Opp is 50/15, river AF 26 after 1k+ hands
He raises 25%/ limp 25%
Flop fold 55 vs CBet OOP

$0.05/$0.10 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by WeakTight Poker Hand History Converter
Stacks:
UTG lysy33 ($16.13) 161bb
UTG+1 KAZURRRR ($18.70) 187bb
CO AniFlodA ($14.57) 146bb
BTN Hero ($10) 100bb
SB Annies Money ($9.85) 99bb
BB frillo_111 ($13.51) 135bb
Pre-Flop: (0.15, 6 players) Hero is BTN 5 A Q 9

1 fold, KAZURRRR calls $0.10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $0.40, 2 folds, KAZURRRR calls $0.30

Flop: K 9 Q ($0.95, 2 players)
KAZURRRR checks, Hero bets $0.60, KAZURRRR calls $0.60
Turn: 10 ($2.15, 2)
KAZURRRR checks, Hero checks
River: Q ($2.15, 2)
KAZURRRR bets $1.80, Hero folds
Final Pot: $3.95
KAZURRRR wins $3.86 (net +$1.06)
Hero lost $1

Not sure if he bets nut straight for value here, but sizing looks like a boat, so i made the fold

Villain can be exploiting your turn weakness as bare AA or other combos that are giving up this turn so villain can value bet worse than us here and bluff some I think.

People dont limp/call AA very often

People dont bluff very often in spots where their entire range has SD value

@ OP

Why are u betting flop? Wat better hand folds? What worse hand w/ significant eq folds? What worse hand calls that you are way ahead of?

Check flop.

As played, I think we should call against all non-nits players. He could be value betting 99, TT, + some ramdon bluff/random bad value bet giving us the chance to win more than 31% , we are blocking QT, KQ and made the hand a 2 streets one anyway

Not sure about flop bet either.

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi Simulation

8,501,760 trials (Exhaustive)

board: KQ9

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
K223	32.38%	2,753,190	0
AQ95	67.62%	5,748,570	0

But yea, checking still better.

Mindead, 99 and TT are only 4 combos, he's not aggro OTR and his sizing looks like valuebet, so I ended up folding

Easy call... Why would you expect villain to always be value betting here? Your play does not show much strength. + there are enough lower boats he can bet for value that you beat

Call river. He can't have a straight? Flop bet is good.

Why do you think flop betting > checking?

I'm OK with the flop bet, its mainly just protection. Typical loose-passive players have a wide range preflop and won't play back at you on this flop pretty much ever. Betting flop just kills the equity from all kinds of trashy broadway straight draws or it actually gains value from them which is even better.

Also our hand isn't really powerful enough to induce a turn a bet. So if we're checking flop we're basically giving up and just hoping he doesn't bet. Passive players don't like to raise cbets but they will sometimes randomly fire after you show weakness, just enough to make a fold uncomfortable.

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River is an easy call. He has legit value-hands in his range that you beat aside from the fact that players will make nonsensical value with straights fairly frequently here.

In general you want to avoid being passive. In this situation, it is heads up and I have a reasonable holding. You do not need much of a hand to bet in this spot. Probably my two pair is good, I want to establish an aggressive attacking image, to protect my holding, to build a pot in position if he is willing to call with a weaker hand and to avoid guessing games where I check the flop and start calling down on blankish turns and rivers.

Think you misread Solar's post and/or action...Hero didn't limp/call pre-flop and Solar was reffering to Hero's hand potentially looking like AA.

Flop is clear bet for me against a passive player for reasons McNasty gave.

Folding river is just beyond ridiculous.

thanks guys!

Thanks too : )

FWIW I am fine with the river call as we do beat some value hands. Just wanted to say that folding river is not ridiculous by any means, because villain just doesnt have many hands worth bluffing

Betting the flop is just straight up poor poker. I have no idea why anyone would turn the hand into a bluff and protection is the single most overrated reason to bet in PLO and any type of poker really.

Then I read stuff like

which is just flat out wrong

or I read stuff like

Which is just flat out ******ed thinking. No offence - but it is. Arguments about not wanting to be passive is wrong and useless. Sry. Betting because "I think I am ahead" is also such horrible and poor reasoning.

In poker you bet for one of two reasons

- To get called by worse
- To get better hands to fold.

Period! Its not up for debate. Sometimes reading this forum is like reading the Hold em forums back in 2007, where everybody were super gung ho on protecting their hand or betting to see were they were in the hand or other ******ed reasons. Then a couple of years went by and people stopped being ******ed and realized that you dont bet in poker unless you expect to get called by worse or get better to fold.

That's a little simplistic. You also bet to get weak hands to fold, rather than giving them infinite odds to draw out on you.

You can also bet because this will lead to good turn and river situations, say when you have a big draw and you are in position. By building a pot on the flop you will be able to make big turn and river bets if you hit. Another reason to bet is to develop an aggressive attacking image that will cause your loose opponents to call you but at the same time make them afraid to make moves on you. Caro wrote extensively on this last comment.

Passive play loses. Aggressive play wins. While there are tactical exceptions where you should choose a passive play as a general strategy being passive is very weak and will lose money.

While there are rare occasions like this, its just no. No you dont. Getting worse hands to fold marginal equity is a bonus when you bluff bet or value bet, but rarely will the little value of worse hands folding even out the cost of when we get called or c/r by better. Eg when you vbet KK on KT6fd its nice if someone folds 987 no fd, but tahts not why you bet. You bet to get called by sets, two pair combo draws and pure draws

Cliffs: No!

No! Then you are betting your draw to make better hands fold. Its a bonus when you get called and hit turn and you get to bet your now made hand. But the reason for betting the flop was bluffing, nothing more, nothing less


This is wrong and useless. I dont care who this Caro is, but I guess its a LOL live pro who binked a few tourneys pre 2003 and then wrote some pathetic book.

No! just No! Typical 2003 thinking, but it has no foundation in basic game theory. But a lot of regfish subscribe to this thinking, just like you. Thats why you have these overaggressive players who just bet, because they think they need to be aggressive to win. Even at mid stakes. Funny story: They dont win, sometimes the b/e or win like 2bb/100 but more often than not they will be losing rakeback grinders.

I think a lot of posters here would be very surprised if they new the agg frequencies and cbet frequencies of rly good mid-hi stakes crushers.

The difference is at mid-hi stakes you don't encounter many 50/15 passive/calling station fish. Balance is a lot more important.

You said that you don't think there is value in betting here but against someone with 50 VPIP I think there may be enough value in a bet here. I'm not sure why you think we would be turning our hand into a bluff by betting; Villain will have lots of hands which are pair + random sidecards where there is value in a bet. (eg. AQxx, QTxx, 9Jxx, QJxx) then lots of Kxxx hands that we are flipping against.

It's certainly closer than you make out. (and closer than I initially thought when I said it was a clear bet) However, I'm not sure OP's reasoning for betting would be the same as mine and there's a good chance he bets against everyone when the correct play is to check against anyone with lower than 50 VPIP.

edit: Everything else you said is spot on and I agree with. Some of the reasoning people use for betting is terrible.

Making worse hands to fold in plo is something we can't just ignore as in his brother game NLH, because villains will be often making an Fundamental Theory of Poker error folding worse hands with enough equity to call. This is something basic due to nature of the plo game that I am sure you know, but I couldn't avoid writing about this.

In an imaginary game where only made hands without chance to improve are possible, then betting would be perfectly explained to:

- To get called by worse
- To get better hands to fold.

NLHE is more similar to this imaginary game, PLO is more different so while the same principle work, making worse hands to fold uses to give us benefit too, so in close situations that could be a determinant to prefer betting instead checking.

That's the humble point of view from a microlimit fish who I am yet.

@ Mindead

You are absolutely right. Getting worse hands to fold equity and even folding enough equity to make a "Fundamental Theory of Poker error" is not something to ignore. But its very rarely the reason to bet and pretty much always just a nice bonus. There are exemptions, in both PLO and NLHE and more so in PLO with equities distributed more evenly.

But betting solely to make worse hands fold in spots where you get little if any calls by worse and few if any folds by better is rarely gonna be correct. And it will most certainly not be correct on a board like this, that is not very dynamic. Its just poor poker to bet this hand on this flop and its not even close. Even if we can get the odd K332 hand to fold 32% eq.

If we bet here most villains will not continue with a range much wider than made hands like JT,KK,QQ,99,KQ,K9,QJ9,QT9 and combo hands like AKJ,AKT,AQJ,AQT. Against which we are a 29/71 dog. Yeah lets hurry get money in the pot being more than a 2:1 dog... Jesus Christ wtf?

Even if we add super light peels like naked AJ/AT we are still a 43/57 dog. (And I doubt someone folding 55% vs cbets peels naked guts here)

Ther rare occasions where we get him to fold 32% with K332 quite simply doesnt match the cost of sticking in money as a dog. So we check and call a bet on pretty much all turns and play poker on the river. We have a bluff catcher, we should play it accordingly.

Actually the worse hands we can get him to fold and make a significant mistake is KJ/KT hands like KJ76, KT33.

So lets take a look at how much equity those hands have and with what frequency they show up in a given range

Lets give him 60%!20% preflop since he plays 50/15 (maybe thats not the right preflop range, anyone should feel free to make similar analysis with another range).

Against ((KJ,KT)!(JT,KK,QQ,99,KQ,K9,A)):60%!20% we have 53.3% eq, ie we get him to fold an average of 46.7% eq which is a nice win for us.

So lets count them:

- 60%!20 is 21.5% of all hands.
- ((KJ,KT)!(JT,KK,QQ,99,KQ,K9,A)):60%!20% is 1.7% of all hands.

So we bet our hand that is a huge dog when called or raised as we have 29% vs (JT,KK,QQ,99,KQ,K9,AKJ,AKT,AQJ,AQT):60%!20%. Ie we lose 32% of the $0.6 we bet so we get villain to fold 47% of a $0.95 pot with a probability of 1.7/21.5 = 7.9%

I mean, come on...

I got your general point and I think it's right.

But I got struggle with the numbers. Why is a range preflop of 60%!20% = 21.5% of all hands?

When we get the money in we obviously aren't a 2:1 dog, in fact we're a 2:1 favorite.

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: K9Q

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AhQc9h5c	67.49%	398,708	12,518
25%-50%	32.51%	188,774	12,518

I mean understand your objections theory wise but the bottom line is that we have a huge equity advantage in position against a passive fish. Betting is at worst fine.

I did some calcs in PJ
https://pokerjuice.com/groups/pokerj...cbet-desicion/
Nikolaj did really good analysis, looks like checking is the way to go