If you are reading this then you are probably one of millions of people who have begun to or regularly play Texas Hold ’em. Recently this form of poker has enjoyed immense popularity following televised tournaments and ad campaigns from online poker sites. Many people play online and there are a lot of decent poker sites out there, some people even venture to the casinos where Hold ’em is well catered for, and there has always been a trend for people to play at home.
The success of Hold ’em is partly due to it’s instant accessibility - once you learn a few rules anyone can play. Of course success depends on experience and practice, and even some background research, but most people can grasp the concepts easily. It really is a game that takes five minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. In the next few articles though we will be looking at another form of poker, which, although having quite a big following in it’s own right, is regarded as being a little bit harder to play - this game is known as Omaha.
Before we get too carried away about discussing the difference between Omaha and Texas, it’s important to also note that there are two major versions of Omaha to further confuse things. The one most similar to Hold ’em, and that best matches a Hold ’em players transferable skills is Omaha High (which is very popular in Europe), but you may also come across a game called Omaha 8 or Omaha Hi/Lo.
Omaha 8 and Omaha Hi/Lo are essentially the same game, but under different monikers and they will be discussed in detail later. They are similar to Omaha High but have a few additional factors that make it a slightly different beast. For the time being we will focus on Omaha High (which I will call by its general name Omaha) to introduce you to this new poker game. Think of it as graduated steps, a Hold ’em player can play Omaha, and an Omaha player can play Omaha 8 (Hi/Lo).
OK a few points, it has been said, and as I have indicated in the previous paragraph, that:
“If you can play Texas Hold ’em, then you can play Omaha.”
This is true, but like all card games you need to know a few basics. A Texas Hold ’em player will already come to Omaha knowing the most important thing - which is hand rankings. If you don ’ t already know the winning hand rankings I have included them here quickly for reference, and I really suggest you familiarise yourself with them:-
* Royal Flush
* Straight Flush
* Four of a kind
* Full House
* Flush
* Straight
* Three of a kind
* 2 pair
* One pair
* High card
Just like in Texas Hold ’em, in Omaha you are looking to create a hand from the community deck and from your pocket cards that will equate to a winning combination as above. The big difference is that in Omaha you are dealt four pocket cards to combine with the community cards.
As you can imagine this will greatly improve your chances of making more interesting hands, but you must remember that in Omaha, unlike Texas, you must use two cards in your hand (and only two) making your hand using an additional three cards from the community deck. So, unlike Texas you cannot play the board, say, using one card in your hand to make a straight. EG:
Flop: K Q 10 A 9
You: J 2 5 7
As you can see in our example above if a Hold ’em player had the Jack and any other card in his hand he would have made straight. Their Jack slots in, but for the Omaha player the hand is unmade. At best they should have had an additional K Q 10 A 9 or 8 in their hand to make a straight. That you need to make your hand using two of your cards is the most fundamental difference for a new Omaha player to remember.
Another example is if an Omaha player is dealt:
K K K Q
The deck is: K 2 10 9
This may look like a brilliant hand at first - but in reality the player has only made three of a kind, with no possibility of improving to four of a kind as they have a third unplayable King. The player would need a further card to make a straight, as they would need to cancel out the King on the deck to make it (using one of their Kings and the Queen). So, a Jack could salvage the situation but getting that card is very unlikely. The only strength this hand has, based on the flop is that the King is the highest card on the deck, and unless someone else makes straight or flush, it may come off as a high end three of a kind, over say someone who is betting on 10 10 in their hand as the highest competing three of a kind. It could even beat someone holding an A A providing their third Ace doesn ’ t come up.
The betting stages in Hold em are identical to Omaha, a round of betting pre-flop, post flop, on the turn and river. Play is also clock-wise with a big and small blind from the left of the dealer. Technically speaking pre flop bets should be small, but you will find that many people will bet half their stash or even go all in on many online games, this is a bit fool hardy as I imagine you are learning to see, because in Omaha a lot can change very quickly. I will discuss betting tactics in more detail later.
So how hard can it be, well not really that hard at all actually. Perhaps the biggest difference between Omaha and Hold ’em is that Hold ’em is a tactical game. A good player can bluff an opponent out of a hand in Hold ’em, but in Omaha it often boils down to the actual cards that are held in the showdown. Therefore Omaha is a game based more on mathematical probability.
I’ll give you an example, for a start consider this important difference to a Texas Hold ’em game, imagine playing in a tournament, each table consisting of ten people, at each table is obviously a different pack of 52 cards. Now in a Hold ’em game the most amount of cards, presuming all ten people are dealt in, that will ever be ‘ in-play ’ will be 25. That’s two cards for every player, plus five community cards. In Omaha, however, we will ‘ see ’ 45 cards, as each player has four cards plus the five on the deck.
What this means is that around 95% of all the cards are in play. Perhaps I ought to clarify this definition of being ‘ in-play, ’ as, what I am suggesting is that these cards will at some point be seen by someone in a given hand, but may be folded or played or appear on the deck.
You yourself will see nine cards if you play until the river, but hopefully with this advice you will never play that long into the game, unless, you know you have a good chance of winning. So by knowing that nearly 95% of the cards have been seen (if there are ten people sat at the table), means that you can be pretty sure that good players, knowing decent hands to play and not to play, will fold unless they have cards likely to make a good hand. This means that any players in the hand should have reasonable cards. In honesty you will always find people playing weak hands. In later articles I will help you decide if these people are playing weak hands because they cannot play or if they are playing them to bluff the pot. But for the time being imagine that everyone who has called believes they have a good hand, if you presume this you will not get yourself into a sticky situation.
Mike @ Power Poker Course.
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