1/2 PS LO8 hand - is this hand played properly?

[Burdzthewurd]

This might sound crazy (ok it will) but does anyone fold this to the 3-bet and cap Hero has to call on the turn? There's no realistic good card that came come besides a 3. It is almost certain one of your opponents has a 6, and a 2 or 4 could easily make someone quads. Any card higher than a 6 can give one of your opponents an overfull or a higher 6s full. Plus someone is in there with the nut low, so you need to catch an ace to get any piece of that as well. See the crap you got into playing this preflop? Complete it in the SB, call a single raise with it from the BB, steal with it in LP in a tight game, muck every other time.

[J.Copperthite]

It'd be easy to think this, but given the situation I was the victim of an absolute donkstrike. It was not uncommon for players to be raising/three-betting their lows in this game. I was the only player w/ a six in the hand, and the only way I could've lost the entire pot was for one of two tens to hit on the river. The BB was literally giving his money to me and the other player w/ the nut low by threebetting the turn, but was rescued by the river. I can not see laying this hand down on the turn - no matter what hand someone else may have w/ a six in his hand, he is a dog to make a better full house no matter how you slice it. Assuming his side cards do not include a 4 or 5, he has 9 outs to a better boat, and 2 to 5 if he has an overpair and an overcard w/ his six. I'd never fold in that spot - raising and calling the cap is absolutely +EV.

If I could've seen him having TT in his hand, i'd have called the river obviously [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Preflop:

Fold. This is an awful hand, in every position. The only time I'll play this hand is if its 3 handed, and then Ill raise with it.

Flop:

If you are going to call preflop, you have to raise here. You have a lot of equity, and this is a great spot to make the other playrs call two bets cold (incorrectly) with their draws. This is a dream flop, if you arent going to raise here, I take it you would never raise a flop with 3456?

Turn:

Standard.

River:

I raise his bet 80% of the time and flat call the other 20%. BTW, you have to call the 3-bet, anyone who doesnt is a moron. There is too much in the pot to consider folding.

[J.Copperthite]

[ QUOTE ]
Flop:

If you are going to call preflop, you have to raise here. You have a lot of equity, and this is a great spot to make the other playrs call two bets cold (incorrectly) with their draws. This is a dream flop, if you arent going to raise here, I take it you would never raise a flop with 3456?


[/ QUOTE ]

The reason I did not raise was the board was very draw-heavy and my hand is vulnerable to a few specific cards. If the flush card comes on the turn, chances are I am folding on the turn, so why raise the flop, get involved, only to see my hand clearly beaten if I dime rolls off on the turn. Considering this, calling and waiting until the expensive street to raise is the right play. If a safe card comes (and it did - it gave me top boat), then I can come into action on the turn.

Regarding equity on the flop, according to cardplayer.com's omaha odds calculator, my hand has 34% equity on this flop, while A-9-4-2 has 48.9% and A-K-T-T (who has the flush draw) has 16.8% equity. I wouldn't call 34% equity high in a three-way pot - its about break-even. Thats just how I play though - i'd rather make 'em pay on the expensive street (in this case my equity jumps to 50% on the turn, while A-9-4-2 has 47.2% and A-K-T-T has 2.8%)

Obviously, if it was a rainbow flop, of course i'd have raised the flop - I would want to get the backdoor flush draws and other such weak draws to fold. In Omaha, rarely do you raise the nut straight on the flop when the board is two-suited. Why get heavily involved in a hand on the flop if the turn card may cause you to be drawing to four outs and having to call many bets?

While your rationale is not crazy, it is the "poster child" for why to never play 3-4-5-6 in a full ring game. Look at what you're saying. You hit almost an ideal flop, yet you feel that you've still got a lot of work to do and don't feel comfortable raising the flop. Why play the hand then? To hope for 2-5-6 rainbow? So then you can still play for half? I don't get it, even with your stated table reads. Good luck though, I hope it works out for you.

[J.Copperthite]

[ QUOTE ]
You hit almost an ideal flop, yet you feel that you've still got a lot of work to do and don't feel comfortable raising the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

It has nothing to do with comfort - I know the odds are against the nut straight being the nuts by the river when the flop is two-suited. I almost never raise the nut straight on a two-suited board on the flop. I wait for the turn to throw a nice card at me and then I get aggressive. I've found this increases my winrate significantly (haven't had a losing month since March of this year), which is hanging in the 4.5 BB/hr. range.

Not much to be said here. You know you made a questionable preflop call, got trapped, then got sniped. Your play was fine on every street, just got an awful river. But as we all know that's omaha.

JMO - Knoll