6-Card Omaha Rules & How Many Cards It Uses
6-Card Omaha deals six hole cards but you still use exactly two, plus three board cards. Here are the rules, deck count, and table-size limit.
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6-Card Omaha is Omaha dealt with six hole cards per player instead of four. You still make your five-card hand from exactly two of your hole cards plus exactly three board cards — the rule that defines every Omaha variant does not bend just because you hold more cards. It runs on one 52-card deck with the usual pot-limit betting; the only real change is that six cards give you fifteen two-card combinations to pick from, so big hands turn up far more often.
Cards, decks, and table size
Every version of Omaha uses one standard 52-card deck — no jokers, no second deck, exactly the same 52 cards as Hold’em. What changes between variants is only how many cards land in your hand:
| Variant | Hole cards | Two-card combos | Showdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4-Card Omaha (standard) | 4 | 6 | 2 hole + 3 board |
| 5-Card Omaha | 5 | 10 | 2 hole + 3 board |
| 6-Card Omaha | 6 | 15 | 2 hole + 3 board |
That deck is also why the table caps out early. Six players holding six cards each already burns 36 cards, and the board plus dealer burns eat into the rest, so 6-Card Omaha is usually limited to around six players before the deck runs dry. (“4-Card Omaha,” by the way, is just standard Omaha — the label only exists to tell it apart from these larger cousins.)
Playing a hand
The rhythm is ordinary pot-limit Omaha, only the deal is bigger:
- Each player is dealt six hole cards face down.
- Blinds post and preflop betting goes around with pot-limit raises.
- The flop brings three community cards, then a betting round.
- The turn adds a fourth card, then betting.
- The river adds the fifth card, then final betting.
- At showdown, each player builds their best five-card hand from exactly two of their six hole cards and exactly three board cards.
If you already know the 5-Card Omaha rules, you know this game — it is the same structure with one more card in the deal.
What the extra cards do to play
Fifteen combinations per player means everyone connects with more boards, so equities run close and draws are everywhere. The practical consequence cuts against loose play: because monster hands appear so much more often, a bare flush or the low end of a straight is second-best more of the time than it would be in standard Omaha. Favor hands that make the nuts and can redraw to a bigger nut, and pot-control your medium holdings so you don’t stack off with the second-best hand.
For the wider family, start with the rules of Omaha, and browse related games at the other poker variants hub.