This hand came up in the Omaha 8rotation of a 15/30 oe game.

Mp raises I call in cutoff with A J 2 8, sb calls. Mp is pretty tight and opens a tight range preflop, limps a lot of hands that could be raised. Sb is pretty loose and plays bad post flop.

Flop is k j 4

Sb leads out mp calls and I call.

Turn is 8

Sb leads mp calls I raise sb calls and mp calls.

River 2

Sb checks mp bets I raise

Thoughts on my turn and river play? Is the turn raise too loose? Was this complete spew on the river or a good spot to knock out some kings up hands that aren't king jack?

You didn't ask about the flop, but I think this is where your trouble may have originated.

Your call here is very skimpy for Omaha-8.

You have a pair of jacks plus a couple of backdoor draws. Backdoor draws add to the value of your hand, but not much. Against a competent opponent, I think you want a set, or a wrap around straight draw, two pairs, or at least a pair of kings to continue here. You tell us "Sb is pretty loose and plays bad post flop," but you don't tell us about mp. At any rate, I'd still be wary, even against sb. Basically I see your play as bad play yourself because you're facing a bad playing opponent. I haven't simulated this but although I think if you simulate against random cards you'll look OK, if you simulate against the range of a set, or a wrap around straight draw, two pairs, or at least a pair of kings, you'll come up short. Indeed, probably against any of those, you'll come up short. And even though "Sb is pretty loose and plays bad post flop," I think you have to concede the pot to her or mp here. Note that if either of your opponents has anything from the range I specified, you'll probably not be the favorite. That's just my opinion, I haven't simulated it, and I suspect some other strong posters will disagree with me.

Now you've gotten yourself into one of those awkward spots. You have a poor two pairs, jacks and eights, and not much of a chance to improve on the river. You think sb is bad so you raise, presumably hoping to knock out mp and end up one-on-one with sb, but that doesn't work. Ouch.

Why? Do you think sb has a better hand and will fold? Do you think sb has a worse hand and is bad enough to call a double bet with trash? If mp is bluffing, won't he just fold to your raise? If mp has a better hand, or if sb was planning a check/raise with top set or something, don't you get kicked in the teeth here?

I think mp might have a king plus a deuce or might have picked up a better two pairs than your jacks and eights somewhere along the way. Another possibility is mp slow played a set (since sb was driving the betting) until the river. Another possibility is mp is bluffing or betting less than your two pairs. This would be a spot for mp to make such a move.

I would have avoided your dilemma by folding to sb's bet and mp's call on the flop.

However, having gotten to the river, I think the pot is big enough that you should brave a possible check/raise from sb and call just in case mp is bluffing or somehow betting less that your two pairs.

See above.

I think it depends on why you did it. If you did it because you thought you'd end up with the best hand, yes, I think it was too loose. But if you raised as a tactical move to knock out mp, maybe not, depending.0

Complete spew, in my humble opinion. (Sorry to be blunt, but you asked).

Buzz

agree with buzz above. i don't like the turn raise since your high equity is questionable against SB, and likely chopping with MP if you make your low. river raise looks spewy but may actually knock out a better high from SB and hoping MP has something like AA3* or A234 with which you chop.

Thank you for the long and thought out response Buzz.

I guess I did not give the flop much thought. I always thought that with a back door NLD a pair and back door jack high flush draw was enough to peel a flop in position here. I may have to make an adjustment in my game in these kinds of spots.

In game i initially raised the turn for value because in my experience with SB he doesn't have to have two pair to bet again on the turn here and i think MP is going to have a hand similar to me such as a pair with a BDNLD or some BDNLD with a back door flush draw. Looking back on this spot just because SB doesn't necessarily have to have two pair here I'm not sure if he doesn't have two pair enough to make my raise profitable.

On the river once SB checks and Mp leads out for the first time I was confident that MP made a nut low. I think MP would raise KJ and sets on the flop so the only hands I believe MP is scooping me with are k8 with a decent or nut low and k2 with a decent low or nut low. Therefore my raise was targeting the two pairs in SBs range that had my jack 8 was losing too and then I would chop with what I thought to be a nut low.

This is exactly why I think my turn raise is a mistake after looking back on it. If MP is a poor playing opponent and I think my A2 is the best low draw does that make this spot a raise?

on such a dry flop, hero shouldn't fold his hand, otherwise he's folding too much, which is exploitable. hero isn't the only one who is very unlikely to hit the flop well.

closing the action in perfect position (absolute and relative), it would simply be a mistake to fold this hand with a pot of 8 bets.
if you don't believe me, plug reasonable ranges and see that by folding, hero gives up way too much. hero is in a spot in which he has both decent equity and good playability.

what hero would like to have on this flop is irrelevant. hero (or his opponents, for that matter) would rarely have much of a fit. the skill of recognizing different board textures and applying appropriate strategies is far from trivial, but that alone doesn't mean hero would do better by folding here.
I really urge you to simulate and see whether i'm right or wrong...

easy turn raise. as for the river, I like the showdown value enough heads up or 3 handed to simply call. I see two problems with the raise:
1) you have a one way hand. when you want to promote something, you might as well have two sides - two ways in which you can promote your hand.
2) your one way hand is simply too strong (IMHO) to promo-raise and too weak to value-raise.

which high only hands would I raise? raising lone AK makes a lot more sense to me. for one, AK is a good bit weaker. second, AK blocks all sorts of good two pair hands likely to take two to the face.

i only really want to talk about flop cause i think turn/riv have probably already been addressed. you say "Mp is pretty tight and opens a tight range preflop, limps a lot of hands that could be raised. Sb is pretty loose and plays bad post flop."

first of all, you need to define what "plays bad post flop" means. does this mean he is aggressive with bad hands? does this mean he calls light? bad postflop means many different things. just cause he's bad doesn't mean he never has a hand here. and trust me, that is a concept, if i followed 100%, would have saved me an absurd amount of money.

second, and maybe just as important, figure out what the PFR's range is here. you say he's already tight and limping hands he should be raising with. his range is now even stronger. then look at this flop and ask yourself "what in the world is a super tight player calling with here after he raised pre?" unless he's going for backdoor stuff, MP's basically always going to have a better hand than you. and this puts you into some crappy reverse implied-odds spots, especially considering SB's probably not slowing down on the turn.

That's a good point.

It's close, but I agree Hero has sufficient equity to continue if an opponent is expected to play the remaining betting rounds badly. I'm not sure that's true if both opponents play well. I disagree with you about "playability" here. I think if Hero continues, he's virtually stuck in the pot until the showdown. I don't think of being stuck in the pot as good playability.

I disagree. I think that sort of thinking works better in Texas hold 'em than in Omaha-8.

I think you're right. At least I ran the simulation for the pot equity, did the calculation for e.v. and the e.v. was positive. But that's more or less for two opponents continuing if they have losing hands. And I don't know if that's realistic for games with solid opponents. I don't think Hero necessarily gets paid off with a winner against solid opponents. And meanwhile, I think if Hero continues, he's more or less stuck in the pot.

But you've given me pause. Before now (except for the occasional change of gears) I would have drawn the line for continuing with backdoor non-nut flush draw plus backdoor nut low draw at top pair after a rainbow two high-card, one low-card flop.

Meh. Interesting. Food for thought.

Thanks.

Buzz

Pretty gross spot actually.

In reality I think I fold river if i'm playing my A-game with described reads on villain.

Going back to these reads - is it outrageous for SB to be betting 1 pair of Kings on the river?

Really close spot, I think it totally depends on your read of SB.

i got 24% equity in some standard sims i ran. it may or may not be enough. even if you consider it to be enough, i'm not sure that "good" playability applies here.

i'd basically consider any A, K, Q, 9 to foldable, or at least tough cards to play. there's two dream cards (the J and the 8), 7-3 lets us continue, as does the 2. however, unless we hit one of our dream cards, we're basically in hunker down mode where we either hope we river a low or pair the J.

furthermore, we have to account for the possibility that the PFR will put a raise in on the turn, putting us in potential jam spots even when we do improve.

this is besides the fact that SB might be the biggest problem in the hand, still. if he's a bet, bet, bet type of player, our equity becomes even more difficult to realize without blindly calling all manners of two pair on the river.


our hand fits fine on this flop if their hands didn't. but expecting both the SB and a very tight raiser to have worse or even slightly better fits than us is way too optimistic, especially when we're out-sharing with PFR and there are RIO implications when we do hit an ace. so i can't really consider this a spot that has good playability.

Normally i always peel this flop closing the action but not this time.
The biggest problem i see continuing on this flop is the tight MP dude who raised pre and called flop.You are getting 1/4 with your A2 back low draw in this spot like almost always.Remove that and all you have is a pair of jacks and some bad backdoor(5%)fd.Turn raise i dont like you are not acomplishing anything and river could be really bad especially since you dont have any counterfeit protection and even if you make your low probably getting 1/4ed.River i dont like (what are you repping for high is very narrow sets mostly since no f/st8 )it is a neutral EV high variance play at best and you should not be there in the first place.

Flop seems not quite a peel to me. You're only playing for J,8,bdf,bdl, to cont.
Turn I raise. Pretty perfect card. Confuses opp which is very good and often lets you control future betting rounds. Obviously you have pretty good equity.
River I just call. I don't think you fold out K8 to a bad player who will hope you are both low. You want a call from KQT9

It's close to a raise. If we think both opponents will henceforth play poorly and Hero will henceforth play perfectly, it's close.

But if we give the opponents credit for having good sense, although Hero should not fold the nut low draw plus the two pairs, I don't think Hero has quite enough to raise.

Meh. I don't know. I think what to do depends on how much credit we want to give our opponents. OP (Johnny Walnuts) doesn't think mp raises enough pre-flop. Maybe mp had a raise before or after this flop but didn't take it. mp could be playing scared but could also be a solid but conservative player. I'd be wary of mp here.

Good point and probably true.

Possibly true that both opponents might check to Hero on the river if Hero raises this turn bet and call. (But that can come back to bite Hero on the butt if Hero bets the river with no improvement and gets check/raised).

Buzz

wp