0.5/0.5 game
9 players. We're pretty deep. Around 300 effective.

Villain is a huge whale. Extremely loose player. Plays 100% of hands and peels most flops. He only sort of understands how the low portion of the game works. He gets that it's a split pot game but isn't always able to read the low correctly.

I have been playing very tight, at least compared to the rest of the table.

I have AA89ss. I raise on the button over a few limps and he goes over the top from the small blind for the 3 bet. I 4-bet when it's back around to me and he calls.

Heads up to the flop with about 75 in the pot.

board A 3 6 two spades. I do not have a flush draw.

Villain checks. Hero?

Also would like input on pre-flop.

check, he is probably freerolling you on the low and can easily make straight and flush against your top set.

I wouldnt 4bet with that hand either.

If you bet and get checkraised he has a made low probably with flush draw and you re getting freerolled for a very big pot. Checking that flop and controlling the pot size is the right play I think.
Preflop you shouldnt 4bet, you are too deep for that.
I would do that if I can go all in preflop or if I commit my self with only one Bet to go all in on the flop.

Based on what information?
==
It's obviously a very dicey situation but not hopeless.

For example if betting, a strong low can be represented, potentially making the opponent fold a non-nut low. Also, certain draws which pose a risk can be made to fold, like flush draws with no low/draw, or hands which have low draws.

Consider not just your own cards, but what range of cards your opponent thinks you could have, as well as the range of cards of your opponent.

It's unlikely that you would check if you had flopped A24x, or A+wheel draw+flush draw, or some other strong holding.

IMO the flop should be c-bet. A bet of somewhere in the region of $30 would be appropriate, and it's not necessary to bet pot since it's a large pot already.

However if betting there should be a plan of what to do if raised. Unfortunately the answer is likely to be "fold".

I find bet-folding kinda ridiculous (because you always have decent equity) so I'd either bet-getin (doesn't seem that bad to me vs described villain) or check.

I don't think 4-bet pre is bad really, you are pushing some equity and you are generating a more suitable SPR for this hand, meaning that you can just bet-getin any HLL-flop for example. There is nothing wrong with flatting of course, it does disguise your hand, too.

Cbet-Fold makes only sense if I have very low equity or completely missed the flop. If I do this here with top set, I lose completely the decent equity I had.
But in this case if I Cbet, I have to be ready to call a raise.
I still think checking behind and controlling the pot size is the right play here.

I find that this is difficult to answer due to lack of information about villain in particular his/her post flop tendencies.

The kind of player you are describing is generally someone with a tendency to play more high hands than low hands but it is harder to say without more information. How often does he bet turns if flops are checked? How often is he calling down mediocre hands? A lot of this sort of information is really important in a spot like this.

I think we have to bet here as it is a pretty great flop for a perceived 3 bet range and we have a lot of equity against an extremely wide pre-flop range. Checking would be better against a strong opponent but against this type of player I think we have to bet.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll post results this afternoon.

At this point I had not played a lot of hi-lo with this player. The read is based mostly on playing NL and some PLO vs him.

He is definitely willing to call down with mediocre one-way hands. How often does he pounce on weakness if I check back? Hard to say. His play can be erratic but he does not auto-bet if it checks through on the flop. If he has a medium strength hand he will just continue to check. The question is what does he consider to be a medium strength hand? To what extent does he even understand how hi-lo works? I didn't really know at this point in the night.

The fact that it's a 4 bet pot, heads up (particularly vs me as we have some history) I think would make his play even more erratic. Some people play more straightforwardly in big pots, others spaz out. I would say he is the latter type of player.

I bet pot and he immediately moved all-in. I called and he shows 33KK for bottom set, no low. Prior to this hand I did not realize exactly how confused he was about hi-lo (and omaha in general).

Knowing how weak this player is, I assume my 4-bet is correct?

I am super tight with my O8 starting hands when up against a villain as described above. Also, since the Villain is low chaser I would want to make the nut low. So honestly, athough you are up against huge whale, I dont think 4 bet pre flop is warranted, given the marginal hand you had.

I would also check flop.

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gee, against players like that you pick a hand and if improved a little you go to the felt. thats how you make money in poker you have to gamble. his hand can be anything and yours is the nuts right now for half. with so many ways to win it all.
if you dont break him someone else will.

I wouldn't 4 bet with this hand either, but I mean really guys, we gotta be getting the money in w/ the nut high. This guy is just dying to stick the $ in, and sometimes neither of us are going low.

Edit: misread how deep we are. I'm actually okay with a pot control line now that we've gotten here this way.

Why wouldn't you 4-bet if you knew his range consists of some legit hands (that are 50-50 against our hand at best) and some nonsensical hands like KK33? 4-betting is printing money if villain plays like that.

i would 4 bet as much as i could as i want to break him on the hand.
or
i would stop at the 3 bet because i knew he goes way too far after the flop so i can get away if i get a terrible flop to a random hand.

It's the latter for me, not the former. If I could get the SPR down below like 1.5 with preflop raises, I'd just jam any AA vs this guy. But even a moron isn't getting it in on boards that hit us w/ out something tasty.

Not sure how you would know what a terrible flop was for a random hand...

I believe he would get it in on any non-monotone non ace-high board. See this hand:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/3...layer-1693419/

I don't think he plays hi-lo any differently than just omaha hi. He seems to be slowly catching on to hi-lo but still is playing basically only for the high hand.