the game has been going on for about 8 hours and has whittled down to 5 handed play. game consists of one very good pro, a gambly amateur, an extremely gambly asian, an old rich guy and me.

small blind - pro - covers
big blind - gambly amateur - $2000
utg (straddle) - gambly asian - $2000
cut off - hero - $1500
button - old man - $1300

we have A356

we make it $35. old man calls. pro folds. amateur folds. asian makes $135. we call. old man calls. the asian guy has any 4 cards here.

flop: $425 - 3 players

A 2 3
we have top two, back door nut fd and a gut shot to the nuts
asian guy checks, we pot it. villain tanks and calls. asian guy folds.

turn: $1275

6
hero goes all in?
villain calls off the $740.

opinions on how the hand was played. i'm transitioning from playing big o almost exclusively for about 3 years to PLO, so if this is super standard or i totally butchered the hand, my apologies.

Interesting hand, its hard to give optimal lines without knowing a little more about old rich guy's playstyle and how likely gambing asian is to cbet

if asian is going to cbet a lot here I prefer xr (if it stays multiway maybe xc instead)
If hero decides to lead, I don't think he needs to go full pot

You are stuck sticking in the rest on the turn given the size of the pot but you are unlikely to have much of a range advantage, villain could easily have axxx with flush draw, straight or a set, villain is never giving you credit for top set given pre-flop

Again, I think betting smaller on the flop would have been much better, it will give you a lot more flexibility how to play the turn (or folding if we get jammed on before the turn?)


Also you could have played your hand less agressively pre-flop, all options from raising smaller to even open folding, playing big pots with speculative low-orientated hands vs a maniac is not really a winning formula

I would just call preflop, hand is not so great that it needs to be raised and it’s most likely you will be playing draws where it’s better to have a higher SPR

I think your play was very good on every street.Preflop 5handed this is clear raise hand,not limp.Only argument for checking flop would be if you think

Asian bluffs a lotpostflop so you can check raise.But again you put villain in

tough position as he must think what will player behind him do.There are

some arguments for betting small,but you want to maximize fold equity and

make spr 1 on turn so it`s fine.

how is this game going for 8 hours with described villains and there's only like 9k on the table?


pre std obv

agree w/monikrazy, flop sizing is too big, I think 280-300 is acceptable. you really narrow him to a strong range with this bet size. our draw to the nuts and our bdnfd are not that great on flush draw board with low SPR.

Idk what to do ott, it doesn't seem like we get paid by worse/fold out better very often when we jam. I can't imagine if he has 22 or 33 he's gonna fold this turn card. And what are we hoping he calls us off with, AKQ4hh or something? Seems unrealistic that he will station that on this turn card against a pot flop/jam turn aggression. And that's if he even gets to turn with that hand instead of just jamming flop.

OTOH, I guess our hand could use protection and I'm just not sure how to weight that as a factor in these kinds of spots.

Personally I feel like you can just x this down.

Am I doing pro poker tools right?

It says your holding is 48% against a random hand.

Actually it looks like 51% against a random hand

Regardless I don’t think there is anything standard or obvious about pre especially the call of the reraise as it will be a low SPR situation and think you will have some tough decisions and RIO that position will not solve

Jmo though

pre is standard

Well everyone thought the world was flat at one time too.

Relative position is terrible in that you act after Asian but before the other guy and your hand is not good. Opening the raise originally is whatever I don’t care about that much, it’s not my preferred but fine. It’s the call of the reraise that I highly question.

In fact,i think this is the key point here.

+1 to this.

Flop sizing is too big. I would go 280 or so. I would also check flop sometimes three handed. Would be more likely to check heads up.

Would be good to have a read on old man we've played 8 hours with. Once he calls the flop bet, I put him on a lot of nut flush draws, usually with something extra like a gutter, ace or pocket pair. He has sets too. He has some 45 he's chosen to slow play or wait for a safe turn. He shouldn't have much two pair except maybe A2.

I guess I shove turn. We have 9 outs if he has the wheel or a set of 2s, so can't fold if he shoves. Shoving ourself maximizes value against his draws

If calling the reraise is questionable, then raising with a hand that has problems calling a reraise is questionable if you are very likely to get reraised.

Flop bet-sizing may or may not be too big. For me, it depends partly on how many cards can come that would let me check-fold the turn. It also depends on if my bet sizing makes an opponent more likely to fold something like a jack-high flush draw. I am happy to get that hand to forfeit equity.

Since OP said he is transitioning into PLO, I generally recommend a pot-or-not bet-sizing strategy on the flop and turn when starting out. If you can't bet pot on this flop, arguably you should consider not betting at all. I'm not opposed to just folding this hand preflop. I would probably do that if I expect the pot to be 3- and 4-bet often.

Absolutely correct which is why I stated I would limp the hand

I just didn’t feel like debating the original raise because
A) Given the small stacks it just doesn’t jive that the game is so crazy that Asian is raising 100% of time here
B) In general it’s fine or whatever, can buy the button and so forth
C) Calling of the reraise is a much bigger mistake given the resulting SPR and bad relative position no matter who the players are and their ranges imo

Stack sizes are believable if the game is short because two big winners just left the table and everyone else is trying to get unstuck. Or if the game was about to break before gambly Asian sauntered into the room, maybe after playing baccarat. Or if SB who covers everyone has way more than $2000. Or some combination of all that.

Possible

three fiddy on the flop. otherwise whole hand is standard

How about checking flop seeing what they do

Just wanted to add that if Asian is truly always going nuts with any four cards this is an amazing spot for the old man to flat with premium hands and just blast pot. Relative position is bad.

I’ll just sit back and wait for another insightful round of “pre std obv” lol

you want it to be one way. but it's the other way

hmm interesting and insightful

300 on the flop. More chance that the Asian tools out or that either player overvalues Axxx which we have in reasonably rough shape vs this sizing. As played, do everything else the same