Omaha Hi-Lo Poker

What it's all about...

As it is, Omaha Poker is more challenging than a game of Texas Hold'em. Add a little bit of hi-lo and you're really in for a lot of brain processing. For every beginning poker player, the game requires a lot of thought. After a while, it becomes second nature, but not without many practice runs. Although each player is dealt four hole cards, you can only use two of them to make a hand; the other three are taken from the five community cards in the middle of the table. This allows the players at the table to better calculate their odds of winning given the hand that they have been dealt.

The idea of hi-lo is that the pot is divided equally between the player with the highest hand and the player with the lowest hand. Keep in mind that aces are both, low and high. It is possible for a player to win both halves of the pot in these hi-lo split games by making two different sets of five-cards hands. For example, let's say you have a A(hearts) - 2(spades) - 4(hearts) - Q(spades) and the community cards are A(spades) - 4(diamonds) - 6(spades) - 7(clubs) - J(spades). You can make a low hand consisting of A(hearts) - 2(spades) - 4(diamonds) - 6(spades) - 7(clubs) and a high hand of space flush: A(spades) - Q(spades) - J(spades) - 6(spades) - 2(spades). Now, you don't have the nuts (which is either the lowest hand or highest hand possible) so you still stand a chance to be beaten by one or two other players.

More on Lo Hands

The rank of low cards is attained by simply reversing the order of high cards. So, the lowest possible hand would be A-2-3-4-5, also called "the wheel". In order to compete for the lowest part of the pot, the hand must first qualify as a low hand. Most hi-lo games are played with an 8 or better (meaning 8 or lower) qualification for the low hand. So, your hand must consist of five unpaired cards, none of which can be higher than 8. This means that the highest possible qualifier for the low hand is 4-5-6-7-8.

If the board (community cards) don't contain at least three unpaired cards of eight or lower, then no low hand is possible, given that you have to use three community cards. In this case, the player with the highest hand wins the entire pot.

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