Flopping a set in Omaha HL/8

[tvdad]

I have brought this topic up before, but it's still bothering me. How do you play an Omaha HL/8 hand where you flop a set and there are flush and/or straight draws on the flop?

I looked back at my Paradise hand histories over the last 6 months and found 2,162 hands that qualify for this particular situation. Not enough for any sort of sound statistical analysis, I know, but it's a bothersome trend anyway.

1248 hands (58%) - the set did not improve and lost the hand.
481 hands (22%) - the set did not improve and won the hand.
258 hands (12%) - made a boat and won the hand
170 hands (8%) - made a boat and lost the hand
5 hands (<1%) - made quads and won the hand

So that's only about 34% winning hands in this situation. I should say, winning high hands. Of course there were times when I took part or all of the low, but I'm just concerned with the high strategy here.

Is this just a bad streak, or does a flopped set really end up losing this often when the threat of a straight or flush comes on the flop?

My strategy used to be bet the heck out of a flopped set until the board made a straight or flush possible, then check/call to the river and see what happens. I still do this if I've got a viable low. However, if I have no low I am seriously considering tossing the hand if there are three cards to a straight or flush on the board and someone bets into me. Is this wise?

Now if I flop a set and there are rags on the flop, the winning percentage goes way up to about 78%. The losses here mostly occur when someone with the low sticks around and hits some lucky runners, or someone flops a higher set than mine.

T

[Ray Zee]

you must not get to watch too much tv. that amount of sets with those conditions is impossible for a mortal to flop in 6 months playing. so right off your facts arent facts. recheck your stats.
anyway sets arent very good in om/8. the game is different from holdem. your betting strategy is way to loose.

[chaos]

There is no easy answer to the question How do you play an Omaha HL/8 hand where you flop a set and there are flush and/or straight draws on the flop?

As has been said countless times before, the object of the game is to scoop the pot. So the question to ask yourself is how likely is your set to scoop? If a low is already possible, and there are straight and flush draws out there and all you have is a set, you may have no outs to scoop and only a few outs to win high at the river. In such cases it is best to fold and save your chips for a better situation.

The quality of a flopped set depends on which flopped set it is. Top set is a lot stronger than bottom set. I am quite willing to release a hand of bottom set in the face of signifacant action. Bottom and middle set can be trap hands, making an under full house is likely to win a little or lose a lot. Set over set is not uncommon in Omaha. If you have the under set you are looking at only one out to win high (making quads).

Many people have trouble releasing a hand like a full house. It is engrained in them from playing other forms of poker for years that any full house is a good hand. Not so in Omaha. You want to be holding the nut full house or quads when the board pairs.

Also how the hand plays depends on the looseness and aggressiveness of the game. For example I put a lot more faith in my set when there are flush/straight draws against one or two players than when against a large field.

[Buzz]

TV Dad - Thanks for the data!

"How do you play an Omaha HL/8 hand where you flop a set and there are flush and/or straight draws on the flop?"

There's not just one best way to play a flopped set. Flopped top set is better than flopped middle set, which is better than flopped bottom set. A flopped set of kings with a flop of K-7-8, (where you're going for half the pot) is much different than a flopped set of kings with a flop of K-9-T. How many opponents you'll be facing after the flop also makes a substantial difference in how you play your flopped set. In a loose game where you're not going to blow anybody away by betting or raising, a flopped set is usually a drawing hand, even when it's top set. Depending on how many opponents you expect would call a raise and whether you're realistically playing for the whole pot or half the pot, sometimes you may want to jamb while at other times you may want to continue as cheaply as possible. Folding a flopped bottom set or middle set in a loose game when you have no other viable possibilities may be a wise play, depending specifically on what the cards are and also on your read on your opponents. However when you're one-on-one defending your blind or attacking a blind, I think you should tend to fast play almost any flopped set.

"Is this just a bad streak, or does a flopped set really end up losing this often when the threat of a straight or flush comes on the flop?"

Seems to me it depends on how tight the game is. Sets do better in tighter games than in looser games.

When you flop a set and have no other cards in your hand that match a card on the board, say you have AhKsKcQh and the flop is KdTd4c, you have seven outs on the turn and then will have ten outs on the river if you don't make your boat/quads on the turn. The probability of making a boat/quads by the time you get to the river is: (7*6/2+7*38+8*6+2*3)/990= 341/990 = 0.344.

Note that number (0.344) is not useful for obtaining odds to determine if you should call or fold on the second betting round - unless you're going "all-in" on the second betting round. On the second betting round the odds against making a full house/quads on the turn are 38 to 7, or about 5.5 to 1. Stated another way, 0.184 is the probability of making a full house/quads on the turn.

In other words, normally your flopped set will fail to improve to a full house or quads 65.6% of the time.

However, your data shows your sets failing to improve 80% of the time. I can think of two possibilities for the discrepency.

(1) Perhaps some of the discrepancy is due to not playing some hands to completion. In other words, maybe on some of the hands you bet the flop and everyone folded, or you bet the turn and then everyone folded. In these cases your unimproved set won without getting a chance to improve.

(2) You indicate you are counting flopped sets. However, another possibility (at least in my own mind at this point) is you have somehow counted sets on the river, rather than flopped sets.

"I ....found 2,162 hands that qualify for this particular situation. Not enough for any sort of sound statistical analysis...."

For some sets of data two thousand trials would not be enough, but I think two thousand trials is plenty for something as specific as set improvement data. Therefore I really think there is something amiss here (and my best guess as to what is amiss is stated in (1) and (2) above). The percentatge of improvement of flopped sets should be much closer to the calculated value than you indicate. Check it over and see if you can determine what is amiss.

In the meanwhile you are interested in how to play your flopped sets. For a starter, maybe you don't want to play starting hands with pairs below queens, unless the other two cards are some great combination. I'm not saying you don't play hands with pairs below queens - rather that you don't want to play them. In other words, when you hold something like Ah2h3s3c or AhAs3h3s, you're obviously going to be playing your pair of treys as part of your starting hand (so as to play the other two great cards in your hand).

But when you play Ah2h3s3c or AhAs3h3s as a starting hand, be wary when you catch a trey on the flop, if that is all you catch; it may be very difficult to get away from the hand. At any rate, my first suggestion is to not want to play a hand with a pair below queens - and I don't even like queens much, preferring aces or kings when playing a starting hand with a pair.

The reason to not play starting hands with a pair below queens is by not playing these starting hands you tend to avoid making a losing full house.

Just my opinion.

Buzz

[Aragorn]

Buzz said it all pretty well, but here is a short version. 1) It depends on which set it is. Bottom set in usually a disaster in Omaha.

2) It depends on whether there is a low out there. If you are only playing for half the pot, your hand is much weaker.

3) It depends on how many draws are out there. If there are both straight and flush draws, you are likely the dog in the hand.

[tvdad]

No, I don't watch a whole lot of TV. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

My data are correct. I sit at the Omaha tables for hours at a time, and it's not at all unusual to have this situation come up a few dozen times a day with the cards I play.

Maybe I do play a bit too loose. I tend to limp in with a pair of Jacks or better as long as the other two cards are coordinated, so I'm in a lot of pots where the flop has no low cards and I'm fighting it out with one, maybe two other players for the high scoop. Of course if the flop misses me completely I fold, which I admit happens a lot because of this loose play. And then sometimes I bet out what I think is the best high hand only to have someone chase a runner-runner low to split the pot, but that's okay if there's a third player in the hand who I think I've got beat.

The reason I asked the question in the first place was to figure out how often a flopped set should win against a straight and/or flush draw. I know I'm playing loose with my starting hands, but I would have expected a few more of my sets to win. If I'm wrong, then it's time for a strategy shift.

T

[tvdad]

Thanks for the detailed response, Buzz. That was exactly what I was looking for.

It turns out you were right about my mistake in the calculations. I included all hands, even those that ended before the river was dealt, in the "22% - the set did not improve and won the hand." Recalculating that 22% comes out like this:

282 hands (13%) - unimproved set won when all folded before the river
199 hands (9%) - the set did not improve and i won the hand

If my math is right, that works out to 66.9% unimproved sets when played to the river, pretty close to your 65.6% calculation.

One situation I need to work on is when I've got the middle or bottom set. As you can see from my stats, I lose a good number of hands when I hit a boat and lose to a bigger boat. This usually happens when I've got something like A225 and the board comes 29JJT. I just don't fold often enough when the table action indicates I'm beat. Too often I think the guy hit a straight (or flush if the board is suited) but sure enough he's got the bigger boat.

T