This was more or less my reasoning at the time. I flat called the flop to be careful and get information in case I was in trouble. (Against aggression from Wild Guy I wasn't planning to draw with bottom set.) Here's what I did:

Hero raises to $400. (Intentionally less than the statutory max of $422.)

In retrospect I think I like your reasoning for a raise but I'm not sure about this size. It's somewhat unlikely Wild Guy has anything that's getting odds. The most likely outcome is that he folds to any raise, and the second most likely is that he makes a somewhat bad call of any raise size with a draw.

This is the point of no return; a raise to $400 is pot-committing. I'm probably ahead and would like to max value, so maybe that's good. On the other hand, committing a 280 big blind stack with bottom set is exactly what I planned to avoid when deciding it was OK to play such a marginal hand on the button.

Honestly I still don't know how to play this turn decision, except that I probably shouldn't fold. I think maybe a raise to like $300 (~2.5x) is preferable. Calling is probably OK.

If it's that marginal, maybe EVs are close.

Publication bias being what it is, of course I wouldn't have made this thread if that had ended it.

Turn ($301, 3 players, $770 effective stack):

(6d5h2d) Qs

Wild Guy X, Solid Guy shoves for $122, Hero raises to $400, Wild Guy reraises to $700.


What an awful spot. Exactly why I should be looking for excuses not to play 22 preflop. We may as well count the last $70 of his stack so I'm calling $370 to win ~$1590. That means I need 19% equity. (I also need to beat Solid Guy for the $666 that's in the main pot; something like AA with nut diamonds seems to make up a lot of his range here. Rarely QQ, very rarely 55 or 66.)

His most likely hand is a slowplayed 43, likely with diamonds. He might also have a somewhat discounted 66, 55, or QQ (all probably with diamonds, or maybe some straight draw). Once in a blue moon he'll have something like a NFD + pair or something and be like, "Screw it, all the money's going in anyway and I can't get bluffed out."


For fun here are some equities. I'm assuming 100% preflop range for him which is pretty close to accurate.

• (66,55,QQ):dd, that is, a bigger set that also has diamonds: I have 9%.
• 43:dd: 25%
• Either of the above: 19%
• 66,55,QQ, that is an overset regardless of with or without diamonds: 11%. The extra 2 percent is because one of the 3 of diamonds.

Note that I have almost half the equity I need even in the doomsday part of his range! Throw in the rare semibluff with something like diamonds plus 987 and it's an easy call. But yuck.

Full disclosure that I'm a bit of a n00b to PLO but I'm guessing that you pretty much have to call the extra $300 that Wild Guy just put in. Also I almost feel that you are drawing to a 1 outer here. Perhaps just calling Solid Guy's bet and letting Wild Guy 3bet would have been an easier spot to deal with.

Folding this hand preflop after straddling given the action would be terrible.

I think the call flop, raise turn is not bad. We may be able to slightly improve it by raising the flop directly.

Hero might be able to narrowly justify folding the flop, I'm open to being convinced.

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