OH/8 Hand

ChuckTs

ChuckTs

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Playing at a 0.25/0.50 table when this hand happened.
I think I'm being results oriented because i'm pissed this guy won, but i probably would have pushed had i had what he had too.
How could i have played this differently/ better?
Any input is appreciated
 

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Osmann

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I'm not completely sure about what to say about this hand, because I get the feeling you overrated your hand. It is a decent hand, but not a hnad you want to go to war with.

Never check this flop! You only have a decent hand so lead the flop with a nice bet. In order to have a great hand, you need to have a nut low draw aswell or the low should be less likely.
If a big stack plays back at you after you lead, you shouldn't be thinking about going to war with him, cause he probably has a better hand than you. Just like villain had in this case.
Because villain had a short stack, you were correct to get involved with him. But why not do it where you lead the flop and call his raise, because that way you would at least have had some fold equity, if his hand had been worse. Here you're actually giving him almost correct odds to draw for low with a raw 23. And you don't want the low draws to stick around

Remember it is Hi/Lo split and there's a 60% chance low will be possible, so a lot of the times you will only be playing for half the pot and you have to avoid straights and flushes. And as it turned out villain had a much better hand than you, and he played it perfectly.

So to sum up, and what PLO8 is all about. Getting scooped in this situation by a big stack would have been bad play by you, but getting sccooped by a small stack is merely bad luck. I would just prefer to get "unlucky" slightly different :)
 
titans4ever

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Osmann is right, he had the hand to completely dominate you. You have a nice set there but you needed the board to pair just to solidify the high. You have a slight chance at the low but anyone that calls probably has you beat. Your over the top bluff here was a mistake. I find it very hard to bluff when two low cards come on the flop. People will call for just the low and hope somehow they can beat your high.

He had 26 outs to beat your set, 9 diamonds + 3 2's + 2 3's + 2 5's and 4 6's. That is half the deck! He also was a lock for the low as long as anything lower than an 8 fell in the next two cards. You were only going to get called by a hand that was going to kill you, you got lucky all he had was $8.95.

Sorry man, that is probably not what you wanted to hear.
 
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t1riel

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Maybe re-raise pre-flop or put him all in pre-flop was the only thing you could have done differently but it probably wouldn't have changed the outcome all that much. Tough break Chuck.:(
 
starfall

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Trips should generally be regarded as a drawing hand - so on the turn you've got 7 outs, and on the river you've got 10 for improving, because straights and flushes are extremely common in Omaha. The flop gave both a straight and a flush draw.
On the low side you were nowhere near getting the nut low (you'd have needed 2 good cards for that), and with 2 cards to come there was a pretty substantial chance you'd end up playing to win at best half of the pot.
Yes, you were in the lead at that point, but there was little chance that you were favourite to win, with all the draws. You had a fairly substantial chance of losing the high hand to a straight or flush, and a high chance of a low being possible which you almost certainly wouldn't have won, so you had a fair chance of being scooped, and not a good chance of scooping yourself. That's the kind of situation you don't want to put yourself in.
With trips, you can bet on the flop to try to take it there and then while you are ahead. If you get played back at, you need to realise at points like this that the current leader isn't necessarily anywhere close to being the favourite in this hand, and would probably need to fold. Alternatively you could have checked and called the bet to see what the turn held, because if it paired the board, you could then play more strongly, and if it was a high non-diamond you could consider playing again. In this hand you'd have then hit
the 2 and realised your hand was one-way only and vulnerable, and could have got off the hand there to a strong raise.

The other thing to note is that with $11 in the pot already, when the player only had under $3 left in their stack, they had to call with any kind of nut drawing hand because of the pot odds, so the raise was never going to scare them off, and that would be the main reason to raise with a hand like yours.

Even in HoldEm the current leader can occasionally be the underdog to win on the flop, but with PLO8 when there's the low hands to consider as well, and the multiple combinations of hole cards useable, you can be not just slightly but significantly behind despite having the best made hand.
 
starfall

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BTW, take any advice from OSMann before mine on PLO8, because he seems to have a lot more experience at it (I'm just coming from O8 to PLO8 at the moment, and have asked his advice - some of it holds true for limit and pot limit, like which hand is favourite to win, although the betting strategies and playable hands are somewhat different).
 
starfall

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On t1riel's suggestion that you could have raised pre-flop, that's possibly true - AAxx is the favourite over almost any other single hand pre-flop, and since one Ace was suited you had some flush potential, and A37 isn't that bad for low potential. You did have the better hand pre-flop.

However, Omaha hands generally aren't as dominating as the likes of AA is in HoldEm, and 235K double-suited also has good flush potential, some straight potential and moderate but less vulnerable potential, so he may have called anyway, although that kind of hand does generally want to see a flop to see whether an Ace hits rather than putting all the money on the line before then.
 
Osmann

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I think re-raising preflop here would be wrong. Even if your hand is good preflop, and does better against few opponents, you have to take into consideration that you are out of position, and the preflop-aggresor also has a big stack. By re-raising you're basicly inviting him to outplay you on the flop, cause there won't be a lot of flops you are exited to see. Had the aggresor been shortstacked, and you could isolate him, re-raising would be the right move.
 
titans4ever

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Chuck, I think you put this hand in here just so we would learn a nice little lesson in PLO8. It is that O8 is a race game and you were caught in the middle and that can be very dangerous. You had a shot at the high and low but they were both very low and to help one out would mean sacrificing the other. If you won the high you were not going to win the low and if you had won the low you more than likely not going to win the high. Being in the middle and chasing for both is usually trouble and can also cost you alot of money.

As far as betting, I tend to value bet on the flop and get aggressive when I can see if the straight and flush potentials are less and then make them pay to chase to see the river. I think you jumped the gun by one card to make a power move. The turn would have given you danger signs all over and you could have let the hand go and saved yourself the last $5.95 that you lost.
 
starfall

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Thx for the tip osmann... so far as all the discussion I've seen goes, position doesn't count for much in Limit O8, but is everything in PLO8... so that's the kind of consideration that I didn't consider properly.

My guess would be that the pre-flop raiser had A2XX, because that would be a common hand to raise with, but would then fold when an Ace hit the flop and busted their low chance, which would have marked your low hand potential as even more precarious.
 
ChuckTs

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thanks for the tips guys...I'm still a relative newbie in PLO8, hence why I haven't had a considerable winning session yet :(
and no titans i didnt put this up for a hidden lesson in the hand, i just realized that i played it poorly and wanted to see what you guys thought about the hand :)
I had no way of knowing how much of a monster draw he had, but thought i could shut the pot down right there as the table was kind of tight ATM, but it just turned out to be a costly lesson for me. The rest of that session was downhill for me and i don't think any of my ensuing hands got any draws or hit the flop at all...
I still have alot to learn with OH8 and PLOH8 and hopefully I can soon have winning sessions again.
I do much better with limit rather than PL OH8...I have trouble with betting amounts and such....i guess that just comes with experience
 
ChuckTs

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as for the reraise PF: I was under the impression that no hand in omaha is a massive favourite over another as it is in holdem, and that raising PF with AAXX is not really a must. Plus i was in early position and it's a cardinal rule not to raise in EP in omaha (right?)
neither did i have a premium low hand to go with it.
 
Osmann

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Raising preflop with AAxx is usually bad, and raising out of position is VERY BAD! I don't play AA without another wheelcard to go along with it. And I usually fold fold AA5. Unless your opponent is playing a high hand only, you are slightly behind most playable hands with AAxx.
 
starfall

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I'll defer to Osmanns advice on the pre-flop raising and whether you're ahead or behind... AA37 would be favourite for high, but against a probable A2XX it would be behind for the low - and I haven't looked into which is then more likely to scoop or be scooped - A2XX may be the favourite overall.
With regards position, the tips on Steve Badgers site say that PLO8 is all about the betability of the cards, while PLO is about position, but it is clear that position is much more important in Pot Limit or No Limit games than it is in Limit games.

There is an exception to this, though, and that's when one of the players is putting forward all or nearly all of their stack. Then the decision is whether your hand is likely to win, and your position in later rounds of betting means pretty much nothing. Playing with or against a small stack is therefore slightly different. It was still a small enough bet amount before the flop in your case that even against the small stack your bad position post-flop was a factor. After his raise, it wasn't a major factor against him (although it was still a factor against the other opponents seeing the flop), just the vulnerability of your cards.
 
Osmann

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I was talking about AA in general, and not only AA37. AA37 is a favourite against most starting hands and a cointoss against some of the good. Multiway it's not really a premium startinghand. As you said betability of the hand is very important, and unless the flop gives us a boat a flush, or 2 low cards( with one 2) with a flushdraw I don't see how you are ever going to like this hand postflop. Therefor position, just like any other game where there is a dealer button is everything. In late position I usually bet, if I have an overpair or 2 pair(when there's no low) but I would check/fold the same hand in early position.

A lot of things that are written about PLO8 is a load of bollocks IMO. I constantly read stuff like: raising preflop is bad; because the game is so complex, opponent reading skills are not very important; In a game where everybody understands the influence of implied odds and reversed implied odds, the only winner would be the casino; etc. etc. And this is very correct if you're a weak/tight player playing in a weak/tight game. But a lot of the gplayers you find on the internet are Tight/aggresive and/or loose/aggresive. And in theese games, aggresion, opponent reading skills, and position are just as important factors as the betability of your hand. The players who loose big in PLO8 are callingstations(ofcourse) and weak/tight-nutseeking weeners who can be bullied.

Edit: And when I'm talking about wich hands are favourites I don't take into consideratio what hand is favourite for high and what is for low. I only look at how much equity the hand has.
 
starfall

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My reason for mentioning stack sizes regarding position is that if you both have deep stacks for the stakes, then there will be positional advantage over the remaining rounds of betting. If a scare card hits at any point, then the person with the positional advantage can benefit from that. If the 2 players are all-in, then there less of a positional advantage, because there aren't as many rounds of betting where the position may give the player leverage. It's harder to make that kind of bet with a non-nut hand in early position, so the current round of betting has its influences, but the total effect of position is reduced.

Yeah, the myths are ones I've heard for Limit, and they're wrong (although in one case less wrong for Limit O8):

Raising pre-flop is bad? If you have a good starting hand, its value is good pre-flop. After the flop its value may be great or worthless, but you're putting your money in pre-flop on the basis that you're more likely to get a nice hand.
Secondly, the players before you have put money in and are more likely to call you, while the players after you have nothing in and are less likely to want to call a raise, so you're more likely to push them out and have position over all the other players still in the pot (is this the most important factor of pre-flop raising?).
Finally, most bad Omaha players want to see a flop even with mediocre or worse hands, and will then drop their hand after the flop unless they hit. You want to punish them for their insistence on seeing flops with bad hands, getting more dead money into the pot.

Opponent-reading skills are not important? In Limit games, it's true that opponent-reading is less important in 08 than Holdem, because you're looking for nut hands more, but opponent-reading is very valuable in all No Limit and Pot Limit games, whether it's Holdem or Omaha or Omaha/8.

... the only winner being the casino? Well, no, because while some profit comes from playing nut hands, equally there are situations where nobody has the nut hand, and good reads can prevent you folding the best hand, and allow you to steal pots.

So far I guess I qualify as tight/aggressive - except where I'm against someone who is Loose/aggressive, because if I let them do the betting they'll keep coming at me when I know I have the best possible hand. I guess the point is that fitting neatly into one of the categories doesn't work, because I'll be more likely to bet in position against a tight player who may fold, and more likely to just call against an aggressive player who is more likely to try and bluff at the pot, but a starting strategy of tight/aggressive seems to be worthwhile. You get a bad enough level of play at a table and you can make a profit without bluffing at all, although picking up pots from position without a hand does naturally increase profits.
 
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