Hi all,

10/10/25, hero started with $1,600, V in BB seems pro but have not played with him before. SB and BB complete and hero in straddle checks with KKJ86 with K-high diamonds.

Flop ($75): QT9shc. Checks to hero who bets $50 with the nuts. Only BB calls.

turn ($175): 4s bringing bdfd. V checks, hero bets $150, V c/r to $600, around pot. I can flat in position and hope for a brick river or get it in now to prevent being bluffed off a chop at the risk I am being freerolled with something like KJA or KJss. If we flat we can also rep certain runouts if checked to. We'll have $950 behind if we call this raise and the pot will be around $1,400. V could also be raising with QQ+fd or KJ+naked A spades or a Q, intending on bluffing certain rivers.

Thanks,
DT

We have KK, but he could still easily be free-rolling us, and we have no other draws. I can go either way, but I kind of like the call, especially if he will bluff at the river.

If we call and the river is the Th pairing the board and he jams?

Since you'll have way less than a pot sized bet behind after calling (assuming there are no folds here), I see very little reason to just call. In these difficult turn situations, I err on the side of getting it in to avoid being put in a tough spot OTR and maybe making a bad fold.

The other reason to GII is if the 4S led him to a big combo draw and he isn't nutted. Then you miss the river value.

I guess it depends on how well you know this player. If you don't want to face a tough decision on the river, gii now.

Turn bet is too large without ks or js at minimum.

Also dislike flop size.

We are probably supposed to fold turn to that xr.

I am probably a novice PLO player compared to the OP so let me ask a silly question. Why did we check pre?

I thought bigger was better ott given we unblock spades and sets which have good equity against us to charge those the maximum? 40% with both a flush draw and set for example.

Calling the x/r is debatable we have probably respectable odds to call even if he is freerolling and we can rep stuff on bad runouts for him when checked to.

Our hand isn’t pushing a big edge preflop…the 6 and being single suited hurt us. If we are ahead it’s not by much. These are mediocre kings at best…kings are much worse than aces. Anyone with a single ace has around 45-48% against our hand most likely.

“Kings are much worse than aces” I’m not THAT bad at PLO that I didn’t know that. (I’m probably a modest winner in the games I play in, which are much smaller than OP’s games. But I also used to play the 5/5 5 card in OP’s home territory, some years ago.)

The reason I’m wondering about not raising pre is because we have a fairly good hand and we have position on two people who have limped to us. In this scenario my PLO instinct (formed from the game I currently play, which may be very different) is to juice the pot in position so that my opponents’ bad flop and turn play will be worth more those times I flop good. Is this wrong? Or is it possibly just game-dependent? (If it matters, my current game is 4-card.)

Unblocking spades is really not that important on raimbow flop, even if backdoor drove is now here.

Similarly, Hero goal shouldn't be to fold out sets.. its to charge worse drawing hands, including sets.

The notion that Hero will use position on river to steal undeserved pots with zero useful blockers also seems very optimistic, especially since villain has iniative to bet first.

You don’t block any spades and any board pair so gii now would be lighting money on fire. I would call and hope he bricks his redraw but folding can’t be bad.

How can we rep anything with no relevant blockers?

I agree with you here. I think preflop is the more interesting decision point and that raising is the better play.

Thinking only in terms of raw equity misses the EV at future game trees

villain is going to have KJ + spades here all day. call and bluff board pairs when he checks to u. he will probably check spades even if he hits, but if he bets it fold.


as for raising pre, i wouldn't do it vs unknowns especially not if we think one of them is good. our hand isn't that strong. we have only one suit and a bunch of gaps. against a couple of whales we could probably get away with it, since we are in position.

Re: pre-flop

While hand seems strong enough to raise its unexciting with only a single flush draw (downgrade) and medium connectivity

This hand will often play better at High SPR

Yes but the structure is 10/10/25 they prob have 70% of hands. Raising will still be higher EV - cant let them in for cheap and realise equity

The problem is we won’t be able to realize equity when we flop a gutter or our overpair is still flipping, or when we flop a flush draw and there is a lot of action.

Not true. One might fold to your raise and you get it HU. You have position and can check back. You can cbet and check back turn. Many good things can happen

We do not have a good hand. In PLO in general but particularly in PLO5 we want dominating hands, and we don't dominate much - we're relying on set on set, which people can often get away from, if we want to get paid off; much more easy to get paid off in big pots when we have a set and something else strong. When we have high connected cards like KKQT9 we can much more often make big two-way hands where we have the best hand AND the best draw, which is a large part of where we make our money in PLO5.

Given we're in position, and not very many opponents have it in them to turn made straights into bluffs on board pairs, we're the one more liable to put them into a difficult decision OTR by keeping the pot small and jamming on board pairs.

Only 'big combo draw' is AQQJx with fd, though we're still a favourite against that hand.

Making plays in order to avoid tough decisions is not a good philosophy in poker. In the short term it can cost us EV, in this case, getting it allin against a range that highly likely has a lot of redraws in it makes it a -EV play. In the long term, we learn more by putting ourselves in difficult decisions, sometimes getting them wrong and learning something from them, sometimes getting them right and learning something from them as well as gaining confidence.

While that's true it's more likely that we'll be called by someone behind us who might be able to bluff us and realize their equity. So the bad things that can happen outweigh the good. The hand doesn't dominate opponent's calling ranges well enough. KKQJT or something like that does. This is not a good hand to raise OOP in 5c.

We are in the straddle. Last to act pre

Yes I'm aware. We just don't have a strong enough hand to raise pre. It doesn't dominate enough, it's not easily playable, it doesn't have the raw equity advantage needed. It's a small pot hand where you will probably want to call a single raise if you've got position and are near to closing the action but it's not a big pot hand. You'll find plenty of far better hands to raise.

Update: hero flatted and river was a board-pairing T. V jams. Hero?

Folds as there generally aren't enough competent players who have the confidence to bluff board pairs in this spot and anyway his turn raise says he has a hand stronger than the nuts, so if you simplify and imagine half the time he has a boat redraw and half a flush draw, you're calling for half your money back half of the time and none of it the rest.

You originally said ‘it's more likely that we'll be called by someone behind us’

If you’re aware we act last pre then u know we act last every street. Its a big deal.

You say its not easily playable but being IP gives so many more options

I think your also neglecting how wide people will be limping in from the blinds so i do think you push an equity edge

The small pot small hand whatever just sounds like nonsense tbh