🃏 How Omaha works and why it isn't Hold'em

Exactly two cards from your hand

In Pot-Limit Omaha every player has four cards, with up to five community cards on the board. A hand is always made from exactly two cards from your hand and exactly three from the board. Not one, not three — two.

This creates traps that cost Hold'em players money. You hold A♥K♥Q♥J♥, the board is 9♥5♥2♣7♦3♠: four hearts in your hand, two on the board — but no flush. You can only use two hearts from your hand, and you need three from the board. Conversely, on a A♠K♠Q♠J♠10♠ board you don't have a "royal flush on the board": you must play two cards from your hand. You only have a straight flush if you hold two suitable spades (for example, 9♠8♠), and without spades in your hand you may not even have a straight.

Same with paired boards: 8♣8♦8♥4♠2♣ doesn't automatically give you trip eights with the best kicker — you play three board cards and two of your own, that is 888 plus two of your cards.

Why everything in Omaha runs close

Hold'em has 1326 starting hands, Omaha has 270,725. Each hand contains six two-card combinations, so your opponent almost always has "something": a pair, a draw, a blocker.

Look at our engine's numbers. In Hold'em, AA wins about 85% against a random hand. In Omaha the best hand in the game — A♠A♥K♠K♥, aces and kings double-suited — wins 70.7% against a random hand. And aces with no suits or connectors, A♠A♥7♦2♣, win only 61.1% against a random hand, and against J♦10♦9♣8♣ it's a dead 50/50.

The takeaway that changes your whole strategy: preflop in Omaha there is almost never a huge edge. Money is made after the flop — by whoever better understands the board, the nuts and pot odds.

Pot limit: how to calculate a pot-sized raise

PLO is a pot-limit game: you can bet or raise no more than the size of the pot. A pot-sized raise works like this: you mentally call the bet, then raise by the whole pot as it stands after your call.

Quick formula: pot raise = 3 × the last bet + all other chips in the pot, except that bet itself and your own chips.

Examples (blinds 0.5 and 1 bb, stacks 100 bb):
— pot-sized open: 3 × 1 + 0.5 = 3.5 bb;
— pot-sized 3-bet from the button against a 3.5 open: 3 × 3.5 + 1.5 = 12 bb;
— pot-sized 4-bet from the opener against a 3-bet to 12: 3 × 12 + 1.5 = 37.5 bb (your own 3.5 bb open doesn't go into the formula).

The key is counting the pot correctly. The pot is everything in the middle plus all bets already made on the current street before you.

Flop example: preflop four players put in 3.5 bb each, the blinds folded — 15.5 bb in the middle. On the flop an opponent bets 10 bb, two players call. The whole pot is now 15.5 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 45.5 bb. Pot raise: you call 10 (the pot becomes 55.5) and raise by those 55.5 — that is, to 65.5 bb. The quick formula gives the same: 3 × 10 + (15.5 + 10 + 10) = 65.5 bb.

A common mistake is forgetting the money left in the middle from earlier streets, or the calls in front of you.

SPR: how much money is behind the pot

SPR is the ratio of the effective stack to the pot on the flop. It's the main guide to how deep the hand plays, and in Omaha it's set right on the preflop:
— a 3.5 bb open and a call from the button: pot 8.5 bb, 96.5 behind — SPR about 11;
— a pot-sized 3-bet to 12 and a call: pot 25.5, 88 behind — SPR about 3.5;
— a pot-sized 4-bet to 37.5 and a call: pot 76.5, 62.5 behind — SPR below 1.

At SPR 11, top pair is a small-pot hand; the nuts and big draws are what play. At SPR 3.5, a strong pair with a good draw is already ready to go all-in. At SPR below 1 the decision was made preflop: on the flop almost any piece of the board means all-in.

So the size of the pot before the flop isn't just "a bet" — it's a choice of which hands will play well after the flop.

What's next

The course goes from fundamentals to the finer points: starting hand strength and why suits matter more than you think; opening from different positions; playing against an open; equity and pot odds; flop matchups; board texture; the nuts; draws and outs; freerolls and wraps; hands that can't handle a big pot; squeezes and 4-bets; blockers; the c-bet; opponent types.

This lesson's practice has tasks on pot-sized raises and starting hand strength. Calculate the raise with the formula, not by eye: in a live game a wrong bet size gives away a beginner instantly.