Omaha hand: big wrap with small stacks

RoundTower

A hand from Barcelona. I wondered afterwards if I played this correctly.

Blinds are €5-€10. The game is reasonably loose, with a couple of good players and one or two very bad ones. I have about €400 in chips, and the big blind has about €600. He has come to the table recently, but I think of him as fairly aggressive. He probably thinks I am tight.

There are two limpers and I limp on the cutoff with 68TJ, J6 of spades. The small blind calls, big blind checks. Pot is €50.

Flop is 79K, no suits, with the 9 of spades. The big blind bets €50 and only I call. The pot is €150.

Turn is the 2 of spades. He bets €150 and I call. At this point I read him for a strong made hand, most likely trip 9s or trip Ks. The pot is €450, and I have about €200 left.

The river is the 9 of diamonds. He bets all in. I show my beautiful wrap and fold. I was intending to stay in the game at least another hour.


Did I play correctly on the flop? On fourth street? When I showed him my hand?

Doc Farrell

those are expensive blinds man.

I only know one way to play Omaha that I'm happy with.

Sit down with an amount i'm comfortable with losing. about a hundred.

When i'm ahead shovel it in, no slow playing

Never show my cards unless its a pal and we're just having a laugh

u were probably right to fold but i woulda shoveled it in on the turn and clenched for all i was worth.
oh well....

Samba

Hmmm,

I don't like your call on the turn. You have the backdoor flush, you are holding one of your outs for the straight in your hand, if there were more players better odds to call, I think it might be a call.

At this point if you fold you get away from the hand cheaply another factor to consider is if you do hit your hand and your opponent is anyway good at reading you might not get a call for your last 200 on the river.

I think i would muck this one and live to double up with a bigger stack.

Doc Farrell

oops!
i misread ur hand!
i thought u were slowplaying the straight from the flop!
me no good at poka!
so you had nothing. u were definitely right to dump it.
u were probably lucky not to hit ur jack high flush! never mind the straight!

The Snapper

I am fairly novice, but imho chasing is costly especially so if you catch and are still behind. But more importantly, showing your hand can only harm you. The game is all about information and all you do here is help the table to read your play

Lafortezza

You need to raise this flop the max every single time. It should be automatic with a wrap like that.
You do realise that you're a favourite against top set? If Villain holds KKxx with no other draws you're marginally ahead.

pokenum  -o 6s 8h td js  - kh ks 2c 3s  -- 7c 9s kd 
Omaha Hi: 820 enumerated boards containing 9s 7c Kd
cards          win   %win  lose  %lose  tie  %tie     EV
Js 6s  Td  8h  428  52.20   392  47.80    0  0.00  0.522
Ks 3s  2c  Kh  392  47.80   428  52.20    0  0.00  0.478

Bad situations include when he has top/middle set plus draws. But on a rainbow board there's no flush draws and runner-runner flush draws only add a tiny bit of value to a hand.

If you raise the flop, you also have some folding equity.

When the turn brings you a flush draw (and doesn't pair the board) you're an even bigger favourite against the bare top set (KKxx).

pokenum  -o 6s 8h td js  - kh ks 2c 3d  -- 7c 9s kd 2s 
Omaha Hi: 40 enumerated boards containing 9s 2s 7c Kd
cards          win   %win  lose  %lose  tie  %tie     EV
Js 6s  Td  8h   23  57.50    17  42.50    0  0.00  0.575
Ks 2c  3d  Kh   17  42.50    23  57.50    0  0.00  0.425

The only reason you shouldn't raise both the flop and turn to get your money all-in might be because you can't afford to lose your stack and rebuy, but that's terrible play.

RoundTower

Finally a sensible answer. Were the other ones for real?

I posted this hand because I thought I played it unusually. Normally with a hand like this I raise the flop and/or turn, but I think the money situation makes this case different.

I am in position, and if I hit my hand on the river, I am likely to get the extra €200; depending on which card hits it will be hard for him to get away from top set for €200 into a €450 pot, especially in such an aggressive game. I can't expect to be as far ahead as in your second simulation - it is more likely that he has at least one of my blockers, or worse, a flush draw, and I am almost exactly 50-50. So I can win the €200 if I win, while losing nothing if I miss.

I think the only reason to raise on the turn, with such short stacks, is if I can get him to fold. He's not passing with top set, probably not with any set here, but I might have got him off a hand like 7889.

I flat called on the flop hoping I might get the player behind me to call. I think this is a mistake, and the flop is the best time to raise, since this is the flop I was hoping for when I called in the first place.

Rodge

I think your reasoning here is excellent. No way is he folding the turn.

You saved yourself half your stack, nh wp.

Flipside being that if your draw hit and you didnt get paid the 200 for whatever reason then you would be cursing the fact that you didnt get it all in on the flop. Its marginal, you took the right option this time but thats not to say it will be correct next time.

Samba

yes.

You have have a 400 Eur stack based on that fact, I think you should be hitting your hand before committing too many chips. as if you stick it all in on a draw and miss, by the look of your post, you are walking with no re-buys.

I was intending to stay in the game at least another hour.

Thus indicating you could not re-buy.

RoundTower

You misunderstand me -- I said I intended to stay in the game at least another hour because I wanted to discuss my decision to show the hand. If I was leaving and not coming back, it wouldn't matter.

If I only had €400 in the world and didn't want to lose it at all costs, I wouldn't have sat down with it at a loose aggressive €5-€10 PLO table. I'm sure they have banks in Barcelona.

Samba

yes misunderstand you I did.

I am curious, why did you sit down with so little at those blind levels? you mentioned there were many short stacks, what was the biggest one at the table?

Lafortezza

RoundTower wrote:

You misunderstand me -- I said I intended to stay in the game at least another hour because I wanted to discuss my decision to show the hand.

Well after you showed the wrap draw that missed to the table, they all know that you don't bet your draws, even your monster draws! The other players might assume that when you bet now you've a made hand all the time, dunno if that's a good image to have..

edit: also if you raise the flop (with position) in the wrap straight draw hand you could easily get yourself a free card on the turn when he checks it to you, you can check behind and see the river for free if you don't hit on the turn. Doesn't always work but worth a try often enough.

RoundTower

Yes, normally I have show quite a few hands, but after I showed this I wondered if people would think I was weak, timid, easy to run over. I don't particularly like having this image although it's rare that it happens. No idea how I would adjust my game given that image.

And I sat down with that much because I can't really afford to play that game, but it was the smallest Omaha game there. Good as a learning experience but I'd rather have a much bigger tank before going back next year. I sat down with about €5-€600; the minimum was €350/short buyin €200 I think. Several players had under €1000, at least one had a big stack of assorted notes, plaques and chips at least €5000.

Even if this was the last €400 I had in the world, if I was in that game I would be playing to maximize my profit, not to make it last another hour.

Interestingly when I showed my hand my opponent laughed and said nothing. Next hand he explained himself by saying he had "the same hand". One of us may have been drawing virtually dead.

Marq

If you are going to raise, I think you do it on the flop. If he reraises you all in with top set all the better, at least now if you hit you get paid off. Raising on the turn is compounding the mistake of not raising on the flop. You're a favourite to win against a set or two pair on the flop, I think that you are best to get your money in at that time. Your equity goes down considerably on the turn, calling a pot-sized bet becomes marginal here.

Knowing you, I think that if you were playing in the €50 Omaha only cash game in the Fitz you would have raised on the flop. This is an example of the stakes of the game affecting how you play, imo.

I don't think there's any real benefit to showing your hand in this situation. As you say you're only going to be there for another hour, about 15-20 hands in a live game, so it's highly unlikely that even if the other players makes a note of how you played this hand, a situation is going to arise that makes having this information out there beneficial to you in any way.

on an aside, if you don't play/understand omaha you're probably not going to be much help to a poster who is asking for an informed discussion on an omaha hand. i mean this in the nicest possible way.