How to Play Omaha Hi-Lo

The rules in six ideas

If you're coming from Hold'em, there is one rule here that will cost you money until it becomes instinct, and it isn't the split pot. It's the second idea below.

1. Four cards each, five on the board. Four hole cards feels like four times the hand. It isn't, and the next rule is why.

2. Exactly two from your hand. Exactly three from the board. Not one, not three, not "the best five available". Every hand you make uses precisely two of your own cards, and this is the rule Hold'em players break for months.

3. The pot splits, and the low must qualify. Half to the best high hand, half to the best low — and a low needs five unpaired cards, all eight or lower. That's the qualifier. No qualifying low means the high hand takes the whole pot.

4. You can use different cards for each half. This is the part that makes the game generous. Two of your cards make the high, and a different two can make the low — same hand, same board, two separate five-card hands.

5. The low ignores straights and flushes. Read on ranks alone, aces low, so 5-4-3-2-A is the best low there is. Which means the same five cards can be a straight for high and the nut low at once — a scoop.

6. A-2 is the hand you're looking for. The best low draw in the game, and if the ace is suited it's working on the high half too. Hands that can win both halves are worth far more than hands that can only ever take one.

Try it — one real decision

How the betting works

Blinds, not antes — this is a flop game, and it runs on the same four betting rounds as Hold'em: pre-flop, flop, turn, river. We play it fixed limit: two bet sizes, small before and on the flop, double on the turn and river, with raises capped. Position matters here the way it does in every flop game, and the exactly-two rule matters more than position.

Frequently asked questions

Terms to know