PLO 0.25/0.50 at Stars

[adam74]

Just wondering if anyone folds this on either the flop or the turn.

I'm in middle position. Main opponent is immediately to my right, with $52.70. I have him covered.

I'm dealt:

A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

and limp, along with 5 others, to see a flop of:

6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]5 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].

Guy to my right bets $2.50, I raise another $8.10 and everyone else folds. Same guy reraises another $24.30. He has $17.30 left and the pot is around $50, including his reraise. With very little hope of improving, does anyone let this go?

Anyway, I call. The turn brings:

K [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img],

he bets his last $17.30, and I call. How about folding here?

The river is:

A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

and he shows

8 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]6 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].

Using the specific cards held by both of us, TwoDimes gives me 40% equity on the flop, where I was faced with a call of $25 into a pot of $50; and 34% equity on the turn, where I was faced with a call of $17 into a pot of $90. So I guess that answers my question. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

So...any comments? Or is it pretty straightforward?

On the subject of whether I should have raised pre-flop...that's debatable, of course. But in this particular instance, it wouldn't have made any difference, as this particular opponent would have called that raise with the hand that he had anyway.

Thanks.

[nicky g]

With no flush draw and not too many higher straight draws threatening I don't think you can ever fold the flop here. There's not enough left to fold the turn, in fact if you're going to call the reraise on the flop I think you may as well go all in.
I think however that a. you should definitely raise preflop - you have a nice hand there so why not build a pot; and b. I would think about just calling his initial bet on the flop if you think he's likely to have the straight - you don't want to be knocking others out if you're likely tto be splitting, you don't have much in the way of improvement, and you can see what the turn brings without being committed and leave yourself some room to manoeuvre. If he is solid you could consider a bluff if the board pairs and he checks to you.

[Guy McSucker]

No, don't fold on the flop or on the turn.

On the flop, you have the nuts, and a fairly robust hand. You will still have the nuts on fourth street most of the time. Of course you are in trouble if your opponent has something like 7899, but that's very unlikely. More often he has at most four freeroll outs against you; more often still, you're a strong favourite.

You have a lot of fourth street cards that leave you with the nuts and an excellent redraw, e.g. an ace or a non-pairing heart. Furthermore you have position. This is a really good situation.

When the turn card comes, you're still holding the nuts. If he's very lucky he has turned a backdoor flush draw, but you can't fold for this small bet even if he shows you that he has 7899 or 78Tx and he has two spades.

Of course in Omaha you need to fear the nuts, and fear being freerolled, but your hand is so strong here that you can't fold.

By the way, if this is a player who would only put the third bet in on the flop with the straight (there are lots of them about), you should strongly consider betting the turn if the board pairs and he checks to you. The power of position!

Guy.

[crockpot]

there aren't enough possible redraws on the board to make me dump this on the flop, even though you can be positive he has the straight with you. change the board to 69T, or 5 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], and i'll give some serious consideration to folding in fear of a freeroll. here, it's too remote to put him on a hand like a set plus straight, or T87x. even these hands won't improve most of the time. i would be prepared to play this hand for all my chips and curse my luck if i got outdrawn.

on the turn, you have put way too much money into the pot to fold now. in fact, i would have moved all-in on the flop so i didn't second-guess myself into folding if the turn paired the board or brought a 7 or 8.

by the way, if you're going to look at your twodimes EV, it's wrong to consider only your flop call. with that much money committed you may as well move all in right there, so your real odds on the call are 67:42. (note that your call is still correct even though he has one of the best hands you can be facing.)

[ohnonotagain]

Although you probably cannot fold at any stage, one useful observation from this hand is that you are almost certainly being freerolled once your opponent re-raises the flop (the question is how badly, and what should you do?).

Since you were in middle position we assume that he was in middle or early position and not in the blinds. Then, when the flop is 569 and he re-raises you can be pretty sure he has 78 in his hand, and for him to call in early position before the flop his other cards are highly likely to be in the range 5 to 10. He only needs to have a ten in his hand to have a 4-card freeroll, and he will also have the same freeroll if he has two pairs. If he has a set then of course his freeroll is much bigger. Him having a ten is the most likely problem you will face.

The only two exceptions to the above is if (a) he is a very bad player so that he would limp in with e.g. 78KQ and I don't know how likely that is in the game you are talking about, or (b) if he had a hand like A678 suited, when his freeroll is minimal.

On another note, should you try to get it all in on the flop? As a general proposition, once you suspect or know that he has the nuts (and in particular if he may be freerolling as well), you are better off keeping the pot small so that you can take advantage of your position on later streets. E.g. on 4th street the board pairs and he checks, or a 7 comes and he bets. In the former case you miss a potential bluffing opportunity by getting all in on the flop and in the latter case you miss an opportunity to fold when you are likely drawing dead. These considerations may not apply here where there is not much money left.

Look at it from his perspective: getting all-in on the flop makes it impossible for him to make a mistake because of being out of position, and he still has his improvers.

Oh no!! Not again!

[adam74]

Hey. Thanks very much for the replies. All very interesting.

Just to reply to/comment on them all in one go:

To clarify, no he wasn't the big blind.

In terms of raising pre-flop, I guess sometimes I will and sometimes I won't with a hand like this. A lot of it will depend on the nature of the game and relative stack sizes. In this particular instance I'd been doing a fair bit of pre-flop raising from EP and MP with reasonably decent hands, only to be called by several people and then to more or less completely miss the flop. It had been getting expensive! [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Flat-calling his initial flop bet? Hmmm. I dunno. I don't think I'd ever want to do this, especially with another four players still to act after me. But I can see your point.

Going all-in on the flop? At the time I figured it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference, since I was going to be calling another bet on the turn anyway. Two things tipped the balance in favour of just calling. Firstly, I had position on him. Secondly, on the off-chance that his reraise on the flop was out-of-line, I didn't want to take the chance that he might fold, i.e. I'd want him to bet out again on the turn.

Couple of things arising out of this:

What about if we'd both had, say, $200 in front of us?

Although this particular example turns out to be fairly straightforward, it really got me thinking about what I see as the tricky issue of folding the (temporary) nuts on the flop. I suppose I'm really thinking of hitting top set, with little hope of improving, and there being flush/straight draws out there. Difficult to make any specific comments about this, I know, but any general advice?

Thanks again.

[Acesover8s]

A better play here is to just smooth-call. There is a large chance your opponent is chopping with you and has redraws, which you have backdoor redraws as well. If you raise and get reraised here, you are at best, chopping the preflop money.

Let everybody in behind you. This is party, bottom pair is going to call you. If the turn pairs the board, okay, you lose a couple bucks, and get away cheap. If the turn is good, particularly, if it brings another heart or diamond, get it all in there. You may pick up calls from second nut flush draws, etc.

A common misconception in PLO is that you should always raise the flop when holding the nuts. This is not always true, even if it is impossible for someone to be sharing the nuts with you.

[adam74]

Thanks.

Smooth-calling his flop bet was also mentioned in an earlier reply, and I've been giving it some thought and taking into account the reasons that both you and nicky-g gave. It certainly does make some sense, but there are 15 cards (I think - 3 each of 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s and 9s?) out of the 45 I haven't seen that will negate the nut hand I'm currently holding. That seems like a lot (if I've worked it out right). And I don't feel I can automatically put the bettor on the straight - he could also have bet out with 34xx (perhaps including a 2 as well), trips, two-pair...I think that they're the reasonable possibilities. So although I can see that there might be benefit in simply calling, I really think that I'd raise every time in this situation. There are simply too many cards that can turn my hand into just a straight, rather than the nuts.

On a side note, where are all the PLO posts? There used to be plenty of them. Are they being posted in another forum? Or another site that people know of?