Pot Limit Omaha Rules – PLO Rules Explained!

Rules Of Pot Limit Omaha Explained – Simple To Follow Rules of PLO for Beginning Players

By Mark

To begin playing Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) there are two things you’ll need to know. Firstly the rules involving the game structure, order of cards dealt and of play and how to determine the best hand at showdown. Secondly the rules for pot-limit betting – for example how much can you bet or raise and what happens when someone runs out of chips.

This article puts the two pieces together and will clearly explain by walking through a Pot Limit Omaha hand from before any cards are dealt right through to the showdown at the end of the hand.

We will actually start by taking a quick look at the end of the hand – so as to explain the ‘golden rule’ of determining the winning hand in PLO poker. The winner is the player with the best 5 card poker hand. To make this hand you must always use exactly 2 (and only 2) cards from your own hand and 3 cards from the ‘board’ of community cards. No other combination is allowed the golden rule is ‘2 from your hand, 3 from the board!’.

Like the more popular Texas Holdem, Pot-Limit Omaha is played with 2 ‘blinds’. These are bets made before any of the cards are dealt and make up the initial pot, the blinds are posted by the 2 players to the left of the dealer and will move around the table after each hand. These are usually made up of a ‘small blind’ (player left of the dealer) and ‘big blind’ (next player on the left) with the big blind being double the small blind. In PLO cash games these are usually no more than 2% of the starting stacks, and often only 1%.

Once a dealer is assigned for the hand and the blinds are posted each player is dealt 4 cards from the deck face-down (visible only to the individual player). These are known as your ‘hole cards’ and two of them will be used to determine your best hand (along with 3 from the community card board) at the end of the hand.

The player sitting to the left of the big-blind then starts off the pre-flop betting round. With pot limit betting there is a minimum and a maximum betting amount, the minimum is the size of the big-blind (placing this would be ‘calling’), the maximum is the size of the current pot. Players may choose to fold their hand rather than call a bet.

When raising in any pot-limit game the size of your raise can be up to the current pot. The key factor to remember is that the raise is over and above your call of the bet. For example if the pot were $10 and an opponent bet $5 your raise could be an additional $20. That is you call the raise of $5 and raise the pot for $15 more. Any further raises on the same round can then take the call of your raise into account – in this example calling your $15 then raising $35 (pot size) a player could put in $50. In this way the size of the pot can grow rapidly from one betting round to the next.

After betting is concluded for the pre-flop round (all players have reacted to the last raise) the flop is dealt. This is made up of the first 3 community cards which are dealt face-up in the middle of the table. All players will share the ‘board cards’, at the end of the hand using 3 of the 5 dealt along with 2 from their own hand to make the best poker hand.

The next betting round then begins with whichever player still active in the hand is to the left of the dealer position. Once again raises can be a minimum of the size of the big-blind and a maximum of the size of the pot.

There are 2 more community cards dealt, with a betting round after each one. The 4th card is known as the ‘turn’ and the 5th card the river. Once the betting round after the river is completed players must show down their hands. The winner being the player with the best poker hand using the ‘golden rule’ of 2 and 3.

Due to the size of betting increases from one round to the next it is possible that a player can run out of chips before the end of a pot limit Omaha hand. When this happens that player is declared to be ‘all-in’. At this point the pot to which the all-in player contributed is separated. Players who wish to continue betting will then form a second pot (called a ‘side pot’) in which the all-in player has no interest. At showdown the all-in player can only win the cash that is in the main pot.

Once you have the rules of Pot Limit Omaha it is time to move onto the next steps – PLO Starting hands and PLO Basic Strategy.

Related Articles

PLO Starting Hands Part #1 – Combinations vs High Pairs In Pot Limit Omaha

PLO Beginners Pre-Flop Strategy