I dusted off my first buy-in on a hand last night. IÂ’ve been lost a lot on paired boards lately so maybe you all could critique my reasoning.

For the hand in question, I had been at the table for less than 20 minutes but table had been open for at least 10 hours and most stacks were really deep. IÂ’d played with most everyone at the table many times and have a good feel for how everyone approaches the game.

Preflop

UTG brings in for 15
IÂ’m UTG +2 and call with A K Q T we were short handed I would have raised but even though it is super premium, I was am in terrible position. Also, two action players who generally love 3 betting were behind me and they were both stuck/on tilt so I thought there was a really good chance I was going to be able to get most of my stack in pre.

Instead, 4 others call (one tilt guy, one normie and both blinds)

Flop comes Q Q 9

Original raiser pots it. We clearly cannot fold. Is repotting simultaneously a punt and not extracting max value? A smooth call lets us evaluate turns and brings in potential action behind us. We kill a lot of wraps and draws that beat us and may want to continue with our boat outs. We also have the second nfd because we have the 10, itÂ’s unlikely anyone is going for a crap flush draw.

Aggressor is a pretty good player and mixes it up. He was about 5k deep with a couple others and was likely playing their stacks and not really caring about my spot too much. He could call a raise with worse or with a draw but he may fold a queen knowing IÂ’m pretty tight. Unlikely i can get him off 9s full of queens but a big raise with no other callers could make him fold some equity.

So what is the move on the flop, people?

How deep is hero?

assuming $500 effective stacks I'd just raise pot. x

raise pre.
raise flop.

what are you ever smooth calling the flop with in this position, 2 left to act behind that doesn't contain a Q?

I'm not against the occasional flat with this hand PF. It's a strong hand both HU and multiway, so flatting here with the thought of GII on a squeeze behind is totally acceptable, especially in this case, where it sounds like big stacks might fight for the pot completely ignoring you being in the middle.

OTF, just re-pot. Assuming you were 100BB deep, there is 18BB in the pot, UTG adds 18BB (he's either got the other Q or AA, or he's a maniac), so you can make it 90BB and be effectively AI.

The problem with the flat is that it turns your hand just as face up as the raise, so you might as well raise and hope that maniacs don't care getting it in bad. If you were scared of Q9 and 99, you aren't thinking this through properly as you have 11 or 12 outs (Jh for the straight flush is a nice bonus) on both of those anyways, which makes it effectively a flip in that worst case scenario

3! pre, pot/gii flop. Your hand is very strong pre and post. Would be nice to know starting stacks though. As you get super deep AQ9x becomes more of a concern and you might want to flat.

I would never classify this hand as a punt, whatever you did. Not really a cooler either, if V did have Q9. There aren't many legitimate coolers in PLO...maybe quads over quads or sf over sf. This hand comes nowhere close.

This is sorta close to worst-case scenario and you still have 30%:

[IMG]

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi Simulation

7,380 trials (Exhaustive)

board: Q9Q

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AcQcKhTh	30.85%	2,277	0
AAQ9	69.15%	5,103	0

[/IMG]

I had exactly $500 to start the hand. My bad guys.

You guys make me feel like I played the hand reasonably. I was really mad at myself after the hand for both raising into Q-9 and not raising pre. Took a break and won a little back but the whole night I thought I played it wrong. The next day I thought a little deeper and came to the conclusion that the hand played itself UNLESS there was some value in simply calling the flop to induce a spew from a late position person on tilt.

I donÂ’t think UTG flop aggressor always has a Q in his hand, aces and maybe kings could do this as deep as he was playing. Combo draws are possible too I suppose but I dont know how aggressively heÂ’d play them on a paired board.

How much do you all raise here in relatively early position? Full pot? ItÂ’s so awkward for me to three bet from early position.

Flatting preflop keeps all the QKT9, QJT9 etc hands in that you get value from post flop..

You have a monster hand pre that is so easy to play postflop - not potting is criminal. I think on the flop it's better just to call - raising folds out a lot of hands we'd love to keep in and we'll be a little more disguised.

I'm thinking a little more along these lines since UTG is potting with what could be wrap/flush type of holding (at least in my games) .. and why scare away all the aggressive Players and chop here?

Who cares if you're face up? Most every card that makes a straight also boats you up. You also have position on the Player putting chips in the pot .. so you control the Turn if everyone else folds out.

With 3 overs (some assumed no good) and a flush draw (Jx too) you're in a great spot here. I think we realize more in the long run by letting the others continue more cheaply. All we need is one $90 call behind and we are basically all-in on the Turn, which we can't do now by potting for $360 with $485 behind.

I'm not opposed to potting some of the time, it's a fine argument to try and isolate so that 'maybe' more of our outs are live and/or to build a bigger pot. But I think you generate more folds from draw types of hands when they miss the Turn by having 'pot' behind as opposed to only noodling in 10% pot on the River. GL