This "only play the nuts..." business in O8

[AKQJ10]

I have to admit that i'm a bit confused about the oft-repeated advice "only play the nuts or a draw to the nuts" in Omaha 8. A hand i just played at Pacific's .05-.10 table illustrates the kind of thing that drives me crazy. (I'm going from memory because Pac's silly animated history isn't working.)

My first hand in, posting the big blind in the cutoff, I get dealt JJ74 with the 74 suited in diamonds. 7 or so limp in. I flop the nut high, 653 rainbow, with the 3d, although that puts a low on the board and may well be one of the "sucker straights" discussed the other day. I bet it pretty aggressively anyway, putting in the second raise, because I figure that I can possibly drive out some of those other potential hands to beat me, but there are still 5 or 6 left in the pot. The turn is the 6d, so now bigger hands are possible but i'm also drawing at a straight flush. I back off but still end up calling 3 bets IIRC. Then i river a jack, which means i've now got the biggest possible full house, so i reraise on the river and we end up capping it, still 4 or 5 people left in the now-immense pot.

You can probably guess how this story ends; someone shows down the other sixes to make the only hand that can beat me. I wasted 10 BB or so chasing a nut hand that turned into a totally different 2nd-best hand. I can't imagine that i misplayed this, other than possibly putting in that last raise (I usually forget to consider quads when quizzing myself on "What is the nut hand now?"). I know the chances that both sixes are in the same hand aren't infinitesimal, but my play should be +EV shouldn't it?

I'm particularly frustrated because of a bad 11-hour O8 session at Foxwoods yesterday, but that's a story for a different post (if i get around to it)....

[Ghazban]

This sort of thing happens a lot more in Omaha than holdem for obvious reasons (more hole cards/player and the inherent chasing nature of the game, particularly by poor players). If its any consolation, you're going to win the high half of the pot with your top full house more than enough times to compensate for the times your run into quads or a straight flush. Flopping a straight is much weaker in Omaha than holdem, too, as they can be counterfeit fairly easily and, by the time all the cards are out, there's often a boat/quads or flush possibility out, too.

[West]

I would say that this is definitely what is meant by a "sucker straight". First, you are absolutely, positively playing for half the pot. The low has flopped, and it would take an insane miracle for you to somehow scoop the low. You're playing for half the pot. All you have for backup is a 7 high backdoor flush redraw, which I believe is 21 to 1 against hitting, and probably will be no good even if you DID hit it given the amount of opponents you have, and a miracle runner runner full house draw (which it of course you wound up hitting, but your odds of that were worse than 1 in 100.)

In one of those links you posted, there was a discussion about a hand that also had a 653 flop, but the guy had 2478 instead of JJ74, and thus had two things going for him that JJ74 doesn't - he had a draw to a wheel (and thus was not necessarily playing for only half the pot), and having the eight in his hand meant that although his straight was vulnerable to flush draws and the board pairing, it was less vulnerable to a higher straight hitting. Any 4,7,8 or 9 along with any pair hitting the board takes the nuts away from you. That's a whopping 25 cards out of 44 you haven't seen, with two cards to come. AND you've got tons of opponents (just realized you said this was .05/.10 - so I'm guessing there's not a lot of folding - which means you're straight has next to no chance of holding up). AND you're playing for half the pot, if that - someone else could easily have the same straight, in which case you're playing for a quarter of the pot. With very little chance of hitting anything better that will win. The lows are basically freerolling on you with whatever high draws they have, be it backdoor flush draws, any kind of straight draw, or even trips. Fold in a heartbeat.

Losing the jacks full to four sixes is just a bad beat. But on the turn you basically were calling with three outs (and as it turned out, 1 out, but most of the time you'd have 3) - two jacks and the 5d. That's 3 in 44, or just better than 15 to 1. 7 small bets preflop, plus 18 or so on the flop (you said you put in a second raise, so I'm assuming that means three bets per customer on the flop) is 25 SB, or $1.25. Even if it was a single bet to you with everyone acting in front of you, say, 4 players, and they all just call, you'd be paying .10 for a shot at the high half of what's in the pot ($1.65/2 = $.825), plus the $.05 of your $.10 that would come back to you, plus whatever you might profit if you hit (implied odds). Paying more than one bet on the turn means getting even worse odds. You weren't getting the odds to stay in on the turn.

[West]

That should say 23 out of 45 cards that will change the nuts on the turn. You have one of the 4s and one of the 7s. If a 3,4,5,6,7,8, or 9 doesn't hit on the turn then there will be 26 cards that could change the nuts on the river (add the three cards that would pair with the turn card) plus some additional flush cards in the likely event that the turn put a flush draw on the board. For example, say the turn was a Ten, but put a flush draw out. Say it's clubs, and say you have the Jack of clubs, but no other clubs. So now you can add the A,2,Q or K of clubs too - making 30 cards out of 44 that would change the nuts.

[West]

Thinking about this some more, as I was wondering if my thought to "fold in a heartbeat" was a little hasty. The truth is, I'm new to thinking about "sucker straights". Your odds of the nuts changing by the river are (23/45)+(22/45*26/44)=80%, not counting the potential backdoor flush outs that would push the % higher. Of course, just because the nuts changes, there isn't a guarantee that someone will have it. Maybe you have to judge here based on the game, your opponents and your position whether you can see the turn for a single bet. But I'm thinking that unless you're position is great you should probably fold, since there's such a large probability that you're nuts will not be the nuts by the river, and it's a virtual certainty that you are playing for no more than half the pot. Another factor here is that there was no preflop raise, though lots of players paid to see the flop.

[L0QTiS]

You can pretty much write off trying to "drive out" opponents at this level, or at any level when the game is that loose. I'm generalizing here, but this applies to most games I play at Pacific (through 3-6 and probably beyond).

Tenner/Krieger recommends that you check and call nut straight when you get a 3 low card flop (unless you also have a good low). This infers that you should probably fold a non nut straight.

Given the hand you describe, you're competing for only 1/2 of the pot. I think you need to keep this in mind throughout the hand. Under these conditions, I'd probably check the flop and call one bet - and perhaps fold to significant action. On the turn, you're chasing 3 outs for 1/2 of the pot if you current straight doesn't hold up.

On the river... you play is ok, and really cant think you're up against quads, but it happens. As the other responder points out, you'll be on the winning end of this more often than not (in theory at least) in the long run.

[PapaSan]

You clearly should fold on the turn, u either called 2 bets cold or 3 when it was clear u were beaten but u didnt, your bet/raise or reraise on the river im sure most players would've done the same.

You said u were drawing to a straight flush this is only 2 outs because in all likelihood if u hit any other diamond i wouldnt think your flush would be high enough and i wouldnt even consider this as a valid redraw when contemplating the turn call.

The fact that you question and analyze your play puts you ahead of 90% of the monkeys at pacific, keep plugging away.

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
I know the chances that both sixes are in the same hand aren't infinitesimal, but my play should be +EV shouldn't it?

[/ QUOTE ]

AKQJT - Yes. Your play is +EV.

But about once every twenty hands or so in an overly loose game your full house will get cracked by quads.

It's a bummer when it happens.

And you probably won't get to return the favor (unless you happen to have posted the unraised big blind), since you shouldn't be playing a hand with a pair of sixes, unless your other two cards are AA, A2, or A3 - hopefully at least suited to an ace, and preferably double suited.

Just smile and say "nice hand" to the player who beat you with the quad sixes (and thus is presumably playing too loosely). Assuming you play well enough, you should be able to show a tidy profit for the session.

Just my opinion.

Buzz

[AKQJ10]

Thanks as always to everyone who replied.

Thinking about it clearly, I see now that my real error was calling multiple bets on the turn. I got really "lucky" (actually profoundly unlucky!) to make a full house on the river, but I should have left the hand by then anyway. Just to clarify, on the turn don't I have 3 outs -- the two jacks and the 5 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]? Seems like that would require pot odds of 41:3, or 14:1, plus a little bit more because of the remote possibility of quads, so let's say 15:1. I would have gotten that and then some had it been only one bet to call on the turn. In the actual hand it was the nut low and the trip/quad sixes that were raising and reraising, with 3 or 4 overcallers, so I didn't have odds to stay -- and if i'd taken 10 seconds to count my outs instead of getting excited about the straight flush draw, i would have realized that.

As for the big picture -- O8 is a tricky game, at least w/r/t Hold 'Em, and it's going to take some time before i can count outs (especially opposing outs against me) in my head. I have no doubt that we're analyzing my play on a level far beyond anything that crosses the minds of 90% of the players at Pacific micro-limits or Foxwoods 2/4 (and probably 5/10!). That said, I am going to go back to emphasizing HE somewhat and aim for a ratio of 2:1 HE:O8 both online and at Foxwoods. I still enjoy the calculations involved in O8 and intend to work on improving at it; it's just that it's easier to feel like i'm making progress at HE, and i need that feeling of progress to keep myself interested in a hobby. (That's why poker's so great for us ADD kids; you can change games every couple of weeks and still be learning general poker skills so that the different games reinforce each other.) And I need to not overreact to short term results of course -- it was a nice session at Foxwoods a couple of weeks back that encouraged me to go from dabbling in some Omaha to giving it priority over HE, but in reality I'd like to learn to play both, and eventually other kinds of poker too.

[West]

[ QUOTE ]
Just to clarify, on the turn don't I have 3 outs -- the two jacks and the 5 ? Seems like that would require pot odds of 41:3, or 14:1, plus a little bit more because of the remote possibility of quads, so let's say 15:1. I would have gotten that and then some had it been only one bet to call on the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]

Keep in mind that your winning cards are only for half the pot - so your pot odds have to be figured relative to the half that you can win.

Previously, I wrote:

[ QUOTE ]
But on the turn you basically were calling with three outs (and as it turned out, 1 out, but most of the time you'd have 3) - two jacks and the 5d. That's 3 in 44, or just better than 15 to 1. 7 small bets preflop, plus 18 or so on the flop (you said you put in a second raise, so I'm assuming that means three bets per customer on the flop) is 25 SB, or $1.25. Even if it was a single bet to you with everyone acting in front of you, say, 4 players, and they all just call, you'd be paying .10 for a shot at the high half of what's in the pot ($1.65/2 = $.825), plus the $.05 of your $.10 that would come back to you, plus whatever you might profit if you hit (implied odds). Paying more than one bet on the turn means getting even worse odds.

[/ QUOTE ]

As you said, your odds of hitting what you think are a good high hand would be 41 to 3, or just better than 14 to 1. I tried to figure the odds you were getting to win the high half of the pot, but I think I made a bit of a mistake. Like a lot of players, I'm used to calculating pot odds hold em style, where you're usually figuring the odds with the assumption that whatever bet you're calling at the present time will be coming back to you if you win. But in Omaha/8, if you're drawing to half the pot, you have to correctly incorporate the fact that half of any bet(s) you call will go straight to the winner of the other half.

So above, I estimated that there was $1.25 in the pot (I don't know what the rake is, so I'm ignoring it). Then I'm taking a best case scenario, where you'd only have to call a single bet on the turn, because everyone acted in front of you and just called or folded. I estimated 4 callers. So I said that in this best case scenario, you're calling $.10 in to a pot of $1.65. I mistakenly suggested that you take half of that pot, then add $.05 (have of the $.10 you're calling with) to get $.875 as the figure you would use to calculate your pot odds, prior to considering implied odds. But actually, I think you should subtract $.05 to get the true figure. Meaning, your pot odds would be based on $.775 (half of $1.65, minus half of the amount of your call). I think what I saw Buzz do (and what is the easiest and most logical way) is to add in your call to the pot, then split the pot in two, then subtract out your call from the half that comes to you. That also comes to $.775. The end result should answer the question, what will I profit if I call and win? Versus, what will it cost me if I call and lose? Not considering any further betting on the river, if you call and win, you'll get back half of $1.75, or $.875, but your profit is $.775, since you paid $.10 on the turn to get it. If you lose (you didn't hit), you lose the $.10 you paid on the turn and then you fold. So here you're getting slightly less than 8 to 1, without counting implied odds.

We chose a best case scenario where you acted knowing it would only cost you $.10 on the turn, now let's say that if you hit there will be three bets each on the river, with all 4 players opposing players calling. That means you'll put in another 30 cents, and get back 75 cents, for an additional implied profit of $.45. Add this to the $.775 the pot is currently offering you on the turn, and you get $1.225. So even in this very unlikely best case scenario where you are in position and not facing a raise on the turn, and are then able to get three bets on the river from all your opponents when you make your hand, you're still getting just better than 12 to 1 implied odds on your turn call.

Let's say you knew it was going to cost you three bets on the turn, and you guestimate that 4 players will stay in along with you to see it. I estimated $1.25 in the pot after the flop. Adding the estimated $1.20 that the other 4 players will put in, gives you $2.45. It's going to cost you $.30 for a shot at half of that.

$2.45 + $.30 = $2.75
$2.75 / 2 = $1.375 - half of the pot you win if you hit
$1.375 - $.30 = $1.075 - profit if you win

Now, in calculating your implied odds, let's be generous and say no one folds on the river, and all call three bets. So if you hit on the river, you'll pay $.30, and get back $.75 additional cents, for an implied profit of $.45. Adding that to $1.075 = $1.525. So your implied odds are based on calling $.30 to gain a winning profit of $1.525 if you hit. Now you're getting a bit better than 5 to 1 on your call - much worse than when you only had to call a single bet on the turn. Now consider scenarios where you call three bets on the turn, hit, and get less action on the river - then it get's even uglier.

Ultimately, it appears to me that you aren't getting the odds to call even a single bet on the turn here.