Omaha in five rules
- Each player gets four hole cards face down.
- Blinds, the flop, turn and river, and the four betting rounds work exactly as in Texas Hold'em.
- Your hand is made of exactly two hole cards plus exactly three board cards. Not one, not three, not four.
- Hands rank the same as in Hold'em (see hand rankings).
- In Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO), the maximum bet or raise is the size of the pot.
The two-plus-three rule, with examples
| Your hand | Board | What you have |
|---|---|---|
| A♥ K♣ 7♦ 2♠ | Q♥ J♥ 9♥ 4♥ 3♣ | No flush: you hold only one heart and must use two hole cards |
| A♥ 6♥ K♣ 2♠ | Q♥ J♥ 9♥ 4♣ 3♣ | Ace-high flush: A♥ 6♥ plus Q♥ J♥ 9♥ |
| K♠ K♣ 8♦ 3♥ | K♥ 9♣ 9♦ 5♠ 2♣ | Full house, kings full of nines |
| Q♦ 7♣ 6♠ 2♥ | 9♥ 9♣ 9♦ 9♠ A♣ | Not four of a kind: only three board cards count, so you have trip nines with Q-7 |
Pot-limit betting, worked out
A pot-sized raise is: call first, then raise by the size of the pot after your call.
- The pot is 100. Your opponent bets 50, so the pot is 150.
- You first call 50: the pot would be 200.
- You may raise by up to 200 more, so your total bet is up to 250.
When nobody has bet yet, the maximum bet is simply the size of the pot.
How Omaha feels different from Hold'em
- Hands are stronger. With six two-card combinations in every hand, big hands are common. Two pair rarely wins a multi-way pot.
- Draws are bigger. Wrap straight draws can have 13 or more outs, so the favourite on the flop is often only a slight one.
- Pots grow fast because pot-limit raises compound on every street.
Omaha at a home game
Deal four cards each, so a full deck supports up to 10 players with room for burn cards. Pot-limit maths is the part people get wrong. With EasyPoker, the pot is always an exact number on every phone, which makes "pot" one easy look.