Omaha

Just like in Texas Hold'em, Omaha is played with two blinds, the small blind, and the big blind. A blind is a forced bet before the pocket cards are received to open, or partially open the first round of betting. The first two players after the dealer pay the blinds. The small blind is posted by the first poker player, and the big blind by the second player. The dealer, or the so called "button" will rotate to the left after each game is played. The purpose of the blinds is to get the pot started and keep the game going. Everybody will sit on the blinds, and pay the forced bet. Blinds will raise after a determined period of time passes by. When playing online, generally this will be about 10 minutes per level.

A game of Omaha starts when all players have received their hole cards. The first betting round begins pre flop, the second directly after the flop, the third after the turn, and the last after the river. All players left over must show their hands once all folds, bets, and raises have been made.

The first card is dealt to the player sitting on the small blind. The pre flop round of betting begins at the player who's sitting on the left hand side of the big blind. This player can fold, call or raise. The same counts for all of the other players at the poker table, turn by turn up to the small blind. The small blind who was forced to pay half the amount of the big blind, may fold his hand (which means that he will instantly loose his forced bet), call the current bet by adding more poker chips to the table, or make a raise. Last but not least is the player who's sitting on the big blind. He can fold in case of a bet, he can check if no raise was made by a player acting before him, or he can raise to force another pre flop betting round. If the big blind raises, then everybody who didn't fold before have to make another decision to fold, call or raise. Instead of calling a raise, any player can make a re-raise as well. This means that he places a bet higher than the previous bet.

The first three community cards are dealt face up. We call these three cards the flop. Another round of betting starts, but this time it begins at the player who's sitting on the big blind, or in case that he has folded, the first player to act next.

The fourth community card is dealt face up. This card is called the turn. Another betting round starts, similar of structure to the previous round.

The fifth and last card, named the river, is dealt face up. The last betting round, similar to the two previous rounds starts now. Once the last player at the table has acted, all of the other players remained in the game have to open up and show their hands to determine the winner. This is the showdown. In Omaha, the pot is won by the player who owns the strongest hand combining two hole cards together with three community cards. Occasionally it may happen that two or more players have identical poker hands. In this case the pot will be divided between all the winners. This situation is called a split pot.