Omaha starting hand question (1 Viewer)

[DrStrange]

Playing seven handed, dealers choice. Special rules for tonight are: 1) dealer posts a dead $1 and calls his/her game, 2) no blinds or antes, 3) action starts with the first person to the left of the dealer except for stud games, 4) betting is $1 to $4 spread limit, four bets max.

The players are mostly novices at the exotic games, but we play Omaha a lot on other nights. The table is hyper loose and rather passive pre-flop in general, Omaha is no exception. This game attracts my core regulars for low stakes games and almost none of the high dollar 1-2 crowd.

Because the game is spread limit stack depths don't matter, everyone has enough to play for max bets till the end of the hand.

The Hand:

Hero has middle position playing Omaha (high only) and holds . Everyone is limping, three so far and almost certain to get the rest of the table if Hero limps. If Hero raises, I'd expect most of the table to call.

So what should Hero do? Fold, limp for a buck or raise? I'll assume a $4 raise unless someone says otherwise.

Fun times -=- DrStrange

PS We play this game with a mountain of $1 chips from the PJ Pockets in Washington - I bought 2,300 of these for less than $0.10 per chip. Makes pot splitting easy and no one ever wants / needs change.

 

[detroitdad]

Not a bad PLO hand. Not great either though. Suited Ace, connectors...........

I don't think this is a hand you need to build a big pot with pre flop since its not going to clear anyone out. I would see the flop for the minimum.

 

[Mental Nomad]

Tough question. Going to follow the discussion here... Not strong in Omaha.

In spread-limit, a strong opener needs to bet for value right from the start, so I'd expect a raise... And ours is not a strong opener. Fortunately, they sound pretty passive, pre.

Hyper-loose makes it sound like you'll have time to build a pot if you flop well... Your straights and straight draws will not look scary, especially the ones you like (the ones with no flush draws), so you may get a lots of calls from pairs and even overcards. So I lean towards limping.

If I raise, I plan to fold an awful lot of flops (and this doesn't sound like a game that ends many hands with no showdown.)

 

[DrStrange]

I'd guess about 10% of Omaha hands end prior to show down in this game. Most of the players hate to fold, and when you are risking $4 to win $50 you don't have to be right very often.

DrStrange

 

[H|Q]

Hard to flop the nuts then defend against strong draws assuming you do. Hitting the flush would likely kill most of your action in my game. Spread limit adds to the action so I would call and try to see a cheaper flop.

 

[Forest@Farmington]

Not my strong suite but, I would call and see how the hand progresses. If you raise and callers you are probably behind by some big pairs and would need to catch up.

 

[mike32]

I would call all day with that hand in that game.

 

[AlPresidente]

Seems a pretty clear raise to my inexperienced eyes.

 

[courage]

Suited ace and weak straight cards. Limp and see a flop.

 

[Ben]

Any hand with a suited ace is a call all day here. With this structure and these players I would raise VERY few hands, especially outside of the CO or button.

 

[DrStrange]

*** Results ***

Hero raises $4. We end up with five way action and $22 in the pot

Flop:

Early position player bets $3. Is Hero done with the hand or not? Call, raise or fold?

DrStrange

 

[Mr Tree]

*** Results ***

Hero raises $4. We end up with five way action and $22 in the pot

Flop:

Early position player bets $3. Is Hero done with the hand or not? Call, raise or fold?

DrStrange

I am not an Omaha guy so the brain trust may correct me here, but my imagination isn't coming up with many ways for your hand to turn into a winner from that flop. I would dump and move on to the next hand.

 

[Forest@Farmington]

Unless you believe that you can have everyone believe you have a Queen its time to dump and move on to the next hand.

 

[courage]

5-handed, second to act...fold.

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

Fold

 

[H|Q]

Wiff!

Fold.

 

[AlPresidente]

fold

 

[SixSpeedFury]

On to the next, on on to the next one

 

[Mental Nomad]

Here's the problem with your situation... you've built a big enough pot that you almost have odds to call a $3 bet, even with an inside straight draw. If this were NL, you might argue that you have some implied odds... but it will be harder to get paid off on later rounds in spread limit; plus, the most likely hands to be raising back at you later are spade flushes and boats - the pair of queens leads to more boats than one might expect in Omaha.

So, to me, this is now an easy fold.

 

[guinness]

what the hell am i reading

Post flop 3 people behind snap fold always.

 

[abby99]

This hand has possibilities but isn't particularly strong, so I'd join the limpfest and hope the flop hits me. However, I don't think a raise is all that bad. Post flop, however, snap fold. Your hand only has 8.65% equity against four random hands, this flop has likely hit somebody, and I assume you have no fold equity.

 

[derekdd23]

Limp or fold Preflop. Fold flop for sure.

 

[DrStrange]

You are correct, Hero has no fold equity. That is how we make money in this game - make a hand and value bet relentlessly.

*** We surrender ***

Hero folds. When we end up at the river, our tricky-trappy villain finally wakes up betting having slow played every street. He tables KQs64s for the flopped full house. You'll note that he called Hero's preflop raise with that, no doubt most or all of the other hands looked something like that.

And that is what prompted the thread. I guess Hero's hand is a step better than the field, but we know that hand values are relatively close in Omaha ( Hero is 53/47 vs the winning villain's hand) I was torn between the notion of betting with small edges vs waiting till better opportunities. Folding preflop seemed like the worst choice if we are going to see a limped family pot.

Thanks for the advice -=- DrStrange

 

[abby99]

Good fold. I'm not surprised to hear that you folded, nor am I particularly surprised that villain called a relatively small raise with that hand. That's Omaha!

 

[jbutler]

I guess Hero's hand is a step better than the field, but we know that hand values are relatively close in Omaha ( Hero is 53/47 vs the winning villain's hand) I was torn between the notion of betting with small edges vs waiting till better opportunities.

jumping off from this, i wonder if playing marginal, but obviously better hands preflop is really a solid longterm strategy. considering that the name of the game in PLO (i know the above example is spread limit, but i'm thinking about PLO or NLO) is realizing equity, i wonder if we don't put ourselves in too many spots to be bet off our hand or putting ourselves in a WA/WB situation by getting to the flop with hands that are will often flop decent, but rarely great.

the above hand is not one of those imo. it can be played strongly on enough flops that seeing one is warranted. but let's say we have AsQc6s3d. that is certainly above the average hand that makes it to the flop in this game (as it is described), but how often will we actually make it to the river if we flop the best hand on a QJ5r flop? are we just calling or check-calling the whole way down hoping to dodge the entire deck? are we betting to get people to get two or three folds (an aggregate of 30%-ish equity)?

i'm just not convinced that it's as simple as playing all hands preflop which rate to be better than the average hand played in the game.

 

[Ben]

Last night in PLO there was a hand where I potted AKQQsscc from the SB (after the whole table limped, of course) - ended up chopping a 300 bb pot with AxKx8h3h (both trip K's with A kicker) - the worst part was there were 2 hearts on the flop and I was getting freerolled.

LOL omahaaments.

 

[Mental Nomad]

That is how we make money in this game - make a hand and value bet relentlessly.

Exactly. If your holding was a favorite vs. the field, your PF raise was correct. (Doesn't matter if it was a favorite vs. villain PF.)

I'd argue that the villain probably made a classic Limit error by slow-playing until the river... in a sticky limit game like this, where people are unlikely to fold, you should usually start value betting and raising earlier. The decision to slow-play isn't based just on having a strong hand - it's based on fearing that your opponents will fold. In limit, it's much harder to accidentally raise so hard that you fold the field. In fact, if you don't get more money in early, you're less likely to collect crying calls on the river.

You didn't give the whole story re: position and the turn and etc., but generally speaking, slow-playing a monster in limit happens much too often.

 

[courage]

Hand values are so close in PLO that I often limp or do small raise pf with wide holdings so as not to telegraph the big hands. But SPR, position and number of players in the hand have more bearing on whether or not I'll try to blow up the pot PF.

 

[DrStrange]

The way I am thinking about this problem is this: Hero's hand has a small edge vs the field - say 23% equity in a five way hand. At first glance this is an easy raise in that Hero gets $5.75 in equity for a $5 bet.

But it isn't that simple.
1) Hero's position is not great but not terrible either.
2) Hero has some implied odds going for the nut flush vs villain that will call down with any flush.
3) A chunk of Hero's equity is very hard to earn because it is based on winning with a top pair or comparable weak Omaha hand (Hero should expect to be put to the test at least one street.)
4) so Hero has some RIO problems too - when he flops top pair or two pair on a coordinated board it will be hard not to pay off several bets to 'protect' his equity.

After thinking about it, I suspect Hero needs a wider limping range at the expense of his raising range.

But I could be persuaded otherwise -=- DrStrange

 

[Bordizzle]

if it's a $4 max bet, i'd ram & jam with that hand EVERY SINGLE TIME... may as well build a huge pot and it doesn't cost you too much

if it's fer realz plo, i'd limp in early / mid position and may put a smallish raise in there (as long as nobody else raised) in late position