7 left at Bovada FT. ITM. Blinds 2k/4k. No ante.

Hero has 66k UTG +1 with AQA3 We are 2nd in chips, CL is a bad LAG on our left with 340k. Everyone else has between 20 and 50k.

I open limp trying to play a small pot or 3bet any raise, of course preferably against a shortstack. CL pots to 18k. Folds around to us. We can 3bet jam our whole stack but expect to have close to zero fold equity. Best to just let it go or go for it?

Lol, go for it. His range is likely relatively weak, so you are maybe 65% against it. Plus you could have FE. Kind of easy raise for him if you fold everything.

Initially, this shallow, probably better to open for pot, as you can get enough in and the chip leader isn't going to think he has FE. Playing for a limp/3-bet might be good deeper. It seems like a major error here.

In most cases I would pot pre but thought this was pretty unique spot given stack sizes/positions. I figurerd CL is gonna flat a pot bet pre very often and put us in icky spots post unless we flop big.... but in reality we will have spr just over 1.5 if he flats which I guess is okay to stack off most flops...perhaps that's better than open limp but still not loving it when we can ladder up so easily.

I know about ICM, but with this hand, I think you are better off taking it down or getting it in against the smaller stacks. Raising pot accomplishes that better than limping. Raising pot also works better against the big stack, but the bigger issue is that you don't really want to be playing limped pots with this hand.

Does it change your thinking if you know CL is flatting a pot raise pre 100% of the time? (or pretty darn close to it)

Without knowing the range of the payouts from 1-7, it is hard to factor the ICM.

The general stat from PLO is that aaxx is 6-5 favorite over a random hand. General PLO rule of thumb is that if you can get all your chips in preflop with AAxx headsup, you should. You are close enough, go for it.

Not a 6-5 favorite, a 65% favorite, almost a 2-1 favorite. It doesn't matter if the opponent has a random hand, a top 20% hand or a top 10% hand.That is because AA plays well against pocket pairs.

It varies by types of aces. The best aces are like 70% an quad aces are like 52%. However, these are slightly better than average aces.

The ICM issues here are huge, but a would still go with it.

Your 65% is incorrect.

https://www.pokernews.com/strategy/c...maha-29959.htm

Aces and Other Big Pairs
Now it's time to talk about the famous aces. These {A-}{A-}{x-}{x-} hands are always good preflop and you will play them.

You must keep in mind, however, that PLO is primarily a postflop game. That means in those cases when you aren't able to squeeze it preflop, there are other factors besides the two aces in your hand — namely your position, your stack size, and the other two cards in your hand — that might cause you to have to play the hand carefully.

For example, if you have {A-Clubs}{A-Hearts}{9-Diamonds}{4-Spades} and your opponent has {J-Spades}{10-Spades}{8-Hearts}{5-Hearts}, you're only about 52.3 percent to have the best hand by the river. In other words, these "bad aces" are basically flipping in this example.

[com] Ios Silver Lion 728x90 June 5th
If we were playing hold'em, {A-Clubs}{A-Hearts} would be about a 79.2 percent against {J-Hearts}{10-Hearts}, and a 79.5 percent favorite against {8-Spades}{5-Spades}.

As you can see, aces that aren't working with your other two cards aren't that strong of a hand, and depending on the situation it is even more profitable to just limp with them.

Finally, let's say you are dealt {Q-Diamonds}{Q-Spades}{7-Hearts}{2-Clubs}. At this point, you are probably already imagining what I am going to say — that's right, it is a bad hand.

Notice again how the four cards aren't interacting with each other. Even if you flop a set of queens, you never will have redraws or backdoors.

Against this hand, someone with {A-Spades}{9-Hearts}{6-Hearts}{4-Spades} is about a 52.2 percent favorite against you. Meanwhile in hold'em pocket queens would be a little better than a 72 percent favorite over {A-Spades}{9-Hearts}. All of which means you shouldn't be willing to invest too much money with this type of hand.

Call is still an option.

I also prefer raise to open limp.

Pushing, assuming the big stack calls, is about 2-1 in chip EV compared to folding. There are huge ICM considerations, but without being able to calculate exact figures it is hard for ICM considerations to cancel all that out. Plus if you win, you have 3x what everyone else but the bad LAG has.

I don't think we can flat call the raise with the idea of sometimes folding, because our hand is hard to evaluate on the flop. There aren't many flops where his range is way ahead of our hand. It might be possible to play this as a stop and go with slightly more than pot left. We lose a little in chip EV compared to pushing, but we get him to fold sometimes and reduce the risk of busting.

Thinking about it, flat calling the pot raise of the limp is probably the best play. Then pot for almost your stack on flops which are relatively bad for you. Check/shove or check/call good flops. He is probably usually cbetting, sometimes potting it to gii. He will likely cbet to represent as the preflop aggressor if an ace hit. It is definitely better to check a nut flush or straight. You could also check/shove some dry flops where you are usually well ahead. The main advantage of this approach is getting him to fold sometimes when you pot the flop and you are well ahead but he has equity. You lose a little in cEV when he folds, but gain in $EV.

Nah, not with 15bb in icm spot.
You’ll get an spr slightly more than one, he will pot most flops so it becomes effectively setmining for us.
If we donk jam most flops its better to 3bet pre, at least he wont give up when he bricks and/or can fold some equity pre.

Expo potting pre is best I guess but I actually like limp as a range play given stacks and icm. Can still have some raise range as well.