How Do You Play Pot Limit Omaha
Omaha poker is one of the gambling activities I use on a regular basis to turn a long term profit. If you want to be an advantage gambler, you have to take advantage of every potential profitable situation you can find. If you’re not profiting from playing Omaha now, you need to seriously consider adding it to your advantage play options.
Betting in Pot-Limit Omaha Poker. Another difference between NLHE and PLO poker has to do with betting. In No-Limit Hold’em, you can bet any amount between one big blind and your entire stack whenever it’s your turn to act. In Pot Limit Omaha, as the name suggests, things are somewhat different.
One of the best things about Omaha is there are many different options. This leads to many players struggling with the rules, which lets you make more money when they make mistakes. Here are the different Omaha options:
- Half-pot, pot-limit and no-limit betting. In big-bet (that is, non-limit) games, all forms of stud require an ante from each player, with the highest card or hand acting first in all rounds of play.
- Chasing a simple flush in Texas Hold'em is a viable strategy that can win you some big pots, but in Omaha, you can be pretty much certain that another player has the Ace-high flush if you don't have it (or block it) yourself. All four cards must be working together. Any card that is the odd one out is hurting your hand. It's called a dangler.
- Here are the ways in which PLO (or Pot Limit Omaha) differs from NLHE: In Pot Limit Omaha rules you are dealt 4 cards instead of 2. Here is an example hand: Like in Hold ’em the object is to make the best 5 card hand but unlike in NLHE you must use exactly 2 cards from your hand and 3 from the board (the community cards). This is different.
- Limit Omaha high
- Limit Omaha high low
- Pot limit Omaha high
- Pot Limit Omaha high low
Omaha can be played using no limit and spread limit structures, but most Omaha games are spread using one of the four structures listed above.
How To Play Pot Limit Omaha 8 Or Better
When you simply master the rules for each variation of Omaha, you have an advantage over many players. Most Omaha players started by playing Texas holdem. They see an Omaha game and see that they get four hole cards instead of two, and think that it must be easier to make a good hand because they have twice as many cards.
I’ve won many real money poker pots over the years from players who didn’t understand the rules. When you start playing Omaha high low you’re going to see even more players make mistakes because they don’t understand how to read low hands and how they work.
Once you learn the rules of Omaha, there are only a few things standing between you and consistent profit. You’re going to learn what these are in the four ways to play Omaha poker like a pro listed below.
1 – Master the Rules
As I mentioned in the opening section, one of the biggest advantages as an Omaha player is completely understanding the rules. If Omaha was the first version of poker you learned the rules aren’t overly complicated. But Omaha is rarely the first poker variation you learn.
Texas holdem players are familiar with the basic way Omaha is played because the flop, turn, and river are the same, and you start with hole cards. But there’s a big difference between the two games. Of course, you start with four hole cards instead of two, but this doesn’t lead to the most critical mistake.
When you play Texas holdem you can use both of your hole cards, one of your hole cards, or neither of your hole cards to make your best five card hand. When you play Omaha you have to use exactly two of your hole cards and exactly three cards from the board to make your best hand.
If you’re playing Omaha high low, the rules are more complicated. You still have to use two hole cards, but you can use two different cards for your high hand and your low hand.
Here’s an Omaha high low example:
You have ace, two, three, king in your hand and the board is ace, ace, four, six, and king.
For your high hand you use the ace and king from your hand to complete a full house. For you low hand you use the two and three from your hand for a low of ace, two, three, four, six.
The other complication when you play Omaha high low is learning how to rank low hands. I’ve seen a few different ways to learn how to rank low hands, but the easiest way I’ve found is to read the five lowest cards backwards like a number. The lowest number wins.
Here’s an example of two different Omaha poker low hands:
Ace, two, three, six, eight
Two, three, five, six, seven
The first hand, listed backwards, gives you a number of 86,321. The second hand is 76,532. This means that the second hand is ranked lower than the first hand.
Another thing pro Omaha players know involves something called counterfeit protection. Sometimes when you have a made low hand on the flop or turn, a card comes on the turn or river that eliminates, or counterfeits, your hand.
Here’s an example of getting counterfeited:
You have ace, two, king, queen, and the flop is three, four, six. Currently you have the best possible low hand. The turn is a jack, and the river is an ace. You still have a low hand, but now the best possible low hand is ace, two, three, four, and five. An opponent with a two and five now has the best low hand.
When you’re playing in a hand with a low without any counterfeit protection, you have to be careful building a big pot unless you also have a strong high hand. This limits your potential profit. Counterfeit protection is when you have a third card in your hand that still allows you to complete a good low hand even if one of your low cards gets counterfeited.
2 – Stools with Two Legs Fall Over
Omaha poker pros know that the best starting hands have four cards that work together in some way. One of the biggest mistakes that Omaha players make is playing hands with only two good cards, or two cards that work together.
This doesn’t mean you should fold these hands, but you need to look at your other two cards to see how they help or hurt your chances.
Compare the two following hands:
Ace, ace, seven, nine, with four different suits.
King, king, queen, jack, with both kings suited to one of the other cards.
The first hand has a pair of aces, but basically no other way to win. Unlike Texas holdem, a pair of aces almost never wins an Omaha hand without improving. This means that you’re probably going to need to improve to at least a set of aces, and more likely a full house, in order to win the hand.
The second hand has a wide range of possible options. You can complete a high full house, straights, and flushes. A king high flush isn’t a great Omaha hand, but if the suited ace lands on the board you have the highest possible flush.
If you want to be a winning Omaha poker player, you need to fold almost every hand that doesn’t have at least three cards working together. The only exception you should consider until you’re already a winning player is a hand with pocket aces that you can see the flop for cheap. And then you should fold on the flop unless you improve a great deal.
3 – Win the War and Forget about Small Battles
In most forms of poker, there is more than one way to win. Some poker players win a bunch of small and medium pots and avoid losing big pots. Some players avoid wasting money fighting over small pots and focus on winning a few big pots every playing session.
While there isn’t a 100% best way to be a winning Omaha player, over the years I’ve found that the best way to make money using my playing style is to avoid most small and medium pots and win a few big pots.
Omaha hands can be wild. You can go from having the nuts to losing a big hand in the flip of a single card. You can be the favorite to win the hand by a large margin to getting crushed on the river. But there are ways to play Omaha that limit your ups and downs and use these things to your advantage.
When you play limit Omaha you have to win more pots to show a good profit than when you play pot limit, but you still need to focus on winning big pots. When you play pot limit Omaha, you can win two or three big pots during a playing session and show a big profit, as long as you avoid wasting money fighting for small pots.
4 – Use the Odds to Win
If you want to be a winning poker player in any variation of the game you need to learn how to use odds. You need to learn what pot odds are and how to use them to make profitable decisions. You also need to learn everything you can about expectation and expected value, which also has quite a bit to do with odds.
The good news is that Omaha is one of the best forms of poker for players who take the time to learn how to use odds to win.
This advantage continues throughout the hand, so you always have more information to use to make playing decisions than when you play Texas holdem. Most Omaha players don’t use this information correctly, so you can gain a big advantage when you use odds and expected value.
Conclusion
Omaha is one of the best forms of gambling if you’re looking for a realistic way to make long term profits. Most low and middle limit games are filled with players who make many mistakes, which make it easier for pros to make money.
If you simply follow the four steps on this page you can start making consistent profits at the Omaha tables. Master the rules, make sure you stool has at least three legs, use the odds, and win the big battles and you’re going to be a winning Omaha poker player.
Will it ever catch up and become the preferred game for most poker players - either online or live? Well, no. Odds are low.
While heavy poker players might get bored with Hold'em after a while (read: 400,000 hands) and make the switch to Omaha, Hold'em is still the perfect game for most recreational and amateur players.
The rules are simple, the rush of a massive all in will always make for great and memorable moments (win or lose) and the game offers enough complexity to unfold in different layers over years of play.
Omaha Poker ... it's a great action game. At least Pot-Limit Omaha is. And you'll get a lot of big hands, which is fun. Omaha also offers a ton of complex strategy to chew on for years.
But it just doesn't have quite the 'je ne sais quoi' of Hold'em. And it's not quite as accessible for the average player. It may 'only' be 2 extra cards but it's enough to keep it running slightly behind Hold'em as the game of choice for the poker world writ large.
That being said ... you should learn to play it! The Omaha strategy you learn will pay off ten-fold in your Hold'em game. It's also an essential component of being a great mixed-game player. And, when it comes right down to it, Omaha poker really is fun.
As an added bonus Omaha poker rules are very similar to Texas Hold'em so it won't take long to make the leap. Below we'll break down the basic rules and game play of:
- Omaha High
- Omaha Hi-Lo (Omaha 8 or Better)
How to Play Omaha Poker
Good news! The rules of Omaha Poker are virtually identical to the rules of Texas Hold'em poker. It's a community card game, there are blinds and four rounds of betting, the highest 5-card poker wins.
There are two basic differences between Hold'em and Omaha:
- Each player gets 4 hole cards in Omaha (vs. 2 in Hold'em)
- You MUST use exactly 2 of your hole cards to make your best 5-card poker hand
And that's pretty much it (outside of the Hi-Lo variation of Omaha - more on that below). The hardest thing to get used to probably is needing to use exactly 2 of your hole cards to make your best hand. That means you can't:
- Play the board
- Use one of your hole cards
Otherwise game play goes along identically to Texas Hold'em so if you've played it before you'll be fine switching over to Omaha. If you need a quick refresher on the basic rules of Omaha play, here's it is:
Rules of Omaha Poker (High)
- 2-10 players at each table
- Small Blind and Big Blind are paid each hand
- Player directly to the left of the dealer pays the small blind
- Player directly to the left of the small blind pays the big blind
- Dealer button and blinds rotate to the left after each hand
- Each player is dealt 4 hole cards in sequence for each hand
- First betting round begins with the player to the left of the big blind
- After all the bets are matched dealer burns one card and then deals 3 cards face up in middle of the table. This is called the flop.
- Flop cards are community cards each player can use to make their final hand
- After the flop a second betting round begins starting with the player closest to the left of the dealer still in the hand
- Once all bets are matched dealer burns one more card then deals another community face up card on the board (the 'turn')
- Third betting round begins after the turn, again starting with player to left of dealer
- Once all best are matched dealer burns one card and deals a fifth community (the 'river')
- The fourth and final betting round begins again with player closest to left of dealer
- Once all bets are matched all players left in hand reveal hands for showdown
- Best high 5-card poker hand wins with each player using exactly 2 of their original four hole cards
The final point is a very important distinction for Omaha poker. Each player's best 5-card hand must have:
- 2 hole cards
- 3 board cards
That's it. No variations are possible - ie one hole card plus 4 board cards, all board cards. If you need a refresher for the poker hand rankings, here it is:
- Royal Flush (A, K, Q, J, 10 all of same suit)
- Straight Flush. (5 cards in sequence all in same suit - eg 7h-8h-9h-Th-Jh)
- Four of a Kind. (All four cards of same rank)
- Full House. (3 cards of one rank alongside 2 cards of another - eg. 6h-6s-6d-8d-8c)
- Flush (All 5 cards or one suit, any rank)
- Straight (A sequence of 5 cards of rank, any suit - eg, 2h-3d-4c-5s-6c)
- Three of a kind (3 cards or any one rank, two unmatched cards)
- Two pair (Two different pairs plus one unmatched card)
- One pair (One pair of equal rank, 3 unmatched cards)
- High Card (all unmatched cards ranked by the highest single card)
Another important note about Omaha Poker Rules:
Omaha is typically only played in either Limit or Pot-Limit format. It is RARELY played as No-Limit. The action is already pretty hectic as it is so No-Limit is not a preferred format for playing. Omaha poker.
Perhaps the most popular form of Omaha poker is Pot-Limit Omaha, which is played by all the best high-stakes pros and is a super fast, super fun action game played at all stakes.
The trickiest part of learning to play Pot-Limit Omaha is figuring out how to calculate what your pot-size bets and raises can be on each street. As luck would have it, we've put together a guide to calculating pot bets right here to help you along:
If you'd like to learn more about betting formats, betting rules & betting order, check our Betting Rules article here:
Omaha Poker Rules -- Hi-Lo (Omaha 8-or-Better)
More good news for people who hate learning new rules: the only way Omaha High and Omaha Hi-Lo differ is when it comes to the showdown.
In standard Omaha High (and Pot-Limit Omaha), the high hand wins the whole pot - just like Texas Hold'em. Again, there are the hand rankings up above if you need a refresher.
In Omaha Hi-Lo, the pot is split between the best high hand and the best low hand. As you might guess from the name above, there's also a catch:
The low hand has to be '8 or Better' to qualifying for that half of the pot. In other words a qualifying low hand must have:
- 5 unpaired cards all ranked at 8 or below
The 'better' part might be a bit confusing there as they all have to be lower than 8 rather than higher than 8, but in terms of a lowball game that means that are technically 'better.'
Some more important points of note for ranking Omaha 8-or-Better low hands:
- Aces are both high and low - high for the high hand and low for the low hand
- Flushes and straights DO NOT COUNT for the low hand but DO count for the high hand
- Low hands are ranked from the high card down, so the lowest 'high' card in the low hand determines the ranking
- Players still have to make up their high and low hands from exactly 2 hole cards and 3 board cards
- Players can use the same cards to make up their best high hand and their best low hand or use different cards
- Any pair or card higher than 8 disqualifies a hand from being able to win the low share of the pot
- Pairs under 8 still disqualify a low hand
- If the highest low card is the same in two players' hands the next lowest card determines the winner
- If players share the same low hand they split the half pot between them - this is called getting 'quartered'
The lowest possible hand in Omaha 8-or-better is: 5-4-3-2-A, which is called a 'Five Low.' It also counts as a straight or 'wheel' for the high hand.
Play Omaha Poker Free Online
The best way to get a handle on Omaha poker rules is really simply to play some hands and see how it goes. If you're coming over from Texas Hold'em the rules don't change that much and the betting rounds are still all the same.
It takes some getting used to to think of using exactly 2 hole cards to make up your final hand (and getting into the logistics of Hi-Lo is another step altogether) but Omaha is a very fun game filled with action that will keep you very entertained while you learn the ropes.
How To Play Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo
If you're want to learn quickly you can get A LOT of Omaha hands in online by playing the free games offered at major poker sites including 888poker, PokerStars and William Hill Poker, to name a few.
As an added bonus, if you're worried about being able to calculate pot bets on the fly for Pot-Limit Omaha, the online software calculates it for you!
Pot Limit Omaha Chart
You will still need to sign up and create a registered account at the poker site itself but you do not have to make a deposit to play the free Omaha poker games. Simply click on the 'free play' or 'instant play' under the Omaha games tabs.
Read our reviews and get exclusive poker bonuses here:
After you've got up to speed with the rules of Omaha and the pace of the game, it's very easy to make a small deposit and jump into the microstakes cash games or tournaments.
Omaha has a very steady player base at all levels so you'll have no problem finding a game that suits your skill and bankroll. Good luck and enjoy the great game of Omaha poker!
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