In this version of Omaha the pot is splitted between the highest and the lowest hand, given that the low hand makes the qualifier being 8 low or better. You get dealt 4 cards, and as in other Omaha variants you need to use exactly 2 cards from your hand, and 3 from the board. The 2 cards used for high and low can be the same, they can use one of the same cards or you can use two different cards for each part.

The high hand uses regular rankings for poker hands, with a royal flush being the best possible hand. The lowest hand is defined by having 5 cards with different ranks, with the highest one being the first tiebreaker. Ace is counted as a low, and is in fact the lowest card. A-2-3-4-5 is the lowest possible hand, and could also play for the high as a straight. If there are no low hands 8 or better at showdown, the pot will be scooped by the best high hand. If the highest card is the same, you go to the second highest, then third highest and so on – 8-6-4-3-2 beats 8-6-5-2-A.

The betting starts with a small blind, a big blind, and a big blind ante, action starts to the left of the big blind before the flop, and to the left of the button after the flop. There is a betting round at every street, preflop, flop, turn and river, for a total of 4 betting rounds. As the name suggests, the betting has no upper limits, you can go all-in whenever you want. The minimum bet/raise is equal to a big blind, but also the size of the previous bet/raise on the current street. In the Mixed Championship all tournaments will use a big blind ante for NLO8. The ante will not count towards the pot preflop, but will be counted postflop.

• Be aware of how big stacks the other players got, in a lot of spots it’s better to go all-in, than to give your opponents a chance to play their medium strength hands, as winning chances tends to be very even.

• When getting under 20bb, be ready to gamble and be all-in with your decent hands, and maybe even mediocre hands in late position.
• Ace is an overpowered card in this game, all the strongest hands consist of an ace. Make sure most hands you play consist of an ace, especially from early positions!