Playing Omaha Poker Online:
Omaha poker is a community card game similar to Texas Hold'em. Every player receives four face-down cards and five community cards are dealt in the center of the table. Players use three of the community cards and two of their hole cards to form the best five-card hand in the end of the game.
The dealer in Omaha poker, as well as in many other poker games has a great advantage as he is the last to make betting decisions, therefore if the game is played in a card room and the is no dealer provided by the house, the dealer is selected among the players in the beginning of each new game. To simplify this process and to make it fair, card rooms use dealer buttons, which are spun in the clockwise direction to select a new dealer.
Omaha poker is usually played with blinds, which are two forced bets placed by two players at the table. The first player to the left of the dealer places the small blind, which normally is equal to 1/2 of the minimum table limit, and the next player after him in the clockwise direction places the big blind, which is two times the small blind and normally is equal to the minimum betting limit. The first player to make a voluntary betting decision is the next player in the clockwise direction (the third player to the left of the dealer). Betting then proceeds as if the first player placed a bet and the second player raised.
Omaha poker can also be played with antes, but this structure is mainly used in tournament games. The standard ante size for this kind of games is 1/10 of the low table limit.
There are four betting rounds in Omaha poker: Preflop, The Flop, The Turn and the River. Preflop betting round occurs immediately after the four hole cards are dealt and all community cards are still face-down. The Flop, the second betting round, takes place after three community cards are flipped. The Turn betting round follows the flip of the fourth community card, and the River is the final betting round that occurs when all community cards were flipped face-up.
Omaha poker can be played in fixed-limit, no-limit or pot-limit format. No limit means that players can bet and raise any amount of money. In pot-limit games players can bet or raise any amount that does not exceed the total size of the pot at the moment. Fixed-limit games have a uniform bet size that is used for all bets and raises. Normally, fixed-limit games have two or more bet sizes that are used in different betting rounds. For example, a game with 5-10 fixed limit is played using 5 dollar betting unit in the first round and 10 dollar bet unit in the subsequent rounds.
A popular version of Omaha poker is Omaha Hi/Lo, which in fact is the same game, but is played in High/Low split format. This means that in the end of the game the pot is split between the player with the highest hand at the table and the player with the lowest one. Omaha Hi/Lo can also be played with a qualifier that defines what hands can be played low. For example, in Omaha Hi/Lo eight or better game, only players who have 8-high or lower hands can claim to win the low half of the pot. If none of the players qualify to the low half, the player with the highest hand wins the entire pot.