Hey folks. A very happy fake birthday to me! There’s a long story behind that, but the short one is that as a kid, my mom forged my birth certificate to read December 1 instead of December 11 so that I would not have to wait until the next year to start school. The result was that every year on Dec. 1, I had to pretend that it was my birthday at school. That meant the munchkins came in 10 days early. It got to the point that just a few years ago, my own brother couldn’t remember which birthday was real. Oh, and for this year, I’ll be spending my real birthday in Vegas, solo aside from my fellow blogger brethren. Is there anything more degen then going to Vegas “alone” for your birthday? I’m sure there is, but that’s degen enough for me.
Today’s post is really about an Omaha H/L hand that I played on PokerStars. I have been playing a lot on Stars, mixing it up between their Turbo NLHE and PLO8 SNGs (all single table except for a two-table PLO8 game I played and took 2nd in last night), the Double-or-Nothing tables, and every once in a while, an 8-Game SNG. I’ve been multitabling up to four tables, usually to keep from boredom and to address some of the variance. I’m only playing with something like 15-30 buy-ins, which is pretty short, but since I withdraw my online money into my real money whenever it gets significantly high (or after any big score), my online roll is really not limited to the $ actually online.
I was playing a $16 single table PLO8 tournament and we were still at 10/20 when this hand happened.
I was at 1,850, and no one else was over 1500. Go figure. I was dealt4
7
3
5
in UTG+2 at the full 9-person table. It folded to UTG+1 who called, and then I called. The Hijack calls (two off the button), and the button raised to 100. The SB and UTG+1 called and I decided to call as well. The Hijack also came along for the ride. There was 520 in the pot.
At the time, my thinking was that I had three wheel cards and a potential scoop hand. I was willing to call 20 because it was so small, and 100 wasn’t that much bigger given the amount of players in the pot and the size of our stacks. I knew if I hit a crappy flop, I’d get out of the hand.
The flop was 2 6 9. That gave me a wrap. Any Ace gave me the nut low. Any three, four, five, or eight gave me a straight (which was vulnerable to a flush). I also had a lot of draws to the second nut low.
It checked to me and I check as well. The Hijack wakes up and bets pot, 520. The button folds and then the SB pushed all-in for 1290. I decided to overpush for my full stack since I had everyone covered. Hijack also came along for the ride.
This wasn’t a snap-call. I took my time and tried to mull it over. I finally decided that I had too many draws to the nuts and/or close to the nuts. I was essentially playing both ways for the high and low, so I figured it was a good time to gamble. Keep in mind that when it got to me, the pot was alread at 2,200+ (520 post-flop, 520 hijack bet, 1200+ check-raise all-in) and all I had to pay was about 1300, since I had everyone covered. If Hijack came along for the ride, the pot would reach 3000+ (not including my call). But in hindsight, I still don’t know if my hand was strong enough for this play.
The turn was a J and the river was a 7.
My opponents showed:
SB: A K 4 A (high hand: pair of Aces; low hand: 7642A)
Hijack: 6 9 K 9 (high hand: set of Nines; no low hand)
As you recall, I had 4 7 3 5 (high hand: pair of Sevens; low hand, 76432).
I won half of a tiny side pot for 70 and was left with a little over 300 chips.
Now, before the commentary, I want you all to try to think about playing for a win. Does it make sense to take this gamble early? Was it a good gamble or a bad one?
I know some people will instantly think that the correct move was to fold on the check-raise by the SB on the flop. That may be correct. I just want to understand why. To me, the call was marginal at that point, but is it worse than marginal?
I’m really interested in some other opinions on this hand, so any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Until next time, make mine poker!
December 2nd, 2009 - 2:30 am
Fold preflop. Your position sucks and you shouldn’t expect many of your aces to be live if you flop a decent draw. Also you are very rarely flopping a nut low draw. You can find much better spots to gamble.
December 2nd, 2009 - 10:02 am
Hand is fine until overpushing – not because you haven’t flopped a huge draw – mathwise, you’re probably fine stacking off here – but because you’re going to play a multiway pot for most of your stack with no fold equity where you have to get there, and even if you make it, there’s no guarantee you’ll hold for even half the pot (resucks with flushes/boats/better lows, etc) – you’re courting way too much variance for a Stars PLO8 single-table SnG. Hitting the eject button with 1750 in chips in level 1 and one person likely gone after this hand isn’t a bad thing.
Actually, the turbo Stars structure isn’t all that bad for PLO8. It’s not as fast as you think, so you do have time to bet/raise people off of pots postflop and accumulate chips with far less variance. If this was a two-table SnG, or a FT SnG, where the structure plays quicker, I like gambooling more.
December 2nd, 2009 - 4:34 pm
I agree with HeffMike.
Pick a better spot and stay out of it. You stated that you had “three wheel cards and a scoop hand” which is only half true. As you found out, people jam with Axxx where “x” is at least one low card. That means you’re behind, even on the low. If you want to fiddle around with these hands in late-middle or late position, go ahead, but stay away from them in early position.
I don’t mind you stacking off with a draw, honestly, but what did you think everyone else had? It doesn’t seem like you considered that at all based on what you’ve written. You did have a draw to the high, but you were guaranteed to be up against at least one Axxx hand which means you were pretty far behind for the low. I’m actually surprised you accounted for “any Ace” on the flop because, even at the low levels of PLO8, people call all kinds of stuff with Ace-low hands because they know they have a shot at 1/2 of the pot.