Community Card Poker Games

Omaha Poker

These are the rules for Omaha Poker.  Omaha Poker rules are a variant of Texas Holdem Poker rules.  Omaha is a popular and complex poker game.  Briefly, each player in an Omaha Poker game is dealt four cards to his private hand instead of two.  The poker betting rounds and layout of community cards are identical to Texas Holdem. 

At showdown, each Omaha Poker player's hand is the best five-card poker hand he can make from exactly three of the five cards on the board, plus exactly two of his own cards.  Unlike Texas Holdem, a poker player cannot play only one of his cards with four of the board, nor can he play the board, nor play three from his hand and two from the board, or any other combination.

This is the key Omaha Poker rule to remember - Each Omaha Poker player must play exactly two of his own cards with exactly three of the community cards.

Omaha poker was originally created as a high-hand only poker game, but the high low split Omaha rule variant called Omaha 8 or Better has become so popular that the unadorned term Omaha usually now refers to that poker game, while the original poker game is more commonly known by the phrase Omaha High.  Omaha Poker plays best with 5 to 10 players.

In the rules for Omaha 8 or Better, or just Omaha 8, each poker player makes a separate five-card high poker hand and five-card ace-to-five low poker hand, and the pot is split between the high and low poker hands (which may be the same player).  To qualify for low, an Omaha Poker player must be able to play an 8-7-6-5-4 poker hand or lower.  A few casinos play Omaha Poker with a 9-low qualifier rule instead, but this is rare.  Each Omaha Poker player can play any two of his four hole cards to make his high poker hand, and any two of his four hole cards to make his low poker hand.  Omaha Poker is generally played at a fixed limit. 

When high Omaha Poker hands only are used, the poker game is generally called Omaha High to avoid ambiguity.  Omaha High poker plays particularly well at pot limit.

Another Omaha Poker rule variant is to deal each poker player five cards instead of four.  The same Omaha Poker rules apply for showdown: each Omaha player must use two of his cards with three of the community cards.

Before undertaking to learn the rules of Omaha Poker, be sure that you are familiar with the rules for Texas Holdem as well as with general poker game rules and poker hands, and particularly ace-to-five low poker hands.  In casino play, Omaha Poker games are generally played with the same betting structure as Texas Holdem.  Omaha High poker is particularly well-suited to pot limit play.

This brief explanation of Omaha Poker rules belies the complexity of this poker game, so a number of examples will be useful here to clarify the rules of Omaha Poker. 

The table below shows a five-card board of community cards at the end of play, and then lists for each Omaha Poker player the initial private four-card poker hand dealt to him or her, and the best five-card high hand and low hand each Omaha Poker player can play on showdown:

In the Omaha Poker deal above, Chuck wins the high-hand half of the pot with his J-high straight, and Brenda and Emily split the low half (getting a quarter of the pot each) with 7-5-3-2-A.  Some specific things to notice about Omaha Poker hands are:

In order for anyone to qualify low in Omaha Poker, there must be at least three cards of differing ranks 8 or below on the board.  For example, a board of K-8-J-7-5 makes low possible (the best low poker hand would be A-2, followed by A-3, 2-3, etc.).  A board of K-8-J-8-5, however, cannot make any qualifying low poker hand (the best low hand possible would be J-8-5-2-A, which doesn't qualify).

As in Texas Holdem, three or more suited cards on the Omaha Poker board makes a flush possible, but unlike Texas Holdem, an Omaha Poker player still needs two of that suit in his hand to play a flush.  For example, with a board of K♠ 9♠ Q♠ Q♥ 5♠, an Omaha Poker player with A♠ 2♥ 4♥ 5♣ cannot play a flush using his ace; he must play two cards from his hand and only three from the board.  An Omaha Poker player with 2♠ 3♠ K♦ Q♥ can play the spade flush.

Likewise, two pair or trips on the board does not make a full house for an Omaha Poker player with a single matching card as it does in Texas Holdem.  For example, with a board of J♠ J♦ 9♦ 5♥ 9♣, a hand of A♠ 2♠ J♥ K♦ cannot play a full house; he can only use his A-J to play J♠ J♥ J♦ A♠ 9♣, since he must play only three of the board cards.  An Omaha Poker player with 2♣ 5♣ 9♠ 10♠ can use his 9-5 to play the full house 9♠ 9♣ 9♦ 5♥ 5♣.  With trips on the board, the Omaha Poker player with the fourth card of that rank can play quads because any other card in his hand can act as a kicker.

Low Omaha Poker hands often tie, and high straights occasionally tie as well.  It is possible to win as little as a 14th of a pot (though this is extraordinarily rare).  Winning a quarter of the pot is quite common in Omaha Poker, and is called getting quartered, a term referring to the ancient torture of being "drawn and quartered."

When four or five low cards appear on the board, it can become very difficult to read the low Omaha Poker hands properly.  For example with a board of 2♦ 6♥ A♣ 5♣ 8♠, the hand 2♥ 4♠ 5♠ K♦ is playing a 6-5-4-2-A (either his 2-4 with the board's A-5-6, or his 4-5 with the board's A-2-6 - either way makes the same poker hand).  In this situation, he is often said to be playing his "live" 4, that is, his 4, plus some other low card that matches the board but still makes a low poker hand because the one on the board isn't needed.  An Omaha Poker player with 3♠ 5♠ 10♥ J♦ is playing a "live" 3, for a low poker hand of 6-5-3-2-A, which makes a better low.  However, an Omaha Poker player with 3♣ 7♦ Q♦ Q♠ can only play 7-5-3-2-A low; even though he has a "live" 3, he must play two low cards from his hand, and so he must play his 7-3, and cannot make a 6-high low poker hand.

Starting Omaha Poker hands with three or four cards of one rank are very bad.  In fact, the worst possible hand in Omaha Poker is 2♠ 2♣ 2♥ 2♦.  Since the only possible combination of two cards from this Omaha Poker hand is 2-2, it is impossible to make low; since no deuce remains to appear on the board, it will be impossible to make three deuces or deuces full, and anyone with any matching card to the board will make a higher pair.  Likewise, starting with four cards of one suit in Omaha Poker makes it less likely that you will be able to make a flush.

Omaha Poker Rules can be confusing at first but once you get the hang of it, Omaha Poker games can be very exciting.

...go here for a complete Index of the Poker Rules including Texas Holdem and Omaha Poker

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