Alright, I've made a couple posts here already, but I'm an NL player trying to learn PLO8. This is a hand I recently played where I'm unsure about my decisions at pretty much every point. I felt like this hand had a lot of marginal spots, so I'm interested to see how more experienced PLO8 players would have played it.
Didn't have PT4 running for this hand so I'm just gonna write it out.
Game is 5-handed. Hero is in the CO with A
A
7
9
. Stacks are 100 BB effective.
UTG limps in. Here's the first spot where I really don't know what to do. I have a lot of trouble with strong high hands with bad low features preflop. I don't love this hand as a raise, since I'm drawing to a 7 low with no counterfeit protection. The 9 in my hand is also not a great card. At the same time, it
is pocket aces with a low, so it kinda feels like I should just go ahead and raise.
Ultimately, I decide to overlimp. I didn't want to open, because the hand really only plays well one way. Additionally, if I get 3bet I'm probably gonna have to fold, which isn't ideal. At the same time, folding pocket aces pre just feels like it has to be wrong. Is this an okay play? Is there a better action here?
Anyways, BTN folds, SB completes, BB checks. We go 4 ways to the flop.
Flop comes 4
6
7
. Action checks to me. Here I feel like we should check and just see some turns in a 4 way pot. I check behind and we take a turn.
Turn is the T
creating a backdoor FD and giving us a gutshot. SB checks, and the BB bets 1/3 pot. UTG folds and it's on me. Folding to such a small bet after action checked through OTF seems really weak. I decide to peel with the overpair, gutshot, and 7-low draw. SB calls
River is the 8
completing the backdoor flush and giving me a straight to go along with an 8-low. SB checks, and the BB checks as well.
I think this is where things get interesting. We have a marginal 2-way hand with an 87 low and the 2nd nut straight on a 3-flush board. We also have 2 blockers to the nut low, as well as a blocker to the nut flush in the A
.
I feel like if I check, I'm generally going to be chopping. I think it's hard for either player to have a strong 2-way hand, but at the same time, it's easy for me to be beat in at least one direction.
It seems unlikely either player has a very strong low, as the flop checked through and I hold two aces. I would also expect either player to bet pot OTR if they made a strong flush with the 8
. I decide to jam pot as a semi-bluff to try and take down the whole thing.
My thinking is that I will very rarely get scooped. In order for someone to call this bet, they would probably need a strong low and a good high hand. Since I have the A
, I actually block most of the villains' scooping hands, and they're probably weak anyways after the way things went down up until now. I felt like this was a relatively low-risk bluff with a good chance at taking down the whole pot with a marginal hand. Thoughts on this play?
Really appreciate the help guys! I'm aware I probably butchered this hand at multiple points, but there isn't much learning material out there for PLO8, so I'm just trying to learn by playing and getting feedback on my hands.