A friend of mine plays in a very loose NLHE/PLO8 home game...like most players who learned poker by playing NLHE, they are terrible at PLO8 or any hilo game.

In this case, the villain treats PLO8 like NLHE...tries to muscle people out with garbage and overvalues his hands.

1/2 blinds, $400 effective stacks. Home game, no rake, played on iphone.

Game is very passive preflop with almost no raising, and most pots contested 7-9 ways. People constantly comment about how silly it is to raise preflop in Omaha...that's a topic for another day!

Friend: 10-10-J-Q, double suited in UTG+1.

Everyone limps...pot $16

Flop: 2d 6d 10h.

Villain bets pot, friend repots. Everyone folds to spewy SB who is short stacked and calls all in. Villain calls. Standard?

Turn: 9c. Villain bets out pot ($180ish)...my friend said he contemplated folding. I said a 78 straight is unlikely considering flop action...despite his reputation. Friend calls. Thoughts? I thought shoving (has about $150 left) might be OK here since there are so many scare cards on the river?

River: 7d, completing low and flush - nightmare card. Villain goes all in. Friend?

Turn is as good as it gets, have to shove there.

Should fold pf, check/call the flop, river is a call I guess but it only illustrates how awful his turn play was.

I think limp pre is great in a donkfest, flop no biggie as long as you don't fold. Turn I like to shove, 78 is super unlikely. River I'd click call against a drooler.

Definitely limping pre.

Playing eight or better with HE players and you make a bet preflop, in this type of game as you've described it, you're destined to see some goofy minclick 5-bet.

Repot on flop might slim hand range by your friend. But I do like a raise, obviously it thinned the field. By the turn, your friend is along for the ride, might as well get it in there.

ya i think i call pre, do whatever you want OTF that doesn't involve folding, good turn just raise

This is why high-only hands that are very attractive in plain old Omaha are just OK in hi-lo variants. On the river, V could have shoved with a made straight or flush (you're boned) or a made low (you get your money back plus a small profit).

The key is: is there any plausible scenario (on the river) in which you're scooping? That would have to be V with a smaller set and no made low. Not bloody likely.

I agree that H should have just shoved on the turn and been done with it (if he was going to continue at all, which he should). It was quite possible, though, that if V had a lot of different draws, H was actually a dog, or at least stood to split if a low came. Despite still having top set on the turn, I don't think his hand had very much +EV. Some. But not much.

Folding preflop would be absurd, but you do have to reorient your thinking toward split pot games. A good high-only hand is more of a drawing hand than a made hand. On a high or highish board where everyone has low cards, it can clean up.

So you have to look at this flop not like you would top set in HE or Omaha high, but rather as a heavy favorite for one side of the pot that hopes for low to bust to win the other half. You're probably a dog to any hand like A3. In a game with actual fold equity I wouldn't mind jamming the flop, but here you're rarely getting non-nut low draws or diamond draws to fold, so I'm fine with playing the flop carefully.

On the turn you have 13 scoop outs and 3 more nut high outs, so you probably want to call (or shove if the bettor is very aggressive). It does set up a nasty spot where you're getting crazy odds on the river though.

In the event, you get the worst card in the deck on the river. You didn't tell us the pot but the odds must be substantial. Even so, you can probably safely fold.

As others have pointed out, easy jam on the turn, especially if you're inexperienced in O8. Your friend most likely has the best hand. Villain will obviously just snap if he has nut low draw and nut flush draw or nut low draw and a pair etc, but jamming now removes the option of him pushing all-in on horror river cards when all he has is a nut low (and maybe a worse high) and your friend will (incorrectly) think he has fold ...


Edit

This makes jamming turn so much easier ...

Yeah a high only hand that doesn't flop a board with no low is most folded. You want the end to be no low formed so all wrong , with two to a low you have that against you the whole pot shove line is off, obviously the end is fold. Re potting is way over the top what exactly did he think said villain had? A diamond draw and an Ace low for a semi bluff bomb? Never repot with high only with possible low unless it is to cause a fold, is that over aggressive and misplaced move done for any reason say get it all in and pray for the boat and no low?
Your friend is a fish here and the shove advice is suicide.
The straight being unlikely is no reason to bomb a bad beat in PLO there is not very well bad.