Rules and Strategy

Scooping in Omaha Hi-Lo

Omaha hi/lo, also known as Omaha Eight or Better or O8/b is a great action poker game and can be a welcome diversion or a new source of profit for those who have already mastered or are tiring of the challenges of Texas holdem. With each player holding four cards, giving them six distinct two card hands, and two ways to win, nearly every player has a shot in every hand, making for some enormous pots.

Of course, most of the time, you will only win half of the pot, since in Omaha hi/lo, the player with the best hand splits the pot with the player with the worst hand, providing the highest card in that worst hand is no higher than an 8, with an A counting as a low card (pairs of course ruin a low hand, but straights and flushes do not). Half of a giant pot is still nothing to sneeze at, but not as exciting as winning it all. That’s where scooping comes in.

Winning it all is better
Scooping means winning the entire pot, both the high and the low end, or just the high if there is no qualifying low hand. It is not only a whole lot of fun, it is absolutely essential to being a winning player in Omaha hi/lo. Remember that when calculating pot odds, you must cut them in half unless you are planning to scoop. In addition, with so many hands out against you, it is very likely that the nut low or nut high is in somebody’s hand. This is even more true in Omaha hi/lo than in all high, since even unlikely high hands may be backed into by someone going for low, for example, a board of 4d 3h 3d 2d Js might be won by a flush in Omaha high, since players will routinely throw away hands with high cards, however, in hi/lo, a player holding 34 as two of his cards will see a flop routinely looking to make a low.

There’s just one question
That is all well and good, you may say, and of course you would happily take the whole pot, but how do you actually play to scoop? The main answer is in hand selection. In general, you should only be entering pots with hands that have potential to make both the nut high and the nut low, other wise you poker odds are not good enough. What this will mean for the starting player is you will only play hands which contain an ace. The ace is the only card that has immediate high and low value, making it by far the most powerful card in Omaha hi/lo, much more powerful than in its all high counterpart.

Practice your poker discipline
Furthermore, if you enter a pot with the idea of winning both and it becomes apparent you will only win half, you should shut down. For example, if you hold Ah 2h 8c 8s and the flop comes Ad 2c 7d, you should be reluctant to commit much more money to this pot.
You have no chance to win the low, and even though you have aces up, any diamond will ruin your hand, not to mention the very real possibility of an opponent having or making a set. If you always keep scooping as your goal in mind, you should do well in split poker games like Omaha hi/lo.