Interesting hand: Part 1

[milobloom]

1-2 PL game. I am in seat 6, button is at seat 10. I have $380. AdJd94 7 players see the flop. Js9d4d. SB, aggressive player bets $15. BB and UTG call, BB is very poor player, UTG is weak and unimaginative.

Pot is $60 - 3 players to act after me - what do I do?

[RickyG]

You have three pair and the nut flush draw, which gives you a whole lot of outs. While unlikely, it is still possible that this guy has a set, which, depending on which one, cuts down your outs. With this many people in the hand to begin with, it makes it more likely that he does have the set. If you are feeling adventurous you can raise and find out exactly where he is at, but based on the number of players in the pot, your best bet is
probably going to be to just call and try to hit your flush.

[BlueBear]

Dependent on opponents stacks but presumably you have everybody covered. You really only in trouble against a set and you have the blocking cards in your hand. I prefer a raise, say about 3/4 of the maximum allowable raise, to extract value from poor drawing hands from the weak players but at the same time, this bet allows myself room to fold the hand if someone makes an over-the-top reraise.

[RickyG]

The problem I see with this is that if someone does have a set, they are going to reraise you, and you will only be 25-40% to win the hand, also, if they do reriase, I think you have to go all in, because you wont know which of your boat outs are good, in which case I think it's better to push than to play guessing games if you do pair up.

Do you think the fold equity is great enough here to justify a raise? Anyone else have thoughts?

[Tilt]

These are some really weak responses.

Why does everyone assume he has a set? Even if it is...say its 99.

9s Ad Jd 4h 0.458
Ks Qc 9c 9h 0.542

You are barely behind, and you have enough equity to get all in with this pot. You need to raise. Not so much that you drive others out, but enough that others come along or come over the top of you. You want a multiway all-in here. The non-nut draws will often come along, adding substantially to your EV.

Suppose you engineer a multiway all in against these hands:

9s Ad Jd 4h 0.323
Ks Qc 9c 9h 0.357
Qs Ts 2c 8h 0.264
6s Kd 6d Jh 0.005
Ac Qd 8d Kh 0.052

Its like printing money when this happens. So Id raise it to 120 and try and make that happen.

Remember: WHEN THE POT GETS BIG, TRY AND WIN THE POT!

[milobloom]

I raised the Pot. I missed some $ on the original post because the max raise was $135. Three players behind me fold, the SB raises the POT to $310 total, he has me covered by a small amount, BB calls his last $150 and UTG folds. It's $175 to me and I have $80 left after that

Next decision?

[chumsferd]

I don't see how you have any choice but to jam here. There is already $770 in the pot - and the original raiser isn't going to fold for another $80, so you will be playing to win $850. You need to put a further $255 in there, so you'd are getting 10/3ish on a push

You are pot committed I think, the absolute worse case (I think) is that one opponent has top trips and a flush draw, and the other opponent also has a flush draw, in that case you would be making a marginally -EV play. However, in pretty much all other cases I think you are priced, so jam and hope for a diamond and a non-pairing board.

[DISCLAIMER: I haven't played that much PLO, I'm just trying to learn myself... so I could be wrong]

[Tilt]

Well, there is a scenario against players prone to mistakes where you flat call here and don't just shove in. He might check a blank turn, which you check behind. Then you could check behind a blank river if he checks as well. Why would he keep checking, however? The only way he would do that is 1) if the board got scary with a straight on deck, or 2) he has a lesser flush draw and no set.

There really is no point in shoving in as I think about it. There is no chance he is going to fold, and you are probably behind. I would call. You might gain fold equity on the turn. If the turn is a straight card, say a K, and he checks to me, I'd move in on the very unlikely possibility that he'd fold. I have seen players make worse folds.

Its probably academic though. 99% of the time with the hand as it has happened to this point you are ending up all-in anyway. There is no possibility that you can fold at some point with this hand and pot.