Welcome to Planet Omaha!

Omaha poker has a lot of the same characteristics as texas holdem. Each player receives a set of hole cards. Then a three card "flop" is turned face up across the middle of the table, followed by betting and the "turn card". Which is followed by betting and the "river" card. And finally betting and the "showdown". Sound familiar?

But, in Omaha poker, players have four hole cards, instead of two. So your chances of having a playable hand after the flop rise. The more hands you can play, the more fun you'll have at the table.

Another of the differences in Omaha poker is that, although you have four cards in the hole, you may play two, and only two cards. That means if you have four Jacks in the hole, two are worthless, because you can play two cards from the hole, and only two.

Omaha is played at the major card rooms online, and we've reviewed several of them for you here at Planet Omaha. All of these rooms let you try playing Omaha for free at their "play" money tables, which is a fantastic way to ease into this new, more exciting form of poker.

Besides the straight "high hand wins" version of Omaha, Omaha is also played as a Hi-Lo game. In Hi-Lo games, the pot is split between the player with the highest hand at the showdown and the player with the lowest "qualifying" hand. So, each pot may have two winners, which means you can play even more hands since you may not always be competing for the "high" portion of the pot.

When competing for the low portion of the pot, you will need a "qualifying" hand. That means you will need five distinct cards ranking 8 or less. The game is sometimes referred to as Omaha 8 or Better. Pairs and Three-of-a-kind count against you, so A,A,2 5 6 does not qualify as a low hand. Straights and Flushes do not count against you, so a hand like 3,4,5,6,7 does qualify as a low hand.

Of course only the lowest hand wins part of the pot. Low hands are judged by lowest high card, which may sound confusing. It's easier to remember that if you read the cards as a five-digit number (from highest to lowest digits) the lowest number wins. So, if I were to have 8,4,3,2,A and you were to have 7,6,5,4,3 we would compare hands like this: 84,321 vs 76,543. Your hand is lower than mine, and you would win the low portion of the pot.

The favorite betting style of Omaha 8 or Better is "Pot Limit". The betting is not fixed, like in limit poker games, but it is not the "as much as you'd like" style of betting that you'd find at the No Limit tables. Instead, the betting is a combination of both, limiting the players to making bets the size of the pot. Once the pot grows, the limits on the betting are less restrictive, but in the earlier betting rounds while the pots are small this betting limit can help keep more players in the hand.

Besides being dealt at the ring game tables, Omaha poker is also played in tournament format. Many of the major online poker rooms host Omaha tournaments. You can find varying buy-in amounts, and you can also choose between larger tournaments with multiple tables and a fixed starting time, or smaller single table tournaments that begin as soon as the table fills with players.

Omaha poker is a wonderful alternative to teas holdem. The game is similar enough to holdem that picking up strategies and playing along are easy from the beginning, but the differences make it more action packed. After all, depending upon the version of Omaha you choose, there are two pots to play for, and more cards to use to win.