How to play
Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) is the most popular poker game after Texas Hold’em, and its big-action cousin. Here you sit at a cash table with one to five computer opponents. Everyone starts with 1,000 chips, the blinds are 5 and 10, and a fresh 52-card deck is shuffled for every hand.
- Four hole cards. Everyone gets four cards face down. You see yours; opponents’ cards are only shown at the showdown.
- Betting rounds work like Hold’em: the dealer button (D) moves one seat each hand, the two players to its left post the blinds, and there’s a round of betting before the flop, after the flop (three community cards), after the turn (a fourth) and after the river (a fifth). On your turn you can fold, check, call, or bet / raise.
- Pot limit. You can raise at most the size of the pot after you call. If the pot is 40 and you face a bet of 20, you call 20 (the pot is now 60) and can raise 60 more: at most to 80. The slider stops at that amount, and the Pot button sets it. The smallest raise is the size of the last raise, and never less than the big blind.
- Exactly two plus three. At the showdown, each player makes their best five-card hand from exactly two of their four cards and exactly three of the five community cards. This is the rule that catches Hold’em players: with four hearts on the table and one heart in your hand, you don’t have a flush. A pair on the board plus one matching card in your hand is three of a kind, but you can never play four board cards: a board straight or flush only counts if two of your own cards fit it.
- The best hand wins the pot; if everyone else folds, the last player wins without showing. Every hand still in at the showdown is shown.
All-ins, side pots and split pots work as in No-Limit Hold’em: you can only win from each opponent as much as you put in, an uncalled bet comes back to you, and the odd chip of a split pot goes to the first winner left of the button.
The table. When an opponent runs out of chips, a new player takes the seat with 1,000 chips on the next hand. If you run out, you can get 1,000 free credits and sit down at a new table. Between hands you can leave the table and pick a table size from 2 to 6 players. Your table is saved, so you can close the page and come back to the same hand.
Strategy
Hands run closer together. With four cards each, everyone has more ways to make a hand, so the average winning hand is much stronger than in Hold’em. One pair rarely wins a big pot, and two pair is often behind at the showdown. Think about the nuts: the best possible hand on that board.
Pick hands whose four cards work together. The best starting hands are connected and suited: A-A-K-K with two suits, or J-10-9-8 with two suits. Each pair of cards in your hand is a possible two-card combination, so four cards that work together give you six useful pairs. Four unrelated cards, or a hand with three cards of one suit, play much worse than they look.
Draw to the best hand. A flush draw to anything below the ace-high flush, or a straight draw to the low end, can win you a small pot and lose you a big one. Prefer draws that make the nuts.
Check the board for the two-plus-three rule. Before you get excited, find the exact two cards from your hand that make your hand. Four cards of one suit on the table mean nothing unless you hold two of that suit.
Use the pot limit. Because bets can only grow with the pot, a big all-in usually takes several raises to build. Small pots before the flop keep you out of trouble with medium hands; bet the pot when you have a strong hand or a strong draw.
Read the labels. Every computer player shows Tight or Loose, and aggressive or passive. A passive player who suddenly bets the pot on the river usually has it.
More poker. For two hole cards and no-limit betting, play Texas Hold’em. For a tournament with rising blinds, try Hold’em Sit & Go.
If you enjoy Pot-Limit Omaha, try Prize Grid or Progressive 21 next.
