Phil Hellmuth and the Pot-limit Omaha cardplayer article -

[Zeno]

Just read his article in the Jan. 17 edition of Cardplayer.

It was an entertaining read but the play was, in my opinion, very bad preflop which lead to the way the hand played out. It is a good illustration of something that he never mentions. The downfall of lackluster play.

Here is the setup: 5/10 blinds

SB: 5 /forums/images/icons/club.gif 7 /forums/images/icons/club.gif 8 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif 9 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif $800

BB: 3 /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif 5 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif 7 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif 8 /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif $1000

UTG: A /forums/images/icons/club.gif A /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif 4 /forums/images/icons/club.gif 4 /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif $600

Player 2: k /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif k /forums/images/icons/club.gif 10 /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif 10 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif $1500

Player 3: A /forums/images/icons/spade.gif Q /forums/images/icons/spade.gif J /forums/images/icons/heart.gif 9 /forums/images/icons/heart.gif $2000

Player 4: K /forums/images/icons/heart.gif 10 /forums/images/icons/heart.gif 6 /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif 6 /forums/images/icons/club.gif $400

(as a side note he makes no mention of the type of game, skill level, or tendency of any of the players, so this makes analysis difficult)

UTG brings it in for $35, "and everyone calls, with good reasoning." I read that line and my head exploded. Good reasoning? What the F**K is he talking about?

Lets assume that UTG is a solid player. If you have KK1010 double suited in second position with 8 players behind do you call a rise with this hand? Don't you want more information if you want to play? (you have more than twice the stack of the UTG player) - maybe raise to drive others out if you want to play this hand. Raise or fold hand?

Just for argument lets say player 2 reraised. Now look at player three's hand AQJ9 double suited (with a 2K stack). Probably a better hand than player 2 or even UTG. IF you have this hand and its two raises to you, do you call or raise or fold.

Or if UTG raises next player calls; with AQJ9 double suited do you also Just call as happen in this hand? (note the stack size of the first two players) What's the good reasoning here. I don't see it. Follow the hands down the line and see if good reasoning is evident for all the calls. Player 4 has a clear fold in my opinion as does the BB. The SB is a bit more tricky but under most circumstance I think this is a fold. And if player three with the largest stack is more aggressive this hand is played heads up or with two maybe three others max.

Because everyone just calls the hand degenerates into an exercise in silliness - FLOP: 10 /forums/images/icons/club.gif 6 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif 4 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif. Bottom, middle, top sets, draws up the ying-yang etc. The rest of the article is rather pointless really. In fact, that can be said of the whole article in general so maybe my post is pointless also.

Anyway I could go on but I think I made my point, such as it is. Comments. Anyone agree or disagree. Am I way off base here?

-Zeno

[Rolf Slotboom]

"Lets assume that UTG is a solid player. If you have KK1010 double suited in second position with 8 players behind do you call a rise with this hand? Don't you want more information if you want to play? (you have more than twice the stack of the UTG player) - maybe raise to drive others out if you want to play this hand. Raise or fold hand?"

Dear Zeno,
Well, the hand seat # 2 holds (kings and tens SINGLE, not double-suited) is a very good hand, of course. It is also a hand that is easy to play well after the flop- but then he will have to SEE the flop first. If he decides to raise the pot, he might raise himself out of the pot if one or two players call, and then the UTG player comes over the top of him with aces. (Even though KKTT is an excellent hand, it is a horrible hand against aces, even when they're ragged). So, calling instead of raising or folding (?) is quite reasonable, and the scenario here (lots of players seeing the flop in a raised pot) is a pretty good scenario with this type of hand, and with these stack sizes.

"Just for argument lets say player 2 reraised. Now look at player three's hand AQJ9 double suited (with a 2K stack). Probably a better hand than player 2 or even UTG. IF you have this hand and its two raises to you, do you call or raise or fold."

AQJ9 is a decent hand, but by no means a better hand than KKTT single-suited, or AA44 double-suited, for that matter. In fact, with these two hands in the pot, the AQJ9 is in fact rather marginal. The holder may have realised this, and (in my opinion, again sensibly) decided to simply call to see the flop. Of course, then the others follow suit. With all this money in the pot, the KT66 calls to try to hit his key card (the six of hearts), and both blinds figure: hey, so much action- this must mean quite a few big cards are out, so the flop might very well come with low cards: let's gamble. Of course, I agree that the rest of Mr. Hellmuth's article does not have much educational value, and is more an amusing story on the crazy game PLO can be quite often. However, the before-the-flop action is quite reasonable, in my opinion: with all this money in the pot, everybody wants to see the flop, and seats # 2 and 3, despite holding good or even very good starting hands, are reluctant to re-raise, because if the UTG raiser DOES have the aces he might well have, they might raise themselves out of the pot, and turn a potentially profitable situation into an unprofitable one.

Regards,
Rolf.

[Zeno]

Rolf,

I do not agree completely with everything that you said, but the situation does appear a bit more reasonable now. I read the article and then immediately posted on the site without the coolness of reflection. Probably not wise.

Anyway, I think my style of play may be more aggressive, thus I have a different take on things. I still think that the KT66 hand is a clear fold along with the big blind hand. True, you can hit a card or two but I think that you lose more with this approach than win. You can risk your entire stack (get "pot stuck") in more unprofitable situtations than profitable ones.

I like your statement - "this must mean quite a few big cards are out, so the flop might very well come with low cards: let's gamble." but this must be done within reason and take position into account. Passive preflop play with a host of callers to one raise is very tricky to play post flop. Difficult to sort out who stands where. I like more information up front, before the flop and also on the flop. In this hand, on the flop, everyone just calls the SB $150 lead at the pot and the hand becomes a crap shoot.

That said, I do see the points you make at the end of your last paragraph.

I saw the headline of the article and hoped to gain some insight into a game that I enjoy. I found it irksome (and still do) that it lacked any problem analysis, player profiles, hand values etc. Not much gets published about Pot-limit Omaha so information is sparse. I expected more. Thank you for posting an insightful response.

Regards, Zeno

[Guy McSucker]

Well, Zeno and Slotbloom certainly play this game better than I do, but here are my thoughts - I'd love to hear criticism of them.

The KKTT could reraise, but then will most likely be playing a heads-up pot with the small stacked UTG player who may well have aces: his stack is a bit short to open-raise with speculative hands, even premium ones like 9TJQ. So KKTT doesn't want to raise: he calls, lookng to play a bigger pot against the bigger stacks.

AQJ9 is a decent hand, but a raise now would be to $120, which is too much of a chunk of the effective stack to play a drawing hand profitably, isn't it? That might be marginal, but in any case, it looks like a multi-way pot is developing. Might as well let it with this hand.

On the other hand, suppose KKTT had decided to re-raise, so it's $100 to the AQJ9. I don't think he can play on: UTG may well re-raise, which would kill his odds, and even if not, there's only one player with a big enough stack to make the hand worth playing. Doesn't look good.

KT66 is trash. I wouldn't even call the blind with that. Am I too tight?

SBs 5789 is a half decent hand which can flop very good, so I understand calling to see the flop. I think this one is marginal too: position is against him, but for 5% of his stack, why not?

BB has very little more to put in the pot. Call and try to flop something huge.

So the key is KKTTs decision to flat call, looking to hit a set I guess. The flop is a freak and presumably the hand goes nuts after that.

It all seems reasonable to me.

Guy.