Hold’em players will often get exasperated during a losing stretch and start playing garbage cards. They may chant the Loser’s Lament: ‘Any two cards can win,’ but most players of any ability won’t continue to play hands like J♥-2♥ (‘But it was suited!’) for very long.

In Omaha, the saying, ‘Any four cards can win’ comes much closer to the truth. It may seem hard to believe, but in a heads-up situation, there are very few Omaha starting hands that are even 2/1 favourites over a random opponent hand.

Naturally, you can construct scenarios where one starting hand is a much bigger favourite than that: if you give your opponent 2♥-2♠-2♣-2♦, he isn’t going to win very often! But if you assume your opponent has a random and weak-looking collection of cards like J♠-8♣-5♠-3♥, even a magnificent starting hand like A♦-A♣-J♦-10♣ is only about 2/1 favourite. Your opponent can make various straights and flushes that you cannot, can make numerous two-pair combinations that you cannot, and is going to get five community cards to try to make something out of his mess of a hand.

Because the random hands do have a reasonable chance of winning, many bad or tilted Omaha players get sucked into playing bad hands more often than their hold’em counterparts. While the results on any given Omaha hand are going to be better, over the long-term, the results are just as certain.

You don’t even have to start playing garbage hands like J♠-8♣-5♠-3♥ to get into trouble. Just playing hands with danglers is bad enough. Play A♠-K♠-Q♦-6♠ often enough, and that almost completely useless 6 will send you home a loser against people who play hands where all the cards work together, even if their first three aren’t as impressive as your first three.

A lengthy discussion of the best Omaha starting hands goes beyond this article’s scope, but A♦-A♣-J♦-10♣ is my example of a magnificent hand.

Some people have other favourites – right there you see a significant difference in the games, because no one debates A-A’s value as the best hold’em starting hand.

A strong Omaha high hand will include the following elements:

• High cards
• Cards that connect up well for straight purposes
• Cards that give you nut flush draws
• Cards that give you the chance to make full houses or quads

A♦-A♠-J♦-10♠ gives you a pair that can make the best full house or quads, two nut-flush draws, multiple combinations for high straights, and the single two-card combination (J-10) that makes more straights than any other two-card combination. Some people argue for hands like A♦-A♣-K♦-Q♣ (sacrificing a few straights for a few more high pairs), but it’s one of those pleasant choices that isn’t going to make or break your day, because you’ll play them both the same: very hard before the flop and not at all after the flop, unless they coordinate well with it.