Game plays large, I am not rolled to be playing this deep. (Mistake #1)

Hero (2300) in HJ w A554. Button straddles to 10.

BB (6k fish on a heater and main villain) calls, MP calls, Hero calls (Mistake #2?), B (700 new player no info) raises to 50. BB calls, MP folds, Hero calls to close the action.

Flop: 44Q

Kind of a gin flop, but not necessarily one I'm desperate to get 450BB in on (or 225 w straddle). Is that also a mistake? 3 handed with a raise, should I be fine going all the way with this hand as it stands?

BB looks at his cards for a long time and checks, hero checks (Mistake #3?), B bets 75. BB calls, hero calls to see what develops on the turn. At this point, my thought process is that I'm fairly certain I have the best hand, but PLOLOL. I think this call was my biggest error yet in the hand, I should have gone ahead on this flop and raised to something like 300, and the gii if BB does something silly.

Turn T

BB looks for a long time again, and checks. Now there are a ton of draws and I wasn't thrilled about giving a free card to B who probably has some Broadway draws, trip draws and possibly a backdoor club draw. Hero bets $200 (Mistake #97?). I'm fine taking down the pot here with what is very likely the best hand, and I'm fine getting called and reevaluating on the river. I also decided that I'm likely to fold if BB check pots me, and I'm ok with that.

B folds. BB tanks for 2 minutes, the raises to $500. I look like a deer in the headlights for 30 seconds, then what?

Thanks to all responses, both helpful and sarcastic.

I probably play pre the same way depending on opponents. I think I lead flop or check/raise. We are behind only QQ, but as you wrote: PLOLOL.

If BB really is a fish, I flat his turn raise and see what develops on the river. Unless he has QQ or TT, he can't be thrilled with a flat. Would be nice to know his betting tendencies, though. What do you think he has when he raises the turn? What has he had in the past when he stares at his cards?

leading big/XRing flop are definitely great options, and if villain(s) continue then you have narrowed their range for relatively cheep (less invested than seeing the hand to the end). these options essentially mkes them 'get honest' about their holdings early...but at this point in the hand you had no reason to believe they were strong, and your hand is not very vulnerable...but leading has the advantage of being able to clear up some EQ and fold out one or both opponents right away

im sure there are some who would say that you dont want to narrow their ranges on the flop, and that this hand would rather try to realize EQ on turn/river

you have a really nice hand, but its worth considering that against the top of their range that FD isnt very relevant

i also want to say beware the tanking/time banking, oftentimes this means they have the super-nutz

so how did the hand finish?

meh, wasn't played horribly so long as you fold to the turn raise. but fold pre both times is better.

posting this in high stakes plo, that's where you went wrong... Playing scared money, second mistake, overcalling with a suited ace rag ****ty pair in a limped straddle pot is third mistake.

the last one is so bad that I stopped reading.

Responses:

Don't know his tendencies when tanking, I'm not a reg in this room and only been at the table for an hour. In my experience, that typically represents a big hand. Player is older guy, so maybe he's just mathing. Calling to slow him down would be ok vs thinking player, but he may read that as super weak, and bomb 3467 on the river, thinking 444 is the stones.

Leading on flop is ok (150ish), and then probably checking the turn and calling or betting most rivers, but that seems like a lot of missed value, although I guess that's the bed we made.

Check raising the turn (300-450ish) commits us to the hand, and I wasn't ready for that, although it is a better spot than guessing.

Folding this pre? Really? Seems awful tight, but I guess we end up in these spots because of it. I would hate to fold this pre for 1 raise, though I could be convinced, but not by just saying "fold pre."

Finally, I'm not scared money, I'm rolled ok for 1/2/5, but this particular room/game plays larger than most. FWIW, I probably should have racked up going from 500 to 2k+, but here we are.

And lastly, if we call the 300 more, are we calling a non 4,5,A or spade river, and for how much?

Thanks for the replies, even the snarky ones.

I think your line is ok, your hand is strong enough to xr but it's not super vulnerable either; leading on flop is also fine, depends how often villain will cbet here.

As played, I would normally call the xr if villain isnt only raising boats.

this is a great example of a threshold hand, it may be a fold according to the solvers but depending on other variables in the game it could be called without much consequence. a lot of problems which occur later in a hand originate in the preflop ranges, but people dont trace the problem back that far

one thing i would really advocate paying attention to is seeing situations where you are about to over-commit yourself before they happen, and hopefully 2-3 decisions before they even start. Ive heard many people call this 'pricing yourself in,' meaning you lower the SPR so much that you are incentivized to commit later in the hand

when we weigh the strategic options in this hand i think leading/xr'ing flop has the most advantages. i really dont think you should call/raise turn, or see this hand to showdown if your opponent is taking this line. being able to fold in situations like this is one of the biggest skills to win at PLO. when we XR flop we are investing FAR less than we would by plying this hand across multiple streets

on the other hand im coming to you from an online perspective, ive barely played live. if this opponent is super wild or you have some other favorable reasons to continue in this hand i would tell you to see this hand through to the bitter end

Thanks for your responses. Very thoughtful insight +EV.

Decided that as played, we couldn't profitably continue, and folded based on the fact that I didn't really want to call on river unimproved.

Based on some plays following this hand, I would have been ok getting this all in on the flop, but I stand by live reads that tank calls and tank raises are usually quite strong.

Should have narrowed things down on the flop.

I would have just led the flop, but yeah when you get to the turn and villain's CRing after 2 different players acting after him have bet, you have to assume he probably has a boat especially if he's an older guy unless you've seen him wildly misvaluing hands.

I don't absolutely hate preflop. It's a playable hand that wants to see a flop for cheap. Early position is probably a fold unless it is a very limp-y table. After the button raises, it is playable because you are closing out the action. That's if you're a good player. A weak or inexperienced PLO player should consider folding for the first $10.

The flop is not a gin flop because your flush draw is usually not live if you GII. What is BB calling a flop bet with? Even the guys I see as fish in PLO usually have QQ or 4xxx here unless they are complete PLO novices. Maybe a flush draw, but they can't have the nut flush draw. A fishy player in this spot may only raise with full houses (or quads) on a paired board, but overvalue bad boats. If he's a loose-passive station who has built his stack through calling down and getting there on draws, then this is not looking good for you, as he often has hands like T4xx or TT4x or QTTx (with spades). You're hoping to have run into a guy with a hand like AKQJ who picked up a club draw on the turn.

The turn check-raise is small and can be interpreted as him either being afraid his hand is no good or him being afraid that you will fold against a hand that he knows is good. I also don't think you should be as worried about giving free cards on the turn. Even if you are up against a draw with outs to beat you, you could be against both a draw and a made hand that already has you beat. It's possible that you were most concerned about the button and didn't give the BB enough credit for possibly having a hand because you think of him as a fish.

Preflop is fine especially on late position as you have many ways to make the nuts

Flop i can go either way. Betting gives you the initiative and if button folds you get absolute position in the hand. Checking is fine when button has a high betting frequency as it allows you to see what BB does to button bet before you and you acting last gives you same information in this situation than betting would and it doesn’t cost you anything

Turn lead is fine but fold now as you’re drawing to one out


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you mean any combination of spades, 236, as well as any AA5, AA4, 544 and 55X? how many is that? 7% of flops?

add all spade draws, and "close to nuts" hands like 522 and we might come up to 15% of flops we hit hard.

Every other flop hurts.

The expression you can’t see the forest for the trees comes to mind..
1) you’re deep against a labeled fish which means you can extract lots of value from second best hands
2) you are in late position
If These two points apply in a game I’m playing then it make it a call for me


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It's a very playable hand pre, you're just wrong. I probably would have raised if I was him pre.

The problem with hero's hand is that he has too many wheel cards. You want to avoid wheel cards in PLO because you are almost guaranteed to end up on the wrong side of coolers. If you flop a set it is likely to be bottom set. It is better to have high cards than wheel cards.

I really don't want to get in an argument so I will just reply this once more and then shut up.


In response to BeHumble!:

:

How is it very playable? Do you mean you "playable" as in "easy to navigate", because you know when you miss the flop and have to fold (i.e. nearly always)?

If you want to raise this, sure go ahead. But do me a favour: have a look at your data base. Sort all hands by total money won. And now tell me how far down the hand category "suited ace with small pair" is?



In response to endodocdc:

I hear you.

1) Yes, true. If you have an absolute uberfish it might be possible to play this hand profitable

but:

2) you are seated in late position, but you wont have position. the button straddled and it's limped around. meaning you will have to play your hand against someone presumably at least half decent oop. I still don't like it!

Folding is the better option, in my opinion.

Anyway, as I said, don't want to start an argument, I'm out.

It’s ok man. We’re not arguing we are just clarifying our opinions...

1. With regards to your point about looking up database of types of hands with money won, this is exactly why I said your missing the Forrest for the trees. Don’t be too Uber focused on data because the data are missing critical pieces of information, the villain. There are games where this hand is a fold for me, and others where I may raise. The decision process of which hands to fold and call and raise should be very fluid and not rigid

2, with regards to position, it’s not bad being seated to the right of an Aggro
Villain. Once he bets you get to see what the field does before action is on you


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as usual pre is the most intersting street, imo

raise>fold>flat

it's a complete disaster of a hand unless you have position so I'm looking to pot/fold pre flop barring that you just can't play this hand OOP

turn is a definite check, you have 2 other people competing for the same hand on a board where A4 is actually the middle of the hands, I'm looking to check here for evaluation

as played i think you just have to fold here since he is raising us when our hand is just completely as face up as possible and he doesn't seem to want us to fold but definitely check the turn

now he could have AA with a random 4 but his range is pretty undefined here as he can raise the button with a lot of hands other than the ace which we block

in other words he has way more QQ than AA in his range so i just may make an exploitable fold but it looks like we have to call and evaluate a river if we don't want to cheat the math

this just isn't a good spot. the biggest leak was pre flop where you just have to raise to obtain position or fold because your hand is terrible in the middle, it's actually better to open limp EP than overlimp LP as you improve your relative position

the second biggest leak is betting the turn, now mathematically we should call but like i said our hand should be face up and...

meh, looking at the hand again i don't think we can fold the turn, just have to call and evaluate

I think fold>raise pre. You can play this hand OOP, but you need to be able to get in cheap and you need to have the skill to get away from bottom set or a non-nut boat without losing a lot.

when they raise you with a pair on the board your beat 95%+ of the time that you don't have the nuts .... caveat if either hero or villain is big bluffer

I can get on board with fold>raise but flatting is a complete disaster, there is nothing worse than being caught in the middle, I think limping EP is fine due to having relative position but overlimping MP is just lighting money on fire

looking at this hand again, which is pretty interesting, is that we had a chance to repot pre and isolate the field

it is actually quite surprising how much equity we have HU vs a button raising range, if we aren't repotting pf we can allow button to raise A4C profitably, if we start to have a repotting range that includes this hand then the 55s have enough showdown value to gobble up his $700 stack, this ofc assumes everyone just gives up so stack sizes of the players completely matter

mistake 1 is being under rolled
mistake 2 flatting pre
mistake 3 closing the action with a call when re pot is way better
mistake 4 not being aware of the stacks sizes playing cards behind and ahead of you

that's just pre flop

river is a mistake too given the description, call and evaluate, a fish on a heater is going to be much wider than QQxx preflop, if you give him the deck pre, you have to bluff catch here