PLO50

Fish playing 80/0 over like 20 hands straddles utg ($80eff)

reg and maybe the best player at the stakes raises btn ($150eff)

hero covers both and 3bets with AAd8d2 from sb. I kind of autopiloted with the 3bet, not seeing how deep we were, even with a straddle. Cant be terrible but not the best aces. Fish and reg calls.


Flop Qd2d3. I cbet half pot with overpair + nfd, hoping that the btn doesn't have QQ here. I never know when or when not to cbet in 3bet pots with AA, but this seems like one of the better spots. Im only worried about QQ and the fish having some random two pair hand.

Fish calls, btn pots. Ugh Im almost certain btn has QQxx but there really isnt anything to do about it, too much equity. I had $25 behind after calling, I decided to wait til the turn to put that in. IDK if it matters much, normally I could maybe fold if the board paired but id still be getting 10:1 here. Fish folded to flop raise so there is plenty of dead money.

These are just the kind of spots I always seem to lose in PLO. Build a big stack then get into a huge pot with AAxx plus backup and lose.

In case you don't have any other history or some clear hand showdowns, a sample of 20 hands is too thin to make definitive judgements.

I would just get it in on the flop - are you actually folding if the board pairs?

Well played. Pre is fine, you're 150 bb deep with straddle.

Anyone playing 80/0 for 20 hands is a fish.

An other reminder to annotate your hh with pot sizes please, it's reasonable to expect you to have done the maths already and share it with us.

A sample size of 20 can be too thin but someone playing 80/0 over 20 hands is not going to turn out to be a 20/15 nit. They are likely in the range of 70/3 or something. You can and should be making definitive statements within hands about what their range looks like in the context of their stats so far, but then update those statements when you see more actions / the contents of their hands.

Pre is fine. Sometimes this player profile does unexpectedly shift into tilty lagtard mode from loose-passive but you can't anticipate many 3bets from him, and you can anticipate many cold-calls, so you should probably 3b worse AAxx than this; the reg will be expecting you to 3b light too and might even throw in a cheeky 4b.

'Flop Qd2d3. I cbet half pot with overpair + nfd, hoping that the btn doesn't have QQ here.'

There should be much more thought process going into your bet-sizing than this - can you elaborate on what you were thinking here, why you chose half pot? What parts of their range are you targeting? Is this sizing good for making mediocre hands face tough decisions, or to induce a light raise? What other hands might you be c-betting for this sizing on this board?

If you're 'certain' that villain has top set, well, you need 2-1 against that, and it doesn't sound like you've got it, so you should fold. In reality, villain doesn't need to have much that's not a set often before you've got more than good enough odds to gii. A good player will be value-jamming wider than sets here - Q4 combos turn up plenty in peoples' hands, very often with good enough backup even in the form of an oesd or fd to gii. Maybe even Q3+fd is good enough given the super LP fish in the pot.

After 3betting this deep your hand is basically face up. I would either bet smaller (1/4) or check in order to check raise and get it in. We block the flush draws so when he jams its more likely that he has 2p+. As played i would fold flop.

If this is true then you are doing something very wrong.

Could you explain and maybe i learn something new today. I think that's why all of us are here. Not just say you are doing something wrong and thats it. It is the same as if you were silent, with all due respect.

First of all, as i remember from watching few multiway solves, we should go with smaller sizings (correct me if im wrong). Second of all, what are the benefits of betting and what are the benefits of checking? If we bet and our opponent/s call, we are in the dark on most turns, playing high SRP out of position. If we check/raise we simplify the hand with decent equity avoiding all the weird stuff on the turn. And if it goes check check, we can valuebet most turns and play from there. And im not saying you shouldnt 3bet pre, you definetly should, espetially when fish is in the hand. Just dont agree with our play postflop.

If your hand is face up, it means you are only 3-betting AA at this depth. So, just start 3-betting a reasonable range and there is no problem. I don't know why I need to explain this to someone who knows what a solver is.

Well i ment after we 3b and cbet for a big sizing. Im actually 3betting way wider than i would like, so no, i dont only have AA when i 3b here.

This is an exact quote of what you said though. GL.

Why don’t you 3b the amount you would like?

OP there are lots of hands you get value from and no one has a strong range on this flop. I wouldn’t want to gii 300bb deep but with the straddle it’s only 150bb. Once you bet you’re committed. You also print if it’s a 3 way all in.

I would sometimes start with a check call or check raise depending on lots of factors like sizing, how aggro btn is, meta, how bad the fish is, etc.

I didnt phrase my self correctly. I always pot there. What i wanted to say is that im over 3betting preflop. My 3bet total is like 10-11%. And i think that is the thing that gets me into a lot of tricky spots, espetially when i play deep. So i am one of the guys who is always looking to 3b and iso the fish, but in fishy enviroments it doesnt pay off that much since every hand goes 3-4 way postflop.

Im not 100% sure, but i think gto 3b should be like 7-8%. Thats why i said i am not 3betting as much as i should be. And it would save me a lot of headache if i could tone it a little bit down overall.

I also 3bet +10% and I think it's fine since most people never 4bet light.

Its funny I got in a kinda similar situation with basically the same hand last night. AAd8d2. not the ace of clubs.

Loose btn opens (36/25 over 50 hands), sb folds, I 3bet. Btn calls. $60 eff

Flop Kc4dJc (pot $12) check. check

Turn Kc4dJc5d I figure I have the best hand a lot here plus fd and gutshot as backup so I bet $8 to get value from pair + draw hands. Villain Pots. Hero? If I call its $20 behind and $80 pot


This seems like a turn that completes few made hands and creates a lot more draws. I dont think folding is an option now, but is it better to call or jam?

I dont really know the nuances of PLO bet sizes. I thought full pot into 2 players would get folds from weak hands I want to call like bad Qx and worse FDs, so I went half pot.

I was "certain" in the sense that my gut told me he had because they always have it when I play PLO in these spots. My brain tells me he could have other hands, and I try to follow my brain and not my gut usually.

It's the same nuances as NLHE, just with some occasional extra flavours and some other flavours less important in PLO than NLHE. Getting value in NLHE has you focus on made hands over draws, getting value in PLO has you focus on draws over made hands.

Let's say someone 3bets a range that is ike 80% AAxx, 15% high quality Axxx, and then 5% the great KKxxds and K-9ds rundowns. Let's say you come up against 10 of those players and play a few hundred hands against each or whatever. Most of those players will come across as giant nits, a handful will appear to 3b a reasonable range, and maybe 1 will come across laggy. It's variance that determines how players appear to us, and variance can fool us. Maybe you are forced to fold all your bad hands in like 3 live sessions of NLHE cash, but run hot and get to showdown aces and sets. Everyone at that table will be like 'yeah he's a giant nit' and then later might have to pay for their inflexibility with that statement.

In real life as well as in poker, it pays to retain your capacity to be surprised as well as reject certainty.

Calling would make more sense if you had no showdown value.