Written by After exhaustively concentrating on the history of dice for several articles, we’ll return now 
to a serious betting game – Omaha. Omaha is a very new card game, it didn’t start to appear in casinos in Las Vegas until 1982 when the Golden Nugget Casino began to offer this version. Even then it was called Nugget Hold’em by the casino, suggesting that the name Omaha was added later. There really is very little evidence that it existed before the 1980s.
So where did it come from? In fact the rules of Omaha (the basic version – Omaha High or Pot Limit Omaha) differ only marginally from other poker games such as Texas Hold’em, Five Card Stud and Seven Card stud. However this difference entirely alters the gameplay and it’s attraction and popularity has meant it is now probably the second most played casino card game after Texas Hold’em.
What are the rules then? As in Texas Hold’em, there are five community cards dealt but in Omaha High each player is dealt four cards also. This is where the subtle differences change the gameplay. Each player can only make a hand using two of the cards he has been dealt (his hole cards) and three of the community cards. He can no longer make a flush, for example, with four community cards showing hearts and one in his hand, he must now have at last two hearts as hole cards.
For this reason, Omaha hands tend to be misread occasionally, especially by amateurs or those switching between Texas Hold’em, Five Card Stud and Omaha. For example if there are three Aces, a Queen and a King as community cards, a player holding a King and four low ranking cards could not make a full house as he would only be using one of his hole cards.
Still, Omaha tends to produce very strong hands in the showdown, particularly flushes and straights and with a high value pot this last play can be an exciting moment. If you’re planning on giving Omaha a go, make sure you have the hand configurations straight in your head before you use real money.
Here’s an example from the 2008 WSOP tournament:
