Omaha is a good type of poker for players to learn after they have gotten used to Texas Hold’em. Its ideal for those looking to try something a bit different but still want to use some of the knowledge and skills they have already acquired rather than starting totally from scratch. This is because Omaha (full name Omaha Hold’em) uses the same basic game structure as Texas Hold’em, just with a few key differences. Omaha poker is referred to by a few different names and the game has a number of variations. The variations include Hi and Hi-Lo (O8B), and each of these can be played as Pot Limit, Fixed Limit and less commonly No Limit games. Here we will be focusing on the most popular form - Pot Limit Omaha Hi which is commonly called PLO for short.

PLO is possibly the most fun and action packed form of poker around today, this is due to the differences between it and Texas Hold’em. Bored of having to fold garbage hands over and over in Texas Hold’em games? The nature of the rules in PLO allow players to rightly play a higher percentage of their starting hands and hit much more of the flops. So lets explain these key changes in the rules:

Rule differences between No Limit Texas Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha Hi

1) The biggest variation of the rules in Omaha Poker is that players get dealt four hole cards each instead of two.

2) Another key point that many new players forget or never realise is that you must use exactly two of these four cards combined with exactly three of the community cards to make your best five card poker hand. Which two of the four you use depends of which ones give you the best hand and these may change as the turn and river cards get dealt. Your hole cards may be Ad Kd Ts Tc and the board may finish 2d 4d Td 7h 2c. On the flop and turn you are using the Ad Kd to make a flush but by the river you are using the Ts Tc to make a full house.

3) As this is a pot limit game players can bet or raise amounts no greater than the total amount currently in the pot. As an example, if the blinds being played are $10 big blind and $5 small blind the first player to put additional money into the pot could raise to a maximum of $35. Now the reason this is $35 and not $15 (the amount currently in the pot) is because when the player makes the raise they technically call the $10 big blind first (making the pot size $25) then raise the current amount of the pot ($25) on top of their initial $10 call making the total amount they raise to $35. This principle is used throughout the hand and can become rather complicated to work out if you are playing live or at a home game. Fortunately when you play poker online this is all calculated for you automatically and instantly making it impossible to over bet the pot.

Other than this the two games are basically the same, this includes the hand ranking and blind structures. If you don’t already understand these you can check out the how to play poker guide on our homepage. The fact you are dealt four cards each hand means there are many more staring hand combinations that a playable and can connect well with a lot of flops. This means you often get three or more players seeing a flop in the same hand and more than one of them regularly likes that flop. If you get one player flopping a set, another flopping a straight and another flopping the nut flush draw it’s inevitably going to create lots of action and a big pot. Its action like this that has helped make PLO one of the most popular poker games played online these days, it is now particularly popular with high stakes pro players like Tom “Durrrr” Dwan and Phil Ivey.

The best online poker sites to play Omaha

PLO is now offered on the vast majority of online poker sites although you’ll find on some of these there aren’t many tables running due to a lack of player numbers. To be sure of a good choice of Omaha tables to play on at a wide range of stakes your best off trying the bigger sites like PokerStars and Party Poker. PokerStars also gives you the choice of playing in deep staked tables where you can buy into a game for as much as 250 big blinds compared to the standard 100. If you’d rather play short stacked Omaha they offer tables where players must only buy in for between 20 and 50 big blinds. Both of these options present a slightly different challenge and require adjustments in playing strategy to get the most success.

The best Pot Limit Omaha players

Obviously the question of who is the best PLO poker player in the world is open to debate and people have their own opinions but generally the best are Tom “Durrrr” Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Phil Galfond and Phil Ivey. These are the guys who have shown the most success over recent years, mainly playing online in the super high stakes games. In the short term however almost any player who has a reasonable grasp of PLO can go on a big winning run which can run for months at a time, this is due to the high variance nature of the game. A few years ago you’d always see certain players on the high stakes tables at Full Tilt winning huge amounts of money night in, night out. Then all of a sudden they’d have bad run and you wouldn’t see they again, an important reminder why its important to always exercise proper bankroll management and not play at too high stakes for your wallet. When your on a big winning streak it can be easy to forget this and start to think your invincible. Anyone who has played Omaha poker for a while will have experienced great winning sessions where all their hands seemed to hold up and they hit every draw. Likewise they’ll also have had sessions where every made hand got drawn out on and they couldn’t seem to hit a barn door themselves. Its for all these reasons that success in PLO needs to be judged over the long term even more so than other forms of poker, even when playing well you’ll find yourself at the mercy of the cards for large portions of your stack very frequently.

The best PLO books

One of the most popular books on PLO is called “Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha” and is written by Rolf Slotboom. This book mainly focuses on short stacked play and you could say the game has changed a little since it was first published in 2006 perhaps in part due to the book itself. Despite this it does contain some interesting strategy ideas you probably wouldn’t have considered yourself which can still be used profitably today in the right games. Also “The Big Play Strategy” by Jeff Hwang is highly rated. To find either of these books simply search for them on Google or Bing and you should see them for sale plus for more detailed information on them you can also visit Wikipedia.