After playing at several different Omaha games throughout Raleigh, it’s clear there is a lot of confusion about how to play the game properly. Being the good Samaritan that I am, I thought I would take the time to give a quick overview of the game, to clear up any misconceptions many of you seem to have.
What you do is get four cards. Doesn't much matter what they are because nobody really looks at them anyway. Just throw in the amount of the big blind (basically an ante). Every now and then some idiot will actually raise before the flop, which simply means that the ante is higher for this particular hand. Somebody will win the pot, but it will almost never be the person who raised pre-flop. After all, aces will probably get cracked by someone at a full Hold ‘Em table, but they will definitely be cracked at a full Omaha table.
Next, the dealer puts three cards on the board (the flop). It doesn't matter what they are because nobody really pays any attention to the flop either. Some brave soul might bet at this point, at which point everyone will call. Then the dealer puts one more card out for the turn. At this point, another idiot will invariably throw out a humongous bet, and everyone will call (except the pre-flop raiser, who’s now drawing dead).
Finally, the dealer turns up the river card. Same betting scenario as before. Doesn't really matter much what the card is, except to a few of the players that may have "cheated" by looking at their hole cards. These players may now fold if they have absolutely no outs (they’re mostly bad sports).
Now comes the showdown. Everybody turns over their cards and helps the dealer figure out who has the best hand. You MUST play two cards out of your hand so this usually takes a while. The winning hand is usually found out after a little bit of searching by all of the drunk, tired players and a thoroughly confused dealer. If playing high/low, this is the time when all the players “help” the dealer by loudly explaining (all at once) the best way to split the pot. The dealer now pushes the pot to the wrong player, then everybody yells at him and he smiles stupidly and says, "Oh yeah, sorry" and then sends it in the right direction. Then, after all of the excitement dies down, everybody lets out a collective sigh of relief and gets ready to wind up and do it all over again.
There, I hope that answers any questions you may have about Omaha. Now get out there and put your newfound knowledge to use!
See ya at the tables…
Rick
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2 comments:
Dang! Your title scared me there for a minute.... I thought that I was going to have to delete the whole thing.... but as it turned out, it was perfect! And hilarious!
But, now they all know the trade secrets!
Well put, but you forgot a few things in your explanation.
First, no matter what game or what limit you happen to be playing, it is required that you re-raise the retard that raises preflop. Simple and elegant. That way, we can get 5 or 6 people all in preflop just to ensure that it does no good to "cheat" and look at your cards.
Secondly, if the mad Chinaman is in the game, make sure that he's the one to stack the chips. He always does a wonderful job, and never... I repeat, never... knocks them all over the table, into his own stack, and completely bungles the game.
Finally, if it is a split game, and if there are multiple people all-in in a pot, DO make sure you combine all the sidepots into the main pot.. who cares how many chips everyone had? We know there's really only one winner anyway. And make sure the two largest stacks never actually put all their chips in the middle. It always helps avoid chip-clutter in the center of the table to just have them pull back their bets, give each other 1/2 of some bet or other, and doing math in their head.
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