Pot Limit Omaha - Basics

by Michael Allen Engel

Pot limit Omaha is a variant of hold’em in which each player is dealt four hole cards rather than hold’em’s two. The same blind structure is maintained, with a rotating dealer button, small blind and big blind (larger casino games may play with a running ante). Players can raise the amount of the pot, but no higher. The main difference between hold’em and Omaha lies in the definition of the best hand (in this article, we’ll examine pot limit Omaha high only, though there is a split variation). A player must (repeat must) use two cards from his hole cards in combination with three cards on the community board to make their best five-card poker hand.

-You look down and see AsAcTs5d The flop comes down KsQcJc. A very good flop, of course, but your opponent is firing back at you when you bet. The turn is a 3c. Both players check. The river drops a 7c and your opponent bets big. You call and show the Ace of clubs. But you don’t have an ace high flush. Why not? Because you only have the ace of clubs, but not second club in your hand. Your opponent has a flush with a lowly 2c3c in his hand.

This is the most common mistake in Omaha by new players. Another example is holding JJT9 with a board of J92A3. Many new players will see the jacks full of nines and misread their hand. Obviously, you do not want to do this. If you intend on playing Omaha with any regularity, you must recognize this change, because while it is subtle, it’s also very important to your success.

When you’re dealt an Omaha hand, you’re really looking at six different two card combinations. In a nine-handed game, that means you can be up against 48 other hands (not counting your six card combinations). Because of this, hand selection is particularly vital to a beginning Omaha player.

What you want to look for are four cards that interact with each other. In hold’em AA vs. 78 suited is still slanted heavily towards the high pair, but in Omaha, a hand such as AAKK can run as a small favorite against 6789. Omaha is not a game of big pairs, but of straights, flushes, and full houses. Big pairs can often win, but you won’t be too confident in your hand with anything less than top two pair, and usually a set.

Look for connected cards, or cards that have some gaps. Avoid playing four unsuited cards, and, while it’s beneficial to have two sets of suited cards in your hole cards, if you hit a flush, you can often be up against the nut flush. We’ll look at these situations more in future articles.

An Omaha hand doesn’t really start until the flop, since that will define the players hands. A hand like AA26 is almost playable anytime before the flop, but if you don’t hit the ace on the flop for a set, you’ll usually have to throw it away if there’s action to you and you have no other draws on the board. On the flop, you’re looking to either hit a big made hand, or to hit a hand that has multiple ways to draw. This is why connected and suited cards are very important.

Omaha pots are usually larger than hold’em pots, so it’s no surprise that the game is increasing in popularity. However, to succeed, you must acquire a number of skills, including hand reading, estimation of outs, manipulating the pot size, and having a little gamble. You’ll also need a steely composure, since it’s not unusual to have two players get all the money in with half the deck helping one, and the other half of the deck helping the other. There can be large swings, and outdraws are common. Players have to accept that while also learning advanced Omaha concepts, which we’ll examine later.