Thanks to Paul and Eon for giving their thoughts on the hand 6!
I definitely see the merits of the points raised and they may well be more optimal lines than I took.
Being in position just made all the difference in this hand. I would have had to be far more cautious if I had been OOP. As it was there seemed to be so little interest in the pot that I thought my low could possibly be good on its own apart from having the straight for the high element of the pot.
In hand 4 we were shown just how loose the table could be though, even on scary boards. I decided that if the river was a scary card for us then we may have to check behind (assuming they check to the raiser on the river). Therefore just now, on the turn, may be the time to seek our value. With opponents calling ranges seeming wide and the possibility we are scooping I decide to go for maximum value and simply pot it for 300. We get 2 callers and the river is the Ad.
Both players who called the turn check to us on the river. I do not feel this is a 'proper scare card' due to the way the hand has unfolded. We do not have the flush sure, but we have a well disguised wheel and 1 of the players is very aggro so I feel if he had a wheel we would have hear all about it. Again as the table has been calling liberally and also as we want to put flush draws to a hard decision in order to get their split, I pot again on the river for 1200. I think there is as much chance of a bad low calling as a flush and every chance we can get paid.
They both fold though and we at least collect some chips.
In hindsight a lower bet sizing may have been more optimal on the river, I am not sure if that is being results orientated though.
Thanks for getting involved folks! Really makes all the difference
I will go get breakfast and post some hands until we get to our next interesting spot and then pause again for comments.
Situation: We are UTG+1 with As 8h 3c Qs @ the 20-40 blind level. We have a decent hand with nut possibilities for both high and low pots. UTG limps and as we are in early position we just limp in to keep a bit of control on things, especially as the table seems quite aggro and unpredictable. Also if we open raise and people call, it can be harder to tell if they are peeling with marginal hands or if they have a real hand. If we limp and aggro players just limp in behind then it makes it less likely (although still possible) that they have A2 type hands as they may raise with these. On the other hand, if we open raise, then even aggro players may still just flat call with their A2xx hands as they may be worried we have either a stronger A2xx hand or a AAxx type hand. Therefore we allow them to define their hands a little more when we limp here which means we can often play our lows with a little bit more confidence on later streets.
Play folds preflop around to the BB who checks and we see the flop of 6h 2s Qd. Now UTG is one of the most aggressive players who plays these games and it is no surprise to see him spring into action with a pot bet of 140. We could raise here but if we do there is every chance we are playing for stacks and as we are 86 BB's deep I would like to see what happens on later streets first and have a little more info before we get involved for that amount of equity, the flat call does also under rep our hand. We also do not really mind the player behind us coming along as if we make our low we have a hand that can often be quartering. We therefore just flat call.
The player behind folds and we see a turn of Ks. Our opponent fires a pot size bet of 420 again. The turn is good and bad for us. We now have a nut flush and a nut low draw but at the end of the day these are just draws, we only have 2nd top pair and even a raggy king is currently scooping us. Our opponent does play this way with a wide range of cards and a lot of this range will pay us off handsomely if we hit so there are good implied odds and we are still snap calling. Added to that we have position in the hand.
The river is the Ad as I think it was in the previous hand too. We have missed our nut draws and probably missed the chance of a big payday. We now have 2 pair and a pretty bad low hand. No surprise that our opponent throws a bet of 630 out there. So once again, what do we do?
in 1st intresting hand i may have just jammed hoping to get 1 of them to fold. would expect to half the pot at best Posted by UrABawBag2
Definitely is an option Mick and is something I would do at times.
Personally I didn't feel this hand was suitable though as just 1 player could be quartering us on the flop or turn. Also by the time we get to the turn I personally think that in general someone has the better straight and is calling and someone has the better low and is calling and if we try this we go bust on that board texture. Obviously we would have been fine in that example and you would have snagged a nice increase to your stack but I think generally to that action on that board texture would be headed for an early bath if we done this.
I won't comment on the latest hand until more people have a chance to weigh in with comments.
I am a bit of a noob at the 4 card nonsense, but I would be calling all day here. You have 2 average hands-2 pair and an 8 low. Against some players this would be a fold, but not v a very aggressive one. You only have to win 1 of the 2 hands more than 50% of the time to make this a call. Aggressor will often have 1 nut hand, but unless he has all 4 cards counting towards high and low he is usually only winning one. So it is a call against (say) AJ103. I would be far more worried if he had bet small on the turn and big here.
As played I think I'm preserving my stack and looking for a better position. If he is as aggro as you say just wait until you have it locked up and let him bet into you. Posted by eon1961
+1 to eons comments aggro player limps in pre could have 34qq 34kk type hands dont put him on a acexxx hand.
Great to have so many opinions and differing ones at that. Thanks for contributing all
My own take on the hand...
It is completely valid to say we are probably only calling here to win half the pot, so fold. I know we technically have a 2 way hand but it is unlikely we are scooping. I think against other players I have more of a decision to make here.
As it was I called pretty quickly againt this player. I am not trying to spite call the player but if he is going to be continually aggressive like this (which he is) and make drawing so expensive then we have to be able to make some thin reads so we do not get steam-rollered every time we meet players like this. We also have some of our chips out there in the middle.
I think his range is full mostly of hands we chop against. If he had a34x then I feel he would probably have raised preflop and his betting did not look like 34 and even in these scenarios we still chop the pot most of the time. I think this makes it questionable if he has much/any low orientation to his hand. As played he hasn't been representing a TJ hand either. I think it is more likely he has a lot of dry sets he has tried to blast us out of the pots with or make us pay the max to draw to our low, I would also say there are a lot of 2 pair combos in his range (most of which we beat).
Anyways we do chop the pot and he had a completely dry bottom set and no low.
I did actually consider pot reraising here as I thought we were probably chopping and doubted he had TJ so thought about putting him in a sticky spot with a tough decision to make. I mean even if he has TJ and snaps calls, we will often escape with our low. I decided not to get that creative at this stage though.
Situation: We get a bit more creative in this hand.
We have Jh Ah Kc 3c on the BTN and the player UTG with a 2100 stack opens for the pot (140). The Cut-off calls (with 4,355 chips), the BTN folds and action is on us. so what do we do? Stack sizes and reads start to come heavily into the equation here.
Reads: I think the UTG player had lost a pot recently and had also been quite active. The player flat calling can be pretty aggressive and has a wide enough range that they are not just calling the UTG raiser with premium holdings.
Well I learnt something important from that hand I binked vs you, when I was getting it in I thought I would be around 35% against the sort of hand you had, and with all the dead money in there and the bonus of knocking you out if I binked it would've been fine. Checked it after to see I was only 25%, something I overlooked was that if a A or 2 came my low would be counterfeited, that is something I need to be more aware of in the future!
Well I learnt something important from that hand I binked vs you, when I was getting it in I thought I would be around 35% against the sort of hand you had, and with all the dead money in there and the bonus of knocking you out if I binked it would've been fine. Checked it after to see I was only 25%, something I overlooked was that if a A or 2 came my low would be counterfeited, that is something I need to be more aware of in the future! Posted by chiggypig
Ha yeah I thought you had similar to what you had chiggy. Thought I could shake you off and collect the chips in the middle and avoid tricky calls on the turn/river. Was an interesting, albeit not profitable, hand.
P.S. This is a hand that just happened.
Would be great to hear people's thoughts on hand 11.
I'm certainly potting that hand 11, i think you have a decent chance at having the best low draw (given your previous hands at that table) and a great high holding too, i'm not the most patient in plo8 tourneys though and like to throw my chips around.
soz aint been back on to av a look was a busy night on the tables. will try av another look in the morning. im of to the alea casino tomoz 5k gtd 55 buy in so hopefully be out all day again. kicks of at 3 if you fancy it . Posted by UrABawBag2
Got a few things on tomorrow Mick but would definitely come in future. Is it like a weekly tourney?
Best of luck to you in it! Let us know how it goes
I keep meaning to go to the Genting casino as someone said their tourneys are quite good.
In Response to Re: 'Stay or Go' Style hand breakdown of a £5.50 PLO8 BH MTT - Input from players of all levels is very welcome! 4th 'interesting spot' (hand 11), WWYD? : Got a few things on tomorrow Mick but would definitely come in future. Is it like a weekly tourney? Best of luck to you in it! Let us know how it goes I keep meaning to go to the Genting casino as someone said their tourneys are quite good. Posted by markycash
not sure about this game think its just a bank holiday special.
and yea must get a meet up at gentings. they just had big game on at the w/end 50k gtd.
Chiggy and Eon vote for potting it. To be honest this may have had the same result as the way I played it.
The fact I was on the BTN and had position, and also the stack sizes were important for me here.
The UTG player had potted it, so they basically had put every chip in that they were allowed to. I didn't think this was purely down to hand strength, but rather a mixture of hand strength and steam as they had lost a few pots and were low on chips. With the hand I have and their stack I am happy to get it in here but we have a slight problem in so much as the player in the hijack has come along.
I thought (rightly or wrongly) that if I pot it the initial raiser might think I have a monster and go into flat call mode. I do hate it when we pot in these situations as we think 'okay lets get them in', we pot it and the initial raiser flat calls and gives the other player in the pot odds to call. We end up with a super inflated pot, 3 way, and unless we nail the flop are not quite sure where we are.
I therefore decided to look like I was being tricky and miniraise back at them (I know in NLHE this can be construed as having a monster but the dynamics in PLO8 are very different). I was hoping they would 'put their foot down' and continue to put every chip they could into the pot. If this happened then it puts the hijack caller to a tough decision as they realise they may have to play for their stack but we have still only put 240 chips in the pot.
We also have the BTN so even if the initial miniraiser doesn't bite and they just flat call, we get to play a hand that flops well in position post flop. The initial raiser does bite though, the hijack gets out the way, we reraise and get it in preflop as intended.
It turns out quite a thin read but we are marginally ahead and hold.
Thanks for the comments folks! Will post the result of the hand below and move on to the next hands.
Hand: 11 Hand starting stack : 3,600 Situation : We get a bit more creative in this hand. We have Jh Ah Kc 3c on the BTN and the player UTG with a 2100 stack opens for the pot (140). The Cut-off calls (with 4,355 chips), the BTN folds and action is on us. so what do we do? Stack sizes and reads start to come heavily into the equation here. Reads: I think the UTG player had lost a pot recently and had also been quite active. The player flat calling can be pretty aggressive and has a wide enough range that they are not just calling the UTG raiser with premium holdings. Player Action Cards Amount Pot Balance SB Small blind 20.00 20.00 1117.50 BB Big blind 40.00 60.00 2000.00 Your hole cards · Jh · Ah · Kc · 3c UTG Raise 140.00 200.00 1952.50 Hijack Call 140.00 340.00 4215.00 CO Fold markycash ??? ??? ??? ??? Posted by markycash
Ok, so patently we would like to isolate the shorter stack, particularly if we think he may still be growling about the previous hand, but I would ask these questions before mashing pot....
1. Cut off covers us, is he likely to get out of the way.
2. Are we prepared to play for stacks.
3. is the bounty worth us taking a high variance approach.
Whilst I agree that we have good equity in the hand, it is still relatively early and I think you have a good edge in these games, not sure that flipping is pushing your edge.
You have the button and an easy hand to play, I think raising or flatting are both fine, if you smash the flop (likely :-)) and UTG is still steaming he may go daft and aggro player will likely chase his head in which case you could take a head and decimate 4.3k man.
This may seem a bit far fetched......but I have seen how you run ;-)
Point being, I personally don't think you need to go crazy pre, others with less edge possibly should take this spot, but I see a lot of people busting or getting destroyed playing this way (and of course I have done it many times myself :-)).
Hand 12: We get 2TQK double suited in the cut off position and fold. This can look pretty but we have no low orientation and could potentially meet higher flushes. Even if the flop is something like KK3 and we get action. It is entirely possible we run into hands like AKxx and get stacked. Just no need to go there.
Hand 13:We get 36K7 double suited in the hijack position. Similar to the last hand, this can look pretty and we also have some sort of low orientation to the hand. It is just a messy hand at this stage and one we can get into trouble with so again, no need to get involved, we fold and wait on a better spot.
Comments
I definitely see the merits of the points raised and they may well be more optimal lines than I took.
Being in position just made all the difference in this hand. I would have had to be far more cautious if I had been OOP. As it was there seemed to be so little interest in the pot that I thought my low could possibly be good on its own apart from having the straight for the high element of the pot.
In hand 4 we were shown just how loose the table could be though, even on scary boards. I decided that if the river was a scary card for us then we may have to check behind (assuming they check to the raiser on the river). Therefore just now, on the turn, may be the time to seek our value. With opponents calling ranges seeming wide and the possibility we are scooping I decide to go for maximum value and simply pot it for 300. We get 2 callers and the river is the Ad.
Both players who called the turn check to us on the river. I do not feel this is a 'proper scare card' due to the way the hand has unfolded. We do not have the flush sure, but we have a well disguised wheel and 1 of the players is very aggro so I feel if he had a wheel we would have hear all about it. Again as the table has been calling liberally and also as we want to put flush draws to a hard decision in order to get their split, I pot again on the river for 1200. I think there is as much chance of a bad low calling as a flush and every chance we can get paid.
They both fold though and we at least collect some chips.
In hindsight a lower bet sizing may have been more optimal on the river, I am not sure if that is being results orientated though.
Thanks for getting involved folks! Really makes all the difference
I will go get breakfast and post some hands until we get to our next interesting spot and then pause again for comments.
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
SB
Small blind
15.00
15.00
1170.00
BB
Big blind
30.00
45.00
2670.00
Your hole cards
· 10s
· 4h
· 5s
· 3d
UTG
Raise
60.00
105.00
5320.00
CO
Call
60.00
165.00
5820.00
markycash
Call
60.00
225.00
2610.00
SB
Call
45.00
270.00
1125.00
BB
Call
30.00
300.00
2640.00
Flop
· 9d
· 3c
· 6h
SB
Check
BB
Check
UTG
Check
CO
Check
markycash
Check
Turn
· 2d
SB
Check
BB
Check
UTG
Check
CO
Check
markycash
Bet
300.00
600.00
2310.00
SB
Call
300.00
900.00
825.00
BB
Fold
UTG
Fold
botneck
Call
300.00
1200.00
5520.00
River
· Ad
SB
Check
CO
Check
markycash
Bet
1200.00
2400.00
1110.00
SB
Fold
CO
Fold
markycash
Muck
markycash
Win
<span
Hand starting stack: 3,510
Situation: We are UTG+1 with As 8h 3c Qs @ the 20-40 blind level. We have a decent hand with nut possibilities for both high and low pots. UTG limps and as we are in early position we just limp in to keep a bit of control on things, especially as the table seems quite aggro and unpredictable. Also if we open raise and people call, it can be harder to tell if they are peeling with marginal hands or if they have a real hand. If we limp and aggro players just limp in behind then it makes it less likely (although still possible) that they have A2 type hands as they may raise with these. On the other hand, if we open raise, then even aggro players may still just flat call with their A2xx hands as they may be worried we have either a stronger A2xx hand or a AAxx type hand. Therefore we allow them to define their hands a little more when we limp here which means we can often play our lows with a little bit more confidence on later streets.
Play folds preflop around to the BB who checks and we see the flop of 6h 2s Qd. Now UTG is one of the most aggressive players who plays these games and it is no surprise to see him spring into action with a pot bet of 140. We could raise here but if we do there is every chance we are playing for stacks and as we are 86 BB's deep I would like to see what happens on later streets first and have a little more info before we get involved for that amount of equity, the flat call does also under rep our hand. We also do not really mind the player behind us coming along as if we make our low we have a hand that can often be quartering. We therefore just flat call.
The player behind folds and we see a turn of Ks. Our opponent fires a pot size bet of 420 again. The turn is good and bad for us. We now have a nut flush and a nut low draw but at the end of the day these are just draws, we only have 2nd top pair and even a raggy king is currently scooping us. Our opponent does play this way with a wide range of cards and a lot of this range will pay us off handsomely if we hit so there are good implied odds and we are still snap calling. Added to that we have position in the hand.
The river is the Ad as I think it was in the previous hand too. We have missed our nut draws and probably missed the chance of a big payday. We now have 2 pair and a pretty bad low hand. No surprise that our opponent throws a bet of 630 out there. So once again, what do we do?
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
SB
Small blind
20.00
20.00
2620.00
BB
Big blind
40.00
60.00
5280.00
Your hole cards
· As
· 8h
· 3c
· Qs
UTG
Call
40.00
100.00
5480.00
markycash
Call
40.00
140.00
3470.00
CO
Fold
SB
Fold
BB
Check
Flop
· 6h
· 2s
· Qd
BB
Check
UTG
Bet
140.00
280.00
5340.00
markycash
Call
140.00
420.00
3330.00
BB
Fold
Turn
· Ks
UTG
Bet
420.00
840.00
4920.00
markycash
Call
420.00
1260.00
2910.00
River
· Ad
UTG
Bet
630.00
1890.00
4290.00
markycash
???
Personally I didn't feel this hand was suitable though as just 1 player could be quartering us on the flop or turn. Also by the time we get to the turn I personally think that in general someone has the better straight and is calling and someone has the better low and is calling and if we try this we go bust on that board texture. Obviously we would have been fine in that example and you would have snagged a nice increase to your stack but I think generally to that action on that board texture would be headed for an early bath if we done this.
I won't comment on the latest hand until more people have a chance to weigh in with comments.
I am a bit of a noob at the 4 card nonsense, but I would be calling all day here. You have 2 average hands-2 pair and an 8 low. Against some players this would be a fold, but not v a very aggressive one. You only have to win 1 of the 2 hands more than 50% of the time to make this a call. Aggressor will often have 1 nut hand, but unless he has all 4 cards counting towards high and low he is usually only winning one. So it is a call against (say) AJ103. I would be far more worried if he had bet small on the turn and big here.
+1 to eons comments aggro player limps in pre could have 34qq 34kk type hands dont put him on a acexxx hand.
My own take on the hand...
It is completely valid to say we are probably only calling here to win half the pot, so fold. I know we technically have a 2 way hand but it is unlikely we are scooping. I think against other players I have more of a decision to make here.
As it was I called pretty quickly againt this player. I am not trying to spite call the player but if he is going to be continually aggressive like this (which he is) and make drawing so expensive then we have to be able to make some thin reads so we do not get steam-rollered every time we meet players like this. We also have some of our chips out there in the middle.
Anyways we do chop the pot and he had a completely dry bottom set and no low.
I did actually consider pot reraising here as I thought we were probably chopping and doubted he had TJ so thought about putting him in a sticky spot with a tough decision to make. I mean even if he has TJ and snaps calls, we will often escape with our low. I decided not to get that creative at this stage though.
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
SB
Small blind
20.00
20.00
2620.00
BB
Big blind
40.00
60.00
5280.00
Your hole cards
· As
· 8h
· 3c
· Qs
UTG
Call
40.00
100.00
5480.00
markycash
Call
40.00
140.00
3470.00
CO
Fold
SB
Fold
BB
Check
Flop
· 6h
· 2s
· Qd
BB
Check
UTG
Bet
140.00
280.00
5340.00
markycash
Call
140.00
420.00
3330.00
BB
Fold
Turn
· Ks
UTG
Bet
420.00
840.00
4920.00
markycash
Call
420.00
1260.00
2910.00
River
· Ad
UTG
Bet
630.00
1890.00
4290.00
markycash
Call
630.00
2520.00
2280.00
UTG
Show
· 2c
· 4h
· 2h
· Kd
markycash
Show
· As
· 8h
· 3c
· Qs
UTG
Win high
Three 2s
1260.00
5550.00
markycash
Win low
8-low
1260.00
3540.00
Hand 9: We get A367 in the BB but get little action.
Hand 10: We get 994T in the SB and fold as we do not want to be drawn into the quagmire with such hands at this stage.
In hand 11 we get more creative and I will post this next...
Situation: We get a bit more creative in this hand.
We have Jh Ah Kc 3c on the BTN and the player UTG with a 2100 stack opens for the pot (140). The Cut-off calls (with 4,355 chips), the BTN folds and action is on us. so what do we do? Stack sizes and reads start to come heavily into the equation here.
Reads: I think the UTG player had lost a pot recently and had also been quite active. The player flat calling can be pretty aggressive and has a wide enough range that they are not just calling the UTG raiser with premium holdings.
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
SB
Small blind
20.00
20.00
1117.50
BB
Big blind
40.00
60.00
2000.00
Your hole cards
· Jh
· Ah
· Kc
· 3c
UTG
Raise
140.00
200.00
1952.50
Hijack
Call
140.00
340.00
4215.00
CO
Fold
markycash
???
???
???
???
P.S. This is a hand that just happened.
Would be great to hear people's thoughts on hand 11.
Best of luck to you in it! Let us know how it goes
I keep meaning to go to the Genting casino as someone said their tourneys are quite good.
Chiggy and Eon vote for potting it. To be honest this may have had the same result as the way I played it.
The fact I was on the BTN and had position, and also the stack sizes were important for me here.
The UTG player had potted it, so they basically had put every chip in that they were allowed to. I didn't think this was purely down to hand strength, but rather a mixture of hand strength and steam as they had lost a few pots and were low on chips. With the hand I have and their stack I am happy to get it in here but we have a slight problem in so much as the player in the hijack has come along.
I thought (rightly or wrongly) that if I pot it the initial raiser might think I have a monster and go into flat call mode. I do hate it when we pot in these situations as we think 'okay lets get them in', we pot it and the initial raiser flat calls and gives the other player in the pot odds to call. We end up with a super inflated pot, 3 way, and unless we nail the flop are not quite sure where we are.
I therefore decided to look like I was being tricky and miniraise back at them (I know in NLHE this can be construed as having a monster but the dynamics in PLO8 are very different). I was hoping they would 'put their foot down' and continue to put every chip they could into the pot. If this happened then it puts the hijack caller to a tough decision as they realise they may have to play for their stack but we have still only put 240 chips in the pot.
We also have the BTN so even if the initial miniraiser doesn't bite and they just flat call, we get to play a hand that flops well in position post flop. The initial raiser does bite though, the hijack gets out the way, we reraise and get it in preflop as intended.
It turns out quite a thin read but we are marginally ahead and hold.
Thanks for the comments folks! Will post the result of the hand below and move on to the next hands.
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
SB
Small blind
20.00
20.00
1117.50
BB
Big blind
40.00
60.00
2000.00
Your hole cards
· Jh
· Ah
· Kc
· 3c
UTG
Raise
140.00
200.00
1952.50
Hijack
Call
140.00
340.00
4215.00
CO
Fold
markycash
Raise
240.00
580.00
3360.00
SB
Fold
BB
Fold
UTG
Raise
780.00
1360.00
1172.50
Hijack
Fold
markycash
Raise
2720.00
4080.00
640.00
UTG
All-in
1172.50
5252.50
0.00
markycash
Unmatched bet
867.50
4385.00
1507.50
UTG
Show
· As
· 5d
· Qd
· 3h
markycash
Show
· Jh
· Ah
· Kc
· 3c
Flop
· 10s
· 10h
· Ks
Turn
· 3d
River
· 5s
markycash
Win high
Two Pairs, Kings and 10s
4385.00
5892.50
No qualifying low hand
Hand 13:We get 36K7 double suited in the hijack position. Similar to the last hand, this can look pretty and we also have some sort of low orientation to the hand. It is just a messy hand at this stage and one we can get into trouble with so again, no need to get involved, we fold and wait on a better spot.
We play hand 14 which I will detail below...