You should make sure all your hole cards work together. Although not a great hand, the A♦ is supported by a 6♦ and 5♦, which could be used to make the nut flush.

Even though every once in a while the ‘must two’ rule will devalue a hand, as in the ‘Eddie’ situation, where his solitary King didn’t give him the full house it would have in hold’em, over the long haul, the typical winning hand is much stronger in Omaha than it is in hold’em.

The reason is obvious: instead of only one two-card combination that can be used together with the board, the player has six such combinations possible from his four cards. Someone playing A♥-K♥-J♦-9♠ and staring at a flop of Q♥-8♥-2♠ may be focused almost entirely on his nut heart flush draw, but if a 10 hits the board, the player has made a straight with his J-9 combination.

Good Omaha players don’t focus entirely on one part of their hand. They examine all the little bits and pieces of equity that each of the combinations represent. This is one of the reasons why you may have heard the expression ‘Don’t play Omaha hands containing a dangler.’ A dangler is one card that doesn’t work together well with the other three cards in your hand.

For example, if you hold K-Q-J-10, your cards all work together well. The six combinations will give you a straight with almost any combination of high cards on the board. If instead you held K-Q-J-2, the deuce is a dangler. While it could help (if, say, the flop comes 2-2-4, which is still a pretty vulnerable hand), it's far less valuable than a card that adds to the straight possibilities, because Omaha tends to be a game of straights, fl ushes, and full houses – at least at low stakes, where many players stay in, or in PLO, if the pot is going to grow very large.

Hold’em players are accustomed to hands like top pair, top kicker being strong (for example, holding A-Q and getting a flop of Q, 5, 4). In Omaha, top pair, top kicker is practically useless, unless you're only sat down with one, two or – at a push – three other players. Even then, you shouldn’t be raising or even calling big bets with it. Indeed, in games where many people see the flop, a good rule of thumb is to assume that if a hand is possible, someone either has it or is drawing to it. When only two or three players see the flop this isn't true, but with six people in, players are trying to match 24 cards up with the flop (36 two-card combinations). Good Omaha players, in multi-way pots, play hands that are either the nuts or a draw to the nuts.