Many people consider Omaha to be a river game. Thats completely untrue. Of course your perfect hand can sometimes be beaten when a miracle card comes on the board. But that happens in Texas Holdem games also. Any card game involves luck and thats why gambling is always popular.
Choosing right starting hands in Omaha poker is one of the keys to winning this game. Most of the players move to Omaha from Texas Holdem and play too loose. Omaha is the game of brilliant hands. In this game straight or better usually wins. Thats why your two pairs will be absolute trash in there.
Omaha Hi-Lo is a tricky game because players should try to make two hands at the same time: the high hand and the low hand. If you are still not sure about the rules of Omaha Hi-Lo, please study them attentively.
Here you will find the hit parade of Omaha starting hands listed in descending order.
Best Possible Hand
You cant be sure which hand will be the winning one but you want to have the hand with the highest possibility to win. This hand is drum roll
Holding this hand you have the best draw for both high and low hands. Dont forget that A can be used as the lowest card in your low hand. You should immediately raise after receiving this.
Second-Best Hands
These are trip aces with cards from 2 to 5 and trip deuces with an ace kicker. If you have something like AAA4 of AAA5 it is much better to have them suited. In this case you again have good draws for both high and low hands. So, raise to get more money to the pot. You have good chances to take it.
But lets come down to earth. You wont receive exactly these holecards too often. So now well review some hands which are more usual
Good Hands
Here we can distinguish several groups:
- Big pairs (AA, KK or QQ) with small connectors (23, 34, 45) or big pairs with A2, A3, A4 or A5. Dont forget that A can contribute to your low hand.
- Good straight draws with low cards like AKQ2, AKJ4. It is necessary to have an A in this case because this increases your chances to make the best low and high hands. It is not worth mentioning that flush draw makes your chances much better.
- Low cards with an ace like A235.
Basically, you want to play these hands from any position and against any amount of previous raises.
Not-So-Good Hands
These are several groups also:
- Two pairs from AA to TT
- A2 or A3 small pairs or suited cards
- High straight draws like AKQJ or AKQT
- 234 or A23 with just anything
With the stuff mention above you can play the hand in case there was not more than 1 raise.
Other hands are usually not worth playing in Omaha. Of course you always should watch the style of your opponents to work out the appropriate strategy.
Generally you should throw away quads any trips (except aces and deuces). If you have four aces or kings, you may try to limp with them. If you are in early position you can try to raise and steal the pot.
If you are reraised or theres no way to get to the flop cheaply fold.
