Table is 9 handed pretty gambly, routinely multi-way for raises. $1-2 blinds with a $5 bring in.
Hero is in the CO with $550 as the effective stack, but all of the villains in the hand actually have similar size stacks:
8h-Jh-8c-Jd

3 limps for $5 to Hero, who calls.
Button limps, SB raises to $30.
BB folds
All limpers call and we call.

Pot is $180.

Flop comes
8s-2s-6h

SB bets pot at $180
1 fold.
$180 called by limper 2, $180 called by limper 3

Hero repots all in for another $370 on top, to $550 total.
Called by all 3 spots.

I'm new to Omaha and am interested in any issues.

You probably have the most equity than anyone else and you got everyone to put all their money in. Seems awesome to me. Wp. You will lose often anyway but that's omaha.

Also, I would not slowplay this hand due to poor visibility on many overcards, even ones that don't complete the straight. Someone might go crazy with top two if an A, Q, or K hits and I might be worried about AA/KK/QQ unnecessarily and make a bad fold. Just get it in and hope to boat up/fade a spade.

I suppose if I'm short enough to get all in on the flop with top set as the nuts, it can't be that bad a play... Because I've been reading some about being cautious with the naked top set, but I'm thinking now that's more when you're quite deep?

Comparing the size of an effective player’s flop stack to the size of the flop pot is useful in PLO. The stack to pot ratio (SPR) can guide you to how to best play a hand. Obviously, over time when you play poker you are going to see similar hands of flushes (or better), straights, sets, pairs and draws. You will also see similar SPR numbers of 1, 3, 7, 13 or whatever. An SPR of 1 means that there is one pot-sized bet left; an SPR of 4 means there is enough left for two pot-sized bets heads up or a pot-sized bet and a pot-sized raise; an SPR of 13 is the equivalent of three pot-sized bets heads up. You could create some thresholds that revolve around SPRs of 1, 4 and 13.

In your hand, you had a top set for the current nuts. But for a moment let’s discuss a middle set because that is a painful hand to play if the stacks are very deep and there is a lot of action in front of you. You could create a threshold for playing a middle set at SPR of 4 or less. If you have an SPR of 4 or less you get it in with no worries. At an SPR of above 4 you fold with no worries. You simply make reasonable SPR thresholds for common hands and play the game with a lot less worries. You had a top set for the current nuts. You could be more specific and say you had a top set for the current nuts on a two-flush board with multiple straight draws. But no matter how specific you get in your situation, you are going to find that the top set for the current nuts can play at a high SPR of at least 13. You were the effective starting stack of $550. There was a $30 preflop raise. Therefore, your stack on the flop is $520 and you divide that by the pot of $180 to get an SPR of around 3. You have an easy stack off at that SPR. And at that SPR, as I already mentioned, you could have stacked off even with a middle set.

In your mind or on a piece of paper start creating a list of bare/naked versions of common hands and give each hand a reasonable SPR stack off threshold. And if instead of the bare version, you also have re-draws, then you can stack off even lighter.

Naked top set . . . wow. I've heard of bare top two but this. The thing is, with this many people in the pot and so much interest, the pot is hugely bloated and you are practically never getting it in bad here and this will always be +EV. Ladybruin talks about spr again which is useful, but notice the spr is way lower now that several players have committed a psb to the pot...it's under 1. So even if you have only, say, 25-30% with "bare" top set, you have more equity than your share of the pot so you will make money in the long run, especially if anyone folds.

This is four ways and you still have over 25% in a worst-case scenario where multiple people are blocking your boat outs:

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi Simulation
600,000 trials (Randomized)

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
JJ88	28.03%	168,199	0
789T	29.80%	177,234	3,105
AsAh4s	34.17%	204,917	199
22	8.00%	46,346	3,304

"][table]ProPokerTools Omaha Hi Simulation
600,000 trials (Randomized)
board: 862
[/URL]

Deeper I can see an argument for calling and potting on a clean turn, but not this shallow. (Another argument for not slowplaying top set is that you are less likely to stack middle and bottom set on certain scare card runouts....)

Thanks, this is very helpful. Do you treat the big draws with similar equity the same as hands like sets? Do you have to make some adjustments for duplicated straight draws (due to chopping pots) and non-nut flush draws?

Many hands in PLO can be tied and chopped. I think the important factor is to be reasonable in your assumptions. If you run reasonable simulations, then you will get reasonable results. Therefore, when running a simulation don’t forget to give your opponents the ability to have a wide enough range. Sometimes I see simulations where opponents' ranges are too narrow and don’t even leave the possibility of ties. Instead there should be more blanks, stars and commas. The more realistic the simulation ranges, the more realistic the results. And as for flushes, flushes can’t be tied. It doesn’t matter if you already have the flush or it is a flush draw, either way, just make sure you have reasonable simulations and you will get reasonable equity results.

And of course you are not sitting at a poker table with an equity simulator. You do all this stuff ahead of time. Just get a feel for what seems reasonable. PLO is played POT limit. SPR 1, 4 and 13 are the magic numbers for 1 pot sized bet, 2 pot sized bets and 3 pot sized bets. Therefore, keep things simple when deciding thresholds. For example,

Nut flush? On a non-paired board I’m gladly getting it in at SPR 13

Second nut flush? There is no way I’m getting it in if it's deep enough to be at SPR 13. On the other end of the scale, if it is SPR 1 or lower, then I get it in easily with no worries. The middle ground is somewhere around SPR 4. If the SPR is 2 or 3, then get it in. If the SPR is 5 or 6, then fold. If the SPR is exactly 4, then flip a coin or make a soul read.

Use a simulator, use your experiences and come up with some reasonable thresholds for how to play SPR 1, 4 and 13 for the bare versions of common poker hands. And then in game you will feel comfortable adjusting your SPR threshold up or down depending of your re-draws, etc.

This spot in PLO really has no 'issues' as the other Players have already done the work for you and you can now 'safely' put in your whole stack and sit back riding the variance train.

I can be a bit 'bad' by folding in this spot with bottom set, even folding middle set at times depending on who's in the hand .. but that's a 'me' problem I'm willing to accept. With three Players showing interest in the Board, and with really no way they 'should' ever fold with everyone holding shallow stacks, I may choose to step aside the variance train at times.

Your hope is that they all share cards, blocking their draws. You can certainly rely on two of them sharing, but not necessarily all three sharing both the straight and flush draws.

The 'scary' part is that there's only four 'safe' Turn cards that don't pair the Board, Jc and 3x (don't ever be scared of 'lower' quads please) .. but these are the risk/reward hands that come around in PLO that you 'have' to get max in the pot when you hold the current nuts and are shallow in stack.

Hopefully this one worked out for you, but that's usually not the case when it ends up here on this site. GL

Ha, no I didn't make it, but as far as I saw I was in surprisingly good shape, which is probably a testament to the quality of the players I am playing with. I just didn't want to assume.

I lost to a 4 making an inside straight on the turn. Two(!) of the players had 3-5, only one of whom had the flush draw. I didn't really see much of anything the other one had to go with the 3-5. I assume the third player, the initial PF raiser from the blinds, had AA, she didn't act like she was particularly close to winning.

I just wanted to have a more general discussion about how to deal with these situations because they keep coming up and I wonder about waiting for a "safeish" turn card to get it in on with sets..

The general discussion is stack to pot ratio. And all you need to know is how to play SPR 1, 4 and 13. Then every other SPR is either above or below. And you will know how to play not only sets but 2 pair, second nut flush and ever other imaginable hand.

Furthermore, you wondering if you should wait for safe turn cards is also answered by SPR. If the SPR is less than or equal to 4, then if you are facing a bet, if you have a hand worth continuing with, you will raise to get it all in. At SPR 4 or less you raise and commit your stack with a good hand, there is no "waiting for safe turn cards."

The game is very simple on the flop at SPR 4 or less. The preflop round ends and you are on to the flop. You divide the effective stack by the flop stack and if it is SPR 4 or less, then you are either shoving or folding when bet into.

As discussed, in the spot here you really have no choice as the betting has come too far and the stacks are too short. You need to see both cards at this price, so just GII. Perhaps in a RIT room you would have 4 shots at the Board pairing, or just holding, to win some decent profit.

If you were a lot deeper I think flatting is fine since you 'know' that they all need to catch something to jump ahead in the hand and then can evaluate the Turn action, especially when you have position on a Player or two.

If you play against a lot of Regs then you may want to mix things up so that they can't get a betting tell on you. It can be as simple as flush-draw or no flush-draw when leading/raising here.

The one thing that I like to mention is that 'pot' isn't the only bet size in PLO. Although you are offering a better price for them to continue, there's nothing wrong with at least charging 'something' but not everything to build the pot a bit before the Turn comes out. Certainly table and villain dependent. GL