Move over, Hold’Em — there’ a new kid in town. Though, we really can’t get away with calling Omaha Hi-Lo Poker a new thing. The truth is that if you really want to play Omaha poker, you’re going to have to play it by really knowing what you’re doing at every turn. The last thing that you want to is try to just take your Hold’Em skills into Omaha and expect to win.
There are many points of strategy to keep in mind when you’re trying to really make a good run in the world of Omaha Hi-Lo; here’s what you need to know.
The first strategy point that you’re going to have to keep in mind is that you definitely don’t want to just think of your hand as a solo deal — the community cards on the board matter in ways that might not always seem apparent at first. However, players that embrace this will find themselves taking pots a lot more easily than before.
You need to think about how your card works with the board at all times. Some veteran Omaha players call this cooperation, but it makes sense. You need three cards from the board for the “high” part of the game, and three cards for the “low” part.
Just like in other forms of poker, your “nut hand” can be broken down into “nut high” (the best possible high) and “nut low” — the best possible low.
The nut low is the one that matters — you want to be the player with the hand to comes closest to 54,321 — that’s the ultimate low hand, made from your cards plus the community board.
Let’s say that you’re holding 38 and the board is 214. You’re in good shape if someone has a “high” hand that they cannot play against you — you would win the round.
It can be confusing, but as you play a few rounds of Omaha, you’ll begin picking up the flow of the game better. It’s something that guides can touch on, but you really do have to put in the practice time to really make sure that you will have everything under control.
Overall, it can sound difficult, but as you get into Omaha Hi-Lo, you’ll grow to love the game’s subtle strategies and efforts — why not check it out today?