To be a great poker player you need to be able to play all variations of poker and Omaha is an easy game to learn. Even if you just play poker recreationally it is worth playing other forms of poker apart from hold'em. For one thing it will probably help to improve your hold'em game. One variation of poker is omaha.

There are similarities between omaha and holdem, but omaha is nearly always played as pot-limit. To make things easier the hand rankings in omaha are the same as in hold'em. Omaha is also structually similar to holdem with respect to the five community cards, dealer button, blinds and betting. Your hand is dealt to you face down, you get 4 hole cards and MUST USE TWO OF THEM. A round of betting follows and then you get the flop followed by a round of betting. Then the turn is dealt and then another round of betting. Finally the river is dealt and a final round of betting.

The remaining players the goto a showdown with the best hand winning the pot.

The most important thing for new players to remember is:

In omaha, unlike hold'em, you are dealt 4 hole cards, but in omaha you must use exactly 2 and only 2 cards from your hand. To form a five card hand you must use 3 community cards and 2 hole cards. This means that in omaha you can't play the board as you can in hold'em. The 2 from your hand and 3 from the board sounds easy to remember but sometimes an inexperienced player can get confused. For example:

If the board is A K 7 7 7

and you hold A K 5 6 you are beaten by a player that holds 2 2 6 8.

Useful omaha tips

• No one can have a flush unless there are at least 3 cards of the same suit on the board
• No one can have a full house unless there is a pair on the board

Starting hands at Omaha

You can play a lot more drawing hands in pot limit omaha than you can in hold'em. But when you draw you should always make sure that you are drawing to the nuts. You are very likely to encounter problems if you draw to the sucker end of a straight or to any flush that is not the nut flush. Due to the high number of starting hands at omaha you can usually play more starting hands than you could at hold'em and if you hit certain hands in omaha they can be very profitable. You should base how loose you play pre flop at omaha on how much you actually understand the game, how good you are at interpretting the flop and knowing how to fold.

Unlike hold'em where everyone knows that AA is the best hand pre flop, at omaha there is some debate as the best pre flop hand. Some say AAKK double suited is the best pre flop hand where as some people say AAJ10 double suited is the best starting hand. However, as both are good it is pretty much irrelevant which is best.

Hands with 3 connected cards and a suited ace are also very playable. For example As 4s 5c 6d. Also 3 connected cards with one gap and a suited ace is also playable. For example As 5c 6d 8s. With these hands you will either see a flop that is perfect or with potential, so that your draws can improve as the hand develops, or the flop will be no use and you can easily fold. Hands like these are not trouble hands as you know where you stand, you either have a chance to win the pot or you don't. You want your hands to consist of 4 combinations. This is why hands like JJ72 is not a playable hand as you are really only playing one hand QQ and so you have 2 outs.

Hands you should fold pre flop:
Quads - (including) AAAA Trips - AAA2