Omaha Hi-Lo Poker Advanced: 8 or Better
by Bill Burton
You may hear the split game
called
Omaha Hi-Lo Poker, Omaha
8, or simply Eight or Better. It is all the same game and this is an
advanced lesson following the previous HiLo basics lesson.
There are two
versions, Omaha
High only and Omaha High-Low Eight or Better which is a game where the
high hand and low hand splits the pot.
Omaha Hi-Lo Poker seems to be the most popular with the players and you
will find more of these games than you will Omaha
high only in the card rooms.
Low Limit Hi-Lo Poker is gaining in
popularity as many
of the players like the chance of having a split pot. Because the high
and low
are splitting the pot there are more players staying in for the River
card
making many of the pots very large
Low Hand
In order to have a hand qualify as low there must be no
cards higher than 8 in your five card hand. An ace can be used as
either high
or low. A flush or straight is ignored when making a low hand.
Therefore
the
lowest hand is A 2 3 4 5. This hand is also called a “wheel. Since you
must use two cards from your hand, there must be three cards on the
board
that are eight or lower.
If there is no qualifying low hand,
the winner with
the highest hand will win the whole pot.
Ace –
Deuce
Many players look at their starting four cards and if they
see an A-2 they act as if they have just found the Holy Grail. They
immediately
raise with this hand which is wrong for several reasons.
First,
is the fact
that in order to qualify for low there must be three more low cards on
the
board. This is not always the case and if three high cards come on the
flop,
you are in big trouble.
Another reason not to raise pre-flop
with just A-2 is
that if an ace or a deuce shows up on the board you hand will be
counterfeited
as you no longer can use your
A
or 2
unless a fourth low card shows on the board by the river.
Getting Quartered: Omaha
Hi-Lo
The final reason to consider when you raise with A-2 is the
fact that every other player with A-2 will also be in the hand. If you
do make
your low instead of getting half the pot, you will get half of the low
pot
which is a quarter. Being quartered will cost you money.
For
this reason, you
should not get into a raising war on the river in a multi-way pot with
low only
as one of the other players may also have the low. Example: There are
three
players in the hand.
You start raising and you end up
putting in and additional
$20 in the pot as do the other two players. There is $60 in the pot
from the
three of you. One player turns over high and collects half the pot of
$30. The
other player turns over a low hand that ties you.
You get
$15 apiece even
though you have contributed an additional $20 to the pot. You lost
money by
raising.
Counterfeited
If you have an Ace and a deuce in you hand and there is an
Ace or deuce on the board, you hand is counterfeited if there are not
four low
cards. Since you must use two cards from your hand you will need to
have three
different low cards on the board or your hand will not count as low.
Example: You have A-2
The board is: 2 4 5 J Q
You can’t make a low hand because the 2 is paired.
Scooping the Pot
Your ultimate goal is to scoop the pot. Since you
have four cards in your hand, you can use any combination of two for
the high
hand and low hand. You may use two cards for high and two different
cards for
low. The ideal situation is
to have an Omaha Hi-Lo Poker hand that will win both the high hand and
the low hand.
The other way to
win the whole pot is to have
the highest hand and have no low hand possible.
Omaha
Hi-Lo Poker is followed by Omaha
strategy for starting hands
OR
How
to Play
Poker 1 Program
OR
Learn
Poker Games 2
Gambling
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