartered is to just do the math on various situations where you get one-quarter. It's hardly ever much of a loss. Now compare that to similar hands where you manage to get three-quarters of different size pots. You'll quickly see that many tiny losses getting quartered are more than compensated for by a few occasions where you can snatch three-quarters.
Scooping... High-Low Split poker is about scooping the pot -- winning it all, not splitting. Many weak and beginning players think they are playing decently because they focus on hands with A2 or A3 that make the nut low. These hands are playable obviously, and getting half a loaf is better than none, but this is most definitely not why you should be showing up to play Omaha (or Stud HiLo for that matter).
Once again, just doing some simple math is very illuminating. Scooping a pot is not merely twice as good as splitting. Suppose you play a five-way pot. Everyone puts in $80. If you split the $400 pot, you get back $200, a profit of $120. But if you scoop, you get $400, for a profit of $320. That's not twice as good, it is 2.67 times as good. In a three-way pot where you all invest $80, if you split you get $120 for a profit of $40. If you scoop, you get $240 for a profit of $160 -- four times as good as splitting.
The real reason to play A2 hands is not for the benefit of making the nut low and splitting a pot. The reason to play this hand is because while it is splitting the pot some of the time, it allows other parts of your hand to be aiming to scoop the pot. When you play A2, you actually want to be using some other aspect of your hand, something that will scoop. A2 just makes it safe for you to play, including often giving you the chance to make backdoor straights and flushes that you otherwise would not have stayed in the pot to make. This again goes back to 'driving the pot'. A2 allows you to drive the pot in situations like where you have A2JT with the nut flush draw and the board is 4678. Your A2 allows you to stick around for the gutshot straight draw, and allows you to aggressively bet your nut flush draw. That is where the money is, not in splitting the pot with the nut low.
Hands as units... The above illustration also should help make the point that Omaha hands are complete units. Despite the 'must play two' aspect of the game, Omaha hands should
not be looked at as six two-card holdings. Doing so is to fundamentally misunderstand the game.It should be easy enough to see though that while 3d3h is a basically useless Omaha holding on its own, when combined with an As2s it now becomes a powerful aspect of a coordinated hand! Viewing the 33 out of the context of the A2 is a serious error.
Beyond the simplistic thinking about starting hands, it is critical to think of Omaha hands as complete units after the flop. You may play A♠2♠3♡Q♡, but end up with a flop of Q♠9♣2♣. Before the flop no point-count system would assign the Q♡2♠ aspect of your hand any value, but now here on the flop it is part of your whole hand, and you must think in terms of how you have two pair, a backdoor flush draw, a back door nut low draw, a backdoor wheel draw, etc. Omaha hands are multifaceted and multi-dimensional. They should be viewed and analyzed as integrated wholes, not separate parts. An Omaha hand can be greater than the sum of its parts, sometimes even less, but Omaha hands are always units of all your cards.
Situational analysis & starting hands... All winning poker requires situational judgments. Some folks just hate that. They want easy, cookie-cutter answers. Sometimes difficult problems do have easy answers, but more often they don't. Hold'em is a more situational game than Omaha, but because of that, when situational judgments are needed in Omaha, they are usually very critical -- inspirational even. For example, bluffing is not something you should do much of in loose game Omaha, but there still is a lot of profit to be made from bluffing, precisely because nobody thinks it is a big part of the game!
Most players play a lot of hands in Omaha, more hands than they play in Hold'em. Generally, the proper play is the reverse. However many hands you play in Hold'em, you should play less in Omaha. (Again, Hold'em is a post-flop game where playing junk before the flop can often be situationally correct.) If you are in an Omaha game with people violating this concept, as most Omaha players do, then you should only be focusing on playing strong hands and, in the correct situations, a few highly speculative hands that make for big scoops. The latter group boils down to KKxx, and QQ with two decent other cards. All other hands should contain an ace or be highly coordinated (KQJT, QJJT, 2345). The weakest of these are also more speculative (like the three examples). They aren't very good, and don't hit that often, so you want to try and play for only one bet, but when they do hit, they pay off nicely, so in weak, loose games they should be played. In tougher games, all these speculative hands without an ace should normally be mucked without a second thought.
A very good (but not spectacular) hand like AK32 with a suit on the King will scoop somewhere between 20 and 50% more than a random hand, depending on number of players and positional factors (and will split far more than random hands). If you are on the button and don't raise with this hand when everybody limps in, you are playing lousy poker. On the other hand, in nine-handed games you often won't want to raise under the gun with low-only hands like A234 because you want many players. You want to play your very good hands for a raise, you want to try to put in an extra bet when you can, but sometimes you can't... and you have to go to plan B.
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The general starting point for full-table, loose-ish ring games is: always have an Ace. The doesn't mean play every Ace hand. A999 is not playable just because you have an Ace. What it means is: you should be playing very, very few hands without an Ace.
A few high hands, like KK with two decent cards, and four Broadway cards (double-suited ideally) are ace-less, speculative, limp-if-you-can hands that can be played against multiple opponents.
And then there is this: no hand loses more in Omaha High-Low than 23xx. Maybe you will find limp situations on the button or small blind to very rarely speculate with 23xx, but overall '2-3 players' are a major source of a winning players income.
One final point. If your hand does not have an Ace, and it doesn't have a king or deuce in it... the universe of hands that you should be playing ever is miniscule, limited to highly situational hands like Q♠Q♣4♠3♣ and Q♠Q♣J♣T♠.
The end of the beginning... Advanced Omaha strategy goes quite a bit beyond the above, but most Omaha players go nowhere near as far as we go here. Once you think correctly about your approach to the game, like correctly viewing how much better scooping is than splitting for instance, advanced strategy concepts become more readily apparent, and your play will evolve and adapt.