Although Texas Hold’em is easily the best known form of poker played in the world today, both live and online, there are a number of other poker variations that have become increasingly popular in recent years. Omaha is one of these, and it’s an excellent alternative to Texas for a number of reasons.
We outline these reasons on this page, and also look at the two main types of Omaha – Omaha High and Omaha Hi-Lo. Additionally, we have provided our recommendations for the best online poker sites to play this game.
| For the rules of both Omaha High and Hi-Lo, please visit the following page Omaha Rules. |
Reasons to Learn Omaha
Our advice to any beginner wishing to learn poker is to start with Texas Hold’em. This is because we believe it’s the easiest poker game to learn and, as it’s the most commonly played, it’s also usually very easy to find tables at your preferred stakes whether you’re playing live or online.
Many people enjoy learning other poker variants too though, and this can be a good idea. It enables you to take a break from Texas if you’re getting bored of it or if you find your game has gone stale. It also presents new opportunities for making money and you can improve your overall game by playing different variants as you start to look at things in different ways.
Omaha is the natural choice to learn after Texas, primarily because it is very similar. Just like Texas it’s about making the best possible hand using a combination of hole cards and community cards. The betting is largely the same too; the main difference being that Omaha is typically played at pot limit rather than fixed limit or no limit.
| You can read more about the different types of betting limits here. |
Another major difference is that in Omaha you’re dealt four community cards instead of two. You may not think this would affect the game much but it actually changes the dynamic significantly. It also presents another reason for learning this game. With four cards in the hole instead of two there are more possibilities of making strong hands and as such there tends to be a lot of action. If this appeals to you then Omaha is definitely a game you should consider learning.
Because of the similarities between Omaha and Texas, you’ll often find players giving it a try without knowing basic strategy – and often without even fully understanding the rules. Therefore if you make sure that you learn the rules and some basic strategy you stand a decent chance of making some money even as a relative beginner. The same opportunities exist in Texas, but there’s probably a higher percentage of educated players than there are in Omaha.
Best Poker Sites for Omaha
You’ll find Omaha at most, if not all, online poker sites. It’s important that you’re careful when choosing one to use though, as they are not all of the same standard by any means. Most of them are decent enough, but there are some that are really not very good at all and also some that are particularly high quality.
Obviously it’s the high quality ones that you want to use, and we’ve highlighted these for you. Based on some extensive research and testing we have produced the following list of the best poker sites for playing Omaha.
We’ve recommended the top poker sites in several other categories as well, so you might also like to check them out if you’re looking for something specific. We take great care to make sure that we only ever recommend sites that are of a very high standard and that can be completely trusted.
Omaha High and Omaha Hi-Lo
Of the two main types of Omaha, High is the most played. Hi-Lo is pretty popular too, but it’s a little more complicated. It’s also known as Eight or Better or Omaha/8 and in this game the pot in each hand is split between the player who holds the highest value hand and the lowest value hand.
Players use different combinations of any two hole cards and any three community cards to make a low hand and a high hand. It is possible for one player to win both hands, which would mean they would win the whole pot.
Remember, for the full rules of both these versions of Omaha you can visit the page we mentioned earlier.
