Inside Online Poker : Got the basics? Get the NUTS!

Moving to Omaha (the game, not the place!) when you already follow Holdem appears simple. Changing from a game using 2 hole cards (Holdem) to a game using four hole cards (Omaha) appears easy.

Yet just as first glances at members of the opposite sex and their apparent attractiveness has led most of us into trouble at one time or another, so too has the Holdem player's first lustful glance at Omaha. They are lulled into a false sense of security by their hardwon Holdem knowledge. All too often, a Holdem player's understanding of hand values and what is important in the game leads him to incorrect conclusions in Omaha.

Omaha is played in both high-only and high-low (with an 8 low qualifier) versions. For reasons that will make sense after you have been playing Omaha for a long time, no-limit Omaha has never really caught on. Pot-limit Omaha, the game with the unfortunate initials (PLO), is certainly the most popular form of high-stakes Omaha. Omaha eight-or-better is probably the most popular form of low-stakes Omaha.

The exponential pot-sized betting increases involved in PLO make that game enormously different from limit Omaha. The difference is even more pronounced than one sees between limit Holdem and pot-limit Holdem, because so many more reasonable hands can be played for raises. Those differences, combined with PLO's popularity, will require me to examine both PLO and the limit variations when comparing Omaha to Holdem.

Let's now get into the key differences in the two games, starting with the most important:

1.) THE 'MUST TWO' RULE
In Holdem, a player can use one, two or none of his hole cards to create his final hand. If there is a royal flush on board, everyone in the pot at the end will receive an equal share of the pot.

In Omaha, you must use two of your four hole cards in forming your final five-card poker hand. This rule leads to all kinds of curious situations. In Holdem, you'd love to look at your two hole cards and see two Aces. In Omaha, if your four hole cards are the four Aces (or any four of a kind), you essentially have a 'must fold' hand (unless, perhaps, you are playing heads-up), because you have a pair of Aces and no way whatsoever to improve them. You can't make a flush or a straight - you must use two of those Aces - and clearly another Ace can't hit the board.

Indeed, most hands that contain just three of a kind are completely unplayable, although in a high-only game you might consider trying As-Ah-Ad-Kd (a pair of aces and one nut flush draw) from the small blind in a multi-way limp pot, and in high-low, you could play As-Ah-Ad-2d, because you would almost certainly hold the only A-2 (you'd also have one nut flush draw, and while your pair of Ace doesn't add much to your equity, you would be the only player who could hold a pair of Aces).

I vividly remember the first time I played Omaha, in a private game about 25 years ago. The final board showed Kh-Qd-10c-Ks-Qh. I had an A-J in my hand, so I had a straight, and I called at the showdown. My opponent, a friend in a friendly game (even though the stakes were £10-£20), held up a lone card, a King, and I tossed my hand towards the muck.

'What's your other card, Eddie?' asked a more experienced player who knew full well it was my first time out. Eddie showed an Ace, meaning he had three Kings with an Ace kicker, and not the full house I was accustomed to that King meaning in Holdem. I protested that I'd held a straight, and because this was a friendly game, Eddie actually gave me half the pot. I'd been 'entitled' to all of it, of course, but if you muck your hand in any kind of serious game, what you're entitled to doesn't matter.

This is why it is vitally important to 'table' your hand (place all four cards face up on the table, without mucking them) in any situation where you're not completely sure what you hold. Once you table your hand, other players and the dealer are entitled to help you read it. This assistance often pays dividends, and there's nothing to be ashamed of. I have seen players at the final table of a World Series of Poker event staring at the same Omaha hand, all trying to figure out what the hand's owner has!

The 'must two' rule means:
>> You cannot 'play the board.' You can only play three-fifths of it.
>> You cannot play a single card from your hand (the 'Eddie rule,' as I have come to call it).
>> You cannot play three or four cards from your hand.
>> Just because there are four suited cards on board and multiple players in the hand, it isn't a 'lock' that someone has a flush, because 'someone' will have to hold two cards in suit, not just one.

You must get accustomed to thinking of your Omaha hole cards not as individual cards, but as groups of two. With four cards in your hand, you hold six possible two-card combinations. A strong Omaha hand gets equity or value from as many of these six combinations as possible - ideally, significant value from all six.

2.) POSITION IS LESS IMPORTANT
Good Holdem players know that position - playing on or as near to the button as possible - is vitally important to winning play, so much so that many hands worth a raise in late position are not even worth a call in early position. In Omaha, position isn't irrelevant, but it pales in comparison to hand values. It would be fair to say that Holdem is a game of position, while Omaha is a game of card combinations. Why is this so? It's because...

3.) WINNING HANDS TEND TO BE STRONGER
Even though every once in a while the 'must two' rule will devalue a hand, as in the 'Eddie' situation, where his solitary King didn't give him the full house it would have in Holdem, over the long haul, the typical winning hand is much stronger in Omaha than it is in Holdem. The reason is obvious: instead of only one two-card combination that can be used together with the board, the player has six such combinations possible from his four cards. Someone playing Ah-Kh-Jd-9s and staring at a flop of Qh-8h-2s may be focused almost entirely on his nut heart flush draw, but if a 10 hits the board, the player has made a straight with his J-9 combination.

Good Omaha players don't focus entirely on one part of their hand. They examine all the little bits and pieces of equity that each of the combinations represent. This is one of the reasons why you may have heard the expression 'Don't play Omaha hands containing a dangler.' A dangler is one card that doesn't work together well with the other three cards in your hand.

For example, if you hold K-Q-J-10, your cards all work together well. The six combinations will give you a straight with almost any combination of high cards on the board. If instead you held K-Q-J-2, the deuce is a dangler. While it 'could' help (if, say, the flop comes 2-2-4, which is still a pretty vulnerable hand), it's far less valuable than a card that adds to the straight possibilities, because Omaha tends to be a game of straights, flushes, and full houses - at least at low stakes, where many players stay in, or in PLO, if the pot is going to grow very large.

Holdem players are accustomed to hands like top pair, top kicker being strong (for example, holding A-Q and getting a flop of Q-5-4). In Omaha, top pair, top kicker is practically useless, unless you're only sat down with one, two or - at a push - three other players. Even then, you shouldn't be raising or even calling big bets with it.

Indeed, in games where many people see the flop, a good rule of thumb is to assume that if a hand is possible, someone either has it or is drawing to it. When only two or three players see the flop this isn't true, but with six people in, players are trying to match 24 cards up with the flop (36 two-card combinations). Good Omaha players, in multi-way pots, play hands that are either the nuts or a draw to the nuts.

4.) ONCE YOU'VE MADE YOUR HAND, YOU STILL OFTEN NEED TO IMPROVE TO WIN
Omaha is said to be a game of draws and redraws. Suppose, for example, that you hold Kh-Qh-10s-10c, and you get a great flop: 10h-5h-4h. You have flopped a flush, although you need to beware, because it is not the nut flush. You have also flopped top set. Although three 10s isn't as strong a hand as your King-high flush, the set gives you a redraw to a full house.

Should a four land on the turn, you now have the top full house, and only need to worry about someone who has quad fours (quads occur much more frequently in Omaha, although in a high-only game, it isn't as likely that someone would hold a low pair like fours, because small sets can be just as costly as non-nut flushes) or someone who held either the 7h-6h or the 3h-2h (giving him a straight flush draw).

Even though they do appear more often in Omaha then in Holdem, you can't live in fear of quads and straight flushes. If you make the top full house, you should bet it strongly, and only if your pot-sized re-raise gets re-raised by a strong player should you slow down and consider that you might be up against four of a kind (in limit poker, you should probably put in four raises before you decide just to call).

PLO pots can grow rather quickly, and while a weak opponent might make a big raise with a lesser full house and a strong one might make it to apply money pressure, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. In Holdem, quads are so rare that you can almost always be excused for going broke when you face them; in Omaha, you need to at least consider the possibility once you face a third or fourth raise.

Whether you are playing PLO or straight limit, your work isn't done when you've flopped a good hand. It is usually important to have some kind of draw to something better. You may not need to improve, but it is the equity you get from these redraws that can turn a losing session into a winner.

5.) IT'S EASIER TO GET SUCKED INTO PLAYING WEAK HANDS
Holdem players will often get exasperated during a losing stretch and start playing garbage cards, chanting the Loser's Lament: 'Any two cards can win,' but most players of any ability won't continue to play hands like Jh-2h ('But it was suited!') for very long.

In Omaha, the saying, 'Any four cards can win' comes much closer to the truth. It may seem hard to believe, but in a heads-up situation, there are VERY few Omaha starting hands that are even 2/1 favourites over a random opponent hand.

Naturally, you can construct scenarios where one starting hand is a much bigger favourite than that: if you give your opponent 2h-2s-2c-2d, he isn't going to win very often! But if you assume your opponent has a random and weak-looking collection of cards like Js-8c-5s-3h, even a magnificent starting hand like Ad-Ac-Jd-10c is only about 2/1 favourite. Your opponent can make various straights and flushes that you cannot, can make numerous two-pair combinations that you cannot, and is going to get five community cards to try to make something out of his mess of a hand.

Because the random hands DO have a reasonable chance of winning, many bad or tilted Omaha players get sucked into playing bad hands more often than their Holdem counterparts. While the results on any given Omaha hand are going to be better, over the long term, the results are just as certain.

You don't even have to start playing garbage hands like Js-8c-5s-3h to get into trouble. Just playing hands with danglers is bad enough. Play As-Ks- Qd-6s often enough, and that almost completely useless 6 will send you home a loser against people who play hands where all the cards work together, even if their first three isn't as impressive as your first three.

A lengthy discussion of the best Omaha starting hands goes beyond this article's scope, but Ad-Ac-Jd-10c is my example of a 'magnificent' hand. Some people have other favorites - right there you see a significant difference in the games, because no one debates A-A's value as the best Holdem starting hand.

A strong Omaha high hand will include the following elements:

>> High cards
>> Cards that connect up well for straight purposes
>> Cards that give you nut flush draws >> Cards that give you the chance to make full houses or quads

Ad-Ac-Jd-10c gives you a pair that can make the best full house or quads, two nut-flush draws, multiple combinations for high straights, and the single two-card combination (J-10) that makes more straights than any other two-card combination. Some people argue for hands like Ad-Ac-Kd-Qc (sacrificing a few straights for a few more high pairs), but it's one of those pleasant choices that isn't going to make or break your day, because you'll play them both the same: very hard before the flop and not at all after the flop, unless they coordinate well with it.

6.) IT'S HARDER TO HOLD YOUR CARDS!
This might seem silly, but it's true. Almost anyone can squeeze two Holdem cards and keep them hidden from his neighbour, but it's not as easy when you're holding four cards. You actually need to practice holding your cards in a manner where you can see them and your opponents can't. Omaha players are quite accustomed to getting free looks at their neighbours' cards, simply because they hold them up like a five-card draw hand to see them.

While on the subject of holding your cards, it's also important either to have a perfect memory for suits - something most of us lack - or to be willing to check back at your hand to see if you are suited there when two flush cards hit the flop.

Because this is a signal that IF you are suited, it's almost certainly not with a suited Ace (players remember when they have suited Aces), if you do need to go back and look at your cards, you also need to do it on hands when you know perfectly well that you hold the As-10s If you're playing a long session with the same players, or playing a game with regulars, your opponent who holds Ks-Qs will only need one stinging reminder that you'll check your cards again even with a suited Ace. He won't take your glance back as a tell ever again.

In conclusion
Learning to play Omaha to a high level takes a long time, just like any form of poker, although playing it passably is easier, thanks to all the books, software, and internet resources available today.

One thing that will help speed you along in your study of Omaha is a willingness to let go of most of the lessons you've learned as a Holdem player. Even if you don't muck your hand when someone shows you a singleton King, sooner or later your Holdem background will jump up and bite you, unless you stay vigilant to the dangers of applying Texas Holdem principles to Omaha, named for a city in a neighbouring US state, Nebraska.

While Texas and Nebraska might seem relatively close to someone living in the UK, they might as well be separated by half a world, because there truly is a gulf between the two games. The sooner you realise that, the sooner you can start winning.