Omaha Hi/Lo Poker Rules

Essentially Omaha Hi/Lo Poker Rules are exactly the same as Omaha Rules but for a slight distinction which is the presence of the Low. Of all the internet Poker Games Omaha Hi/Lo Poker would be one of the trickiest so if you can master this you are on the way to being a great player.

Omaha Hi/Lo Poker Rules allow for two winners who share the pot. There will be a Hi winner and a Low winner. Playing Omaha Hi/Lo Poker using Online Poker is fantastic as it takes all the headache of working out what is exactly going on and trying to work out who has won what.

Just like normal Omaha, the Hi winner is the player with the best poker hand. This is exactly the same.

For there to be a Low winner they must have 5 different cards below a 9 and once again, the only way they can do this is if they use of their two pocket cards and three of the community cards.

For example, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 would be a Low hand as would be A-3-5-7-8. When there is a Low winner, the pot is split 50/50 between the Low and High winner. If the two or more Low hands are identical, they split half the pot which is a quarter of the actual pot.

Because there must be at least three different low cards (under 9) on the board for there to be an eligible low hand, if there is not the winner of the High wins the whole pot.

Each player may use different pocket cards for his Hi and Low hands and thus may win both the high and low hands on the same hand which is known as scooping the pot. This is why Aces are so valuable in Omaha Hi/Lo Poker as they are the highest card when it comes to the High hand and the lowest card when it comes to the Low Hand.

By the Omaha Hi/Lo Poker Rules the best Low hand is 5,4,3,2,A with neither flushes nor straights disqualifing the eligibility of low hands. Some variants on the Omaha Hi/Lo Poker Rules do not allow flushes for the low hand but for the most part this is not the case.

Omaha Hi/Lo Poker is the game for the online poker player who has a good grasp of calculating pots odds and recognising what is and what isn't a good hand.

William Atkins - Poker Stategist