To be honest, if you can play Hold’em, you’ll pick Omaha up in no time at all. If your Hold’em is a little rusty, we suggest a quick refresher course by using our in-depth how to play Texas Hold’em guide. You should then come back to this page to find out the variations in Omaha.
Like Texas Hold’em, Omaha is a community card game where your one and only aim is to make the best five card hand that you can from the cards you’re given and the cards that are dealt face up in the centre of the table. So far so good, just like Hold’em you say. But whoa, hold on there, as this is where it all gets a little bit different…
As you’ll know, in Texas Hold’em each poker player receives two cards that only they can see (their “hole cards”) before the five community cards are dealt face up. In Omaha, each player is dealt four hole cards. Before you think whoopy-do, there’s a catch. Unlike Hold’em, where you can use any combination of hole and community cards to make your best five card hand, in Omaha you must use two of your hole cards and three community cards when making your hand. So, just to recap, as this is important: when making your five card hand, you must use two of your four hole cards, and three of the five community cards. Voila!
Apart from that, the game follows the same patterns as Texas Hold’em, poker with the same blind structure and betting rounds. If you’re not sure about all that, you’ll get everything you need to know in our how to play Texas Hold’em guide.
|
