HOW TO PLAY OMAHA(PLO) POKER

OVERVIEW

Omaha poker is carved out of the most popular card game Texas Hold’em Poker, this community card game is otherwise called as Omaha where 4 hole card hand are dealt face down privately to each player on the table and 5 community cards are dealt face up on the community cards. The aim is 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.

The most trusted online poker site in india, Khelo365.com brings you the most vibrant variant of poker called Pot limit Omaha exclusive for high stakes player, the game ignites immediately after the dealer button deals with the four dealt face-down hold 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 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. A player will be given 3 options to act, “Call, Raise, and Fold”.
• 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. Small blind and big blind are the default forced minimum bet on the table, say big blind forced to bet Rs 100. The active player will have to bet the same amount as the big blind or can raise the bet up to Rs 200 which is the size of the pot.
• 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).
• 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 look out to make the best 5 card combination based on the hand ranking. each round after pre-flop is levels 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 off with the active player, who is on the left to the button in a clockwise direction. Usually big blind sits on that place but if the big blind has folded the player on the immediate left to big blind takes the active player position in 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 is made an equal bet.

TURN

• The third betting round after the Flop is called the “Turn”. The betting continues on 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 this 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 round is the last chance to make the best hand in omaha with 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 on 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 showdown their cards instantly. The player who has the high 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 pot on the table.