Omaha Notes

In contrast to the poker hands were the poker rules define the categories and ranks, there are no fixed rules for the starting hand groups in Omaha. Obviously it is good to have a pair, two pairs, connected cards or high cards. It is bad to have three of kind or cards far apart.
There are five ways for the distribution of the suits for an omaha starting hand. The following table shows the distribution for all starting hands:

Explanation for the numbers use to display the Omaha statistics
suit example hands chance comment
double suited
king of diamondsqueen of diamondsjack of clubsten of clubs
36.504 13,5% Best, you can make two different flushes.
One Suit (2-1-1)
king of diamondsqueen of diamondsjack of clubsten of hearts
158.184 58,4% You can make a flush,
all 11 cards of your suit are still in the deck
One Suit (3-1)
king of diamondsqueen of diamondsjack of clubsten of diamonds
44.616 16,5% You can make a flush,
but only 10 cards of your suit are still in the deck
One Suit (4)
king of diamondsqueen of diamondsjack of diamondsten of diamonds
2.860 1,1% You can make a flush,
but only 9 cards of your suit are still in the deck
Off Suit
king of diamondsqueen of spadesjack of clubsten of hearts
28.561 10,5% Worst, no flush possible

The Groups

Here the starting hands are divided into the following groups:
One Pair:One pair and another card.
Rundown:Four cards in sequence.
Two Pair:Self-explanatory
Three to Straight: Three cards in sequence and another card.
High Card: Cards that don't fall in another group.
Three of a Kind: Three cards of the same rank and another card.
Four of a Kind: Four cards of the same rank.
Please note that if a starting falls in more than one group, it is only listed in the higher group.
For example king of diamondsqueen of diamondsjack of heartsjack of clubs is listed within the group "One Pair", even it would also qualify for "Three to Straight".

Starting with all starting hands, you can click on the name of the rank to see the distribution for that category. This will show you the statistics for the selected rank. You can do this, until there are no more different ranks in that category. On the right side you will see hand examples for the best and worst hands of the category you are currently displaying.

Above you see a screen shot for the statistics for two pair.

The heading shows the name of the group, in this case one pair.
Number of Hands: the total for this group. In this case there are 82.368 one pair combinations from all 270.725 Omaha starting hands.
Odds: The odds to receive a hand from this group (one pair). Here your odds to get a pair are 2,3/1.
Different ranks: Number of different ranks for that group. Here, there are 4 different suit ranks, namely from double suited down to off suit.

The Columns

Category: The name of the category. In the example, the marked cells in that row show the values for off suit.
Number: The number of hands that fall into that group. In the example, there are 10.296 different combinations for off suit pairs.
Odds: The odds to receive that hand. In the example the odds to get a off suit pair are 25/1.
Distrib.: The distribution among that group. Here the number of 12,5% shows, that from all one pair starting hands 12,5% will be off suit.
Chance: The probability to receive that hand. The basis for the calculation are always all starting hands. The chance to get an off suit pair out of all possible omaha starting hands is 3,8%.
Totaled: In this column the chance for this and the better ranks is totaled. For off suit pairs, the number tells you, that 30,42% of all hands will be off suit or better. Because this is the last row it is also the probability of all one pair hands.

Omaha Poker by Bob Ciaffone: Good and fundamental book, especially for new players to that poker variant. #ad