Omaha Hold'em Poker Rules

Omaha Hold'em is a fun game to play, offering each player 4 hole cards as opposed to Texas Holdem's traditional 2 down. This makes for a lot more drawing possibilities, and tends to have more players fighting it out for larger pots as such.

Asides from the additional hole cards the rules are very similar to Texas Hold'em, with one major exception:

Each player must make their completed 5 card hand from two of their down cards, and three of the community cards on the table.

If noting else, remember that. In Omaha, your 5 card hand must be made of 2 of your hole cards + 3 cards from the board, no exceptions.

If you're a regular Texas Hold'em player, that may take some getting used to, but as you spend more time at the Omaha tables, you'll get more comfortable with how that effects starting hands and potential drawing hands significantly. There's a couple of examples to the right of common mistakes new Omaha players make to get you started.

In Omaha, Three or Four of a Kind in the hole is a bad starting hand.

Remember - you must play 2 of your hole cards and 3 cards from the board. Because you can only play 2 of your hole cards, that '4 of a Kind' is only a pair, and there's no cards left to improve that pair on the board!

In Omaha, you can't have a flush without at least two cards of that suit in your hole cards.

Again, because you can't play more than three cards from the board, it's irrelevant if there's 4 or 5 suited cards on the board - you can only play three of them, which means the other two have to come from your hole cards.

How a Game Is Played Out:

A 'Small Blind' and 'Big Blind' are placed by the two people to the left of the dealer before the cards are dealt.
Each player is dealt four face-down cards (hole cards).
The player to the left of the bettor who placed the "Big Blind" bet starts the wagering. They may simply Call the blind to continue in the hand, Raise or Fold. This continues for each player at the table, going clockwise until there are no more bets or calls to be made.
The Flop is dealt face up in the middle of the table; three community cards that can be used by all players at the table.
There is another round of betting, continuing until there are no more bets or calls to be made.
In the center of the table, a fourth community card is dealt face up (the turn).
There is another round of betting.
The last community card, also referred to as the River, is placed face up on the table.
Final bets are placed.

Remaining players make their best hand of 5 cards after the betting, using 2 of their hole and 3 cards from the community cards on the table. The player with the high hand or the last player who is still "in" wins.

Betting goes clockwise, starting with the player seated next to the dealer (in an online game there is still a 'dealer' marked at the table despite the software dealing each hand).

Like most poker games, Omaha can be played with varying betting limits:

Limit
Every game and every round has a set betting limit, such as $.50/$1.00 has a $.50 Blind, the first round of betting and raises is $.50 and the rounds after that are upped to $1.00 bets.
Pot Limit (PL)
A maximum, equivalent to the total pot at the time of the bet can be wagered by each player.
No Limit (NL)
Each person can wager up to the amount they have on the table at the time of the bet.

Omaha Hold'em is an interesting variation of poker, however it doesn't tend to have the largest following in land based or online casinos, so finding active tables can be a chore at the wrong poker rooms.

Your best bet when looking to play Omaha online is to stick with the larger poker rooms. Party Poker or Poker Room for example have very large player bases, and as such there's usually quite a few Omaha players on at any given time. Smaller poker rooms are fine if you're playing Texas Holdem, but at times have no active Omaha Holdem tables at all.

Omaha Hold'em is also played in a split pot variation called Omaha Hi-Lo.

Find more Omaha poker info at Online Poker Tutor