It can be tempting to play a lot of hands in Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or better games – after all, high-only hands will win the pot some 30% of the time! This can be even more temping when you can see a flop relatively cheaply after a number of limpers… now the cold, hard facts – the quickest way to lose your bankroll is to play too loose in Omaha/8 poker. In fact you should be playing less starting hands than in other forms of poker, after all hands which can hit both the high and the low side of the pot with the nuts do not come along too often.

• Omaha Hi Lo Poker Best Starting Hands
• Omaha Poker Best Starting Hands
• Omaha Poker Best Starting Hands In Golf
• Omaha Poker Best Starting Hands Game
• Omaha Poker Best Starting Hands Signals

1. The Best Starting Hands in Omaha Poker. Part of the series: How to Play Omaha Poker. Get tips for the best starting hands in this free online video clip abou.
2. Best Omaha starting hands A A K K is the best Omaha starting hand, but right next to it is, surprisingly, A A J T as it has much more straight potential than the third-best hand, A A Q Q. Almost all the top 30 hands from our chart have at least one strong pair in them: either A A, K K, Q Q or J J.
3. On those who play Omaha after playing holdem poker these four cards play a mean trick. On the one hand four cards in your hand in Omaha are better than two in holdem poker, because they allow you to form better starting combinations. Though you should take into consideration the fact that your opponents also have four cards!

The best starting hands in Omaha hi-lo have both strong high and low potential. Since aces are the best cards for high and low, they are excellent starting hands! Almost all playable starting hands contain at least an ace! On the counterpart, cards between six and nine, are considered weak.

This guide will look at the various starting hands for Omaha Hi-Lo poker including PLO8. We start with the strongest hands of all and then drill down to speculative holdings. Your objective with every hand you play in Omaha Hi-Lo are twofold, to ‘scoop’ both the high and the low sides of the pot and to avoid being quartered – these objectives must be considered every time you enter a pot if you are to be a long-term profitable player.

Premium Hands

The very best PLO8 and O8 starting hands are known as ‘suited babies’, that is to say small suited cards with an ace suited with at least one other card. These hands have the very best chance of scooping both sides of the pot. They can make ‘nut low’ hands with the small cards, and the ace + flush potential gives a great opportunity to win the high side of the pot also. A double suited (2 cards of each suit) hand will add to this strength still further. A pair of aces double suited with 2 babies is a potential monster in Omaha 8 or better – the potential to scoop here is huge.

Very Strong Hands

In this category come hands with both low and high potential that can not quite be considered premiums. Small cards are still favored, especially with an ace included as this gives high possibilities. Ace hands which contain 4 ‘babies’ are considered strong as they have both low and low straight potential. Hands with and ace-2 and another small card can be played where they have ‘backup’ for the high, for example a king suited with one of the small cards. K-K-A-X where X is a card 4 or below can also be played strongly in many circumstances.

High-Only Hands

Since the flop will not make a low hand possible 30% of the time there is a place for high only hands. However, these need to be played only when it is cheap to see a flop and where you are prepared to fold quickly should you not hit a nut hand (or very strong high draw with no low possible). High only hands should be the strongest possible, A-A-K-K or A-A-J-10 double suited being the very best – play these from late position and with caution!

Non-Ace Hands

While playing only hands with aces will keep beginning players out of trouble there are playable hands which do not contain these. The best would be 2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-6 which give you a combination of low and straight possibilities, if betting gets heavy and there is no ace on the board then you may be beaten for the low when holding non-ace hands.

Marginal Hands

The worst hand to make in any form of poker is the 2nd best hand, especially in a game such as PLO8 where finding out you are behind can be very expensive indeed. Hands with A-2 and 2 medium cards can be considered marginal, you are unlikely to make a high and are in danger of being quartered when you make the nut low. Cards with some backup in the form of an additional low card A-2-4-9 for example are a little stronger a suited ace and weak opposition could push these hands into the ‘playable with caution’ category from later position. See our article on Ace-2 errors for more on this important subject.

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Omaha Poker can be tricky when it comes to starting hand evaluation, especially for Texas holdem players. With four cards to evaluate, you have to consider more possible combinations and outcomes while playing Omaha.

One of the most important things to remember when evaluating Omaha starting hands is that the best ones have many things working together. I cover three different qualities to look for below, but the best hands usually have at least two of the properties listed, if not all three.

After reading this, you should feel ready to take on the mighty Omaha poker rooms in Las Vegas and feel confident in your game. Let’s get started!

1 – Flush Possibilities

If you’re a first-time Omaha player, one thing you should know is that a flush is one of the weakest complete hands in Omaha. When you have a flush and the board pairs, you can end up losing a big pot to a full house. When there isn’t a possible full house, a flush limits your opportunities to build a pot because it’s obvious to everyone that a flush is possible.

I never play an Omaha hand based only on the possibility of a flush. Having a possibility of a flush is valuable, but it’s more of a secondary value than a leading value. And you should never make the mistake of believing your second or third-best flush is good.

When the possibility of a flush is present, in addition to a straight or full house possibilities, it greatly improves the value of your starting hand. You still aren’t going to put much money in the pot with second or third-best flushes, but with a king high flush, the ace may land on the board, giving you the nut flush.

With a queen high flush, if an ace lands on the board, your flush is still the second best. But the odds are lower that an opponent has a suited king than a suited ace. Players value suited aces much higher than suited kings, as should be the case, so the suited kings get folded before the flop more often.

2 – Straight Possibilities

Straight possibilities aren’t as flashy and popular as flush and full house possibilities, but they’re just as important to winning Omaha players. Most of the value in straights in Omaha Poker is because they’re often harder to spot by your opponents than flushes and full houses. You can usually extract extra bets with the nut straight that you won’t get with the nut flush.

The higher the straight, the better. But on many boards, the nut straight isn’t ace or king high. A nut straight that’s nine or 10 high is often ignored by your opponents, which makes it more valuable than a nut flush most of the time.

You still have to be careful when considering which hands to fold and which ones to enter the pot with. A hand like 10, nine, seven, and five is still a terrible hand. But a hand of 10, nine, eight, seven, with backup weak flush possibilities is playable in some situations.

The backup flush possibilities offer almost no value as flopped or turned flushes because you don’t win many contested pots with weak flushes. The value of them in this situation is when you flop or turn a nut straight and get all in, or close to all in.

Sometimes, when you get all in with a straight, an opponent is drawing to a flush. Other times, a card lands on the river, completing both a higher straight and a flush. The backup flush draw can save you when this happens.

3 – Full House Possibilities

Full house possibilities come from having a pocket pair, or two pocket pairs, in your four-card hand. Full house hands are strong in Omaha and often win the hand when you hit them. But when you complete a full house and don’t have the nut full house, you still need to play with caution.

Most good Omaha poker starting hands include high cards for a good reason. The higher the cards in your hand, the better your opportunities are of completing a higher full house. This might seem like common sense, but some of the biggest pots I win in Omaha are full house over full house.

Here’s an example of a full house over full house hand.

You start the hand with queen, queen, jack, 10, and the flop is ace, queen, seven. The turn is another seven, and the river is a two. You have queens full of sevens, which seems like a big hand. But at the showdown, your opponent turns over ace, ace, jack, 10 for aces over sevens.

Omaha Hi Lo Poker Best Starting Hands

While this isn’t a scientific observation, I’ve only had quads two or three times that I can remember while playing Omaha, and I’ve played at least tens of thousands of hands.

When I have the best possible full house, I always get as much money in the pot as possible. If someone has quads, I simply lose the hand and move on to the next hand. It happens so rarely, and you have to maximize your profits when you have a strong hand that it costs you more in the long run to slow down with a strong full house than playing aggressively.

Putting It All Together

The best Omaha starting hands have multiple things going for them. A hand like ace of clubs, ace of spades, king of clubs, and queen of spades is a good example. The pair of aces is a good starting point, with a chance to improve to the best possible full house. When a flush in spades or clubs is possible, and the board doesn’t pair, you have an ace high flush.

Omaha Poker Best Starting Hands

The only way to lose with an ace high flush when the board doesn’t pair is if an opponent has a straight flush. This hand also has the makings of a nut straight, with an ace, king, and queen. As you can see, all four cards work together and give you multiple ways to hit a good flop.

While Omaha Hi Lo isn’t as popular as Omaha Hi in real money gambling, the best starting hands in Hi Lo work together in the same way. The best hand is usually believed to be two aces, each paired with a two and three suited to the respective ace.

This hand offers the three lowest cards. In most cases, if there’s a low, you have the best possible low. The only time you don’t have the best possible low is when the board has two of your three low cards, which is rare.

The pocket aces are strong and can improve, and you have flush possibilities in two suits. While you still need to have the nut hand to win most high pots in Omaha Hi Lo, when you have the nut low and the second or third best high hand, you can bet aggressively and occasionally scoop the entire pot.

Here’s an example in Omaha Hi Lo.

You’re on the river and have the nut low and an ace high flush. The board paired, so you know you might lose the high half of the pot to a straight, but you can afford to jam the pot because you have a nut low.

Of course, there’s a possibility that your low can be quartered, but in this situation, the chance of winning the high half far outweighs the possibility of being quartered. In this example, your most profitable play is to get as much money in the pot as possible.

In the three sections above, you learned the three main ways to evaluate Omaha Poker starting hands.

Omaha Poker Best Starting Hands In Golf

Of course, sometimes you still win with a flush or straight when the board pairs, but if you get much action after the board pairs, it’s a good sign you’re behind. You also need to be careful when you hit a full house but it isn’t the nut full house.

Evaluate all of your starting hands looking for the three things listed above. The best hands have all three possibilities present, and the other playable hands have two of the three present. Rarely is it profitable to play a hand that doesn’t have at least two possibilities present.

Omaha Poker Best Starting Hands Game

The only type of hand that comes to mind, that you can play profitably in some situations which only has one of the possibilities listed above, is four high cards with an ace. Hands like ace, king, queen, jack, or ace, king, jack, 10. And when you play a hand like this, you need to get away from it whenever a flush is possible or the board pairs.

Conclusion

Omaha Poker Best Starting Hands Signals

When you’re learning to evaluate Omaha starting hands, look for straight, flush, and full house possibilities. The more possibilities a starting hand offers, the better your chances to flop a good hand. Fold most hands that only have one of the three things going for it, focusing most of your resources on hands that have two or all three possibilities.