Playing live 2/5 PLO8, I have about 200 behind, villain has me covered.

I see As3s3d3c, and limp from middle position, it has been pretty quiet preflop. Five to the flop and it comes:

8c7c2c. I hit my low and a lady from early position calls pot. I call as well as another. Turn is Jh, she pots again. I call, we lose the last person. River is another blank, she puts me all in, I call and as expected she has the nut flush and I take half the pot.

What bothers me is that I called off my entire stack in order to win $22 (25 pf, 25 post flop caller, minus rake, divide by 2). I feel like I did something wrong, but am not sure what.

Now it will be tempting to say that I should not have called preflop. However, replace my 3d with a 2d and given the same action I am in a worst spot. There is one more card that counterfeits me, then the situation I found myself in.

I can pretty reasonably say that I know what 8 of the cards are post flop. I know my 4, the flop, and that she holds the ace of clubs. Of the remaining 44 cards, 3 counterfeit me. (two aces and the case 3). Card player has me as a 95% chance to win the low. (as it turned out an ace would not have counterfeited me, she had A4). So I think I am okay calling by the math of the situation.

Still it feels wrong, a bit wrong on her part too, but she held the second nut low. So far less wrong to pot every street.

What was really wrong about her was she had no idea how to count her chips. And whenever she bet she would slow down the game.

Sigh.

Fold preflop!

I don't see anything wrong with her play as you suggest. She has a hand that plays BOTH ways. She has the nut flush for high AND A4 for the second nut low.

The problem with your hand, is that other than making spades or perhaps catching a set of 3s that you would have to hope hold up for high, you are playing a hand where you are basically investing a lot of money with the hopes of getting your money back plus whatever small amount you might pick up off any stragglers that have put money in the pot. You have no real shot here at high, and no low protection should an Ace or 3 come off. Not a good spot at all to be in regardless of what CardPlayer may say. They have you as a 95% chance to get your money back basically and the other 5% you are losing your stack. Fold pre.

i`m not sure if it was mentioned before,
but fold PREFLOP
as played ,i probably fold flop,because i have the strong feeling i`m getting freerolled here.
why risked your stack with only hoping for 1/2 the pot

Stay away from really low pairs. Really low trips are just awful. If it was AAA3, i'd feel much different.

As others have said this is a pretty raggedy hand pre...you are playing for half the pot pretty much all the way.

Very interesting post.

I think you're basically playing a single two-card combination in a game where you might have as many as six two-card combinations. But it's a very good two-card combination, with a chance for nut high and also nut low.

With three clubs on the flop, you can foresee what is going to happen. Unless the board pairs, and maybe even if it does, the lady is going to pot three times in succession. The pot evidently starts out at $25. Disregarding the rake, when "Early Position Lady" bets the pot, if you're the only one who continues, (I realize that didn't happen this time) and you call three times in succession, and if you don't get counterfeited and call all three times, and if you have a deep stack, you'll be henceforth putting 1+3+9=13 twenty-five dollar chips ($325) into the pot. You actually will run out of chips on the fourth betting round and will only have about $100 left to put into the pot on the fourth betting round.

At the point you enter the action on the second betting round, if you end up heads-up, you'll be betting about $200 to potentially win about $12.50 less half the rake. Assuming the rake is $6, I'm guessing you'll basically be betting about $200 to potentially win about $10. (Turns out a bit better for you because "Last Person" also calls the second round bet, then folds on the third betting round, and you end up getting half of Last Person's dead money).

I don't think it's always wrong to play for just half of the pot with your starting hand,
A,3,3,3, but in this case you should see the writing on the wall when Early Position Lady bets the pot.

I'd think of your starting hand as speculative, kind of like I think about starting hands with a pair of kings. You probably won't like many flops, but the times when you do like the flop and go on to win can make up for all the times you miss a good enough fit with the flop and fold, losing your first betting round speculative bet.

The hand is not rated highly (by ProPokerTools), only 87th percentile, which means something like seven out of eight starting hands are better and only one out of eight is worse - something like that. That's surprising to me because I would have thought Hero's hand,
A,3,3,3, was not that bad as a starting hand, despite the low trips. Interesting...

8,7,2 is actually a very favorable flop for Hero's hand, despite the relegation to a half-pot hand. But we need more people playing. If we play this hand/flop heads-up, we're basically hoping to get our money back. If we have just one more opponent chasing with a non-nut low or a non-nut club flush, we're at least playing for half the contribution of each extra opponent. (And even though we have three treys, there is still the danger of getting quartered for low).

That is interesting too. And it seems that happens a lot to us. When we start out with three nice low cards, we often get counterfeited on the flop. Not counting flopped quads, sets and full houses, we get counterfeited on the flop 7749/17296=~45%.

But, despite the danger of getting quartered, we're still in good shape - as long as we have more than just one opponent continuing after the flop.

I think it's the playing heads-up that makes continuing with the counterfeitable nut low (or maybe any nut low) a bad choice for Hero.

ProPokerTools also has you at about a 95% chance to win the low.

If you figure you win half the initial pot 19 times and get scooped 1 time, if you're risking $200 to win $10, you come up short.

It's only because Last Person puts in the one bet on the second betting round and then folds that you're OK by the math of the situation.

I agree. I think it is wrong.

Meh. I don't think it's wrong on her part. I think she should apply the pressure the whole way.

How can she screw up her chips when she pots it every time?

Whatever.

Buzz