Omaha poker rules: PLO, PLO5 and PLO6 in plain words

1. The two players to the left of the button post the small and the big blind.
2. Everyone gets four cards face down in PLO, five in PLO5 and six in PLO6.
3. The first round of betting starts with the player to the left of the big blind.
4. The flop: three cards face up in the middle, then a round of betting that starts with the first player still in to the left of the button.
5. The turn and the river, one card each, each with its own round of betting.
6. The showdown: each player still in makes the best five-card hand from exactly two of their own cards and exactly three from the board.

A hand can end in any round when everyone else folds. The Hold'em rules cover the actions, side pots and the order of the showdown, which are the same in Omaha.

This is the rule that catches Hold'em players. Read your hand as every pair of your cards with every three of the board's, never as one card or three. Three hands show where it goes wrong.

• BoardA♥K♥7♥4♥2♦
• Your handQ♥J♠10♣3♦

Ace high, not a flush. You hold one heart, and a flush needs two of yours with three from the board. It is not a straight either: ten to ace would take three of your cards.

• Board6♣7♦8♠9♥K♣
• Your hand10♠A♦A♣3♥

A pair of aces, not a straight. The ten makes six to ten only with four cards from the board, and you may use three.

• BoardA♠A♦A♥K♣5♦
• Your handK♦Q♠J♣10♥

Three aces, not a full house. Aces full of kings would take four cards from the board, the three aces and the king. A hand with two fives in it would make aces full of fives, because then two of your cards and three of the board's do it.

Each extra card gives you more pairs to choose from, so every player's best hand gets stronger. We dealt 3,000,000 hands of each game to six players and let all six see the river, to measure how strong the winning hand is:

At the table nobody keeps six hands to the river, so read this as a measure. In Hold'em, six hands at the river end with less than a straight more often than not. In PLO6 the winner holds a full house or better almost half the time. The order of the hands and the two-card rule stay the same in all three games.

In pot-limit the most you can bet is what is in the pot. To raise, you count your call first: the most you can raise to is three times the last bet plus whatever was in the pot before that bet. The Pot button at the table works it out, but it helps to know what it will do.

• Before the flop at $0.05/$0.10, the first player in can raise to $0.35: three times the $0.10 big blind plus the $0.05 small blind.
• On the flop with $1 in the pot, the first player can bet $1. The next player can raise to $4: three times the $1 bet plus the $1 that was there before it.
• If the player after that re-raises as much as the rules allow, the bet goes to $14: three times $4 plus the $2 that was in the pot before the raise to $4.

Pot-size bets grow fast. With the pot bet on every street, a small pot before the flop becomes a whole stack by the river, which is why the stack-to-pot ratio matters so much in Omaha.

In Omaha Hi-Lo the pot is split in two. One half goes to the best high hand, ranked as usual. The other half goes to the best low hand, and the usual rule for a low is eight or better:

• A low hand is five cards of different ranks from ace to eight, made with exactly two of your cards and three from the board.
• Straights and flushes do not count against a low, and the ace plays low. The best low is five, four, three, two, ace.
• Lows are compared from the top card down, so a low with a seven on top beats one with an eight: 7‑5‑4‑3‑2 beats 8‑4‑3‑2‑A.
• When the board has fewer than three different cards from ace to eight, nobody can make a low and the high hand takes the whole pot.
• One player can win both halves, which is called a scoop. When two players hold the same low, they share that half.

The table information in the lobby names the game, so look at it before you sit down.

Basepoker runs PLO with four cards, PLO5 with five and PLO6 with six as cash games, each from $0.01/$0.02 up to $5/$10, in the browser on a computer or a phone. Everything on Basepoker has the other games and the stakes.

WePlay runs PLO and PLO5 cash games from $0.01/$0.02 to $2/$5 and PLO6 from $0.10/$0.20 to $2/$5, at tables of six, with buy-ins of 80 to 200 big blinds. It has Hi-Lo tables in all three games, from $0.25/$0.50 to $1/$2, and Omaha bomb pot tables, where every player is in the pot before the flop. Its Bad Beat Jackpot runs on the Omaha and five-card Omaha tables too, as the promotions page explains.

If you come from Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha for Hold'em players says which habits to change: the starting hands, the nut problem and the bigger draws. The swings are wider than in Hold'em, so keep more buy-ins for an Omaha stake; the variance calculator shows how far a losing stretch can run. When a showdown is not clear, the which hand wins tool reads Omaha hands with four, five or six cards and shows the two cards that play.