Poker Strategy - Introduction to Omaha

The Rules

In Omaha Hold'em each player receives 4 hole cards and everyone shares 5 community cards, similar to Texas Hold'em. The catch is that you must use exactly 2 cards from your hand and 3 cards from the board to make your 5-card poker hand. In general the winning hands in Omaha are much better than the winning hands in Texas; in a game of more than 3 people usually a straight or better wins.

When you are first playing Omaha, you should make sure you are actually using 2 cards from your hand, and not 3 or 1. For example, if the board is K Q J 5 4, and you have A Q 4 4, your hand is only three-of-a-kind 4's. You do not have full house of 4's over queens. If the board is A K Q 10 9, then your J J 5 4 is not a straight, since you must use two of your cards.

Why play Omaha?

Omaha Hold'em is not as popular as Texas Hold'em but is played by plenty of fish. Also, a lot of good Texas players want to try out Omaha and are unfamiliar with the game but they may still play at high limits because they are good at Texas. These players generally play too loose.

Also, it is much more of a technical game because it is easy to see what the best hand is, since usually there is a flush or a straight on board and odds are that somebody has one.