I'm brand new to PLO8 (and I did try to search to see if this has been addressed in a FAQ or something), so the phenomenon of someone jamming with only half the pot heads up causing the rake to eat up whatever third-party contributions were in the pot is new to me. I don't mean just that they only have half, but they have no realistic redraw to scoop.

Do you just suck it up because these same players will also do it when you have 3/4 locked up?

I'll leave it here for a day and if you don't get an answer in a day, then I'll delete it.

I don't have an answer you'll like for your question. (My answer would be, "You just have to play poker.")

Buzz

I assume you're generally calling pot-sized bets with no realistic hope of doing better than 1/2 the pot heads up?

Umm. No.

For example,

Me: Q Q A 4
Board: Q 2 5 T 7

I have position on Villain who shoves all-in on the river, and I stare for a bit trying to figure out wtf I'm missing, then call of course.

Villain had a low, obviously, and with that board could not possibly be representing anything bigger than a set. Maybe in his head he thought he could get me to lay down two pair or a set? But that's not the story he was telling, because he didn't get aggressive until the river, so there's no reason anyone with a decent high would fold it. It looked like exactly what it was. His nut low draw got there, and he could not have a high hand that would cause another high hand to fold, well, not QQ anyway. So we both lost money, despite "winning" the pot.

So should I be happy because the times I have QQA3 instead of QQA4 (or he also has A4) I get 3/4 from him, even though I lose money in these spots?

you don't always have top set/second nut low by river.

I've quartered and scooped many pots with just nut low + pair 8's. It's just vs player tendencies. Up against experienced players there's many opportunities to punish nut low + missed draw and no pair. Or missed draws and trying to escape with crappy lows. There's also many spots where you get increased lay down equity for the other half of the pot jamming your nut low into a non nut high with a scare card on the river.

You are potentially missing out on the intricacies of what is called a "freeroll to a bluff". Having the nut low enables you to represent a hand that beats whatever high hand you think your opponent has. Drawing to it credibly also gives the appearance of drawing to some sort of high hand.

However I think the play is a little overused because it seems to me there is a lack of general awareness about the bettor's opponent's holding/playing style/tendencies.

Paying attention to the game enables us to bet with the nut low in this fashion only when facing the right sort of opponent, i.e a loose player or player likely to hold a weaker than usual holding e.g. such as when they are in the small/big blind blind or have raised on the button.

Playing against a tight player, this strategy is unlikely to yield good results and frequently results in getting stacks in when quartered.

In a fixed limit game, this also applies, but of course the penalties of quartering are much less harsh and so it can be done far more liberally.

Thanks to you and everyone else who responded.

I think I understand this concept, I just think villain applied it in the wrong spot. I know it's not fair to say my range is only QQ, but the river card is only a scare card if it allowed him to represent a high that beat my range and I bet 2/3 and 3/4 pot the first two streets. If he is sophisticated enough to attempt this play, then his hand reading ability should be better.

At my stakes (0.02/0.05) honestly think most players doing this think they're value betting, because at worst (in their mind) they are getting half.

By the way, by learning a new game I am having *fun* with poker again. It makes it a lot easier to put in hours grinding and watching videos. I've also been studying stud and stud8.

You already have some good replies from better big-bet O8 players than me, but here's my one point. I strongly suspect you're thinking about the game entirely wrong based on the bold text above.

In limit you're often primarily making your money from all the bad preflop and flop bets in a multiway pot. In big-bet, those are much less important than the money remaining in someone's stack to be won. You often win that money through setting up freerolls (including the bluff equity Lucius mentioned) where you scoop more often than you get scooped. Against bad players, you might also win that money by getting them to make bad calls with small flushes and sets, straight draws and straights without redraws, etc.

Compared to getting, say, $300 stacks in where you have 60% equity, why on earth are you primarily concerned with the preflop bets eaten by rake? It's just a drop in the bucket.

And anyway, if it's a $1-2 game, you might open to $10 and get two callers. Are you paying $10 per hand rake?!

I'd also suggest there ought to be some sort of discussion with regard to betting the nut low draw on the flop, particularly as a continuation bet and in regard to various flop textures.

Seems to me that there are times to bet to take the pot down and times to check to realise equity that might not be realised because of a checkraise from our opponent. Assuming one is playing against someone of a tight aggressive style, one will be playing against someone also holding the nut low draw rather often, especially on two-low flops without a 2 in them.

When to check and when to bet?

I just learned how to play. This is $0.02/$0.05 so you never hit the cap.

Splitting a pot and losing money happens several times a session.

I disagree. Without knowing his full hand it's hard to critique entirely, but it doesn't seem like a bad play to me even if he just had the nut low. It just so happened that he was betting into the stone cold nut high, but even then you were uncomfortable. Would you really have snapped him off with a set of deuces? If he's reading you as at all capable of making tight folds he has a ton of fold equity. You're really only going to be comfortable snapping him off with the nut high or low, which isn't many hands. Additionally, absolutely no draw came in and your line fits with more hands than just QQ: 34 with a set of 2s or 5s, a big wrap, some 2 pair hand that backed into a flush draw on the turn, the nut low draw..: even a hand like 3467 backed into a pair of 7s on the river and could force him to chop high, but could never call the river bet. Now, there going to be a lot of nut lows in your range, more than nut highs, but being all in mitigates that risk somewhat by taking away your ability to repot it with the nut low and a better high. Tl/dr I don't mind his donkbet here because he has so much fold equity. What hands besides the higher sets and and the nut low are younreally gonna be happy calling with?

Ooooh one other thing.

One of the major benefits of playing in this fashion is that it balances for when one holds the best hand in both directions.

If one is just checking with low only but betting with a two way hand, then it is quite easy to read and very exploitable.

If you see your opponent playing in the aforementioned unbalanced fashion, make a note and it will save you a ton of money.

If I don't get berated at least once per session for "giving the site more rake", I feel like I'm not playing as optimally as I could.

What does annoy me though is when I have a one-way hand, usally the nut low, in a multiway pot where it's pretty clear eveyone in the hand has a little something. I bet half pot hoping to pick up a bunch of calls, but the guy behind me pots it, it folds back to me, and I sigh-call with my nut-low + pair (in case he's ever bad enough to do this with the bare nut low). But what he usually shows down is the nut high with no low. As tempted as I am to say, "nice raise, buddy", I stay silent because these are also the guys who will gleefully stack off with AKJT on a 873 board, not realising they aren't even 50% against any 4 cards.

How do you hope to "discourage" these players? Are going to ask them nicely in chat to stop putting so much pressure on you?

Good way to look at it.

You have to understand that rake for micro stakes plo8 is huge. Like higher than your win rate big. Mainly because of the split pot nature.

You need to make sure you are playing on a site where you'll get a decent amount of rakeback (good luck in 2015), or that they've lowered the rake taken on plo8 (nobody does this, and never did AFAIK) ... or where everyone plays so bad that you can pay the huge rake and still win (but understand it'll still be hard, you'll have winning 20k samples where you lose money, and you'll earn way more for the site than for you).

You can do it by playing, at least, AQ3/AT3/A883+ the same way, after a while they'll either work out they are value owning themselves a decent amount or you'll collect the value and not care.

OP,as long you make sure you are not THAT guy(who draws to the bare low),youll do fine.

Also,its another thing to be the one betting with the nut low,applying pressure to what you suspect is a high draw(and thus ending scooping the pot often when he misses and folds) and another thing to be calling with the naked nut low and praying for half.

Obv player dependent,but make sure you got at least a pair with your nut low,then you can go crazy and expect to quarter(or even scoop,if you play w terrible players)

Isn't the whole point of playing at 2c-5c to play against players so bad that this rake should be easy to overcome, though?

I'm curious what the OP's motivation is for playing this low. If it's to practice and verify he can beat PLO8, great--but breaking even is an OK outcome if the games are somehow tough (which would surprise me) and rake is high.

If his purpose is to "build a bankroll" then it's worth considering why he doesn't just secure some starting capital (working a temp job if necessary) and start at the highest level he knows he can beat.

Well, it depends.

I don't have hard numbers, but from guessing I'd say when I started on merge micro stakes 6max plo8 was 12-18bb/100 after rakeback; the last 9 months or so (before all the plo8 players left) rake was at least 30bb/100 (they made the rake higher and dropped all the rakeback).

It isn't necessarily unbeatable where OP is playing, my point was more that OP should be aware what he is paying and blame the site instead of other players if he's setting fire to all his winnings in rake.