Omaha

Omaha is similar to Texas Hold’em in that there are five shared cards dealt in the same fashion: the flop, the turn and the river. But the game diverges in a number of important ways making it a completely different poker game. The major differences are that you are dealt four hole cards and you must use two of them to make your final hand, which makes for more differences in teh way the game is played.

Personally – I play Hold’em to make money and Omaha for fun, because, although you can make substantial amounts of money playing Omaha, it is more of a gamble. Omaha is usually played as a pot limit or limit game rather than a no limit, which might give the impression that the pots would be smaller. This is rarely the case as with four hole cards, the entire table has an enormous range of hand options. I have rarely seen a flop that was not raised to the maximum before being dealt.

This makes for a lot of fun and the flop is a vital decision-making point. Let’s say there are eight players at the table. All with four hole cards, all with therefore six possible combinations, which is 48 different starting hands. It is vital if you have a good starting hand to weed out the others, which means there will be enough people with what they consider to be good starting hands trying to get rid of the weaker ones. A good starting hand as far as I am concerned is four cards connected in such a way as to make as many as possible hands. A good example would be A pair of aces and a pair of queens both suited.

On the flop – you have either hit or missed. If you hit and have not make a hand yet, it is important to be drawing to the nuts. Anything else is a waste of time – and eventually money. If I have missed I might make a stab at a rainbow unconnected flop, and even reraise if I am raised. If the raiser keeps going, I am going to let go of it.

As you can tell, this makes for a lot of action, which means the pots are large which means the implied odds are fairly high for almost any connecting starting hand. One ace is practically useless in Omaha, unless accompanied by a suited connector, and a king or queen – preferably both,.

I think Omaha is the second most fun poker game – after Omaha high low – in which you can hit the nuts and still lose. Another hub for that game.