Omaha hi/low split - 8s9TsT in the CO (1 Viewer)

[DrStrange]

Playing O8, eight handed. $20 buy-in, $0.25/$0.50 blinds, $4 max bet. Ultra loose, rather passive game. Social group more than anything else, fun times.

The villains range from loose/passive to ultra loose passive. A couple of tricky folks. Every villain tends to over value omaha hands thinking more like holdem. Stack range

The hand:

Everyone limps to Hero in the CO who holds . Very likely the three remaining players will limp unless someone holds A2 then they'll raise $2.

Action on Hero, fold, call or raise? Raises are limited to $0.50 min to $4.00 max.

DrStrange

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

Fold. That's a horrible O8 hand.

 

[manamongkids]

Fold. Worst two cards in the deck to hold in your hand in PLO8 are 9s and 10s and you have 3 of them

 

[DrStrange]

Yep, I hate nines and tens.

Usually.

 

[Jimulacrum]

This hand is no good even in the loosest of loose games, especially in a short-stacked game where every hand probably goes to showdown.

Your best hands you can hit that won't be vying for only half the pot are sucker straights, small flushes, and underfulls. Your nut and near-nut (i.e., overfull) high hands mostly require a low to be possible, in which case you can't win more than half the pot.

But surely, if I played that ugly 3459 hand in PLO8, I can find a call here for $0.50. Screw it, let's see a flop.

 

[stocky]

If we raise are we getting folds or is it likely most/all will flat?

 

[jbutler]

If you're trying to play right fold. If you want to gamble and have fun either raise or limp. Both are bad but both are fun.

 

[DrStrange]

Raising will likely have at least 5 of 7 callers. Not that remarkable to have everyone call. This game is a tiny money gusher just on preflop hand selection.

Let's be clear - I do not think Hero's hand is the worst at the table but it isn't best and has predictable problems post flop. The cost now is $0.50 but there could be serious future costs that might outweigh other considerations.

Of course we know Hero isn't writing a strategy post with the end happening with a preflop fold very often -=- DrStrange

 

[mipevi]

Raise, then flop

EZ game!

 

[DrStrange]

*** So no surprises here ***

Hero calls $0.50 as does everyone else. Eight way action, $4 in the pot.

Flop is: < >

Three checks brings us to a tricky, trappy villain who bets $2. That means he is drawing or has a modest hand - the bet is blocking and/or a pot sweetner. If no one raises, a fair fraction of the field might call. Certainly most of the low draws will call for $2. If Hero raises, the field will thin somewhat. (That means the really terrible hands will fold)

So call or raise? If raising how much (has to be $2 to $4.) Hero isn't folding.

DrStrange

 

[courage]

Raise the max to try to narrow it down to 8 callers then get ready to dodge the deck. (y) :thumbsup:

 

[detroitdad]

Raise the max to try to narrow it down to 8 callers then get ready to dodge the deck. (y) :thumbsup:

I agree. Max bet.

 

[jbutler]

I wouldn't really be dying to get it heads up since you could easily be getting freerolled if any low card comes on the turn. I'd prefer having it 4 ways, so I'd bet the max that I can expect to keep it 4 ways whether that's a call or a max raise.

 

[mipevi]

Modest pot for a modest hand, call.

 

[Anthony Martino]

Fold pre, the worst cards in O8 are 7's through 10's and your hand is full of fail.

As played, I just call on the flop. Top set is nice and all, but we have a one-way hand. Now, mathematically a little more than 50% of hands in O8 are scooped, so there's potential here. But we are only playing for the high part of the pot, and there's still a possibility that a low comes in and we're only playing for half the pot. There's tons of straight and flush draws to be concerned about and our hand is not safe.

I'm not looking to bloat the pot here given we essentially need the board to pair here.

 

[Anthony Martino]

To extrapolate further, our equity isn't as good as we think it is with top set here. Now this hand is a worst case scenario for us, but if someone holds:



They have 57% equity in this hand against our 43%

If we switch them to



They're still 51% to our 49%.

Either way, I don't want to be bloating the pot given the equity problems we face here given the multitude of draws we have to fade.

 

[DrStrange]

All good comments about the danger of a one way hand in a game that pays high and low.

 

[Jimulacrum]

Call the flop. All we have here is a draw. It's a big draw, but a draw nonetheless, and we want to play a hand like this multi-way to make up for the times we hit but still only split the pot. We're almost never winning at showdown with an unimproved set of tens, and we shouldn't count on the straight for much help.

This board will either pair or will make a straight and/or flush possible, and our hand value on the end will be either good or terrible depending on how that plays out. Pairing on the turn would be ideal. With an overfull and two low cards on the board, we should have a good chance to split or even scoop a very large pot. But if anything else falls—even one of our straight outs—we should proceed with caution.

 

[Ben]

Hero has the nut high with tons of potential to make a lock high, and has the (rather unusual in a game like this) ability to price out a lot of crappy draws that have more equity than he would like. Pile it in as much as possible.

 

[Anthony Martino]

Hero has the nut high with tons of potential to make a lock high, and has the (rather unusual in a game like this) ability to price out a lot of crappy draws that have more equity than he would like. Pile it in as much as possible.

Hero has the nut high but there's two more cards to come and a LOT of cards take away half the pot or all of it. I don't see us having "tons of potential to make a lock high". There is some potential, certainly, but I wouldn't use the term "tons" to refer to it.

if someone holds:



They have 57% equity in this hand against our 43% so we'd be making a mistake piling money into the pot.

 

[detroitdad]

Hero has the nut high but there's two more cards to come and a LOT of cards take away half the pot or all of it. I don't see us having "tons of potential to make a lock high". There is some potential, certainly, but I wouldn't use the term "tons" to refer to it.

if someone holds:



They have 57% equity in this hand against our 43% so we'd be making a mistake piling money into the pot.

You normally play with scared money

 

[Ben]

Hero has the nut high but there's two more cards to come and a LOT of cards take away half the pot or all of it. I don't see us having "tons of potential to make a lock high". There is some potential, certainly, but I wouldn't use the term "tons" to refer to it.

if someone holds:



They have 57% equity in this hand against our 43% so we'd be making a mistake piling money into the pot.

And if someone has they have the same 57% equity, but really can't (or at least shouldn't) cold-call a bet and a raise. Maybe they will, but you also have to factor in the prospect of multiple callers (which puts Hero in a great +EV spot.)

 

[jbutler]

And if someone has they have the same 57% equity, but really can't (or at least shouldn't) cold-call a bet and a raise. Maybe they will, but you also have to factor in the prospect of multiple callers (which puts Hero in a great +EV spot.)

I have a significant amount of experience playing a similar game and I promise you zero percent of my donkey players would fold that hand. Give any of my players a gutter to a straight flush and he can. not. ever. fold. Add the second nut low on top and they think they are on top of the world.

 

[detroitdad]

I have a significant amount of experience playing a similar game and I promise you zero percent of my donkey players would fold that hand. Give any of my players a gutter to a straight flush and he can. not. ever. fold. Add the second nut low on top and they think they are on top of the world.

same with about half my group

 

[Ben]

I have a significant amount of experience playing a similar game and I promise you zero percent of my donkey players would fold that hand. Give any of my players a gutter to a straight flush and he can. not. ever. fold. Add the second nut low on top and they think they are on top of the world.

Right, so if 6 donks call anyway we're still printing money by raising. If they don't, we've increased our equity (hopefully - there are always POSSIBLE examples where that isn't true.)

 

[jbutler]

Right, so if 6 donks call anyway we're still printing money by raising. If they don't, we've increased our equity (hopefully - there are always POSSIBLE examples where that isn't true.)

If I could give 6 players that hand and get them all to call, I would. My point in my post above was that our goal is to get a minimum of 4 players to the turn. If they'll call all the money off, great. The problem is, the players we want in the hand are those that will fold and those that we want out - A346hh - will never fold. We will never push people off mediocre draws that can beat us, be we will often push out mediocre highs that can't fold if they make, for instance, bottom boat.

 

[courage]

Interesting hand, and resembles my Thursday nite game. I can see both sides to flatting or raising. I advocated raise bc of spread limit structure. If it were PLO8 I'd be more inclined to flat. That is probably faulty thinking tbh, but I'm also trying to push out overpairs so the hand is easier to play and we don't also have to sweat face cards.

 

[Jimulacrum]

We're in an 8-way pot with a field of very loose players in a spread-limit game. We shouldn't be thinking about what our equity looks like heads-up against one hand because we're never getting it heads-up. This many players with that board will almost always produce a multi-way showdown with the nut locked up both ways (or at least a near-nut for the high).

There is no real gain in raising to fold out some low hands because we'll never fold them all out, and it only takes one low to split with us. Same idea goes for the high draws that could beat us. If a straight (other than ours) or a flush comes in, we have to expect it to be out there, even if we raise now. Even if we're still best after it comes in, we won't be able to stand much action.

A lot of the time, this hand just isn't going to be a winner. What we want is to keep our investment small while we're not sure, but set ourselves up to be able to build a massive pot when we do catch our one-way lock. That means flatting here to keep a lot of players in, so they can hit their second-best hands and fight over the low half.

 

[jbutler]

We're in an 8-way pot with a field of very loose players in a spread-limit game. We shouldn't be thinking about what our equity looks like heads-up against one hand because we're never getting it heads-up. This many players with that board will almost always produce a multi-way showdown with the nut locked up both ways (or at least a near-nut for the high).

There is no real gain in raising to fold out some low hands because we'll never fold them all out, and it only takes one low to split with us. Same idea goes for the high draws that could beat us. If a straight (other than ours) or a flush comes in, we have to expect it to be out there, even if we raise now. Even if we're still best after it comes in, we won't be able to stand much action.

A lot of the time, this hand just isn't going to be a winner. What we want is to keep our investment small while we're not sure, but set ourselves up to be able to build a massive pot when we do catch our one-way lock. That means flatting here to keep a lot of players in, so they can hit their second-best hands and fight over the low half.

So true. Someone could be in there with something as weak as 3s4d5c9s.

 

[courage]

So true. Someone could be in there with something as weak as 3s4d5c9s.

Hey, did you see my hand?!