This hand occurred this evening during a $600 live O8 tourney w/ a little over half the field remaining.

Blinds 500-1000. Bets 1000-2000. Starting stack 12k. Average stack ~20k.

UTG+1 is older, slightly too loose ABC player (stack 14k). He opens. BTN is a similar player type (12k). He calls.

Neither villain is the kind of player who would get out of line. Both play pretty straightforward.

Hero has A2ccThTs on BB (15k). Hero calls.

Flop Ad6dAh.

Hero checks. UTG+1 bets. BTN calls. Hero...?

Folds. Whoever is older has the A, the younger one has 23.

agree that folding is best here.. prolly peel if you have A1092 type hand but as is usually only have two outs..

Fold.

Buzz

Thanks, all. I'm not experienced enough of an o8 player to know how standard folding is here. I definitely agree w/ the consensus and was hoping to see a bunch of people advocating "fold."

You're welcome. Explanation: You don't have a high enough kicker for your trip aces. Chances are one of your opponents (hard to tell which one) also has an ace with a better kicker. You missed your flush and you missed a good chance at low and probably at least one of your opponents will make a low. The pair of tens is more of a detriment than an asset. So you're left hoping to catch a deuce or a ten on the turn or river. Three missing deuces plus two missing tens (plus the missing ace) make only six outs. It's not enough.

Buzz

folding flop is ridiculous.

Um, yeah. I'm confused by the emphatic 'fold' responses. Wow.

I am most def seeing a turn here.

Agreed, I think it's a mistake to fold here to a 1 SB C-bet. Both players still have wide ranges that include a large number of hands that you beat. I'd call and re-evaluate the turn.

I agree with the fold. We are in pretty bad shape against other aces and 66. We will sometimes make incorrect folds to an ace we have outkicked - ex, a234/a345 type hands. Might come back with a sim later. ICM also important here as losing too many chips can cost us future favorable spots.

In general, I don't much like check/calling in tournaments. If Hero wants to play this hand/flop, I like directly betting on round #2. But Hero didn't do that.

Instead, Hero checked.

Once Hero checks, it's harder to read the opponents. Once Hero checks, the bet by UTG+1 (Villain #1) could be an attempt by Villain #1 to steal the pot. Or Villain #1 could be betting trip aces (A***). Once Hero checks and Villain #1 bets, Villain #2 could be trying to pick off a steal by Villain #1. (What would Villain #2 need to do that? Maybe A***?)

But they both can't have A*** because there's only one missing ace.

Let's go back to pre-flop. What rank of card are you most likely to have in your hand when you voluntarily see the flop in a tournament?

An ace? A***?

Me too!

The nail that seals the coffin is half the field has already busted out of this tournament. The top half of the field is what is left. Perhaps we should give the remaining players credit for some sense.

What it comes down to, is I really think one of these two opponents has the missing ace. And if so, it's statistically probable the opponent with the ace has a king, queen, or jack as a kicker.
45 missing cards... 1 missing ace... 12 missing kings, queens, and jacks.
P=1-C(32,3)/C(44,3)
P=1-4960/13244=0.625 (that's the familiar decimal equivalent of 5/8).
Thus if I did my math right, it's 5 to 3 the opponent with the ace also has a better kicker than Hero.

Of course there's no guarantee one of these two opponents has the missing ace. But it's pretty hard, at this point, to find out.
Of course there are other possibilities. They both could have diamonds and low draws.

But if one of them has the missing ace (and I really do think one of them does), then we probably need to make a full house, and there are only two missing tens and three missing deuces that make us a full house.

That's not enough outs. We want at least 14 outs to have better than a fifty per cent chance to improve.

Before there was any action on the second betting round, the trip aces with a ten kicker looked better than after Villain #1 bet and Villain #2 called. But if we give some credibility to their action, Hero's prospects don't look good.

If we had two aces in our hand and there was one ace of the board, that would be a different matter. We need to use two cards from our hand. We'd have two aces to use. But the way things are, we're using an ace and a ten. it's just not good enough.

Just my opinion.

Buzz

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: a6a

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
ac2cthts	23.20%	60,751	182,061	16,302	17,512	16,177
a:40%, KKd:dd, 23:35%, 24:35%, 66:40%	42.31%	102,946	252,494	12,946	157,236	31,677
a:40%, dd:50%, 23:50%, 24:50%, 66:50%	34.49%	65,999	148,481	4,680	204,326	31,609

leaves out a few hands but for my purposes here im ok with it

on the flop i think its reasonable for Hero to expect low 20%ish equity, the issue becomes how to maximize it for the rest of the hand

besides the 2, the T, and the case A our opponents normally have, none of the cards improve our equity meaningfully, our hand remains very vulnerable even when we hit the 2

with less than 30% expected equity and negative ICM ramifications i think folding the flop is ok

calling is certainly not out of the question but its going to be heavily based on exactly how i think opponents will play the next 2 streets, we will also want to think carefully about sem-bluff raising the turn or river to fold out ace with better kicker (also more ICM implications here)

• 1. What does "a:40%" mean? (I'm guessing it means only use 40% of the hands with an ace).
• 2. Does "66:50%" mean only use 50% of the hands with a pair of sixes?
• 3. What does "KKd:dd" mean? (Use all the KK hands with diamonds to the king)?
• 4. Does "23:35%" mean only use 35% of the hands with 23**?

Considering the cards Hero can see after the flop, an opponent dealt random cards could only be dealt a pair of sixes about 1.65% of the time.

I also ran some simulations, but they were cruder than yours. I really think one of these villains has the missing ace. So I simply gave one villain an ace and three random cards. And I gave the other Villain a wheel card plus three random cards. The pot equity result for Ac2cThTs was similar to yours:

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: A6A

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
Ac2cthts	22.20%	53,041	138,527	25,679	49,799	17,065
A***	56.07%	195,605	387,963	25,993	115,391	17,619
W***	21.73%	28,012	47,499	350	189,170	14,866

.

Buzz

I'd fold. You're rarely going to fill and there's a good chance your kicker is no good, you'll probably end up playing for half the pot, your only low hope is runner-runner live deuce (which will rarely win in this spot anyway), and most importantly, it's probably going to cost you over a third of your remaining stack to see the hand through. I'll listen to arguments about this spot in a cash game, but in a tourney I'm folding for sure.

1. the % refer to a pql hand-ranking list, so in this case all top 40% hands with an ace
2. all hands with a 66 in the top 50% of hands going by the pql list , this weeds out a couple of really bad hands like 666X(666Q, 666J, etc) that villain would not realistically be expected to have and could artificially improve hero's equity
3. yes, all hands with 2 Kings and 2 diamonds
4. using the ranking list again to weed out some low draw hands that are less playable


PQL has a section called 'syntax help' that you might want to look at, it has a lot of qualifiers available

I see. Thank you. Very helpful.

Thanks.

Buzz

I think it's a call, even if we assume the other Ace and dd are held by opponents. Hero may lose some equity to reduce variance if opponents go wild OTT, but still believe it's +cEV to see a cheap turn.

would you peel KKq10 on 334?

seems similar spot.. we might be ahead but we will pretty mich have to check fold if we don't hit our two outer on the turn(discounting the 2 because it is only good for half and not always good for even that.)

It's not quite the same. We have trips and there is not yet a str8 draw.

There are two Tens & three Twos for boats, maybe even an Ace for quads.
There are three 6s where hero can continue. We should be able to continue with non-diamond K,Q,J or 9. I would prob. c/f a diamond or low (3,4,5,7,8).

So that's 5-6 turns where hero is/prob. ahead, 15 turns where it's uncertain but there is not yet a low nor flush (so hero should usually be able to continue for one big bet), and 24 turns where hero is prob. behind and/or there is a low, so hero can fold to avoid variance.

With the uncertainty of whether a villain has A6 and/or has us outkicked, it is somewhat marginal spot, but I think it's worth calling the flop here and reevaluating the turn.

How happy are we really calling a turn on a blank K Q J 9 or 6?

Not super happy, but perhaps more so than while laying down trip Aces with a decent kicker OTF.

Ten is a decent kicker if you're playing two-card Texas hold 'em... but not if you're playing four-card Omaha or Omaha-8.

I think where you may be going wrong is thinking of a ten as a decent kicker. Basically you're 5 to 3 to get outkicked here. And that, added to the strong possibility of a split pot, makes Hero's hand unplayable in a fixed-limit game, in my humble opinion.

Buzz

Ten is a decent kicker (isn't J median here?), but I think y'all are right: If we assume strong ranges for villains (A*** & LLL*:dd), then it's a marginal fold for hero.

I guess. I didn't think of it that way. I think 46% of possible opponent hands containing an ace also contain a king or queen. So on that basis, I guess jack would be the median kicker.

• My math:
  1-C(36,3)/C(44,3)
  1-7140/13244=.46

But what does it matter whether you get out-kicked by a king or by a jack.

I didn't do that either. I just think a Villain with the missing ace is odds on (I make it 5 to 3) to have a better kicker than a ten.

Because of the money already in the pot, I think Hero is getting around 3 to 1 implied full pot odds (from 16 to 5, maybe 16.5 to 5), assuming no raising and both opponents staying for showdown. But the thing is, this is most likely to be a split pot, so I think we have to figure Hero is only getting roughly 1 to 1 (even) half pot odds.

Figure .5+2+2+2=6.5 chips already in the pot. (Each chip is worth 1k).
Figure 5+5+5 more chips going into the pot, with a bet each round, no raises, and all players staying for showdown.
Total pot at showdown is thus 21.5 chips.

Figure if Hero wins half, he's awarded 10.75 chips. So if Hero wins half, he actually wins 5.75 chips. And if Hero loses, starting after the flop, he loses 5 chips.

It's not quite that simple because low may not be possible, there might be a raising war between opponents, or an opponent might drop out along the way, but I'm crudely estimating Hero has to win high half of the time to break even. And if an opponent has an ace (and I really think one of these opponents has an ace), I don't think Hero does win high half of the time. (I think Hero wins high closer to 3/8 of the time).

You could argue that I haven't proven an opponent has an ace. You could argue that perhaps one of these two opponents doesn't have the missing ace. And if you did, you'd be right.

Over 90% of my voluntarily playable (not in the big blind) tournament starting hands have an ace. If we don't underestimate our opponents, it's reasonable to assume that coming in for two bets, they also prefer starting hands with aces. OK, only one of them can have an ace here. Could be neither of them has the missing ace. 10% of 10% is 1%. This could be the 1% of the time both opponents have legitimate starting hands without an ace.

But supposing both of my two opponents are fools, or supposing this is the 1% of the time both of my two opponents have legitimate starting hands without an ace is not the place I want to risk more than half of my stack in a tournament.

Fold acey deucy after Hero flops trip aces????? I know at first it sounds crazy.

But I think that's the play. That pair of tens sucks, we missed our flush draw and we missed our low draw.

Fold. (really)

Buzz

Just got sentimental upon learning that Buzz passed away. This thread is one of seemingly a million testaments to his generous and cheerful spirit. Rest in peace.