Omaha Starting Hands

In Omaha, because a player has four hole cards, assessing potential starting hands can be a little trickier than in games like Texas Hold’em (since there are a lot more potential hands a player could make with them once the board cards are dealt). 

Combined with the fact that a player must use two (and only two) hole cards and three community cards to make their final five-card hand only adds to the confusion, as what might first appear to be a good hand to a novice player, can in fact have little chance of taking a pot.

Really Bad Starting Hands:
Four of a kind in the hole is pretty much the worst hand you could start with.  Remember, you can only play two of your hole cards, and because the other two are in your hand as well, there’s no chance of matching them up on the board. 

Three of a kind isn’t quite as bad as all four cards matching, but at the same time – the best you can hope to do with the playable pair from your hole cards is hit the last card in the deck to make three of a kind with them, and you have one less card to work with on other potential outs.  The exception to this rule might be triple Aces, which may be played provided the fourth card has some potential use with one of them (like a nut flush draw for example).

Starting hands in which the card values are spaced far apart and are also all of different suits should be folded without much thought as well, as they have no possibility of catching a flush and very little chance of hitting a straight once the board cards are dealt. 

Good Starting Hands:
In regular Omaha there aren’t really too many starting hands that could be considered ‘great’, or at least; there’s no equivalent to getting a pair of pocket aces in a game of Texas Hold’em.  That’s because there’s really two categories of ‘good’ starting hands, but either one could go the wrong way for a player once the flop is dealt.

Connecting cards are useful. A hand such as J, 10, 9, 8 is a good Omaha starting hand, because it offers a player many straight possibilities once the board cards are dealt provided they fall in the right range.  If those cards are suited to allow flush possibilities, that’s even better.

High Pair(s) are a good starting hand, because there’s the opportunity of catching trips or a full house once the rest of the hand is dealt.  Suited cards are much better, as they add the possibility of catching a high flush as well.  A hand such as Ah, Ad, Kh, Kd for example has not only a pair of Aces and a Kings available to use, but the nut flush possibility for both hearts and diamonds.  A single high pair can be played provided there are other outs available, such as flush draws and/or connecting cards in addition to the pair held.

The thing about either type of hand is; they can become severe underdogs depending on how the flop turns out.  Connecting cards have little chance of improving when there’s an unfriendly pair dealt on the flop, or connecting cards that are in the wrong range.  Starting pairs aren’t looking very good if they don’t hit and the board cards are showing a likely straight or flush developing.

Winning Omaha hands are usually big hands, so a good starting hand is one that has the possibility to turn into a straight or better.  With each player holding a whopping four hole cards, there are a lot of cards in play on a full or nearly full table, making it much more likely someone has the ‘nuts’ (best possible hand) at any given time.  Never get too attached to your hand before you’ve seen the flop, and remember that vulnerable hands are even more vulnerable in Omaha.