Villain is marked as an unknown. Did a few weird things in NLH, but no Omaha history

Hero has 150BB in MP,
Villain has 200BB BTN

Preflop: hero has 9 9 8 7 in MP
1 fold, Hero raises to 3.4BB, fold, Villain raises to 11.6BB, 2 folds, Hero calls

Flop: 6 5 3
Hero checks, Villain checks - Plan was to checkraise the flop

Turn: 5
Hero leads 12.3BB, villain calls

River: 8 (pot 49.2BB)
Hero bets 28.2BB, Villain raises 133.8BB, hero?

Very weird spot, because what can this player reasonably have. 65? 66? I mean, I have to think those hands would be betting the flop if they are going to be 3 betting?

Comments please.

As played:

Ranges are pretty wide OTT; we're relatively polarised in leading a lot of 5X/straights/FHs and 77/44/boardpairs/FDs/SDs. Into a calling range of AQQ/KK/AA+. I would probably size up a bit.

Imo villain is cbetting reasonable amounts of sets; relatively hard for us to have straights on this board; but also rainbow so can find more checkbacks.

Idk if villain is potting 53 OTR even vs our sizing (I might be way out of touch if this is live).

I'm a station, but I lean call. I would expect (hope) to see enough 6X/8X/77XX. Highly doubt villain is potting a bare 5. We also block 85/88 which will be a decent chunk of villains value. Idk if we're looking to call hands like 75 here more than a straight as we're blocking way harder.

Would also consider leading OTF.

Unusual spot, but Hero hand is a strong candidate to call given we block top set, villain may xr weaker made hands or bluffs and Hero also unblocks clubs. This is a spot where overfolding may be correct in practice but be a lot dicier or incorrect in theory.

Villain could reasonable xb 2p+ on this flop since he may xb the large majority of his range. Actually, hero should probably lead flop because of this.

A few thoughts

I don’t love your river size because it makes your hand look exactly like what it is. I would bet 1/3rd or full pot with my range on this river. This hand is strong enough to full pot.

Vs the raise we can say: we have a nut straight with full house blocker and villain has a narrow value range so we call. And on the surface it’s not a terrible strategy probably unexploitable but I feel like we can do better.

They way to do better here is to do some solver work. First work out the gto call range.

Then: What is the ev of this call? (Check other holdings in our range too), what kind of combo’s should villain bluff with, how natural are those combos for this kind of opponent?

Can we make a better decision now than gto?

My gut feel is that this specific spot is underbluffed, so it this ev is close I would let it go.

I don't think I can fold this - he's not raising 53/58 OTR and has very few combos in his 3b range. 88 is about it but we have an 8 - furthermore I'm not sure what he makes of our sizing and might decide he has leverage to rip it with an overpair.

This hand can be played so many different ways!

I like to lead this Flop a lot but don't mind going for the c/r either since we could just take it down right there.

Turn .. I think a mix is OK here. I lean betting against an unknown .. and more, prob 18bb-ish.

River .. Due to paired Board I would probably x/c here, but I'm fairly conservative and it also allows for more bluffs. What can we reasonably expect to call a bet when the Board gets worse? This is more NL thinking .. we have Showdown value now and if we bet larger OTT I'm fine with just taking that as my value.

How long did it take for V to Pot the River and/or call Turn? I may overuse timing tells, but our hand (AP) does look like what it is .. a straight that may be wary of 5x boats. In my Player Pool A5xx will just Call and take the Showdown, but there are a few Players who will see the bet sizing and take swing at the pot.

AP our story is just 'off' .. but so is V's. What did V 'not' have on Turn that they are willing to ramp things up with when an 'over-card' comes on the River? Quads?

I guess because we block/connect so much with the Board and we did improve to a 5-card hand that I might call it down, but I'm not really happy about it. As I indicated before, I just don't feel that we need to put ourselves into these polarized decisions in PLO. Leak? Probably, but I snap x/c here whereas I probably take way too long tanking on this River decision facing a raise.

My Pool is not all fuddy-duddies .. I'll actually see some 33xx/35xx shown down and willing to take the loss to other boats. IMO the River bet doesn't look like value as much as a block, which may open the door up for a raise from a willing PLO Reg. Most of them will flat any non-boat 5x hand and all straights, especially with a larger River bet. So it's really a crap shoot and a good hand to post.

Unfortunately I let session factors weigh in on my decisions some of the time .. First bullet, probably call more often than on 3rd bullet. Running good today, call. Running bad, another bad runout.

33% win rate with a call? AP I think yes but am not surprised to see Quads .. and then kick myself for betting River against our normal course of play. GL

Can’t fault crimson’s analysis as usual.

My 2cents, I’m really only worried about a hand like AA88 KK66 and I think 66 bets a lot HU in this spot, we block bet and this kind of feels like a spaz bluff jam maybe with a blocker?

What was V’s 3bet %? Does he have medium rundowns in there?

Feel like I’m paying him off.

V should range check this flop so he has all the boats still.

That said our hand has great blockers so I sigh call.

results?

I’m more curious about the flop. Villain should be checking back a majority of their range here. Does it make sense for us to lead the flop then? I guess if V tends to auto Cbet then c/r get it in makes sense here? But then again we are 1500bb deep. Omaha is hard

I'm seeing a trend this week from a few posters on checking a lot more Flops than I expected. I think I've trended that direction myself as well .. heeding to my "Win the war, not necessarily every battle" position for long term poker.

Certainly a double edged sword in spots like this one where we do have plenty of equity, but essentially also have 'nothing' currently .. and block an out.

If we thought we were up against AA/KK here I'd rather not have a pocket pair in order to have 3 danglers to draw to instead of just 2 .. we lose 3 outs. Granted in this spot we do have the three 4s but any additional outs are more than welcome in PLO.

Just another spot where V type .. and Hero type .. can completely change the course of a hand more so in PLO than NL. GL

I fold. You are not that high in your value range really, not sure if 8 is a great blocker because it blocks bluffs too. People just don't bluff here enough. Unless you have a sizing tell you should just fold it imo.

I let this one go vs a relative unknown.