Omaha hold'em (or Omaha holdem or simply Omaha) is a community card poker game based on Texas hold 'em. It was originally created as a high-hand only game, but a high-low split variant called "Omaha eight-or-better" has also become popular. In North America, the unadorned term "Omaha" often now refers to this high-low split variant, while the original game is more commonly known as "Omaha high". In Europe, "Omaha" still typically refers to the high version of the game, which is very popular in pot limit play. Probably starting about the time of World War II, many modern poker games used community cards (also called shared cards or widow cards), which are cards dealt face up to the center of the table and shared by all players. ... Texas hold em (or simply hold em or holdem) is the most popular of the community card poker games. ... For methods of splitting a pot, see Splitting poker pots. ... World map showing location of North America A satellite composite image of North America North America is a continent in the northern hemisphere, bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west... A satellite composite image of Europe Europe is geologically and geographically a peninsula, forming the westernmost part of Eurasia. ... The game of poker as played today requires that players agree before play on allowable amounts for betting (called limits), and the use and amount of forced bets. ...

Before undertaking to learn Omaha, be sure that you are familiar with Texas hold'em as well as with general poker game play and hands, and particularly ace-to-five low hands. In casino play, Omaha is generally played with the same betting structure as Texas hold'em. Omaha high is particularly well-suited to pot limit play (and is often abbreviated as "PLO"). "Pot-limit Omaha" usually refers to Omaha high, though Omaha eight-or-better can also be played pot-limit. Omaha is almost never played no-limit, because overbetting the pot allows a player with a big hand to shut out draws; much of the appeal of Omaha is that it is a drawing game, where the next card always has a great impact on the value of a hand. The poker room at the Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City, NJ. Poker is a card game, the most popular of a class of games called vying games, in which players with fully or partially concealed cards make wagers into a central pot, after which the pot is awarded to the... A hand in poker can mean any of the following: A synonym for round, a unit of play consisting of a deal, betting, and possibly a showdown. ... Ace-to-five low is the most common method for evaluating low hands in poker, nearly universal in American casinos, especially in high-low split games. ... The game of poker as played today requires that players agree before play on allowable amounts for betting (called limits), and the use and amount of forced bets. ... The game of poker as played today requires that players agree before play on allowable amounts for betting (called limits), and the use and amount of forced bets. ...

The basic differences between Omaha and Texas hold'em are these: first, each player is dealt four cards to his private hand instead of two. The betting rounds and layout of community cards are identical. At showdown, each player's hand is the best five-card hand he can make from exactly three of the five cards on the board, plus exactly two of his own cards. Unlike Texas hold'em, a player cannot play only one of his cards with four of the board, nor can he play the board, nor play three from his hand and two from the board, or any other combination. Each player must play exactly two of his own cards with exactly three of the community cards.

In high-low split, each player, using these rules, thus makes a separate five-card high hand and five-card ace-to-five low hand (eight-high or lower to qualify), and the pot is split between the high and low (which may be the same player). To qualify for low, a player must be able to play an 8-7-6-5-4 or lower (this is why it is called "eight-or-better", or simply "Omaha/8"). A few casinos play with a 9-low qualifier instead, but this is rare. Each player can play any two of his four hole cards to make his high hand, and any two of his four hole cards to make his low hand.

The brief explanation above belies the complexity of the game, so a number of examples will be useful here to clarify it. The table below shows a five-card board of community cards at the end of play, and then lists for each player the initial private four-card hand dealt to him or her, and the best five-card high hand and low hand each player can play on showdown:

In the deal above, Chuck wins the high-hand half of the pot with his J-high straight, and Brenda and Emily split the low half (getting a quarter of the pot each) with 7-5-3-2-A. Some specific things to notice about Omaha hands are:

• In order for anyone to qualify low, there must be at least three cards of differing ranks 8 or below on the board. For example, a board of K-8-J-7-5 makes low possible (the best low hand would be A-2, followed by A-3, 2-3, etc.) A board of K-8-J-8-5, however, cannot make any qualifying low (the best low hand possible would be J-8-5-2-A, which doesn't qualify).
• As in Texas hold'em, three or more suited cards on the board makes a flush possible, but unlike that game a player always needs two of that suit in his hand to play a flush. For example, with a board of K♠ 9♠ Q♠ Q♥ 5♠, a player with A♠ 2♥ 4♥ 5♣ cannot play a flush using his ace as he could in Texas hold'em; he must play two cards from his hand and only three from the board. A player with 2♠ 3♠ K♦ Q♥ can play the spade flush.
• Likewise, two pair or trips on the board does not make a full house for anyone with a single matching card as it does in Texas hold'em. For example, with a board of J♠ J♦ 9♦ 5♥ 9♣, a hand of A♠ 2♠ J♥ K♦ cannot play a full house; he can only use his A-J to play J♠ J♥ J♦ A♠ 9♣, since must play only three of the board cards. A player with 2♣ 5♣ 9♠ 10♠ can use his 9-5 to play the full house 9♠ 9♣ 9♦ 5♥ 5♣. With trips on the board, the player with the fourth card of that rank can play quads because any other card in his hand can act as kicker.
• Low hands often tie, and high straights occasionally tie as well. It is possible to win as little as a 14th of a pot (though this is extraordinarily rare). Winning a quarter of the pot is quite common, and is called "getting quartered". A quarter of the pot is not normally sufficient to recover the money you bet, so you would normally fold if you anticipated being quartered.
• When four or five low cards appear on the board, it can become very difficult to read the low hands properly. For example with a board of 2♦ 6♥ A♣ 5♣ 8♠, the hand 2♥ 4♠ 5♠ K♦ is playing a 6-5-4-2-A (either his 2-4 with the board's A-5-6, or his 4-5 with the board's A-2-6--either way makes the same hand). In this situation he is often said to be playing his "live" 4, that is, his 4, plus some other low card that matches the board but still makes a low because the one on the board isn't needed. A player with 3♠ 5♠ 10♥ J♦ is playing a "live" 3, for a low of 6-5-3-2-A, which makes a better low. However, a player with 3♣ 7♦ Q♦ Q♠ can only play 7-5-3-2-A low; even though he has a "live" 3, he must play two low cards from his hand, and so he must play his 7-3, and cannot make a 6-high low hand.
• Starting hands with three or four cards of one rank are very bad. In fact, the worst possible hand in the game is 2♠ 2♣ 2♥ 2♦! Since the only possible combination of two cards from this hand is 2-2, it is impossible to make low; since no deuce remains to appear on the board, it will be impossible to make three deuces or deuces full, and anyone with any matching card to the board will make a higher pair. Likewise, starting with four cards of one suit makes it less likely that you will be able to make a flush.
• Low hand Ranks from Best to worst:A-2-3-4-5, A-2-3-4-6, A-2-3-5-6, A-2-4-5-6, A-3-4-5-6, A-2-3-4-7, A-2-3-5-7, A-2-4-5-7, A-3-4-5-7, A-2-3-6-7, A-2-4-6-7, yada yada yada, 4-5-6-7-8; see also Ace-to-five_low

Ace-to-five low is the most common method for evaluating low hands in poker, nearly universal in American casinos, especially in high-low split games. ...

Variations

Sometimes the high-low split game is played with a 9-high qualifier instead of 8-high. It can also be played with five cards dealt to each player instead of four. In that case, the same rules for making a hand apply: exactly two from the player's hand, and exactly three from the board.

In the game of Courcheval, popular in Europe, instead of betting on the initial four cards and then flopping three community cards for the second round, the first community card is dealt before the first betting round, so that each player has four private cards and the single community card on his first bet. Then two more community cards are dealt, and play proceeds exactly as in Omaha.