In Omaha High-Low, half of the pot is paid for the best high poker hand using two of the player’s four hole cards and three of the five community cards. The other half of the pot goes to the lowest qualifying low hand of five unique cards 8 or below, two being hole cards and three community cards, without regard to flushes or straights. For the purpose of the low hand, an ace is the lowest card. The best low hand possible is A-2-3-4-5, but if the lowest community cards are 6-7-8, then the nut low would be A-2-6-7-8. If no hand qualifies as an eight-or-better low, then the entire pot goes to the high hand.

A potential problem of which players need to be aware exists in high-low games whether live or online poker, in a ring game or a poker tournament. Sometimes more than one player holds the winning high or low hand at showdown. In that case, they chop their half of the pot. So it is possible to hold the nuts for high or low and still lose chips on the hand.

Here is an example. Suppose you hold A-2-J-J. The board completes with 3-4-5-9-J rainbow, such that no flushes are possible. You hold the lowest possible hand with your ace-deuce combined with the board’s 3-4-5, also known as a wheel. You also have a five-high straight for your high hand. You bet the flop, and everybody folds except for one player, who raises. As the hand progresses, you need to consider what your opponent may hold. He may have effectively the same hand as you, an ace-deuce for a wheel. He may have a higher straight but lack your nut low. In either of these situations, you will divide the final pot evenly. He could have a lesser hand like a broken flush draw or trips with an inferior low, if he even made a low, in which case you will scoop the whole put. But the worst-case scenario is that he has a hand including A-2-6, in which case he chops the low put with you and takes all of the high pot with a better straight, and you get only one quarter of a pot into which you may have put nearly half of the chips. A similar dilemma exists in the same hand with three players, one like you holding a wheel, and another with 6-7 for the nut high.

As you learn poker on your own, through books, videos, or poker schools, be aware of these potential situations. If there are three players in the pot until showdown and it is possible to chop either the high or low pot, you don’t know for sure if the three-way action will work for or against you. Be cautious with the low in the above example, because people are more likely to play a strong starting hand like A-2 than a lesser one such as 6-7. Give more value to unbeatable high hands, like a nut flush, rather than low hands that can always be potentially tied. When you think you may take only a quarter of the pot, or worse yet a sixth or eighth, attempt to keep the pot small by checking rather than raising.