Just table changed in a NLHE game. First dealer change we’re playing a PLO DBBP. 6-7 handed.

H ($500) is BB w AcKc8s4c.
V1 (~$500) MP 60’s WG. No idea how he plays PLO.
V2 (~$400) LP middle aged Israeli (?) guy. Again, no idea.

Flop
Qc9c2c
K83r

H checks the nuts and top 2 with the intent to check raise. V1 makes it $45, V2 calls, H pots for ~$250. Is this the right idea here?

Well… you have such a strong connection on both boards and so many blockers to all kinds of second best hands that you make it very difficult for them to call a check raise. I like it better to start betting out myself here, more effectively stringing along hands like weak flushes and one pair on the other board, hands that you truly dominate but will fold to a check raise. Also it can just get check around here when you’re blocking this much which sucks.

I think checking is fine but betting might be better. How much is the ante?

Check raise is good but I would use a much smaller sizing. We don’t want them to fold. Make it 125-150 and pile every turn but board pair on top.

I could be wrong here, but I think check raise is the right idea. Even though you block a lot of strong stuff, I think I would be happy to fold out hands like QQ, 99, 22, 33. K8 very vulnerable also. Not sure how much this matters, but neither your hand nor the bottom board block the board pairing on the monotone board, so your hand is fairly vulnerable, particularly multiway.

QQ has only 35 ish against our flush and maybe 20-30 on the other board. That is the equity for two more cards but we’re making them pay for just seeing the turn. We’re happy to keep them in the hand.

As well as hands like weak flushes + a pair of 8s.

Sure we might be outdrawn sometimes. But that’s part of poker.

I get that we can get drawn out on and that's a part of poker. Maybe you are right. A fishy player is more likely to call flop and turn if we pot it up front.

On the flip side though, I think it is important to think about what our equity is in the total bomb pot, not just one board. We have none of the pairs on the monotone
board and none of the pairs are on the k83r board, so the 35% is more like 39%. So vs a set we're looking at more like 61% equity on one board 61% equity is 30.5% equity in the main pot. How much equity K8 has on the other board is more questionable. It is nice that we block top 2 sets on that board though.

The fact we have 3 clubs also reduces the likelihood either of them had a flush, so it seems that a fair amount of the time V1 is on K83 and v2 has a set of the monotone board. I think there is a good chance we are looking at overall 40% equity over both boards. I think there is an argument to get out sets on the monotone board to clean our equity up to over 50% and allow us to just jam the turn. Or allow fish to make a big mistake and get in a set on the monotone board in bad. And avoid situations where the board pairs on turn or river and we end up having to check fold, occasionally still winning because we don't know which board they are on (board can still pair on turn, but if we are heads up it isn't as bad, and if it does go three ways, we can at least jam turn before river pairs the board).

I guess there are also competing factors here. We either want to pull players in to make the pot 3 ways so we chop one player's money more often, but occasionally get drawn out on, or either try to take it down now or get in a situation heads up where we may be ahead in equity and still have some scoop potential.

It seems like it would be really difficult to estimate EV of actions and see which one is better.

it’s hard to be sure and get an exact answer but I feel quite strongly about lead being better than check raise:

Vs QQ were 67% on the flush board and a whopping 84% on the k83r.

Vs flushes we are obv lock on top board and very high equity still on the k83r.

We absolutely dominate a ton of hands here and we want value more than FE. A lot of those dominated hands will call one or more large sized bets be get out of the way vs a check raise. It’s really hard to come up with combos that will bet/call check raise on the flop that we’re crushing so that seems like a bad way to get value.

Also it can get checked around.

This was online in the ball park of what I was thinking. Also confused a little.

Taking down now is +$150ish which is like 62-64% equity HU AI here so basically a wash, right?

Or said differently, as I’m unlikely to scoop isn’t FE still a good thing?

IDK you might make more by getting multiple callers so you can at least chop when the board doesn't pair 61% of the time or so (look it up with all the dead cards).

One thing to consider multiway is that while you may have 84% against QQ (not sure what this even means, against QQXX? but okay), when it is fairly likely one of them has QQ or another set on the monotone board and the other player has a set on the other board, our equity on the K83 board is actually not really high. If one has 33 and the other QQ, we are 23% on K83. If it is 88 and QQ, we are 12%. And if it is KK and QQ we are dead on K83. Plus there are lots of backdoor things that can hurt us on K83. We can get freerolled by a player if he has KK on K83 vs us having the nutflush and another player having QQ, and if he has 88 or or 33 it's not looking great.

But because both boards don't share cards, it is relatively hard for you to get it heads up and be freerolled. He would need a hand like QQ33, basically there is no overlap between the two boards. So you would go from having sub 40% equity 3 ways to >50% equity heads up.

I'm not saying it's not better to just bet the flop, but because bombpots are so multiway and they are split pot games, you can't think about equities the same way as you do a heads up PLO hand.

Running into QQ and 33 MW is going to happen like 1% of the time though. (Vs KK/88 our check raise doesn’t give us FE anyways)

Vs the much more common line ups like
QQ
Weak flush + 8T96 kinda hand on the other board

We are absolutely smashing both boards MW equity.

What line ups other than Qq/33 do we do poorly against multi-way?

You're 6-7 handed with 100% range and we are 2nd to act. How much double board PLO bomb pots do you play? It's way more than 1% of the time that you are going to be up against 2 players having a set on opposite boards. When you have 3 clubs including the both the Ac and Kc and you know there are 4 cards in your hand and 3 cards on K83 and none of those cards is a Q, 9 or 2. And if someone is betting out, since we have clubs locked down, it is frequently going to be on the K83 board. Despite the fact that we hold a K and an 8, a lot of time that value range is going to be a set, sometimes top 2. There just aren't a lot of hands that are giving action here.

Yes, you have no fold equity vs KK or 88. But vs those hands if you get it heads up and knock out the QQ etc combos then you're going to chop the vast majority of the time vs KK or 88. 3 ways Vs QQ from one player and a set on K83, we get half the pot 61% of the time or whatever, a lot less than if you get it heads up. You're in a spot where you are rarely get scooped heads up, but you get scooped quite often multiway.

Lets break it down

Running into QQ 6 handed with 100% ranges happens 10% of the time.

Running into kk/88/33 6 handed happens 15.6%

Therefor running into QQ+any set on the other board happens 1.56% of the time 6 handed.

If we get it in 3 way vs those hands we have 59% on one board and 1% on the other

If we get it in hu vs KK we have a chop.

30% in a 3w ~330bb pot gives us 99 potshare
50% in a hu ~230bb pot gives us 115 potshare

therefor there is 16bb to be gained in a situation that occurs 1.5% of the time. Clearly this is not very impactful on our bottom line compared to

Running into a second best flush happens 52% of the time. It will be very easy for that second best flush to have another hand that we dominate strongly on the other board, like one pair+some backdoor ****, which will still quite frequently improve to a second best two pair hand on the turn.

This situation yields us at least multiple bb's in ev and occurs extremely frequently.

Therefor it follows clearly that our strategy should focus on the impact of that line and not so much on the first.

Betting for value vs those hands is clearly higher ev than denying equity from a rare 3w line up.

Why do we have no fold equity vs 88?

Why is it checking around so bad? Delayed bets are more likely to be called by Jack high flushes and someone could make a worse 2 pair on bottom.

Sure ideally getting lots of money in on flop is great but there are other ways to print. That’s why I think check raise small is better than leading out.

Worrying about doomsday scenarios is silly when we hit both boards this hard.

Well-played. Hand is strong enough to check flop to induce.

I wouldn't always xr the flop, or xr so large, but Hero can mix a lot of different lines with such a strong hand.

7x$5 bomb pot would make it $35 to pot flop but V does $45?

Just never leading flop 7 ways from BB in a bomb pot.

x/r flop is fine, put the money in and see what happens or take the free $135(?). If we were a bit deeper I might x/c sometimes, but it'll get trickey/annoying if someone has an okay flush and hits KJ two pair on the turn or something. Also a few bad runouts like board pair on the top and 3x/Q/J/T/9 on the bottom where we can get bluffed out of half.

i think there are good arguments for checking and leading flop, but i would lean towards check-raise because, as someone else said, i am going to have very few leads from BB in bomb pots, and we are shallow enough that having it check through is not a disaster.

i don't think any raise size is a terrible mistake here, but in this exact scenario against middle-aged unknowns, i might go a little smaller in order to price in hands that we have crushed. we can make it 140-150 and get it in on most turns. the only really tricky spot we could face is if we get called in 2 spots, board pairs on top and a QJT or 9 falls on the bottom. still probably not folding but might consider c/c turn in that instance.

Results: V2 calls the pot. H bets the remaining ~$100 blind. V2 calls with no top and K3 (2 pair vs H’s K8) on the K83 bottom board. H wins top, V gets bailed out on bottom w/ river 3.

The take away: Never underestimate the stupidity of players in midstakes live plo.

I agree that we should almost check range from EP in bomb pot situations.

However where in nlhe you can simplify such situations to just check range, in plo you will always have combos in just about any “range check” scenario that still cleary prefer leading out. The easiest example: a nut flush in a 5 card bomb pot. That hand blocks the best bluffs and makes it very likely it gets checked around and misses a lot of value.

We should go with whatever line is best in game. If people are going to bet/call it off with non nutted flushes then it’s fine to check raise. But the point is: because of the nature of plo there will always be certain combos that prefer leading over checking even when we’re in a multi-way situation even when we’re at a massive range disadvantage.

I don't agree with checking range in bomb pots, especially because we lose more equity across two boards than a single board.

I have multiple betting / lead sizes to choose from for each position.

the value of betting also goes up in DB games because its harder to scoop and calling requires a stronger range

So complicated, can’t we just donk half… everyone’s drawing dead.

AIUI theory/gto suggests EP players check range in bomb pots, to balance your 80%+ range of x/f.

Also in the DBBP games I play I see people almost never x/r flop, which means some players seem to get away with an insanely high "bet when it checks to me on the BTN" percentage.


But then AIUI theory suggests everyone should bet small, at least most of the time, but I see pot a lot so part of me is like w/e it's still the wild west out here and anything is fine.

Theory does not suggest checking range from EPs in PLO in bomb pots this is a misconception.

AIUI?

maybe i am forgetting what that stands for