I played a hand Tuesday night that I keep thinking about. Hand occurred at an quasi-legal/frowned upon card game with a full table of 5/5 plo and a full table of 20-40 mixed game of some sort going. Most everyone has played lots of hours with each other. I think IÂ’m viewed as kind of nitty in plo by the whole table except villain who IÂ’ve only played NLHE against.

IÂ’m in CO with 900.
Villain is in sb with 700ish, he says he is waiting on a mixed game seat. IÂ’ve seen him blast a ton of chips in holdem over the years but he chopped a 250k tournament right before lockdown so I assume heÂ’s not awful. IÂ’ve never seen hik play plo.

UTG raised to 15 and flop went 5 ways, I have J 10 8 7

Flop was 8 7 4 pot ($75)

SB checked
Most aggressive player in the game led out 30, two callers to me who made it $240 sb called and everyone else folded.

I raised for 3.5 reasons 1) everyone in hand but sb plays a ton and views me as tight so may have got bottom or middle set to fold.
2) may have also folded out better non-nut flush draws
3) can bomb brick turns to fold out top set repping straight
3.5) iÂ’m stuck about $700 and hadnÂ’t hit anything in two hours and wanted to play a big pot and turn my night around or leave. (I know terrible reason)

SB calls which to me puts him on top set, flopped straight, big wrap or nfd.
IÂ’m in bad shape against straight or top set with better flush draw back up but close with everything else.

Pot ($645)

Turn 2

Villain jams for 450ish.

Do you all think this is a trivial spot either way?

I called still thinking I was in bad shape against top set with better fd or set with better but he likely had straight which I was getting close (actually I entered everything right I had the right price to call). Given IÂ’ve never seem him play plo, he still could have a worse hand than me with a wrap or naked nut flush draw. The only pro in the game told me he thought it was a trivial fold but didnÂ’t explain why. I was really unhappy with the call for a while but IÂ’m not sure I played it that bad.

Sorry so long winded but what do yÂ’all think?

3b pre sometimes, your hand is very strong, but a call is ok. On flop I just call, you have some nut outs and it’s a disaster if you gii 3 or 4 ways. Also playing more streets in position is good. As played I call off river but it’s probably close - just need to run a sim against his range and see if the price is right. As you said you could still be a favorite vs nfd hands

Immediately call the floor and tell them that there are two 7 diamonds in game.

Re-post your cards and the flop. The changing of the cards will greatly change the advice.

great catch, the 8 and 7 in my hand were reversed red soots. Sorry I posted this on my phone last night waiting to get into a game.

Immediately call the floor again as now there are two 8 diamonds in the game.

I promise to write out my usually long ideas on the hand after you get the cards sorted out since that will affect my ideas. It matters for example, was the 7 or 8 on board a spade thereby not giving you a flush draws? Was board rainbow thereby giving your two backdoor flush draws? Or another example, was your 7 or 8 actually a 9?

If the board was correct at

8d7d4s

Then maybe your hand was

JdTd8h7h

Let’s assume that the board was correct at

8d7d4s

And your hand was

JdTd8h7h


First off, you listed 3.5 reasons why you raised the flop. You gave tilt a .5 reason. Tilt is more like a 500x reason players do stuff. Enough said.

Preflop:
OmahaDonk said 3-bet preflop and I agree. Your hand is double suited and strong. My general rule for live games is if my hand is NOT double suited, then any hand I decide to 3-bet must include an ace. But for the double suited hands, I don’t require an ace, what I require for the non-ace hands is strong connectivity. So double suited 0 gap and 1 gap rundowns where the highest card is at least an 8 are candidates to 3-bet. As we were talking about in a different thread, in poker you can’ make a straight without a ten or a five, therefore having the ten or five in your hand makes it stronger and not needed on the board. So, you could make sure you are only 3-betting the double suited 0 gap or 1 gap rundowns with a ten or 5 where the highest card is at least an 8. And if you get 4-bet, then call the 4-bet.

Flop:
I am a Stack-to-Pot-Ratio obsessed poker player. SPR is perfectly made for PLO because of the pot limit betting scheme. Trust me, just start dividing the effective player stack by the size of the pot. So many problems in PLO get eliminated. If the effective player stack left is less than or equal to the pot creating an SPR 1 or less the game becomes easy in that you can get it in if you hit any piece of the board. At SPR 4 or less you get it in with a strong hand. I’m not mad at anyone that gets it in at SPR 4 or less with a good hand. But all that changes above SPR 4. You can’t just throw bets around at higher SPRs without having an incredibly strong hand and or draw. Someone raised preflop to $15. The effective stacks were $700, therefore you are around an SPR 9. SPR 9 is too high to be careless. You can’t turn a $15 preflop investment into a $700 loss without a monster hand.

Another point is that 5 players saw the flop. You have 4 cards. The board has 3 cards. That means there are 45 unseen cards. And you are up against 4 opponents who have a total of 16 cards. That means you are up against 16 of the 45 remaining cards or put a different way about one third of the deck is in play. Against that many players with that many cards you have to play tight. It is how the game is played. I look at the way live players play and I often think they would be better off playing online 6-max if they really want to play that loose. You listed 3.5 reasons for why you raised the flop, but in multi-way hands the game isn’t played that way.

Lastly, ranking flushes goes something like this
Nut flush
Second or Third nut flush
Fourth or Fifth nut flush
All other flushes

You have the fourth nut flush. The fourth nut flush draw isn’t that good on a 5 way flop. And if your hand was JdTd8h7h do you notice that you have the jack high flush draw BUT block someone having the ten high flush draw. You don’t want to block high flush draws that you beat. It just means you get called by worse less often.

So, the confusing thing is that I said two different things.

#1 I would have 3-bet preflop and therefore the SPR would have been lower and you could have fast played the hand and got it in.

#2 Since you didn’t 3-bet preflop and therefore the flop SPR was higher, that means you have to play more cautiously at that higher SPR.

You need less than 30% equity to call turn, which you will have unless you are against set + bigger fd or straight + better fd.

I'm open to flop raise based on live reads, but would consider smaller sizing.

Not a fan of raising it here. You have draws, but you are likely against dominating draws. If you are nitty and I have a set and you raise here, I don't put you on a big set, I'll think you have either the straight or some kind of wrap + good flush draw. I'm going to be good if board pairs here a lot.

It is possible to get some higher flush draws to fold here, but you are unlikely to get the nut flush draw to fold here and now have bloated the pot.

You really didn't have that many good turns and this wet a board, you'll be lost where you are even when you hit, other than the 9.

I can see why you did this after playing tight and being board, but a bet followed by 2 calls is unlikely to get a lot of players to fold out hands that will believe they have lots of equity here.

Once you commit yourself like that, I think you have to call. That was one of the better turn cards we could hope for, you have full house draws, your flush draw might be good still (if it's not, your 2 pair is still likely good, unless he has the straight), and you have the gutshot.

Would have preferred keeping the pot small here with this weak and vulnerable of a hand though.

If read correctly then not really trivial with amount in pot and hand definitely call off remaining stack. Ime 78 wins a good amount in this spot unless player catches higher two pai but as is no doubt a call

This is the type of situation where it's really helpful to know player tendencies, specifically how they tend to play big made hands with or without redraws, because some reasonable villains still have very specific or unbalanced ranges in those spots. But, as played, short answer I think this is a call.

Against most villains, I think the flop call is often a naked straight or top set, or perhaps those hands with a weak redraw. I can also see specifically top set + NFD playing it this way because it doesn't mind people calling behind. But there are very few combos of that, plus I think we discount it a little since V shoved a brick turn. I also discount straight + NFD because I think a competent villain is more likely to GII on flop with that hand in an effort to fold out non-nut hands with outs and/or freeroll or dominate against another straight. However, all of the above is where lack of reads come in, as there are definitely Vs who will flat with the nuts + nut redraw in hopes of bombing turn. OOP at this stack depth I don't like it, but there are people who will.

But, all in all, I think the majority of V's range here is going to be made straight without a NFD, which waited to GII on safe turn. Some of those combos include a better FD than yours, but most don't, so I'm calling.

I agree with others that flop raise is more questionable. You have a bunch of different things going for your hand, but each of them individually is mediocre. By raising that amount, you ensure that anyone who continues either has you crushed, has a better draw, or both, and you likely won't know which.

Unfortunately I had never played omaha with this guy before and he was in his 8-9th hand at the table. I played with him again on Saturday or Sunday night and heÂ’s all over the place. I would have insta called after seeing how he played that night but he was pretty much unknown in the hand.

I appreciate everyone calling out the flop play as questionable. IÂ’d welcome feedback on my reasoning if you all feel like thinking about the hand some more.

The initial flop bettor is super aggro and the calls were by the pro and another player who I think would have raised if they had a lot of equity. My reasoning on raising was to fold out better non-nut draws or even bottom or middle set by taking advantage of my image as the tightest player in the game (by a lot.)

I figured on the flop I was only getting killed by a few exact hands so a raise lets me realize more equity against the fewest people. I also didnÂ’t want to be lost on the turn with a call and hitting my flush still pretty deep. Part of the reason I play so tightly is I see how bad the looser guys in the game get crushed trying to play 5th or 6th flushes or ******* straights on turns and rivers when weÂ’re 8-9 handed. My gutter and boat draws are the only draws that i personally can play correctly and withstand any action.

Boredom/frustration/ tilt/wanting to play a big pot also factored in but i know ive picked worse spots to jump off the bridge so I don’t want to overstate their influence.

On the flop, your hand is not as good as it looks against 3-4 opponents once they show interest. So you want to thin the field. And while it's true that you've probably only got, say, 12-15% equity against a big field, when you get called you're now playing a big pot with, I dunno, 35% equity against one opponent, and you're committed to stacking off on many turn cards. So your absolute likelihood of winning has increased, but at the cost of committing your stack without the proper odds.

If it sounds like both of these options are -EV, they very well might be! Your hand is deceptively marginal here. But playing a small pot in position with some money behind in the rare event you hit your gin card is going to be better than playing a big one against one or two much stronger hands where you're 5-10% behind the equity you need to break even, and already pot committed. If the flush comes and people show a lot of interest, you may well have to fold. I think being able to figure that out is the price of continuing here.

3b or fold usually in the CO especially w middling cards. You actually want to push out the Kx and maybe even some weak Ax of Diamonds so your draws are live.

On the flop i want to play multiway as my hand either makes nuts or trash and i have very few nut outs. When you try to limit the field on the flop or turn youre going to be running into 65xx bigger draws and sets. You have between 20-40% equity on the turn.

I think its a clear fold as you only might have the proper equity. In the long run i dont think you will have proper equity so best to fold.

If you 3b pre and get it heads up w low spr like lady bruin said then you can stack off much easier. But in this config your hand is hemoredging if you call the turn imo.

I appreciate all of the replies with lots of info. I think I understand a lot of your points and they are well reasoned. It’s humorous to think when I asked the question, I thought I messed up the turn. After the first round of replies, I thought there was a chance I messed up the flop. Regardless, i’m convinced I messed up pre.

I usually play pretty passive pre in plo games I play because they are all time rake or unranked with player fee games and I don’t think that it’s that outrageous to try to keep variance low and my tight image intact by avoiding preflops unless I’m under 80bb or there’s a bunch of blind action for some reason.

i still think that strat is probably good with higher rundowns, high pairs and sooted aces but middling sooted rundowns which are still super strong do need 3bet and maybe 4 bet. In addition, Everyone will put me on aces as an added bonus I’d imagine (they always say it when i 3 or 4 bet no matter my holdings.)

We are getting 5.5:1 with top two, a guttshot to the nuts, and a jack high flush draw. Peeling the flop with 8 nut outs is clearly +EV. Raising is probably +EV as well.

For those advocating a 3b pre, I would not..... In live PLO, people just don't fold and we are going to play a bloated pot OOP where we will have a dominated FD and unable to lead unless we have the nuts (and everybody knows it)..... If it were 6 max or there was just one raise and you are on the button... Okay but here your are in the blinds... So we can call or fold preflop. As played, I am calling it off. The post is a hot mess but I will trust that pokerplayinggamble did the math correctly and his assessment is correct. Def GII here.

Op is in the CO