Omaha Poker Guide
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Omaha poker offers one of the best opportunities for long term profit of any gambling game. Instead of fighting a built-in house edge like slot machines and blackjack have, you’re competing directly against your opponents. The casino or poker room makes a profit by taking a small rake from each hand, but good players can easily overcome the rake and make more than they lose.
The biggest problem with Omaha poker is that it takes quite a bit of practice and study to become a winning player. It’s simply not possible to read a single page and instantly become a winner. But I’m going to give you everything you need to get started so you can begin your journey to being a winning poker player.
Mastering the Rules
The quickest way to become a good Omaha poker player is to master the rule of the game and learn how to make good starting hand decisions. I cover starting hand selection in the next section.
Don’t underestimate the importance of understanding the rules for Omaha. Most games have a simple rules structure and misunderstanding a rule rarely costs you much money. But in Omaha a mistake can wipe out all of the potential profit in an entire playing session.
The reason the rules in Omaha can create an issue is that most players start with Texas Holdem before trying their hand at Omaha. The rules are similar between the two games, but there’s one very important difference.
Most players think the main difference is you receive four cards in Omaha and only two in Texas Holdem. While this is important, it’s not as important as another rule.
In Texas Holdem, you can use any combination of community cards and your two-card starting hand to make a five-card hand. In Omaha you have to use exactly three community cards and exactly two of your four hole cards to form a five-card hand.
Here’s an example of how this can cost you a big pot.
Your hole cards are the ace of clubs, king of clubs, queen of hearts, and the jack of spades. The board consists of the king of spades, 10 of hearts, eight of spades, seven of clubs, six of diamonds, and the five of hearts.
Many inexperienced players believe they have an ace-high straight with this hand, but all you really have is an ace-high hand because you can only use two cards from your hand, not three.
In the end, it’s fairly simple to learn the rules, but it’s such an important point that you need to take the time to make sure you completely understand them before you start playing.
Understanding the rules is even more important if you play the high low, which is also called eight or better, version of Omaha. The biggest mistake that new Omaha players make in high low is reading the value of low hands.
The easiest way to read the value of low hands in Omaha eight is to read the five lowest cards as a number backward. The lowest number wins.
Here’s an example of how to read Omaha eight low hands:
- A hand of ace, two, three, six, seven is read backward as 76,321.
- A hand of two, three, four, five, six is read backward as 65,432.
The second hand is lower than the first, even though the first hand has an ace.
Starting Hand Selection
The biggest mistake Omaha players make is believing that they can play more hands than they can when they play Texas Holdem because they start with twice as many cards. The truth is that winning Omaha players tend to play fewer hands than most Texas Holdem players, not more.
The best Omaha poker starting hands have four cards that work together in some way. Hands with four high cards with suited cards are the best. Here are some examples of strong starting hands:
- Ace of clubs, king of spades, queen of spades, and jack or clubs.
- Ace of clubs, king of clubs, king of spades, and jack of spades.
- King of hearts, king of clubs, queen of hearts, and queen of clubs.
Another group of good starting hands has three high cards including an ace with a lower card suited to the ace. Here are a couple of examples of this kind of hand:
- Ace of hearts, king of clubs, jack of spades, and even of hearts.
- Ace of clubs, queen of spades, jack of diamonds, and five or clubs.
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Hands with two pairs can be profitable, but if you don’t make a full house with one of the pairs they can be trap hands, so you have to be careful playing them.
Depending on the strength of your opponents and your table position, some hands with three cards that work together can be profitable, but they aren’t as strong as hands with all four cards working together.
Hands with only two good cards are rarely profitable. In real money Texas Holdem, a pocket pair of aces is the best possible hand, but in Omaha a pair of aces with two worthless cards is barely playable. And if you don’t flop a set of aces you usually need to fold.
It might seem boring, but the way to be a winning Omaha player is to fold all of your weak and marginal hands and only play the hands that give you the best chance to form a winning hand.
The Nuts Are King
In Texas Holdem you can win many hands without the best possible and. But when you play Omaha if you don’t hold the nuts, or best possible hand, you stand a much higher chance of being beat. The top hands like a straight flush and four of a kind are still rare, but any time the board pairs you have to be cautious of someone having a full house. This makes a flush or straight much less valuable.
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Any board that has the possibility of a flush makes a straight almost worthless. Two pair hands are extremely weak because the chance that someone has a set is higher than in Texas Holdem.
You need to be cautious when you have a good hand that isn’t the nuts. This reduces the value you can extract when you do win with a second or third best hand. This is also why you have to push for as much profit as possible when you do have the nuts. You need to make your opponents holding second and third best hands pay as much as possible to stay in the hand.
Using Patience to Win
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In the last two sections you learned the importance of starting hand selection and having the best possible hand. Both of these things tie together in this section. Winning Omaha players are patient because they understand that they can take advantage of a few golden opportunities during a playing session to make an overall profit.
By folding weak and average hands you increase your chances of hitting a big hand when you do enter the pot. You also avoid wasting money chasing the second and third best hands. And when you do flop a great hand you can maximize the amount of money you make off of your opponents with second and third best hands.
In Omaha eight, the worst thing you can do is chase a pot to the end with only a low hand. Low hands are often split between two players, so you might end up with only a quarter of the pot. This can be costly in a big pot.
Conclusion
Any time a new gambler asks me for my recommendation for a game that gives them the best chance to win, I suggest Omaha. It’s not as popular as Texas holdem, but there are plenty of games available. This is especially true if you play online.
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It’s not easy to learn how to be a winning Omaha player, but at the low and medium levels most of your opponents aren’t very good. Some of them don’t understand the rules, and some of them play too many hands. This creates a good opportunity for a good player to make a consistent profit.
Omaha Poker Strategy Guide
Start building your Omaha knowledge and strategy using the advice on this page. If you can master starting hand selection it puts you in a great position to make a long term profit. Continue learning and building your skills from there and you have an excellent chance to be a long term winning Omaha player.
