PLO cash, big draw short handed (1 Viewer)

[Rhodeman77]

Game is $1/2 PLO/Hold’em but it is 1:45am and we are 4 handed and have gone to just PLO now.

Everyone left is at least close to even or up with Hero and main Villain being the biggest stacks.

Hero has been running great and playing very well. Sitting on $1400+ from $300 buy-in

Dustin is on a $250 stack from $300 buy-in. Was up to about $800 but has been on a down swing. Looking to gamble now.

TK is on a $1100 stack from a $600 buy-in. Made most of from Dustin in the last hour. Has started drinking but not his normal drunk self at all. Has been playing pretty snug and is happy being up right now.

Fireman- $900 stack from $300 buy-in. Won the high hand bonus for the night ($200 or so) then went on a little heater as well. Was down most of the night. Before hitting the high hand.

Hero— running very hot. Everyone is commenting about how many boats he has flopped and how everything is going g his way. Especially the AA vs KK hand.

Hero is on the button and makes it $5, Dustin calls, and TK makes it $25 to go. Fireman calls the $25 and Hero looks down at
and makes the call, Dustin calls as well and go to the flop with $100 in the pot.

Flop comes


Dustin bets $100 ($125 or so behind)
TK raises to $400
Fireman goes into the tank for a little while but ends up folding.

Action is on Hero.

Some table insights:
Hero knows TK has top set, he is never raising in this spot without it. Dustin could have middle set or some combo draw but Hero blocks a lot of those hands. Dustin thinks all set are good and never folds them on the flop. That would be the ideal situation for Hero.

TK did raise to $25 preflop which is not normal for him or the game at this point. Hero has been doing almost all of the preflop raising, usually to $10 or $15 with the rest of them just calling. So to have someone raise Hero’s straddle has been very rare.

What does hero do???

There is a lot to consider with side pot implications.

Edited to correct seat positions.

 

[Kain8]

If you're dead certain that top set is out there, really boils down to if you want to go for throat and play the biggest pot of the night (assuming the three of you get it all-in) or do you want to lock up a really good win.

You have a decent wrap and blockers if nut spades are out there, which 4 handed is somewhat unlikely but not impossible. I'd probably just call the $400 and if you spike, rip it in, and if you miss and TK goes all-in, that's time to fold up shop and still have a good profit on the night.

 

[DrStrange]

First off - fold pre. Hero has a marginal hand. The is almost a dead card, the 9 high flush draw is worth less than nothing unless it only represents blockers to Hero. A three card Omaha hand in a pot with so much interest is not worth paying the price to call.

Hero should not raise. It isn't instantly clear between fold or call. While there is some interest in the main pot, I focus on the potential of a $1,700 side pot. Best case Hero is almost coin flipping with TK. Hero knows TK doesn't three bet light so we might expect a hand like AAQQ or AKQQ or some similar Broadway card hand. The most fearful hand TK might hold is QQ where hero is drawing only to the "safe" straight cards and then has to avoid a fierce redraw.

Should Hero pay $400 to draw once? There are eight cards that make a nut straight hand ( non-spade 8s, 9s and kings ) plus six cards than make a non-nut straight plus eight cards than make the second nut flush but not pairing the board. How much risk is Hero willing to tolerate? eight outs alone will not justify the call. Will TK stack off on top set vs a made hand on the river? If Hero is willing to risk it all with any straight plus the flush, then call the $400 and see what happens.

Personally, I think a fold is better. Lets rate this fold > a fit/fold call >>> raise.

 

[Rhodeman77]

Results;

Hero almost auto called but then started thinking. What if TK’s preflop raise was much stronger than just QQ? He still isn’t much of a PLO player to realize QQ isn’t a good starting hand by itself. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t a hand that has me in much worse shape than the set of Queens does already. Plus I stil have worry about Dustin for the main pot.


Also if the turn is a blank and TK jams the $700 left I will be in another tough spot. I prefer to play small ball, win lots of small pots and trap them when I do make a monster hand. Risking it all on this hand for a coin flip isn’t my style.


I make the fold.


If I had any Ace in my hand instead of the 2, I would have had to call the $400 though.


Further results:


Dustin of course calls. They decide to run it twice. I show my hand now and everyone is shocked I would fold that.


TK has QQ89 and Dustin has AJssXX so he had my spades covered for the main pot. I don’t remember his other 2 cards, but they didn’t connect to the board at all.


No spade comes on either turn or river, but I would have scooped the whole thing as my straight came in on both boards.


Fireman had bottom set of 7’s that he wisely folded.


Also a small part of my decision to fold was the health of my game as a whole. I was already up $1100, yes winning another $1400 would have been great but at what expense? TK is one of my biggest fish. He doesn’t win often so if he is able to book a win it will keep him coming back for several more weeks where he will most likely lose much more than the $1200 he ended up cashing up out (up $600) for the night. Everyone at the table already thinks I’m a luck box as it is, crushing the game for $2500 might have hurt my chances of getting some of them to come back in the near future.

 

[DrStrange]

Holding an ace in Hero's hand adds six nut outs, it is a huge upgrade. is a prime holding relative to Hero's actual holding.

It is almost always a bad plan to show your good folds. Maybe in this case there is a meta game purpose, at least an argument could be made.

Hero did have a big chunk of equity, so not much of a surprise that he wins the run out. Just not enough equity vs the range to support playing a huge side pot with no dead money.

 

[Rhodeman77]

I don’t show my folds very often, this one was for a purpose for sure. I know my hand isn’t as strong as it looks, but they don’t. To them it looks like I made a really bad fold which I want them to think. I am by far the best PLO player in the game, if they think I can make a big mistake like that I will get more action in the future.

I love to showdown my A high hand or single pair type hand that I bet all 3 streets with a wrap and flush draw that miss. When they see I bluff they call me down the rest of the night. Of course the rest of the night I will have made hands when betting.

 

[Kain8]