Pot Limit Omaha Tips for Beginners

Looking for a new poker variant to try? Pot Limit Omaha is a great choice. These handy hints will ensure that you hit the ground running with your Omaha poker strategy.

First things first: what is Pot Limit Omaha?

Pot Limit Omaha is a variation of Texas Hold’em Poker. It is sometimes referred to as Omaha Hold’em Poker. Hold’em poker games all involve players being able to play not just with the cards that they have been dealt (and which they keep hidden from other players) but also a set of ‘community cards’ which are dealt face up in the middle of the table and which all players can use as part of their hand.

Pot Limit Omaha poker rules

Each player is dealt four of their own cards. These are known as ‘hole cards’. All players keep their hole cards secret from the other players. In addition, three ‘community cards’ are dealt face upwards on the table. Players must use all of these three community cards and exactly two of their hole cards to make the best hand that they can.

Five great Pot Limit Omaha poker tips

Playing Pot Limit Omaha (or PLO as it is often called) is slightly different from playing other poker variants, such as Texas Hold’em. These five top tips will help you to play successfully.

  1. Know the worth of your cards
    You can find plenty of websites that tell you what your chances of winning at Pot Limit Omaha are with any given hand of cards. It is worth checking these out so that you have a good idea of which hands are the most promising. For instance one striking fact to remember is that whilst a pair of aces is an excellent start to a hand in Texas Hold’em Poker, when playing Pot Limit Omaha this pair of cards will get you virtually nowhere. Chasing aces is one of the main mistakes that newbies make when playing PLO – forget those aces!
  2. Bluff less, and expect less bluffing
    Bluffing can be a huge part of Texas Hold’em Poker. With PLO, however, bluffing is much less common. If one of your fellow PLO players is putting on a show of strength, this is most likely because they actually do have a strong hand, not because they are bluffing.
  3. Pot Limit Omaha Tips for Beginners
    Folding is much more common with Pot Limit Omaha, so weave this in to your strategy. This is something especially important to practice if you have traditionally been one of those Texas Hold’em players who sees flopping as a kind of ‘failure’. In PLO this is far from the case.
  4. Learn the rules
    Go over the rules again and again. When you think that you know them like the back of your hand, go over them one more time to see if you have missed something (you will be surprised by how often this turns out to be the case). The last thing that you want is to be caught out by a little detail of the rule book.
  5. Don’t delay
    In other variants of poker, players delay their tactics, refusing to reveal their hand and win outright as they let more and more money be added to the pot. In Pot Limit Omaha this is the opposite of what you ought to do. If you can see a way to win when playing PLO, pursue it as quickly as you can. In this game, slow and steady does not win the race.

Have fun playing Pot Limit Omaha!

These five golden rules will dramatically improve your chances of success when you play Pot Limit Omaha. Learn them, follow them and you will be playing with the big fish in no time. And, above all, have a great time – there are plenty of online casinos offering Pot Limit Omaha games. Many of them provide PLO with a live dealer, too, which really makes the action much more exciting. Find a casino that suits you and sign up, ready to play!