How to Play Omaha Poker

1. What is Omaha poker? The more you play poker, the more you keep hearing how Omaha poker is the game to play to get the best action and challenge the best players. In the past 10 years or so, Omaha poker became one of the most popular poker INDIO HOLDEM variants. Some go as far as to say that Omaha poker INDIO HOLDEM (pot-limit Omaha or PLO, specifically) is on a trajectory to surpass Texas hold'em and become the most played game in the world. Part of the game's success has to do with its rules. Like most poker INDIO HOLDEM games, the basics of Omaha poker are the same as those in Texas hold'emINDIO HOLDEM - meaning that if you know how to play one, you are in a good spot to play the other. When it comes to Omaha poker, there are different sub-variants out there, each with its specificities and dedicated player bases. The two most popular types of Omaha poker (i.e. those you'll find at every major poker site) are: Pot-limit Omaha (PLO) Omaha hi-lo This guide on how to play Omaha poker INDIO HOLDEM focuses on pot-limit Omaha (PLO) poker, one of the most played games of the year and probably the easiest version of the game to learn as a beginner. If that's not what you are looking for or if you are already fluent in PLO poker, you can read about Omaha hi-lo poker rules here. 2. How To Play Omaha Poker To play Omaha poker, you'll need a 52-card deck of French cards. Also, unless you are in for an old-fashioned game with beans, buttons, and pennies, you'll need some poker chips, a dealer button, and two "blind" buttons. A game of Omaha poker needs two to ten players to begin. Like in other poker games, the action of a hand of Omaha poker includes several betting rounds and a combination of private ('hole') and community cards ('the board'). When learning how to play Omaha poker, the first thing you want to remember is the names of the different phases that compose a hand. Pre-flop: This is the initial betting round. Some players (the 'Blinds') are obliged to place a bet, while the others can decide whether to call, fold, or raise. The flop: This is the second betting round. Once the dealer places the first three community cards on the board, face up, the players still in the hand decide how to act. The turn: The third betting round. The players still in the hand decide how to act once the dealer places one more community card on the board, face up. The river: This is the last betting round. The players still in the hand decide how to act once the dealer places the last five community cards face up on the board. The showdown: The players still in the hand reveal their cards. Preflop Action The Big Blind (BB) and the Small Blind (SB) place their bets on the table so the action can start. The dealer distributes four cards to each player, all face down. As we will see later, this is one of the key differences between Omaha and Texas hold'em poker. The first betting round begins as soon as all the cards reach the respective players. The first player to act is left of the Big Blind, which is known as Under the Gun or abbreviated as "UTG". The action continues clockwise until it reaches the Big Blind. All players have the following options: Call: They place a bet equal to the size of the Big Blind (or to the highest bet placed before them, in case someone in the hand decides to raise). Raise: They increase the bet, making it more expensive for other players to stay in the hand. Fold: They give back the card and leave the hand. The Flop The dealer places three cards on the board, all face up. This is called the "Flop", and these cards are community cards that every player can use to construct their best poker hand. In total, five community cards will be dealt throughout the hand, with the flop revealing three cards at once before another card will be dealt on either turn or river. A new betting round begins as soon as the three cards are on the table. The Flop betting round is identical to the previous one. The Turn The dealer places one more card on the board, again face-up. This next round is called the "Turn". All players still active in the hand enter a new betting round that follows the same pattern as the betting round on the flop (i.e. the player sitting the most left to the dealer acts first). The River The dealer places the last community card face-up on the table, which is called the "River". Once again, a new betting round follows. Once the final betting round has concluded, if two or more players are still active in the hand, the "Showdown" ensues. If only one active player still remains — for example, a final river bet scared the other player away — then the only active player will scoop up the pot without having to show down his cards. The Showdown Once the action has reached the showdown, the remaining active players in the hand turn their hands over. In Omaha, it's mandatory to use two cards out of the four-card starting hand, and combine them with exactly three of the five community cards to construct a poker hand. No more, no less! Two cards from your hand, and three from the board. This is an important rule difference from Texas hold'em, where two, one, or even none of your hole cards can be used to create the best possible poker hand (if no cards from your hand are used, it's known as "playing the board"). There is no playing the board in the game of Omaha! You will always need to use two, and exactly two cards from your hand, combined with three community cards from the table. Once players have turned over their hands, the player with the highest combined five-card poker hand wins the hand and takes down the pot. And here's where most beginners get in trouble. Players who are just starting to learn how to play this game and are unfamiliar with the Omaha poker rules tend to make a lot of mistakes when building five-card hands. The most common PLO poker INDIO HOLDEM mistake people make when they learn how to play Omaha poker is to forget they need to use at least two of the four hole cards to build their final hand. Let's look at one example. A player holding A ♥ Q ♣ 7 ♦ 6 ♦ looks at a board of 9 ♥ 4 ♥ 2 ♣ J ♥ Q ♥ , thinking he has made the nuts with an ace-high flush. Wrong! The Omaha poker rules do not allow you to make a hand using only one hole card (A ♥ ) in combination with four community cards (the four hearts on the board). In fact, this player only has a pair of queens, not a flush. Not that good all of a sudden, huh? How to Bet in Omaha Poker INDIO HOLDEM Another key element to Omaha poker is rules and restrictions regarding betting. There are important differences between Omaha poker and Texas hold'em — not being aware of them could cost you a lot of precious chips. Like in Texas hold'emINDIO HOLDEM

, the minimum bet allowed in Omaha is always the equivalent of the big blind. In a $1/$2 PLO poker game, a player's minimum bet is $2. However, in no-limit hold'em, the player can always bet all their chips at any point. It's the name of the game, "No-Limit!"! (and the game's beauty, if we might add.) In pot-limit Omaha, the most popular game variant, betting is — as the name would imply — limited by the pot size. The maximum bet allowed in PLO is equal to the size of the pot. Calculating a "pot-sized" bet can be trickier and often requires the dealer's help to determine the exact amount. Luckily, this is no problem when it comes to online poker, and in any casino worth its salt, a professionally trained dealer should have no issue calculating this quickly and correctly for you. If the pot is $10 and a player is first to act, the calculation is easy: the maximum possible bet is $10. However, poker is never that easy. You must be prepared for different situations and calculations if you don't want other players to exploit your lack of experience. Let's use an example to understand how betting works in PLO poker. In this fictional PLO poker hand, $10 is in the pot when a player bets $5. The next player, however, decides to up their game and announces the intention to 'raise pot'. How much is that? Based on the previous bets, the most that player can bet is $25. This number is calculated by adding the $5 to call to the $20 that would be in the pot after the call ($5 + $20 = $25). Even advanced poker players find this confusing sometimes, but when you deconstruct the bet sizing it makes sense. 1) The pot is $10 before the bet 2) A player bets $5 (the pot is now $10+$5 = $15) 3) A player wants to "raise the pot". He first matches the $5 that was already bet, bringing the pot up to $20 4) The player then adds the $20 to his total as that's the 'pot size'. Therefore, he bets $20+$5 = $25 in total, or the maximum bet is $25 here. When you play Omaha at a casino, the dealer will take care of the math for you should you announce you wish to bet the pot. Things get even easier when you play online because the calculations appear on the screen, automatically.