Omaha Hi/Lo Strategy

Omaha Hi/Lo Strategy

In Omaha High-Low the highest hand winner splits the pot with the player with the best low hand. There is always a high hand winner but not always a low hand winner. For your hand to qualify for low it must have five cards no higher than an eight.

Any two of your four down cards are played for high and any two are played for low. Players must play two cards from their hands in each direction. Aces are played both high and low. Straights and flushes do not disqualify a hand for low, so a player ending with 5 4 3 2 A would have an unbeatable low hand and a 5 high straight to play for high.

A player with this hand would have a good chance of winning both ways and he or she can also have another high hand better than the straight. An important thing to keep in mind in split pot games is the big difference between winning half the pot and "scooping" it all.

It is much more than twice as much since scooping the pot builds a healthy addition to your stack of chips. Getting half often only puts you only slightly ahead of where you were before you started playing the hand. Expert Omaha Hi Lo players only play starting hands, like those that have a good chance of winning both ways.

With so many players with so many cards, finding so many reasons to play, a final hand with a fairly good high and a fairly good low can easily get clobbered by better hands both ways. So if after the flop it looks like you don't have a fairly certain winner for one end and a decent shot at the other, or the best high hand with no qualifying low probable, you should usually fold and wait for the next hand.