How to play Omaha; Starting hands. As with any poker game you need to be selective with your starting hands. Hands which might look good in Texas Holdem will just get you into trouble in Omaha. For instance getting 2,2,2,2 would be the worst possible starting hand because anything will beat it. An Ace or King in your hand would be an excellent. Other winning Omaha poker starting hands are A-A-Q-Q, A-A-J-J, A-A-T-T, A-A-9-9, and any pair with an ace pair. Aces are also good for starting hands, when not clubbed with other pairs. However with these Omaha poker starting hands, you have to play aggressively before flopping. King and queen pairs are as strong as ace pairs. Omaha has 16,432 starting hand combinations if we ignore the suits. If we'd include the suits, there would be 270,725 possible combinations for your four hole cards in Omaha poker. Even the best PLO bookscan not cover this many hand combinations in their recommendations. What are danglers in Omaha starting hands There are various non-favorable cards you can get preflop in Pot-Limit Omaha. One of them is a dangler – a term used by players to describe a low-card that doesn’t add any value to the four-card hand. Let’s assume you’re dealt A♠K♠J♦6♣.
Winning poker hands.
To win at Omaha poker you need to know the winning hands, and this is absolutely essential in Omaha because you need to know if you are drawing to a great hand or not. Skill comes into how you play the hand and if you don’t know if you have a winning hand or draw, you wont be able to make and call the right bets. So the first part of getting an advanced Omaha strategy in play is to remember the hand rankings below.
You start with four cards in your hand and end up with five cards on the table. The winning hand must be made up of two of the four cards in your hand and three of the five cards on the table. The hand rankings below represent that combination of two cards from your hand and three from the table.
1: Royal Flush.
For a Royal Flush you need an Ace King Queen Jack Ten all of one suit, hearts or clubs, diamonds or spades. A Royal Flush beats every other hand there is, but you won’t see one very often. Enjoy it and rake in as many chips as you can when you do.
Omaha Poker Hands Ranking
2; The straight flush.
Omaha Poker Hands Rank
Second in rank five cards in sequence of the same suit, but not including the ace high. Also not a common hand but often well disguised.
3; Four of a kind.
Any four cards of the same rank, also known as quads. If there are four cards the same on the board, whoever has the highest card in their hand, such as an ace, will win. If two people have the same high card the pot will be split.
4; Full house;
To get a full house you have three cards of one value and two cards of another. In the example of 9,9,9,10,10 the rank of the three nines determines the strength of the hand. If someone else has a full house of 10,10,10,9,9 this hand wins because the 9,9,9 is lower than the 10,10,10 of the other hand.
5; The flush.
Five cards of the same suit make a flush. More than one person can have a flush. The winner is the person with the highest card making the flush.
6; Straight.
A straight is made up of any five cards in sequence but not of the same suit.
7; Three of a kind.
Any three cards all of the same rank.
8; Two pairs.
Two pairs of cards. Two players can have more two pairs and the winner is determined by the person having the highest pair.
9; Pair.
Any two cards of the same value.
10; High card.
In poker the highest card is an ace then a king and so on down the rankings. If no one makes a hand, whoever has the highest value card will win.
Best Omaha Poker Starting Hands
So now you know which hands will win the game, get out there and have a go. Playing Omaha poker is great fun and if you play well can be profitable.
If you want to play Omaha with other beginners at a low risk game, look up Boom poker club (Australia’s largest online club with well over 1000 players, with a poker jackpot of $4,000) onfacebook; or for instructions on how to enter the game email here; anish.kumar15@live.com
Note; The authors of Beginners Omaha Poker have no commercial connection to Boom poker club.
Omaha Poker Starting Hands
And if its Texas Holdem poker you are wanting to learn about, look at this great site; How to play Texas Holdem Poker.