AA in Omaha8

[manku]

Twice, last night, I had AAxx in Omaha8, flopped a set and lost. Actually, neither time did I even see the river. BTW, this discussion should pertain more to PL/NL rather than limit.

First hand

Flop: A-3-J, two toned. Can't recall exact betting, but someone fires out bet (not pot). I mull raising pot or just calling - problem is I have no low or other draws. I call.

Turn: 7. BB bets, UTG raises pot (all in, about $300+. we were playing 5-10 blinds, I had table covered). One caller to me. I know it will be four way, but at this point all I'm playing for is half the pot, and I suspect that someone else may have trips or at least two pair, giving me even fewer outs. I fold. River is another Jack, giving me top full house. UTG had 4 jacks and nut low.

Hand two: Again dealt, AAxx.

Flop: A-3-10, two tone. I again just call flop bet.

Turn: 7, putting low out and flush. Couple big bets, and I fold. Can't recall outcome, but I remember nut flush and nut low being out there.

It seems in Omaha8, esp. PL, AA is very difficult to play without a low backup. Firing out on the flop won't get anyone to fold (not in this game /images/graemlins/cool.gif). Perhaps I need to fire out a large bet, to make people think I have a low draw. That way, if it comes, they might check thinking they'll get quartered and I can pick off a free card?

Thoughts?

Manku

[crockpot]

i can't agree much more about what you've said. i will usually play a trashy AAxx in pot limit if i can get in for just the blind, because full house over full house is one of the most profitable situations you can get into in this game, and an ace and a pair on board is liable to hit my opponents, who are often playing any hand with an ace in it. if the preflop action indicates the aces are dead, such as if the pot gets raised or everyone calls, i'm probably out of there.

i may never understand why people raise the pot preflop on a hand like AAT6. maybe Hellmuth tells them to. the only way that hand is profitable is to steal the blinds or hope to catch someone with a lower full house, and you're driving them out from doing that by raising big.

in limit, however, i will muck a hand like AAT6 with no suited cards as fast as i can. when your AAxx has no reasonable low potential, you can treat it the same as KKxx or QQxx with the same sidecards, which usually means tossing it away.

in both situations, you definitely made the right play by folding. you need a board pair to feel confident you're winning only half of a pot, and if a lower set is out, your full house cards are dead and (as happened) someone may hit the miracle quads on you.

[twistedbeats]

if you can get it heads up with a smaller stack, i've been playing with twodimes, trying to figure out a situation where it's wrong to commit right there on the flop. can't find one. if you can limit the field to just worst case, jj24 with a flush draw vs as bad as i can think of aaq7 no suits, you're still like 70-30. of course, this assumes that your opponent is all in or mostly all inby the time the flop betting's over with, but you said you had the table covered, and some guy went all in for less than the pot on the turn, right?



preflop, if your money's deep, you're right, find a better hand than aaxx. but if you can get it all in, you're ahead with even bad aaxx hands like aa68 no suits vs quaility hands like a23kds (51-49, i think) you have to get it really janky to be behind, like aa9t (which if you construct it right can still be ahead by a few decimal places.

[manku]

Funny thing about the quads hand...turns out (i had forgotten) that our home game has a jackpot (aces full being beaten) which has gone up to about $700.

Ouch!

Manku

[iblucky4u2]

Couple of observations:
1 - you don't mention the pre-flop betting. This is the first part of your problem! With AAxy (x = 2-3-4-5) you should be getting as many chips in the pot as possible. If someone wants to chase you with JJ42 - let them. You are a huge favorite both ways.

2 - Once the hand unfolds and the low is made, your choice to fold is an interesting one. This saves you huge amounts when the board does not pair. I believe that you have hit upon one of the biggest leaks in most O/8 players games - made low vs top set. Top set may win once in a while, but the rest of the time it is a big looser.

[Buzz]

3. Manku doesn't mention position, which is very important in terms of how to play a hand in pot limit Omaha-8.

4. Manku doesn't mention exactly what the other cards in the hand are.

Note to Manku: I think if you're consistently losing with aces, you're not playing them correctly. You may not have the right mind set. I think you should try to think of the cards in your hand as one four-card-hand (even though it contains six different two-card-combinations). It's hard to explain this, but you're never just playing a pair of aces in four card Omaha-8. Instead you're playing a certain four card hand that has a very powerful pair of aces as one of the six two-card combinations. But the rest of the hand matters too, in terms of how you should think about the hand.

The other thing is, although it's difficult for me to respond without knowing all the pertinent details, seems to me you're being too timid with your floped sets of aces. It's sort of like unless you make quads or a full house on the flop (which will only happen roughly one time in every hundred when you hold a pair of aces and two other non-paired cards), you're trying to slow play the hand and/or hoping to luck out on the turn or the river. Then when you don't get the perfect board cards, you've often allowed an opponent to draw to and catch them - and then you're mincemeat. You need to make the other guy afraid of you rather than timidly playing your cards so that unless you catch perfectly you'll put yourself in a position where you can be easily intimidated.

Finally, call, call, call, fold is a weak way to play a hand - especially one that should be played fast. Builds a weak image for you and opens you up for future intimidation.

Hope I don't come across as too harsh - but that's my opinion.

Buzz

[manku]

Buzz -

Both hands were not good AA hands, however the games were passive enough preflop where I could get in for the blind ($10) - worth taking the risk, IMO. I agree that AAxx can be very mediocre. However, when you know you'll be paid off by smaller full houses in PL, its certainly worth seeing the flop for the minimum.

As to whether I should bet the flop, part of the problem with playing AAxx is that I really only have a one way hand with the flops I mention. Hands with flush/low/straight draw combos are even money or better against me. I also recall reading somewhere that one pro prefers KKxx as when a K flops, it's less likely that a low will be made - a good point, I think. Also, people won't fold in this game if they feel they have a decent chance at half the pot. One of the important aspects of PL is being able to fire away on the turn. However, in hilo, the turn card is so crucial that many times if I fire away on the flop with topset, the turn will kill me (low or flush/straight). Then I'm facing a monster bet, and usually have to lay it down. Since, in general, the stacks aren't that deep (most people had $500), getting all my money in on the river was not a problem.

I do agree, however, that I need to be more aggressive and gamble more. Such as the A245Q hand I mentioned in the separate post.

Manku

[Buzz]

Manku - You're playing for much larger stakes than I would ever play. You almost undoubtedly face tougher opponents than I usually encounter. Thus I must honestly suppose you are a much better player than me.

However, I do see the problem with poor aces, say AsAh8d9c, in a pot limit game. You have a pair of aces, which is a powerful holding, so that you naturally want to see the flop.

Here's how the flops will turn out:

1.0% of the time you'll flop quads or a full house, clearly a playable flop.

1.6% of the time you'll flop one ace, no other low card, and no pair, clearly a playable flop.

Are you willing to play a flopped set of eights or nines? If so, add 1.4% to your playable total. Are you willing to play a flopped nut straight (5-6-7)? If so, add another 0.4% to your total of playable flops.

10.6% of the time you'll have the dilemma of an ace plus one or two other low cards.

That leaves the remaining 85% of the possible flops as belonging to none of the above categories and thus unplayable.

If, fearing the worst, you're going to limp with the 10.6% of the flops that have another low card or two in addition to the ace, then I think you're better off not playing those flops at all.

And in that case, you like less than five percent of all possible flops.

Thus the way you seem to want to play it, a hand like AsAh8d9c is, in my humble opinion, unplayable.

At least playing an Omaha-8 hand where I figured to be folding 19 flops out of 20 would simply be too big a leak of my own chips.

It's no big deal. Simply cut that particular type of hand (ace-ace-nothing-nothing) out of your playable starting hands list.

That's just my opinion. Hope it helps you.

Buzz

[chaos]

I agree with Buzz. A hand like AsAh8d9c is unplayable. AAxx with not much else is a fold preflop outside the big blind. This is a one way hand that is a long shot to get a flop you will like.

[manku]

I tend to agree, and in fact have mucked AAxx preflop a few times, esp if there multiple raises (since the other two aces are most likely in raisers hands)...

The reason I slowplay them is that, in these games, if you check on the flop/turn, no one will suspect you of holding top set. You can then get a huge bet in on the river and get called.

One more thing which may affect AAxx play in the future. We now have added a jackpot bad beat (Aces full beaten). It's now over $700. How should this affect my play.

Thanks.

Manku

[Buzz]

"The reason I slowplay them is that, in these games, if you check on the flop/turn, no one will suspect you of holding top set. You can then get a huge bet in on the river and get called."

Manky - I'm curious. Suppose you are dealt AsAh5hKd, a very playable Omaha-8 hand. now suppose the flop is "Flop: A-3-10, two tone."

Here you started with a very decent hand, but have basically ended up with the same situation after the flop - you again have flopped top set with not much elso going for you. Are you slow playing this hand/flop too, and then folding if the turn is a three and somebody bets?

I hope you can see that even though you have started out with a very nice hand that contains a pair of aces, you have ended up with the same situation after the flop you ended up with when you were playing ace-ace-nothing-nothing. You can drop the ace-ace-nothing-nothing hands from your starting list, but you really don't want to also drop the suited-aces-with-king-and-a-wheel-card hands from your starting hands list do you?

Do you see it?

I'm going back to my original premise. I think you're not playing your flopped set of aces correctly.

"One more thing which may affect AAxx play in the future. We now have added a jackpot bad beat (Aces full beaten). It's now over $700. How should this affect my play."

That's an easy one. Play any hand with aces full with authority. You can hardly lose. Even if you lose the hand, you'll probably win the jackpot. (Only way you could lose would be if you had aces full at a time when someone had an even better hand beaten - but that would really be rare).

Buzz

[Aragorn]

I don't see why you don't bet the pot on the flop and try to win the pot right there. You have the best high hand and the other players are going to have to pay a lot to draw to their lows. And if you get called, you aren't in a horrible position with top set.

Just calling and letting the low draws play for cheap seems like a mistake.