Blind Omaha Rules

Blind Omaha is one of a group of fixed-stake games contributed to pagat.com by Ilya Bugreyev. They were first published on the Pokerlistings website, whose blog attributes them to Mikolaj Domanski. It is the Omaha counterpart of Blind Hold'em.

The game uses a standard 52-card deck with no jokers and no wild cards. Hands rank according to the standard poker hand rankings. Only the high hand wins; there is no low half.

The object is to hold the best five-card hand once all the cards are revealed. There are no decisions to make, so the result is pure chance.

Each player needs four cards and the board needs five, so a single deck is enough for up to eleven players.

Before the deal, every player puts the same agreed fixed stake into the pot. There is no further betting, and no player may fold.

The dealer deals four cards face down to each player, one at a time, clockwise.

Players shall not look at their own cards. Each card stays face down until the player reveals it at the stage set out in article 3.

Because players have not seen their cards, the choice of which cards to reveal at each stage has no effect on the result.

Once the river is dealt and every player's four cards are face up, the hands are compared.

Each player's hand shall use exactly two of their four cards together with exactly three of the five board cards, as in Omaha.

It follows that a player cannot use a board of four or five cards of one suit, or a straight on the board, unless two of their own cards complete it.

The player with the best hand takes the whole pot. Tied players share the pot equally.