I know I haven't really focused on PLO as much in a while, but I don't get this at all. Seeing the hands, I was under the impression I had 18 outs twice. Clearly, only 7 of the diamond outs give me win/nuts on turn (no A, no 8), but if my opponent doesn't improve his hand, why don't I have 18 x2? The odds calculator that I posted a picture of says I'm only 58.5% to win on the flop. Pretend I'm a moron (because I feel like one) and politely explain what is wrong with my thinking. --thanks

Are you asking because you are under the impression that 18 outs should = 72% equity, according to the "rule of four"? If so, keep in mind that the approximation breaks down with high numbers of outs. Your opponent also has redraws on many of your turn outs, and, among the turns that don't directly improve you, cards that preclude some of your river outs.

how much equity you think you should have here? 75 or what? you are overrating your non flush outs here. you two pair outs are not that strong and vulnerable.

Omaha runouts are too complex to count outs from the flop really in a spot like this one.

It's better to start learning general scenarios (like pair+gutshot vs overpair is a flip. pair+oesd small favorite. pair+fd (like in this case) a decent favorite)

I think the main reason that throws off your equity simply is that a bunch of turn cards kill your two pair outs (any non diamond Aces, four, eight, or five). Likewise, if you do hit two pair on the turn any non diamond ace four eight five kills you on the river

So yeah you have 18 outs (maybe, I didnt even count them), but if he hits a good turn you don't have 18 outs to the river, and if you hit a good turn a bunch of rivers still lose you the pot. So, 58%. Welcome to omaha

Oh ok. Thanks guys. I probably should have stuck to games I know better. I'd actually been winning in Stud even though I had forgotten more about it than Omaha but there were no good games available.

I still don't see why it's as low as it is, though. In NLHE, it doesn't matter if outs on the flop can be overturned on the river, they're still counted as outs, no? Maybe I have always been wrong about odds estimation, which would concern me since I've been using it since 2001. LOL

You are right. You are totally confused.

Sure about that?

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

990 trials (Exhaustive)

board: 852

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
2s8s	86.77%	859	0
5d4d	13.23%	131	0

I totally agree with you and I can't tell if I'm pissed, annoyed, embarrased or all of the above. I've literally been playing legally since 2001, with many trips to cardplayer to verify odds, and usually find it in line with expectations. So I don't know how the hell I managed to play so long being so wrong about something as basic as odds estimation.

I guess maybe I should have had a coach or something. I've been posting online for years though and this is the first time ever that you've made it clear that I was a moron.

Here is another great example which I always overestimated my odds, although it is NLHE and my miss wasn't as bad as the PLO example.

Yep. Your example, the only outs on the flop are the 2 5's. Power of 4 would actually put it less than 13%, so runner runner outs must be in there somewhere. But what was tried to be suggested to me earlier is that you can't count the 5 on the turn as an "out" (x2) because a river 8 negates the "win" and that's just not true in NLHE. I'd suspect, though, since I've already indicated that I've been playing the game wrong on and off for 15 years legally that if your 5d4d example is changed to a 5c4c hand instead that my assumption of all 9 club outs needing to be counted would be mistaken.

Meh, I just had just got up from a long nap (between posts in this thread incidentally ). A trivial oversight.

The difference between NLHE and PLO can be illustrated by hands like these:

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi Simulation

820 trials (Exhaustive)

board: J27

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AhAd5c5s	xxx	0
9h8h4cKs	xxx	0

Guess the equity before looking.



Basically, backdoor draws muddle everything. Here, there is the gutter, but also a bdfd, and (seriously) backdoor two pairs and trips. Imagine if P2 also had a solid backdoor straight draw.

So you can't really rely on counting outs so much, because they are so dependent on the strength of ranges, and there is no reliable way of counting it. A binary "my backdoor two pairs are live" or "... are dead" won't work, for example, because a crucial variable is how often they are live or dead.

WOW! That's crazy! I'm currently ranking myself (at best) a 1 out of 10 in online PLO. Which is a little surprising considering my wins over the years in it, but not surprising at all considering how ****ing stupid I am at it.

Sorry, quoting myself to clarify one thing though - no matter the stakes, I'm never really wondering about my gutter or really any other draws if for some reason I made the mistake of calling preflop with P2's hand. (I know the en vogue thing to do is shove and pray for draws coming home) The only time I'm curious is if no bets on flop, the 10 hits the turn and now I'm deciding P1's range for any redraws, which are obviously high with top set.

at what game at what stake you are a winner? and over what kind of samplesize?

Maybe the next thing you will be surprised of is the difference between EV and Netwon....

Pretty much all stakes except for micros (I honestly don't even remember them being around when I used to play - always had more money than needing a $0.01/$0.02 game) and a pretty significant sample size. I only multi-tabled in the first 3 years and then, for whatever reason, opted to focus on one table at a time (usually) so not a full 10 years of daily play, but I'd say at least 6-7 years of that and then another few years of more sporadic play. Honestly, Elky gets more experience, technically, in one year because of his 16 tables (lol), but my size is not insignificant.

Also, for the record, I tried to recall smart play and tightened up significantly and had a good run the last couple of days before my new problems/leaks/fatigue set in and made bad plays.