PLO hi-low SNG $5 PF decision

[skoldpadda]

Ok, I think there are some good discussion points here. Discuss whether to play hand and your thoughts on it.

pokerstars Game #13604798736: Tournament #69003021, $5.00+$0.50 Omaha Hi/Lo Pot Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2007/12/02 - 13:00:50 (ET)
Table '69003021 1' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: tomnoel (550 in chips)
Seat 2: INNOVATIVE (445 in chips)
Seat 3: snwmn (1835 in chips)
Seat 4: BabyHumvee (3920 in chips)
Seat 5: maslim (2600 in chips)
Seat 6: Rochel1 (985 in chips)
Seat 7: bungalow59 (980 in chips)
Seat 9: ballardcreek (2185 in chips)
snwmn: posts small blind 25
BabyHumvee: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to BabyHumvee
maslim: raises 125 to 175
Rochel1: folds
bungalow59: calls 175
ballardcreek: folds
tomnoel: folds
INNOVATIVE: folds
snwmn: folds
BabyHumvee: ?

 

[ChuckTs]

Even with the BB discount and our stack size I'm tossing this. It's a trash OH8 hand and we're only shooting for half the pot when we hit.

 

[ohiogirlie74]

oof. i hate that hand against a raise. You have no low possibility, a middle flush, a miracle straight flush draw, and neither of those pairs are high enough to give you the nice end of a boat. Quads are your only hope for this hand. Are those rare? Toss it, let the other guys fight it out. Worst case scenario, you muck a winner. Who doesn't do that like 50x a tournament?! lol. Best case scenario, you dodge a huge trap. So, when do we find out what you did?

 

[skoldpadda]

ok, so we have the "con". This is a HORRIBLE starting hand in PLO. In 99.9% of cases I would toss it in a second. To play devil's advocate, maybe someone besides me can list some "pro" reasons.

 

[ChuckTs]

Pros:

-villain is likely to be raising aces/kings, and if we hit we could stand to win a big pot
-our hand is very easy to get away from
-it's somewhat cheap for us getting 3:1

cons:

-we're only shooting for high
-we're rarely hitting the flop as we're banking on a straight or set which makes up a very small % of the hands we'll hit
-when we do hit our high we could end up splitting a pot vs the low for a big risk and small reward
-we could get caught drawing and lose a good chunk of chips

 

[skoldpadda]

Good. Also, the bet is only about 4% of our chip stack. It causes us no harm whatsoever as the dominant chip leader. I play aggressive with a big stack and I'm not folding given this situation.

 

[skoldpadda]

BabyHumvee: calls 125
*** FLOP *** [Th 7s 9c]
BabyHumvee: checks
maslim: checks
bungalow59: checks
*** TURN *** [Th 7s 9c] [4d]
BabyHumvee: bets 200
maslim: calls 200
bungalow59: calls 200
*** RIVER *** [Th 7s 9c 4d] [7d]
BabyHumvee: bets 700
maslim: folds
bungalow59: folds
BabyHumvee collected 1150 from pot
BabyHumvee: doesn't show hand

Note I don't get too cheeky on the flop since a straight is possible. Little risk and nice addition to my stack.

 

[jaketrevvor]

Hmmm... Bit result orientated? Being the big stack doesn't mean that you call every hand pf surely that would be -EV and you'd probably lose your stack advantage pretty quickly. In omaha hi then maybe, but O8? Fairly strange.

 

[skoldpadda]

Results oriented? Not at all. My reasoning listed above is irrelevant to the results. I was just showing how the hand played out.

There is not a low about a third or so of the time in O8B, so you can't strictly play just hands that work well both ways. You need to look for situations that potentially may be profitable. I thought the above was a good example given the stack sizes and the small amount I had to put in the pot.

 

[blankoblanco]

i still fold preflop. majority of time you're playing for half the pot, and the sets you can make are crappy and rarely going to win you a big pot. you're also going to lose pots with them often. both of these are contrary to NL hold 'em where sets are usually winners, have better implied odds, and you're not playing mostly for a chop

case in point: you hit your top set with no low on the board, and even then you couldn't be comfortable betting the flop, and you won very little

 

[jaketrevvor]

case in point: you hit your top set with no low on the board, and even then you couldn't be comfortable betting the flop, and you won very little

^^^^^^^

That's the fundamental trouble with playing rags, even when they turn into riches.

 

[skoldpadda]

case in point: you hit your top set with no low on the board, and even then you couldn't be comfortable betting the flop, and you won very little

???

I won a large pot relative to the blinds and stack sizes.

 

[blankoblanco]

given the preflop action, the pot was pretty surely going to be "large relative to stack sizes", but that doesn't really justify calling with any trash the same way it doesnt in hold 'em. you won like 750 chips of your opponents after putting in 125 more preflop. i consider it quite small given preflop. and that's when you got about as good a board as you could bank on. it's a junk hand that's just going to get you into trouble really often and have you playing for half the pot a lot even when you do hit your set on a clean board and aren't in trouble

that being said, i only said i wouldn't. i can't really hate it because your opponents are more than likely retards and playing a pot with them can't be too bad. you'd just better be able to sense trouble, which can be hard with unpredictable PLOdonks cause they often don't know their own hand strength

 

[skoldpadda]

it's a junk hand that's just going to get you into trouble really often

The way I play this hand is not going to get me into trouble. As I explained above, I ditch this hand over 99% of the time, but given the circumstances, I thought this was a unique situation.

Winning poker is not about just playing good hands. It's about taking advantage of edges and situations as you know. I thought this particular situation with the stack sizes and the size of the bet was a very good situation. I'm very comfortable playing post-flop (if you're not of course, PLO is a horrible game to be playing) with this hand. It's easy, I close the betting and have the first look at the flop.

It's fine to disagree with my play, but try to see the merits of the points I'm illustrating.

 

[blankoblanco]

i see the merits, just giving the reasons why i would personally fold preflop. i don't claim to be a PLO expert. but i do try to play hands with scoop potential. i know you're getting good odds, but you are out of position, and also i don't know how you can really assure you won't get into trouble often. the set over set possibility is way greater in omaha than hold 'em, obviously

say the flop comes 6KJ and one of the players bets pot. is he a plo-tard who thinks AA/AK is the nuts here or did he make a set of kings or jacks? if you hit a board it's pretty much either going to put out a low draw, in which case you're rarely scooping, or it's going to put out likely overcards for over sets (or both). when players don't know the strength of their own hands themselves, it's pretty much impossible for you to read them, so there's a lot of potential danger, that's all. like i said, i don't hate it, largely for that same reason. simply not my preference