Omaha has become the second most popular version of poker. It is a variation of Texas Hold’em. Think of it as a somewhat wacky and unpredictable brother to the classic Hold’em.
But you shouldn’t dismiss it. It’s a great game.
And it can be a great source of profit if played correctly.
In this guide, pro poker player Ashley Adams will present the ins and outs of how to play Omaha Hi-Lo poker, including:
Ready? Let’s dive right in!
Omaha Hi-Lo, also known as Omaha 8 or Better, is a variant of poker where each player is dealt four private 'hole' cards, and five community cards are dealt face-up on the 'board'.
The twist in this game is that the pot is split between the highest hand (Hi) and the lowest hand (Lo), with the stipulation that to qualify for the low hand, a player must make a five-card hand of different ranked cards all eight or lower.
If no one can make a low hand, the highest hand wins the entire pot.
The uniqueness of Omaha Hi-Lo lies in the fact that you must use exactly two of your hole cards and three community cards to form both the high and low hands.
However, the same two hole cards don't need to be used for both hands, adding a strategic depth to the game.The betting in Omaha Hi-Lo mirrors that of Texas Hold'em with pre-flop, flop, turn, and river rounds.
The goal, though, is not just to aim for the highest hand, but also the lowest, to maximize your chance of winning a share of the pot.
With its mix of complexity and strategy, Omaha Hi-Lo offers an intriguing twist on traditional poker games.
Let’s continue exploring the more advanced details of this game.
Quick History of Omaha Hi-Lo
Omaha was invented by gambler and casino businessman Robert Turner in the early 1980s.
In the Hold’em games he played at the time, it had become common for players to hold out extra cards. According to his telling of the story, he came up with Omaha to legitimately give players the extra cards they had sought illegitimately, spicing up the popular but relatively dull game of Texas Hold’em.
His innovation caught on!
Omaha was originally spread in 1983 at Bill Boyd’s Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas and then at the Horseshoe Casino in Gardena, California.
It attracted the interest of professional poker players, including Phil Hellmuth, and became popularized in the World Series of Poker, starting in the mid-1980s. It is now second only to Hold’em as the most popular form of poker.
The rules of Omaha are similar to Texas Hold’em.
It is a game with each player having their hand of down cards and sharing a board of five cards.
There are 4 betting rounds, as in Hold’em. The first is when players have only their cards. The second follows the dealing of three community cards, known as the flop.
The third follows the deal of the fourth community card, known as the turn. The fourth and final round follows the deal of the fifth community card known as the river.
Unlike Hold’em, however, in Omaha, each player starts with not two but four cards. They make their hand by using exactly two of those four cards with exactly three cards from the board.
This creates some significant differences between the two games.
In Hold’em, players have exactly one possible two-card combination that they can use to make their five-card poker hand. They may also use either card separately, with four of the five board cards to make their hand. Or, they may use neither of their two cards and play the five-card board as their hand.
Be aware
In Omaha, they may use six possible combinations of two cards to make a hand.
This means that the winning hand will usually be much stronger than a winning hand in a Hold’em game. In many ways, unlike Hold’em, Omaha is a game of either making or drawing to the nuts.
There are chiefly two variations of Omaha that are played today.
The most straightforward variation is usually known as Omaha; the other is known as Omaha hi-lo.
Omaha tends to be played pot limit (though it may be played no limit, fixed limit or spread limit as well), with the highest hand winning the pot.
Omaha Hi-Lo is a split pot game, usually played with defined betting limits, with the highest standard poker hand and the lowest possible poker hand dividing the pot.
Straights and flushes don’t disqualify a low hand, making the best possible low hand the Wheel (A-2-3-4-5).
Omaha hi-lo is typically played with an 8 qualifier for low – meaning you must have no worse than an 8 low to win the low half of the pot. Playing this way is often referred to as Omaha 8 or Better or O8. It is the “O” in the mixed game of HORSE.
We are going to look at Omaha 8 or Better in this column. Again, this is typically a limit game. This means that betting is straightforward. There is no choice in bet size. On the first two betting rounds, the bet must be no more and no less than a fixed amount.
On the latter two betting rounds, it is also a higher and defined amount.
These limit O8 games are typically played $2/4, $3/6, $4/8, $5/10, $6/12, $7.50/$15, $8/16, $10/20, $20/40 and all the way up to $2,000/$4,000 and higher.
The game is sometimes played with a kill. – This increases the betting limit after someone has scooped a pot of a certain size.
For example
In $8/16 Omaha 8 or Better, the small blind is $4, the Big Blind is $8. Players may then call the $8, fold, or raise to $16. Future raises (typically limited to three or four per round) must be by $8 - same thing on the flop. Players may check or bet $8.00. After that they may fold, call the $8 or raise to $16.
On the turn and river, the limits double to $16. Players would open for $16 and then raise by $16.
Let’s look at some Omaha 8 or Better hands and a few sample boards to see how they are formed.
With each of the following boards, what’s the best high hand and the best low hand (if any) that can be made by the following hands? (Keep the answers hidden while you try to answer this for each had below).
Example 1: Board of As 9c 9d 8h 2s
Let's assume the following hands:
Ks Kd Qs Qh
- There is no qualifying low
- The best high is KK99A
Ad Jd 9s 9h
- There is no qualifying low
- The best high is quad 9s
2h 3c 4d Ts
- The best low is the nuts for this board: 8h 4d 3c 2s As
- The best high is 9c 9d 2s 2h Ts
Example 2: Board of Ks Kd 7c 6s 5h
Let's assume the following hands:
9h 8s 7c 6d
- There is no qualifying low.
- The best high is a 9-high straight.
4h 3d 3s 2h
- The best low is 76532
- The best high is a 7-high straight
Qd 9c 8s 4d
- The best low is 87654
- The best high is a 9-high straight
Example 3: Board of Ah Qs 8s 6d 4d
Let's assume the following hands:
Ac Ad 2c 3d
- The best low is the nut low: 8642A.
- The best high is Trip Aces.
Ad Ks Kh Qd
- There is no qualifying low.
- The best high is AAQQ8.
Jh Jc 6d 4h
- There is no qualifying low.
- The best high is JJAQ8.
There are many books, articles, training videos, and podcasts about Omaha 8 strategy. This is no substitute for that detailed analysis of the game. These are general principles that should steer you in the right direction.
1. Look to Scoop
Don’t typically play for half the pot. If you win your half, you naturally will only break even in a heads-up showdown (After the rake, you may even lose money). You should look for hands with two-way possibilities, like starting hands with low cards and suited Aces. They can make perfect lows and nut flushes. Also, a premium pair, especially Aces, with a low draw, is much better than just a good three or four-card high hand.
Imagine a hand like Ks Kd Td 4c.
True, you have a pair of Kings. And you have a possible straight and flush draw – and even a straight flush draw. In hold’em, that’s a strong holding, especially pre-flop. Maybe you want to raise with it to fold out those singleton Aces that might call and make a pair of Aces to beat you.
No! Don’t do that!
In Omaha 8 this is a poor hand. There are too many ways to lose the high hand and no way to win the low hand.
Now imagine a hand like As 3d 4s Jd.
In Omaha 8, you have two possible nut lows (if a 2 and low card flop), two flush draws, including the nut club flush draw, and a nut straight draw. All those combinations on both sides of the aisle make this a strong pre-flop holding.
2. You Want All Four Cards Working Together
You want hands with the maximum number of valuable combinations, with all four cards working in combination with each other. Flush draws, straight draws, pairs, and good low draws make for a premium hand.
You want to avoid hands with one or two cards not working with the other cards. Qh Qd 9s 2c is much weaker than Qh Qd 3h 2s or Kh Qs 4h 2s. Do you see why? In the former example, you really can only use the two Queens, as in Hold’em.
The 9s and the 2c serve no purpose (aside from a longshot straight draw using the 9 and Q).
The second example has all sorts of things going for it, with the K and Q working for a possible straight, the two hearts working for a possible flush, the suited clubs doing the same, and the 4 and 2 working with each other for a potential straight and a possible low.
3. Aces are Great
Omaha 8 is a game of the nuts.
This makes Aces especially worthwhile as they simultaneously work as two cards toward the nuts. The same Ace can make perfect lows and nut highs. Ah As 4s 2h has all sorts of ways to make high and low hands and starts as the best possible pair, even without any improvement. It’s really like starting with six cards!
4. Fewer Bluffing and Trapping Opportunities Than in Hold’em
Given the plethora of nut hands in Omaha 8, the fact that it is a limit game, and the high and low possibilities, deception could be more effective.
If someone is betting very strongly, they typically have at least half the pot. It’s also hard to move someone off of a hand with a limit bet if they are potentially shooting for either high or low.
5. Look for freerolling opportunities to punish your opponents
An ideal situation in Omaha 8 is having one side of the pot locked up with the nuts while you and your opponent are drawing for the other half. You want to make drawing opponents pay dearly in situations like that. In limit poker, this means betting and raising whenever these situations arise.
Don’t worry about disguising your hand. Similarly, you want to be wary of being up against someone who is freerolling against you.
Before you become proficient at the game, you’ll also need to consider a few other essential strategy points.
Omaha 8 is a Limit Game
This means that you can only bet a limited amount.
You can’t shove for your entire stack as you can in No Limit Hold’em. Accordingly, you must use whatever betting pressure you can muster by raising, re-raising, and 4 betting when you have super-strong hands. Don’t get cute. Don’t try to seduce opponents with clever plays or deception.
Pound away!
You also need to recognize that as a limit game, you don’t have those great implied odds you have in a no-limit or pot-limit game. You must be more careful in your early hand selection, resisting the temptation to play loose early on.
The Risk of Getting Counterfeited and the Importance of Back-up Lows
Made low hands can get counterfeited.
If, for example, you have A2KQ with a board of 567, and a 2 hits the river, you’ve just gone from the nut low to no low. You can’t assume that a made low on the flop will hold up. That’s why having other back up lows in your hand is a good idea. A235 is much stronger than A2KQ for that reason.
You have a backup plan in case your Ace or 2 gets counterfeited.
Risk of getting quartered
Nut lows have another vulnerability. Unlike high hands, that rarely are tied, perfect lows often get “quartered” when they go up against the same low on the river. For example, imagine that you have Ah2s9cKc. You flop 3h4h9c. You hit a 7h on the turn and a 6d on the river.
Great! You’ve made 6432A – The nut low for this board.
There are three of you in the pot. You bet, get raised, and the third player calls.
You re-raise, realizing you are guaranteed the low half of the pot. You get raised again.
Your third opponent calls and you gleefully cap the betting with your guaranteed winner.
Both opponents call. You reveal your hand only to see that your raising opponent has a flush and your third opponent also has A2.
You get one quarter of the pot and end up losing money on it.
Keep in mind
Though ties are uncommon in Hold’em, this happens regularly in Omaha 8.
Typically, with just a low, you are best to check call in a three-way hand, unless you have reason to believe that your opponents are all going the other way.
Final Thoughts
There you have it - the complete guide on how to play Omaha Hi-Lo poker.
As you probably figured by now, Omaha is a great game.
There’s often lots of action from poor players who think they have double the chances of winning – with both high and low awarded the pot.
You can capitalize on their incorrect approach to the game by focusing on scooping, being aggressive when you believe you are freerolling, and being wary of situations when you shoot for half the pot.
Of course, there are several other poker variants worth learning. Check the Poker Academy to discover more guides and master the best card game you can play.
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