I have a question for you better PLO players.

Say we have AAxx and we're on the button. CO is an aggressive player who opens to 3.5x and we flat at around 110 bigs because we feel someone behind us is going to squeeze, and indeed, the big blind squeezes to around 15bb and CO flats.

We now have a situation where we can 4bet to about 60bb and get most of our stacks in preflop. However, we know that neither player will fold either.

Is it more profitable to full pot here and just go with any flop? Or is it more profitable to just call and see the flop? Or is it more profitable to raise small and leave about a PSB left on the flop so that you can get away if necessary?

Do your answers change with the quality of your aces?

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Pot it. AA is not that great postflop.

Pot and then gii on flop. Plenty of dangerous looking flops will still miss your opponents some of the time.

I don't know if I'm 'better' or 'worse' at PLO but I've just never accepted the idea that we 'just go broke' with AA any time we get them. My impression is that you want to try and get HU with AA and OP is pretty sure that's not the case here.

We have to assume that BB has a decent 'random' hand, but we are still correct to pile in as many chips as we can getting 2 to 1 (or better) when we're rarely worse than 34% when up against two hand-picked holdings. But we are no better than 60% in most cases either. So from an EV standpoint, the more the merrier.

I like the idea of raising to 35-45 BB here and having a big enough Flop bet to deny some equity if it checks around and I 'mostly' pot it. I think it's enough to get the BB to fold a lot of the time PF, which puts us in a much better spot against a splashy Player HU. We should be 'more accepting' of GII with CO HU after BB folds and leaves us some dead chips. If BB shoves then we get to see all 5 cards the way we want to anyway.

The quality of the AA maters (to me) and why 'waste' 15 BB if we will be considering a fold on the Flop. Surely you can flip this and say you miss out on 15 or 30 BB when your opponents fold the Flop and I can't argue with that either.

PLO betting is about FE or at least trying to deny equity. I don't really enjoy reading 'doesn't Flop well' or 'some of the time' when I'm thinking about the safety of my chips. The problem is that we aren't deep enough to deny much equity with only a pot sized bet behind. When you don't have any chips left before gong to the Turn in PLO, you're going to Showdown a lot!!

If we raise to 40 and there's 125 in the pot with 75 behind. BB shoves and we are now facing a 27% pot equity spot to call 75 into 200 (or 275 @ 21%). Can we even consider folding AA here? We could be as little as 9% but never really more than 60% when up against two 'random' hands when at least one of them Flops a pair ... unless we Flop a set.

If it checks around and we shove then we offer the same equity spot to both Players ... probably dragging the CO with us if the BB calls it off.

As much as we 'hate' it, you can't get away from the AA math PF in PLO. The quandary comes on the Flop when you 'can' be at a huge equity disadvantage if both Players hit ... or even one Player hits. We can drop down to 35% if a Player semi-connects with a pair/BD draw holding. But 35% is still more than the 21-27% we need to call in this spot with this stack.

So we have to get back to our range and our opponents range and make a decision .. sounds like poker. Do they know that we 'always' have AA here?

With the crew I play against, I would 'only' raise to 40-45 here since I know I can get some folds with a Flop shove even if I miss. I'm not getting those folds if I pot PF and offer even better pot odds on the Flop by having less behind. Again, you can say that I'm missing value by not keeping these hands around when I 'could' be 60-65% favorite ... but. I'm always 'happy' winning less and not going to a Showdown in PLO. That may be a breaking point/leak between 'better' and 'worse' ... GL

Since this a thread of hypotheticals instead of an actual hand I have one for you guys who don’t want to gii here with premiums. If it’s 3-4 way all in preflop every hand (or any hand there is significant action) and you guys are folding premiums in this spot do you guys just leave or get blinded out or what? Do you just not think you’d have an edge in that game and chose to play a passive one?

When I said AA is not that great postflop, I meant there is more advantage in repotting than in flat calling a 3b and seeing a flop. If you flat, you often have to fold on the flop as with any other hand.

Once you flat call a raise with AA and it gets 3b, then you should repot and generally get it in on any flop. If stacks were deeper, it could be trickier postflop.

I would be more likely to flat initially the greater the chance it will be 3b, the higher percentage of stacks I could get in with a 4b, and the harder my aces are to play postflop.

I kind of like the flat/4b play. It is better to be somewhat balanced and sometimes 3b and sometimes flat with AA and players to act.

It's not a matter of 'wanting', it's a matter of 'how' do we GII with premiums ... which I think is the real basis of the OP.

In a convoluted range mess I've tried to show that the math just always seem to be there for the AAxx hand. PF we 'can' be slightly -EV 3-4 ways but for the most part we should count on being 45%+ in multi-way action ... and possibly up to 65% or so. The spread drastically changes once the Flop comes out. We could be staring at anywhere from 9-70% post-Flop. As you can see, the top side really didn't get that much better, but the bottom certainly fell out.

The issue (or hurdle I guess) is that the other hands can 'safely' fold out if they miss the Flop. Whereas it's perceived that the AA hand has no choice but to dump it in there because the math 'should' be good, even though the EV range has basically doubled in the wrong direction ... and that's when we put in 300% or more chips than we do PF!!

Obviously we need to be responsible for evaluating the Board and our chances for any additional improvement on the Turn and River. And I may be applying a tournament mentality to a cash game spot. Since we can always add-on/re-buy in cash we probably need to 'accept' that we're going to get crushed on occasion.

Let's put this out there ... We have 200BB in a pot-pot spot PF, so we get around 20BB in PF ... Pot is 60BB

1) We pot the Flop (2 folds) and win 40BB 34% of the time ... EV = +13.6 BB

We assume that for the remaining 66% that we get an even split of 1 caller or 2 callers on the Flop. We are a 50% favorite HU and we are a 40% 'favorite' 3-ways.

2A) We pot/GII (1 fold) and win 220BB 16.5% ... EV = +36.3 BB
2B) We pot/GII (1 fold) and lose 200BB 16.5% ... EV = -33 BB

3A) We pot/GII (2 calls) and win 400BB 13.2% ... EV = +52.8
3B) We pot/GII (2 calls) and lose 200BB 19.8% ... EV = -39.6

Tale of the tape ... EV = +30.1 BB ... or $150 in a 1-2-5 game

In looking at this example .. we can see that about 45% of our long term gain is generated by the 33% of the time we get our opponents to both fold the Flop. We also slightly reduce our gain in 2A if we don't get a 'full' 2nd pot bet in there PF.

I just put this out there for 'easy' math, you can certainly play with any of the factors and get modified results.

You should also note that you get stacked 36.3% of the time in the example .. and still show a gain long term .. WOWO ... Can you accept that?

I think 'everyone' knows that you need to trust 'the process', trusting that 15% return on your 'investment' is pretty good. But man it's tough to watch 200BB go over to somebody else's stack!! GL

By getting so much of your stack in pre-flop, you may have less fold equity, but you are also denying your opponents' fold equity. They can no longer bet you off your hand.

You get it in with premium hands if you have no choice. If you have an edge in post-flop play, then you prefer many hands to have post-flop because your EV is higher than pushing a small edge getting it in pre. It depends on things such as stack depth and skill gap vs opponents.

In the game you describe, I am willing to play one hand every two hours if necessary. I would also never raise preflop and let the other players shovel the money in.

I generally tend to keep the pot small preflop because I can always build a pot postflop, but I am also usually the player at the table most willing to GII with ten high because, at the end of the day, the math is the math.

You have to either 3-bet or call and 4-bet with AAxx. Flat calling twice is too weak. It isn't a small edge. Average aces are 65% against a top 15% hand and 46% against two top 15% hands. Yeh, you bust a lot, but the expected profit is pretty big. Plus a 4-bet could have fold equity depending on the players. You are going to get it in postflop also with flips when both players have really strong combinations of made hands and draws. You want to profit postflop too, but getting $1000 in a 65% favorite nets about $300 in expected gain. You won't make that much on average by flat calling with aces and seeing a flop. Sure you will get stacked a lot, but you should be happy to rebuy after getting it in good.