How to Play Pot Limit Omaha

The rules in six ideas

Coming from Hold'em, the deal will feel familiar and the hand-reading will not. Four cards is six times as many two-card combinations, so hands run much closer together than you expect — and one rule breaks every instinct you brought with you.

1. Four hole cards, five on the board. Same board as Hold'em, twice the hand.

2. Exactly two from your hand, exactly three from the board. Every hand, without exception. This is the rule that costs Hold'em players money for months, and the figure below is why.

3. Highest hand wins, standard rankings. No split pot, no qualifier, no lowball. A flush beats a straight and the ace is the best card in the deck.

4. Pot limit is the whole personality. You can bet anything from a minimum up to the current size of the pot — no more. Pots grow fast because every bet enlarges the ceiling for the next one.

5. The nuts changes on every street. With four cards each, somebody usually has a piece of any board. Hands that would be monsters in Hold'em are routinely second best here.

6. Draws are enormous. A single hand can have a flush draw, a straight draw and a pair at once, which is why so much money goes in before anything is made.

Try it — one real decision

How the betting works

Blinds, and the same four betting rounds as Hold'em: pre-flop, flop, turn, river. The ceiling on any bet is the size of the pot, counting the call you would be making first — so the maximum grows every time somebody uses it. There is no cap on the number of raises, which is the other reason these pots get large.

Frequently asked questions