Texas Hold'em and Omaha are the two most popular variants of poker, but how do they compare against one another?

Popularity.

Texas Hold'em comes out on top in this battle, and by a significant margin two. Omaha is the second most popular version of poker played online, but the publicity of Hold'em sends it soaring above its competition. There are many new players watching the game of Texas Hold'em on the television, and so they immediately head for these tables at the online poker rooms.

Some players migrate over to the Omaha tables for a change, but unfortunately they do not hang around for too long. Many of the older and more experienced players still sit at the Omaha tables, but if you browse around any poker room lobby you will see that Hold'em is easily to most popular.

Difficulty.

Once again, Hold'em wins this fight, as it is in my opinion the easiest game to learn out of the majority of poker variants. With only two cards in your hand, it makes it easy to figure out your best 5 card hand combined with the 5 cards on the board. The betting structure is also relatively simple and easy to pick up.

Omaha is almost like a more advanced version of Texas Hold'em. The betting structure is exactly the same, with the only difference being that players are dealt 4 cards instead of two. One of the biggest mistakes made at the Omaha table is that players forget the fact that they have to use two cards from their hand, and not just one. However, this could be argued that it makes the game more profitable for the experienced players.

Competition.

Now, this is where it gets a little tricky to compare. However, from my experience I have found that the general level of competition at the Omaha poker tables is slightly higher than that of the Texas Hold'em games.

In my opinion this is due to the fact that the majority of new poker players head straight for Texas Hold'em, where the more experienced players stick with a more "old fashioned" game like Omaha. This is not to say that Omaha is always going to be the harder game to beat, but in general, you will find more soft competition in Hold'em.

Overview.

It is pretty evident at this moment in time that Texas Hold'em is the game of choice for most players. However, if history is anything to go by, there is no reason why this couldn't change in the future.

Different poker variants have come and gone as being the most popular, so who know which game will be at the top 10 years from now. For the time being however, Texas Hold'em is sitting pretty comfortably at the top.