12 players remain and the tourney pays top 7.

We play 6-handed, though one degen at my table max late regged while playing a PLO cash game. The TD said he had to play for at least 20 minutes before he could sit out. He was crushing his cash game so he went back to that after his required 20 minutes, hoping to blind off his tournament stack into the money. So we are effectively 5-handed.

The two players to my left have the biggest stacks at the table ~30bb deep. The remaining 4 stacks are fairly even ~15-20bb deep.

Blinds: 1k/2k, 2k BB ante (9 minutes remain in this level)
Eff stacks: 39,500

Fold, UTG+1 raises to 6k
Folds to Hero (35,500) in BB w/ AKQr

Notes on Villian:
I'd put his pf stats around 18/10. He's raised a few times from EP on my BB, and showed me ds AA once, but he has an EP open-limping range as well. We've seen him play pretty straight forward the whole day. He hasn't spewed any chips or done anything too crazy or creative.

How do you approach this spot?

I hate not having any suits. Since he's raised from an earlier position he could easily mirror some of our own cards, but he's going to have the positional advantage on us post-flop.

Since we're in the BB we're not getting a bad price, but the positional disadvantage and our hand lacking some flush draw potential leans me more towards a fold in this spot. The blinds will pass us soon at least and give a little breathing room.

I suspect the weakest no pair rainbow hand I'm willing to call here would be kqt9. Lack of suit really kills your playability and the stack blinding out really incentivizes you to play extra tight. Fold.

Feels like a pretty standard fold - tournament strategy for omaha is very tight and Hero hand is dominated by an EP opening range.

There are two tables left. But there is a player missing from your table who's chips (blinds and antes !!!) are a gift to all the players at your table. It would be irresponsible for anyone at your table to battle without a premium hand. You should not give a damn about your BB if you don't have a premium hand. This hand you don't. You need to be concentrating on your hands in which it comes to you un-opened and deciding if you can raise and get the walk. Card removal says try to steal with at least an ace in your hand and maybe a lot stronger based on your judgement.

Your mindset has to be on winning the missing player's blinds and antes without directly battling the other players at your table. This is a version of implied collusion where everyone at your table should be working together without communicating it.

Yeah, that's the conclusion I came to in reflecting on the hand afterwards. My first instinct was to fold the hand...do I really wanna play this OOP?...(No). But I ended up talking myself into a call because I was BB and getting a cheaper price to see the flop, and figured I could get away easily if I miss...

IFFFFFFFFFFFF

Flop (15,000) QdQc9d (I hold the Ad)
I check, Villian bets pot, and I stick it in for 31,000

Villian shows AsKcQs7s...Turn 7...River J...gg no re

I had an unlucky runout, but had I given better consideration of my hand against his EP raising range, I would've concluded that it would be hard for me to be an equity favorite in this spot, and even harder to play this hand OOP against his range. And I avoid this mess with a clear fold.

---

This was my first live tournament in several years, and my first live PLO tournament all together. And one thing I noticed is that I am much more consistently disciplined with my decisions when playing online than I was in this live tournament. I imagine some of that is just my level of familiarity and comfort with the respective environments at the moment. Perhaps another aspect is that it's generally easier to stay patient and disciplined online when the action moves faster and you get to see more hands vs live play. Sucks to lose so close to the money on a blunder, but the lessons I learned in reflection will certainly stay with me, and I'll be better prepared myself for the next one. Appreciate all your thoughts on this one!