Omaha 8: what hands can you call a preflop raise with?

[Fraubump]

I'm beginning to think that passive O8 games are a myth, at least online. Anything 2/4 or higher tends to have a fair amount of preflop raising. It's unclear to me how much to tighten up when faced with 2 bets to enter. Generally the raiser has A23 or some sort of AA hand (if I know my opponent is likely to have AAxx I usually don't change my reqs much). I tend to toss bare A2 to a raise unless the raise comes after a lot of callers and am uncomfortable calling with most high only hands. A3sXX seems too weak. I might reraise with a hand like AsA3x hoping to drive out high only hands and other A3 or even weak A2.

How about calling a raise when you're the big blind? I usually call if it's a hand I would normally enter a pot with and fold otherwise. Should you loosen up at all? I realize you are generally getting somewhat better pot odds to call a raise from the big blind, unless there aren't other callers.

[crockpot]

i think the real question is this: how many people can you expect to come in even if the pot is raised?

if your table is such that you can expect four people besides yourself to come in, i would barely change my playing requirements at all. basically i would toss a bare A2 if the raiser is a fairly tight player, and maybe a hand like A36x with no suited ace, or QQ23 since my aces are more likely to be dead and my implied odds for hitting a set have been reduced.

if you expect the pot to be three-way, high hands gain a lot of value over low hands (if your opponent does not have AAxx). here, i'd like hands like A4QQ which have made high potential and can make a low if your opponent is counterfeited.

[Buzz]

Fraubump - I have never played on line and have no plans to do so. Passive O8 games are not a myth in casinos - but not all casino O8 games are passive. Actually, at this point in my development, I prefer the action provided by pre-flop raisers, but I did not feel that way when I first started playing. (Of course, I still don’t usually like an opponent to make a pre-flop raise when it’s my blind).

“Generally the raiser has A23 or some sort of AA hand”

I don’t think so. Not if you usually encounter pre-flop raises. Without consideration of the cards you hold, any given opponent can expect to be dealt A23X 2848/270725 times, or about one per cent of the time. That’s small enough that you can multiply it by the number of opponents you have to get the probability of at least one of them holding A23X. With nine opponents, it’s only about nine per cent - and less than that if you hold an ace, deuce, or trey yourself. In a ten-handed game, you should expect one of the ten of you to hold A23X roughly once a round (ten deals). AAXX is roughly 2.5 times more common than A23X. You might expect to see AAXX several times a round, roughly once every three or four hands in a full game. Taken together, in a nine or ten handed game you should encounter an opponent with A23X or AAXX less than half the time. I’ll bet some of your opponents are raising with bare A2XX hands or worse. At least that’s what I encounter.

What to do, how to play, depends somewhat on the credibility of the particular opponent who is raising. There’s an old adage from bridge, “One peek is worth two finesses.” If you’re certain someone raising before the flop has A2XX or AAXX, then you have a clear advantage. You might tend to devalue an A2XX or AAXX you, yourself, might hold. With A34Ks or A35Qd, I think I might want to see the flop and then make a decision. With such a hand, you’ll see a flop with a deuce plus at least one other low card about one fourth of the time - and/or, depending on your exact holding, you might catch another draw, perhaps the nut flush draw. When your opponent holds A2XX, you won’t see a flop with a deuce plus another low card quite that often. (You'll get a flop with a deuce and another low card more like one sixth of the time than one fourth of the time).

I personally don’t like to gamble except for small stakes and for fun. I might bet a few bucks on a football game with a friend - but I never have even considered betting on a football game at a sports counter in a casino - and I love to watch football. Or I’ll place one five dollar bet on the pass line when I walk by a craps table in a casino and then pick up and leave whether I’ve won or lost. (My wife thinks I’m a big time gambler when I do that).

But if you sit down at an O-8 table and an opponent raises before the flop, even if you don’t like to gamble, sometimes you’re forced to gamble. Whether to tighten up or loosen up depends entirely on who is doing the raising.

Against solid but unimaginative players, you might tend to tighten up starting hand requirements when faced with a pre-flop raise. Against opponents who raise with certain types of hands, as A2XX or AAXX, you might take their specific hands in consideration and modify your starting hand requirements accordingly.

Against players who play too many hands and raise with crap, I’ll tend to loosen my starting hand requirements. It just depends. Same with re-raises from the big blind. If I think an opponent is trying to intimidate me, I’ll often re-raise (but not generally against a maniac) with hands that might make you lift your eyebrows. Like I used to teach my sons when they were growing up, the best defense against a bully is showing courage with a hard sock to the nose of the bully. Nobody likes to get a hard sock in the nose. Sometimes you encounter bullies at the poker table - and when you do, I think the defense against them is to teach them respect by showing courage yourself and going on the offensive.

Just my opinion.

Buzz

[iblucky4u2]

If the raiser is tight and solid then definately tighten up your requirements for raises. One advantage at low limit O/8 is raisers tend to have the A23 type hands so you have the advantage of knowing what they have.

If the raise is from a maniac then I like to be aggressive with a variety of hands. High hands play better against smaller fields, so I like to reraise with 4 high cards to limit the field and increase my profit on those scoopers. Hands like A3s plus high pairs are definately reraises - IMHO.
Unlike others, I like hands like KK or QQ with a 23 where if an A or high hits I am golden.
Then there is the issue of table image. If you have a tight aggressive image and have been winning your fair share, loosen up a bit. The value to call with a less than premium hand and win a pot over a great hand is a huge psychological advantage. The raisers start talking to themselves and then they start playing poorly and then you start stacking their chips /images/graemlins/smile.gif
Of course, in all of the above, if you miss the flop, get out quickly and save your chips for a better situation.

[chaos]

I play pretty tight preflop. So I play just about the same selection of hands if it is raised that I play from early position. Basically the difference in my hand selection for early position and late position is avoiding the weaker hands like A2 and A3 non-suited without backup for counterfeit protection.