Omaha Hold’em, often just called Omaha is a community card version of Poker. It’s very similar to Texas hold’em. In Omaha you get dealt 4 private cards instead of just 2 in Texas. You MUST use only 2 of the 4 cards dealt to you when making your Omaha 5 poker hand hand. As in both you use the community cards- that come out after betting rounds to make the best 5 card hand to win. The first round has 2 forced bets in the small and big blinds. These 2 players bet without initially looking at their cards. The small blind bets half the ante and the big blind the ante. The next player ‘under the gun’ is the first real bet. You cannot check in this round. You can fold, call or raise. If you fold you slide your cards face down into the ‘muck’ you are no longer involved at all in the game. You can call by staying in and paying the ante. Raising is suggestive that you have a good hand and will go further than average. The betting round is over when everyone has folded, called or raised. We are back to the dealer who will himself be a player outside of the Casino. He will bet as the rest.
Incidentally the next round the deal moves player to the left or clockwise and also the small and large blinds too. This way these unfair positions are evened out.
Once we had the first round of bets which were based solely on the private cards. We move to the flop. 3 of the 5 cards are drawn and placed down. Then a round of betting ensues.
Another card ‘The Turn’ is added to ‘the board’ and another round of betting..
Finally the 5th card the River is drawn to complete the community set. The game could have been won already but if not this is a showdown and the cards are revealed so long as at least 2 players remain.
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