How to Play Omaha Poker (for Hold'em Players)

In Omaha, four aces is a worse hand than two aces with a seven and a deuce. And by the end of this, you'll know exactly why, along with the one rule every hold'em player gets wrong the first night. And it usually starts the same way. Somebody at your game says, "Let's try Omaha. It's just hold'em with four cards." And 20 minutes later, a guy turns over a flush he doesn't actually have, and the whole table stops to argue about it. And that's exactly what people ask under the biggest how to play Omaha videos. The top question on one of them is whether it's basically Texas hold'em with two more cards, and the most liked answer is somebody in all caps saying, "You cannot use four or five cards on the board as your hand." Someone else made a straight flush with only one of their own cards, and finally figured out why they didn't win. And another person asked whether a full house on the board even counts. So, let's settle every one of those, starting with the rule. Most of Omaha is the hold'em you already know. There are blinds, a flop, a turn, and a river, the same five shared cards, and the same betting rounds, and the hand rankings don't change. So, a flush still beats a straight. The deal changes because everybody gets four cards instead of two, but the rule that changes everything is how you make your hand, because you have to use exactly two of your four cards, and exactly three from the board. You can never use one of yours or three of yours, and you can never just play the board. So, say you hold the ace and king of hearts with a nine and a four, and the board comes queen, jack, 10, five, two. You take the ace and the king, you add the queen, jack, and 10 from the board, and that's a straight ace high. The nine and the four just sit there, and that's normal because in every Omaha hand, two of your cards don't play. And the easiest way to read your hand is to try your cards two at a time, which gives you six pairs to check, and then find the best three on the board to go with each one. The first trap is the flush that isn't there. The board comes king, nine, seven, and four of hearts with a two of clubs, so there are four hearts on the table. You're holding the ace of hearts with two queens, and in hold'em, that's the best flush there is, so you push your chips in. But in Omaha, you can only use three of those board hearts, which means you need two hearts in your own hand to make a flush. With one heart, you've got a pair of queens, and your friend with the jack and three of hearts takes the pot with a flush. So, the rule for flushes is simple and it's two of the suit in your hand every time. The second trap is the straight on the board. 5 6 7 8 9 comes out and in Hold'em everybody still in the hand would at least have that straight. In Omaha, nobody gets it for free. You're holding two aces with a king and [music] a queen, so the best you can make is a pair of aces because none of your cards fit into the run. And your friend holding a four and a three with a pair of jacks uses the four and the three with the 5 6 and 7 and that little straight wins. So, when the straight is on the board, you still need two cards of your own that fit into it. And the same goes for pairs on the board. If the board is two kings and two sevens with a deuce, you don't get two pair just for sitting there because you can only use three board cards, so you only get one of those pairs. With an ace and a queen in your hand, the best you can make is a pair of kings with the ace and queen behind it. And your friend with a pair of eights in his hand quietly has two pair, kings and eights, and he wins. Which brings us to the full house on the board and this one comes straight from a comment. The board is three sixes and two fours, and in Hold'em everyone at the table would be playing that full house, but in Omaha, you only get three of those cards, so the best most people can take is the three sixes plus two of their own cards as kickers. So, the player with the ace and queen beats the player with the queen and jack because the ace is the higher kicker and neither of them has a full house. To turn three sixes on the board into a full house, you'd need a pair in your own hand, like two kings. And now the four aces. In Hold'em, two aces is the best start in the game, so four of them sounds like a dream, but you can only ever use two of your cards, so four aces plays like one pair of aces with two more aces stuck in your hand doing nothing. And those two dead aces are the ones you need for three of a kind, so you can never make three aces. None of your cards connect for a straight or share a suit for a flush either, so against three other players, four aces wins about as often as king eight five two. So, on a board like king nine seven four two, your four aces are just a pair of aces and a friend holding nine eight seven six makes nines and sevens and takes the pot. So, a good Omaha hand is four cards that all work together. Something like jack 10, 9, 8 with two hearts and two spades is a hand Omaha players love because every pair of cards in it can make a straight and it has two different ways to make a flush. On a board like Queen, 9, 7, 6, 2, it makes a straight and plenty of other boards give it something, too. The hands to be careful with are the ones where the cards don't work together like King, 8, 5, 2 or a hand with one card that doesn't fit the other three, which players call a dangler, or three cards of the same suit because you can only ever use two of them. And four of a kind shape there is for the reason we just saw. One more thing changes and it's the betting. Most home games play Omaha pot limit, which is why you'll hear it called PLO and it means nobody can bet more than what's in the pot. It keeps the game with this much action from turning into everyone going all in every hand. For a raise, the host counts it like this. You count everything in the middle including the bet, add the amount you need to call, and that total is the most you can raise on top of your call. So, if there are 10 chips in the middle and someone bets 10, you call the 10, which makes 30, and you can raise 30 more for 40 in total. And if somebody at your table plays the version where the lowest hand wins half the pot, that's Omaha high-low and it's a different game with its own video. So, tonight we're only playing for the high hand. Okay, your turn. So, call each one before the answer shows up. Hand one, the board is Ace, King, 8, 5 and 2 with three clubs. One player has two Aces with the Queen of clubs and a Jack and the other has 10, 9, 7, 6. The Aces win with three Aces because the Queen is the only club in that hand and 10, 9, 7, 6 can't make a straight with just two of its cards. Hand two, the board is 10, 9, 8, 3, 3. Queen, Jack against a pair of 10s. The Queen Jack has a straight, but the pair of 10s uses the 10 on the board and the two 3s for a full house and the full house wins. So, if you're the host bringing Omaha to a Hold'em group tonight, here's how I'd do it. Deal the first orbit face up so everybody can see their four cards and say out loud which two they're using and you'll catch the one heart flush before it costs anybody a pot. Write 2 + 3 on a piece of tape on the dealer button, so the rule travels around the table with the deal, and play a pot limit with the host counting the pot for the first few hands. And if you want the buy-ins, the rebuys, and who owes who tracked while everyone's learning a new game, that's what HG Poker does, the app I built for our home game. It takes no bets, holds no money, and moves no money. It just keeps track of the night. And the last hand is yours. The board is the king, queen, and seven of spades with the seven of diamonds and a deuce. One player has the ace of spades with two nines, and the other has the jack and 10 of spades. Who wins this one? Tell me in the comments, along with the hand you thought you had the first time you played Omaha. And remember, it's two from your hand and three from the board, and four aces is just a pair. >> [music]