Omaha Hi & Omaha Hi/Lo Online

Carbon Poker is best known for their wild and juicy Texas Hold’em and Backgammon games, however there is no shortage of great pot limit Omaha High and Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo games at their online poker room, and these games tend to be just as soft. During peak hours you’ll usually find 3-5 tables running at each game. If you don’t have an account already at Carbon Poker you might want to consider opening one up now while Carbon Poker is offering a 100% up to $500 sign up bonus, you can download the software here.

How To Play Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo

If you’re not familiar with Omaha the game works much like Texas Holdem with the difference being that players are dealt four hole cards and they must use two of their four hole cards and three of five community cards to make the best five card poker hand.

In Omaha Hi/Lo players are also trying to make the best qualified low hand, which uses eight or better rules. This means players need to have five cards unpaired under eight to make a low. Flushes and straights are not a consideration in making a qualified low hand so therefore A-2-3-4-5 is the nuts, A-2-3-4-6 is the second nuts etc. In Omaha Hi/Lo the pot is split with half going to the player with the highest hand and half going to the player with the lowest hand. Optimal strategy for playing Omaha Hi/Lo suggests players stick mostly to playing hands that can scoop, which means to win both the high and the low. In this game if no player has a qualified low hand the entire pot will go to the player winning the high.

Omaha has always been most popular in the Pot Limit version so this as well as No Limit is where you’ll find the most action. With that said occasionally fixed limit Omaha Hi/Lo tables will fill up at Carbon Poker.

To get started playing Omaha for real money, visit the Carbon Poker website.

Tips of Beating Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo

The games at Carbon Poker are not all that difficult to beat even for someone just venturing into playing Omaha for the first time. If you simply read a book or two on the game you’d be well ahead of the average Carbon Poker player.

A couple book recommendations for the high version would be Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha by Rolf Slotboom and the Lyle Berman’s section on Omaha Hi in Doyle Brunson’s Super Systems 2. The first of these books contains a bit more unorthodox strategy than the later, but both are solid reads. For Omaha Hi/Lo the best book would probably be Ray Zee’s book hi lo split poker for advanced players.

In addition to books you can also browse the 2+2 Forums where there is TONS of material on all the popular poker games. Also Steve Badger has some great Omaha strategy on his site Play Winning Poker.