How to play Omaha and Omaha hi-lo

To understand how to play Omaha hi-lo, you first must know the rules of Omaha. If you know how to play Texas hold-em, you’ll pick up Omaha and its variation, hi-lo, in an instant, as they are very similar. With Omaha, as with Texas hold-em, your aim is to make the best possible five card combination, using the cards in your hand and the five cards dealt face up on the table (the community cards). They both use the big blind/small blind system and the betting structure is also identical. The difference is, whereas in Texas hold-em you are dealt two private cards, in Omaha you are dealt four private cards. However, when making your hand, you can only use two of the cards in your hand and three of the community cards (as opposed to Texas Hold-em, where you can use any combination of cards to make your final hand). With Omaha hi-lo, an interesting twist is introduced. In this variation, two different winning hands can share the pot: the highest and the lowest hand. To qualify for the low a hand must consist of five different cards from ace to 8.

To start a game, each player is dealt four private cards. The compulsory big and small blind bets are placed and optional betting continues clockwise. Once the first round of betting has been concluded, three face up community cards are placed on the table and the second round of betting resumes (again going around the table in a clockwise manner). Then follows the fourth community card and a third round of betting, followed by the last community card and a final round of betting. Once this is resolved the players reveal the cards they wish to use from their hands. The winners of the pot are the player with the highest hand and, when applicable, the player with the lowest hand. The highest and lowest hands can be held by the same player using different cards, in this case, the one player takes the entire pot. Similarly, if there is no qualifying low hand the player with the highest hand gets the whole pot.

As you get dealt four cards in Omaha hi-lo and you can aim for a low hand instead of just a high, you have more choices as the game goes on than in Texas Hold-em. Nevertheless, never use this as an excuse to cling on to bad hands. High matching pairs, such as aces, kings, queens or jacks, should generally be played. In fact, look to raise early, although not too much too soon. The same applies if you have a hand consisting of low cards if you’re playing hi-lo. The worse hands you could have would consist of mostly mid level numbers from 5 to 9 – too high for the lowest hand, too low for the highest. You would be advised to fold these hands right away. If a bet is raised and you don’t yet have the cards to justify calling them, fold the hand. Betting with nothing in this form of the game rarely ever works.