Today's Event 20: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low Split 8-or-Better is yet another tournament at the 2012 World Series of Poker that includes a game other than No-Limit Hold'em. The game we're talking about is Omaha Hi-Low.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the game, you can refer to the PokerNews Poker Rules: Omaha Poker page to check things out and get a feel for how the game is played. The page is complete with game rules, terms and also strategy links.
Omaha is similar to Hold'em in that it is a flop game, but instead of two hole cards, you receive four. The trick is that you must you two cards from your hole cards and only two cards, to make your best five-card hand at the end. This is the part that sometimes confuses people new to the game as they'll make the mistake of only using one card from their hand or trying to use three. This game is also a split-pot game with the high hand getting half of the pot and the low hand getting the other half of the pot. Just like Hold'em, there is a betting round preflop followed a betting round after each of the flop, turn and river.
For example, let's say there is a final board reading and Player 1 shows versus Player 2's . In this showdown, Player 1 would win the high half of the pot with trip queens and an ace kicker. Player 1 also has a qualifying low hand with his , but Player 2's makes a better qualifying low hand to win that half of the pot.
In the Omaha 8-or-better case where players share a high hand or low hand, they would divy up that half of the pot accordingly. This is why the term "quartered" often comes into play during games of Omaha 8-or-better. In the above example, if a third player in the hand held , he would split the half portion of the pot with Player 2, meaning they would each get one quarter of the overall pot.
Today the 2013 World Series of Poker continues with Day 1 action from Event #20 $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low Split 8-or-Better. Despite the low buy-in, this tournament has morphed into one of the most storied in recent WSOP history. That was mainly due to Alex Kravchenko's win in 2007, Thang Luu's back-to-back wins in 2008 and 2009 and Michael Chow's victory in 2010.
This year we expect to see some of the biggest names in the game take their shot at a Omaha Hi-Low Split 8-or-Better title, and thanks to Twitter we can already confirm a few participants:
We also wouldn't be surprised to see Joseph Mitchell in today's field. After all, he did win the 2013 Carnivale of Poker Event #103 $365 Limit Omaha 8 or Better last week for $11,934. Mitchell, who lives in Las Vegas, would no doubt like to grab a gold bracelet to go along with his Carnivale of Poker championship medallion.
Play is set to kick off at 12:00 PST, which is just over an hour from now. Be sure to keep it here throughout the day for all the updates from the Brasilia Room here at the Rio All-Suite Casino in Las Vegas!
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and Player 1 shows 
. In this showdown, Player 1 would win the high half of the pot with trip queens and an ace kicker. Player 1 also has a qualifying low hand with his 
