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Omaha poker strategy is almost identical to Texas holdem strategy. If you know how to play Texas holdem, you’re probably a half decent Omaha poker player as well. Omaha poker rules read much like Texas holdem--in Omaha, each player gets dealt four cards face down into their hand. After a first round of betting, the dealer flops a total of three shared or community cards into the table’s center. This process happens twice again until there are five shared or community cards at the table’s center.

Texas Holdem vs. Omaha Holdem

At this point, it is clear where the difference between Texas and Omaha holdem shows up—if you’re playing Omaha, you must use exactly two cards from your hand and exactly three cards from the community set (out of a total of five community cards) to build a hand. The easiest way to remember this is that in Omaha, you can only use three community cards to build your winning hand. Texas holdem players unfamiliar with Omaha rules will look at a 4 5 6 7 showing in community cards and think that since they hold an 8, they hold a straight and will probably take the hand. But remember, in Omaha, you cannot use four cards from the community, turning a hand that would be a straight in Texas holdem into a pretty useless hand.

If you’re interested in learning Omaha strategy, start with this very simple rule—your best hands are double suited hands, then single suited hands, with unsuited hands being the worst possible starting cards in Omaha. That’s because the big winning hands in Omaha are high full houses, high straights, and suited or double suited flushes. These are the hands that win big pots in Omaha, so learn how to build these hands to learn how to win at Omaha.

Playing Omaha Online

Once you learn how to play Omaha poker, choose from one of these popular poker rooms and networks offering Omaha: PokerStars, PartyPoker, iPoker Network, 888Poker, Ongame Network, and most skins on the Microgaming Network as well. Why should you choose to play Omaha at these sites? Like other less popular poker variants, poker rooms may not have enough traffic interested in playing Omaha, but might offer the game anyway to diversify their poker game offerings. But if you join a site with low traffic that offers Omaha, you may never actually have a chance to play the game.

Playing Omaha poker at poker sites with high player traffic also means playing against weaker Omaha opponents. Since traffic is high, you’ll also be playing head to head with the best of the best in holdem. That way you can improve your holdem skills with both Texas and Omaha variants.