PLO jamming with middle set

[rigoletto]

Paradise $2/4 pot limit omaha.

Table is loose. I get 7h 7c Kc Ks i MP. Small stack 1 (SM1 $148) calls, big stack (BS $543) calls, I triple the big blind (stack $406), small stack 2 (SM2) calls cold, and the big blind completes. 5 see the flop to the tune of $62

Flop: 9h 7s 4s

SM1 checks, BS bets $4, with middle set I want to be heads up against the flush draw, so I bet the pot. SM2 calls as does BS, the rest fold.

Turn: 9h 7s 4s 2c

Well that didn't help anybody. Checked to me, I'm only behind to 99, so I bet the pot leaving me $36 which gives me good enough odds to cry call the river if a scary card falls. SM2 calls all in and SB calls.

So what do you think?

[dogsballs]

Looks fine to me. Just got to sweat the river card and if you lose your stack, well, you lose your stack, but they paid the price to draw on you.

Like you say, it's only 99 that's ahead (so far) but noone's told you it's out there.

[Big Dave D]

Im not a huge fan of the preflop raise in these loose online games. It very rarely narrows the field and you're increasing your variance greatly. And of course these players are often so clueless that the money goes in anyway. This is especially true of your hand as its a hit trips or fold kinda hand, so why increase the stakes?

gl

Dave D

[crockpot]

i like your play all around. it would be nice if your second pair was bigger for your preflop raise, but i find this sort of pot-building raise works well to encourage callers if you hit a set. with a hand like KKTT a raise is practically mandatory if it will encourage your opponents to play worse postflop.

no one is representing top set, even though it's not impossible that it's out there. big draws, which would be favored over your set, are not that likely to be out in your opponents' hands, and with two opponents you are surely getting good odds on a bet unless someone is lurking with the trip nines. so fire 'em in there!

[rigoletto]

[ QUOTE ]
Im not a huge fan of the preflop raise in these loose online games. It very rarely narrows the field and you're increasing your variance greatly. And of course these players are often so clueless that the money goes in anyway. This is especially true of your hand as its a hit trips or fold kinda hand, so why increase the stakes?

gl

Dave D

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I'm new to PLO but it seems to me that a hit or fold hand like this doesn't increase variance very much - the variance would be much greater with a drawing hand where I'd have to see the turn. I don't raise to knock people out here, I raise to get money in the pot for when I hit my set.

[Big Dave D]

"...don't raise to knock people out here, I raise to get money in the pot for when I hit my set."

Which you did and then you hit...but you still didn't feel good about the hand or else you wouldnt have posted it? Would you have raised preflop with KKxx? If so then you might as raise with all your naked pairs. As you discovered, the 77 isnt that much of an asset here, in that even if you feel you are in front with it as a set, it is always vulnerable.

gl

dd

[rigoletto]

Which you did and then you hit...but you still didn't feel good about the hand or else you wouldnt have posted it

Your assumption doesn't hold up. I felt good about my play all the way through, but I have limited experience with Omaha and wanted to confirm/shoot down my own analysis.

And no, I don't raise naked pairs, but I do think it's nescessary to raise with a varaity of hands paricularly in late position. The variance of preflop raising is nothing compared to the value of putting people all in on the flop with a good hand - I think.

[Big Dave D]

In B&M, good Omaha players can fall into two camps...almost never raising and raising with a wide variety of hands. Clearly you need to add these other raising hands so that you don't get pushed around post flop when you have AA. However, this raise a (comparatively) lot approach relies on two factors - people having large stacks in relation to the blinds and having to be deceptive in the first place. Neither of these is normally true online. With the standard of play being uniformally bad online, you can be much more cleverer about pot size manipulation techniques and you can feel fairly certain that a big pot can still be generated without deceptive preflop raise.

From what I have seen, and experienced in plo online play, you could get away with only raising a tiny % of hands you played, if any, without it really hitting your earn. This isn't limit holdem, where you are trying to exploit tiny mathematical edges. You are trying to create situations where you can capture a persons whole stack. For example, in limit holdem it would never be wrong to cap with AA preflop. However I can think of some scenarios where passing AA in PLO preflop would be very reasonable.

gl