HOW TO PLAY OMAHA POKER

OVERVIEW

Carved out of the most popular card game Texas Hold’em Poker, this community card game is otherwise called Omaha where 4 hole cards are dealt face down privately to each player on the table and 5 community cards are dealt face-up on the community cards. Players have to make the best 5-card combination based on the hand ranking from exactly 2 out of 4 hole cards and 3 out of 5 community cards.

Khelo365.com, being the most trusted Poker Online in India, brings you the most vibrant variant of poker called Pot-limit Omaha exclusive for high stakes players, the game ignites immediately after the dealer button deals with the four dealt face-down hole cards.

Omaha high (Omaha HI) is followed by 4 rounds of betting one after one. Pre-flop is the first round that is followed by flop, turn, and river. Let’s learn the rules of Omaha and learn how to play PLO in each round step by step:

PRE-FLOP

• Once each player dealt with 4 hole cards known as Starting hands the game goes live with the first betting round called the Pre-flop where a player can see the strength of the card and decide to act accordingly. Each player will be given 3 options to act, “Call, Raise, and Fold”.
• Each Omaha player sits on the betting round with 3 options to act, Fold (where a player can surrender the hole cards and sit out till the next game starts), Call (to bet the same amount as the previous player), and raise ( to raise the bet with respective to the pot size).
• The bet goes live from the active player who is in the immediate left to the big blind and then goes around the table in a clockwise direction. The small blind and big blind are the default forced minimum bet on the table, say the big blind is forced to bet Rs.100. The active player will have to bet the same amount as the big blind or can raise the bet to Rs.200 which is the size of the pot.
• Till the moment all the players have made an equal bet, the particular betting round will continue in the clockwise direction.

FLOP

• The pre-flop betting round is followed by the “Flop”, where 3 out of 5 community cards are put to display on the table. Community cards are common to all the active players (players who didn’t opt to fold on the previous round).
• In this round, players lookout to make the best 5-card combination based on the hand ranking. Each round after pre-flop is a level of opportunity to make the best combination possible with exactly two cards of the four hole cards and three cards of the five community cards(in this round of Flop only 3 cards of the community cards will be on display).
• The action of betting starts with the active player, who is on the left to the button in a clockwise direction. Usually big blind sits in that place but if the big blind has folded the player on the immediate left of the big blind takes the active player position at the table.
• The betting takes place in the same way as it happened in the pre-flop where each player is given 3 options and this round goes on till all the players on the table are made an equal bet.

TURN

• The third betting round after the Flop is called the “Turn”. The betting continues in the same fashion as the other rounds mentioned above.
• In this round, the Fourth card of the 5 community cards of Omaha will be dealt face-up on the table with which the betting kicks off live on the round.
• The betting round starts with the active player and continues till all the players have bet equally.

RIVER

• The final round of the game is called the “River”, where the last card of the 5 community cards is dealt face-up on the table to all the players.
• This is the last chance for the active players to make the best hand in Omaha with a five-card combination based on the hand ranking to win the pot.
• The final betting round ignites with the active player on the immediate left to the button and the bet runs in the same fashion as the previous round in a clockwise direction.

SHOWDOWN

Once the betting rounds are complete, all the players on the community cards are made to show down their cards instantly. The player who has the highest hand (best five-card combination from two cards of the 4 hole cards and 3 cards of the 5 community cards ) based on the hand ranking is the winner of the game who takes all the pots on the table.