[Buzz]

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I guess I played the first 3 streets properly with a good hand + strong low draw (?), but I have no idea what my line should be on this river.

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Harv - You could have played the first three streets differently, but the way you played them was fine. It's easy to play when you have good cards, and for the first three rounds you had good cards.

But things have a way of often changing in Omaha-8. And on the river, you simply don't have good cards any more.

On the river you really should want the ace of spades plus anther spade (for the nut flush). Or at least you want the second nut flush (here the spade queen plus another spade).

However, you have neither of these.

In a simulation of your hand, this board, and three opponents with random cards, your pair was the high hand 173/10000 times, tied for high with another pair of aces 9/10000 times and lost 9818/10000 times.

So clearly your overpair is a loser.

However a flush only won 5711/10000 times - and all of those wins were not with nut flushes.

That means something besides the nut flush wins a substantial portion of the time. Indeed, when I gave Hero the second nut flush (a queen high flush with this board) and the other three opponents random cards, the queen high flush won 8775/10000, only losing to an ace high flush 1225/10000, about one time out of eight.

There are eleven big bets in the pot and nobody probably holds the nut flush. Will a bet from Hero induce everybody who doesn’t have the nut flush to fold? Will a bet from Hero induce everybody who doesn’t have a flush to fold? A bet by Hero would amount to a pure bluff. What if Hero has not been caught in a bluff? Is this a reasonable place to try one?

I don’t know the answers because they depend on Hero’s image in the eyes of his opponents and they also depend on Hero’s opponents and their perception of what it takes to win here.

Understand that Hero’s overpair is garbage. However, this is a place Hero might get away with a bluff, especially if these opponents have all been known to fold to a bet on the river. And if Hero gets caught, well, maybe Hero should never bluff against these particular opponents again - but in that case they’ll always pay him off when he bets a winner on the river. (And that cannot be bad in Omaha-8).

So what should your line be on the river, Harv? I don’t know. Check/folding is one choice and was my first impulse.

On the other hand, this doesn’t seem a bad place to try a bluff. You ought to at least consider a bluff. (But if you’ve already been caught bluffing, keep in mind that a bluff is less likely to work).

Buzz