Equity is just one thing to look at, just showing we are certainly not up against it versus a strong range. Regarding playability I think we will over realize this equity with position, possible nut low/draw, and initiative which can give us the river card or showdown we need. Also if a nit is a nit because they play too tight seems like that mistake is bigger in big pots.

somewhere along the way i started to 3b far more frequently for these purposes. i found that playing the game became way more straightforward as it's just easier to make more accurate decision vs the 1 player. i'd like to think this was one of the most beneficial changes to my game since i began playing again.

Don't really get why cpl folks banging their drum so hard that 3 betting pre here is so clear cut optimal

Some of us simply like to debate poker and those folks have clearly indicated why they think it is optimal

This is how poker strategy evolves and advances.

This is why I'd never 3b pre here and actually like a fold better than a 3b (though a call seems to me to be clearly the best play).

1) MM is a decent tag LO8 tourney player. He is not opening wide here. His preflop tendencies in limit tourneys are generally very taggy, with an emphasis on tight.

2) Our hand has poor high equity. From my understanding of Lo8 (and I'm not a crusher), the hands that will play best HU have a strong high equity. Our hand seems like a classic pull hand against a player like MM and the blinds.

3) ICM is fairly important at only 2-3 points in WSOP 1500s imo. One of those points is close to the bubble, when the pay jumps are worth $2300 (via min cash vs busting before money). The only other points are at the last 2 tables, when the pay jumps can be decent and esp when there's 4-5 left and the jumps are outsized (due to wsop wanting to pay as many players as possible w/o diluting the money up top).

On the turn, his speech play is an attempt at repping a reverse tell. "well, somebody has to drive the action I guess!" = this will sound like I'm trying to be weak and hopefully my opponents will think I have a Q and fold, as I have very little equity. Just my observations, but it seems like he employs this when in a pot w competent players and a bet is polarized. He takes one shot and if he gets called then he shuts it down.

That the HJ is bleeding chips w the no-show gives me 1 more reason to be patient as we can collect our piece of that free pie. I do not want to be playing higher variance spots w/o clear added ev for doing so, in a tourney close to the money no less, against a tight preflop range. We prob have avg stack before the hand starts and I'd while I think we should def play the hand, this is not a hand I want to lose a lot of chips with. We have plenty of time to wait for a better spot to push small perceived equity edges imo.

If your dominant concern is ICM and stack preservation, you should fold. I'd argue that we're not really close enough to the money, and you stack is sufficiently small, that this shouldn't be the dominant concern at this point.

But if you are deciding between calling and 3-betting, The ICM/stack preservation concerns favor 3-betting. If you get the pot heads-up, you are guaranteed to be able to see the river for 3 big bets, and showdown for a total of 4 bets, and you are much more likely to escape with a marginal hand one way.

If you just call, you're likely to get whipsawed into putting multiple bets in where you really have no idea where you stand on some later street. Or you might allow one of the blinds to back into a high hand that you would have won if you induced them to fold preflop.

It is not at all clear that 3! Makes it easier to preserve chips, if anything a larger pot will force hero to go to showdown more often when it stays hu, plus it might still stay multiday and we might need to eat a 4!

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It's not just about ICM. That's just one of the factors that go into how we play this hand and it's almost never the dominant factor in any poker tournament, at any stage. The dominant factor is the action before us and the hand we are holding.

I'm not worried about playing MW pots w A2(79). There are plenty of factors (board, opponents preflop ranges, postflop betting action and tendencies of our opponents, etc) that can help hero decide what to do on a flop that we neither smash nor brick.

Taking less than optimal lines in order to avoid tough postflop decisions is not gonna win money. Nothing suggests we are "likely" to get whipsawed on the flop. Any worst-case scenario can be arbitrarily conjured up. But just as I'm not gonna 3b KQJ7 just so that we are more likely to play a HU pot, I'm also not gonna overplay a weak A2 against a range that's tighter than ours. I'll post a hand from a different tourney where I might've overplayed a better A2, but my stack was small enough that I thought it was warranted . . .

You’re way overthinking here. O8 is MM’s best game. He’s fairly tight.


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orleans is only place i know that is 5 bets, everywhere else i have played or worked limit was 4 bets.

If O8 is Matusow's best game, shouldn't he be correctly adjusting to the fact that it has folded to him in late position and playing a much wider range?

Of course you are't going to 3 bet KQJ7, because you are obviously going to fold that hand. And I can see the argument for folding here. But I think any hand you are going to play, you should 3 bet, unless you have a particular read on the blinds.

Nope...hes probably still really nitty pre.

If I was MM id be very happy if I know every playable hand the button is 3 betting.

I agree with this. 3-betting benefits both you and Matusow at the expense of the blinds.

Thank you to everyone who has made this such a robust discussion---the kind that really adds value to 2+2. I'll probably write another tl;dr post soon but it's good to step back and take stock.

Thread summary

Focal point is my preflop BTN 3-bet vs Matusow's CO open. Winning LO8 players ITT run a gamut from strong advocacy for 3-betting to strong advocacy for calling. Points of theoretical disagreement:

Value of encouraging blinds to fold their equity versus danger of isolating HU with a weaker hand range.
Importance of conserving chips at this stage in a tournament (73 paid, mincash 1.5x buyin, about 40 from the money)

My own views: strong 3!, dead money from blinds much more important, conserving chips unimportant.


Barely discussed topics

Couple of other interesting points to this hand, both where I can make a case Matusow (2002 $5k LO8 bracelet winner) played or would make poor plays:

• If he was telling the truth about having AKQ2, imo calling the flop was much worse than raising.
• He's referred to as a "nit" preflop. Let's assume that means he's opening 12% from the CO, which might mean folding hands like A3(J7) or A5(QJ). Against an unknown BTN at this stage in the tournament, imo that's too tight.

I feel more strongly about the flop call being a mistake.

Why does this matter?


This situation matters because (1) the 3! or cold call decision is quite common in tougher LO8 (and LHE) games (2) the ICM/chip conservation discussion matters to many tournaments, esp. limit tournaments. See e.g. this conversation about a razz hand.

While we shouldn't spend too much time agonizing over marginal decisions at the expense of bigger systemic leaks, both points feed into wider theoretical understandings that recur again and again. Interestingly, the above discussion doesn't have many posters suggesting my preflop decision was marginal; people seem to feel strongly it's either a 3! or a cold call (as do I).

I appreciate hearing criticism of hands I play because it's a good protection against Dunning Kruger. But I'm having trouble finding an argument that convinces me cold calling is good here.

More specifically,

1. Arguments for CC above don't really address the 1.5 sb dead, which is the main reason why I believe a 3-bet to be correct. In fact they don't really address equity at all.
2. Arguments for CC seem to apply MW LO8 concepts to HU LO8; imo they're almost as different as stud and holdem. Little hyperbole, not much.

When we learn LO8 (or any other Omaha), I'd imagine most of us come across a sentence like "Omaha hands run close in value heads up, hot and cold, but not multiway." Sometimes there may also be an appeal to implied odds (here's a good one).

Fine and good--implied odds matter, a lot, and multiway you need possibilities to scoop multiway pots. Getting HU doesn't change the importance of IO, but it drastically widens the range of hands that can get neutral or better IO and narrows the range of hands that are laying IO.

I don't see this reflected in many of the pro-cold call analyses. For example:

Why does A2 play poorly postflop? On any flop with two unique cards 3 thru 8 it has enough equity to no-brainer call down. On any flop with two diamonds and a low card (assume I mean non-counterfeiting) it probably has enough equity to call an aggressive player's range. On any flop with two low cards and two diamonds, or two low cards and a nine, or a seven and a low card, it probably has enough to raise.

When you're against one other Omaha hand, it's MUBS to think that hand covers you every which way. Is Matusow only opening A2-wheel or A2-Bway here, ever? He's an underdog to have diamonds. He's an underdog to have a nine or a seven with a better kicker. He's probably a favorite to have A2 (we can debate how big a favorite) but should have other stuff in his range. He's an underdog to have AA2. There's no reason at all to think that he's crushing me for high. More likely than not I'm slightly behind his range, IP, with dead money in the pot.

Because of the ICM argument or because of more subtle fold equity related arguments?

Fair enough. Here are some more hands I'm not going to 3 bet:

• 99(93)
• KT92r
• 4444
• a fouled hand where the dealer gave me five cards

Yay hyperbole.

I love reductio ad absurdum as much as the next guy but what on God's green earth is the relevance of KQJ7 to the hand in question? This is a high-low game, and HU being able to make any low is huge. Transposed to T984 the hand gains almost 3% against a 12% opening range. With an eight-four low!

(No, I'm not playing T984 here either. And I appreciate the response; just having some fun here.)


As for "overplay a weak A2 against a range that's tighter than ours," that's an absolute statement in a game that's about marginal quant decisions. If we were 49.99% HU (counting IO) against MM's range and someone promised to splash the pot with a few extra bets if we reraised, would we be overplaying our hand? If not, then there must be some line at which it becomes profitable to play a slight underdog hand (counting IO) in a way to induce dead money. If you think 1.5 sb isn't enough reward to play a 45% H&C dog against a 12% range then fine, but hopefully we can agree there's some point where the reward is enough. When we reach that point we're not overplaying our hand, even though it's a dog.

And honestly I don't buy that RIO are terribly negative, if they're negative at all. Is MM open-folding his worst A2 (which isn't part of a 12% range on PPT) from the CO? If not, then he's as likely to have a weak A2 as a strong one. He has a little better hand range; we have position, a flush draw (HU he's really unlikely to have better diamonds), and an A2 that mitigates IO trouble.

Obv no one is 3b or playing 4444 pre, just as nobody is playing KQJ7. But ICM/stack preservation is also never going to be the dominant factor as to whether or not we play a hand and how we play it. The hand itself is the dominant factor and that was my response to another poster; hyperbole not intended.

I think there is some value in the opinions of those that have played a lot w MM, or are somewhat familiar w the way he approaches the game and a tourney spot like this. Some of the best in the world like rolldup, or experienced O8 like mixgameaddict munga and Billyg (which I'm neither) seem to think it's cc every time.

Wrt ICM stuff, the biggest pay jump until the final 1-2 tables is the difference between $0 and a min cash iirc. In cash game it wouldn't matter nearly as much what line you took. I think the tourney dynamics play a major role in the decision. And I think RIO aren't "terribly negative" but I do think they aren't good against his CO rfi range.

I'm not at all sure whether a 3b or cc pre is best. It's a close spot - if you're sure 3b is best, then I'd think you would just gloss over preflop and ask about the streets where you might not be sure. But cc is my decision every time in this exact spot vs villain, for the reasons I've given. I'd be curious if people would have different outlooks if villain was just described as "competent but nitty tag" or something like that.

Are there any 3b advocates who do take ICM considerations seriously? Is there anything that would cause someone who isn’t taking those considerations seriously to do so?

Other thoughts:
- thinking 3b automatically creates 1.5bb or dead money is ridiculous, esp since this HH demonstrates why
- not repeated enough is that hero’s hand is almost certainly an equity dog vs opener that becomes more difficult to play post the more chips are put in pre since it has poor SD value on most flops/boards without possible low
- folding is reasonable in this specific scenario and hasn’t been discussed enough imo


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I absolutely take ICM considerations seriously in the right scenario. In this scenario, I don't think ICM is super-important. You're just too short and too far away from the money. Play this hand with 80 players left, and I think it's a fold.

In any situation where ICM is important, I would much prefer to fold to a flat call.

What do you think is the BB's range for (1) calling a single raise; (2) 3-betting a single raise; (3) calling a 3-bet; (4) 4-betting a 3-bet?

If you have one of several particular reads on the BB villain, a flat call might be the right play. But I think against an average player in the tournament (which at this point the OP might assume the BB is), the difference between frequencies (1) and (3) is extremely wide.

You are likely a slight underdog against MM's range. But your equity isn't that much different if think MM is fairly wide versus fairly tight. You're like 48% equity versus a top 30% range compared to 45% versus a top 10% range.

People advocating for a flat call seem very preoccupied with how MM is likely to play; I think how the BB is likely to play is much more imporant.

What Nick said--I take it very seriously but don't worry about it in tournament contexts where it shouldn't apply.

YES!! I'm glad you asked.

ICM calculators are limited by computing capacity. A tournament with N players left, M paid, will require something on the order between M! and N! scenarios to get precise ICM calcs. 4.470115e+107 is not really tractable right now.

But we don't need precise calcs. We just need a model that fairly represents the disperson of stack sizes (in other words we can't just assume 10 identical 10k stacks and 10 identical 20k stacks, etc.). Anyway, if you know of any tools to help make this problem more tractable, please share them. I love evidence-based argument.

Again, Nick says it more tersely than me:

Imagine we 3 bet KQ on the button against a CO open in LHE, in expectation of knocking out the blinds--no guarantees, never are in poker, but likely--and creating dead money. But oops, this time we run into AQ+,QQ+ in one of the blinds. Was our 3! a poor decision?

(Sincere question. Do you think that's a poor 3-bet in limit hold'em?)

Why, if the SB showed up with aces, that HH would demonstrate why the 3-bet was a bad idea, yes? no?

Much easier to realize value HU than multiway. Bad flush draws attenuate rapidly as players enter the pot. A terrible third "emergency low" card attenuates rapidly as players enter the pot. Random unpaired junky cards drawing at running two pair or trips attenuate rapidly as players enter the pot.

If you play PLO, you no doubt understand this last point. Often any reasonable unpaired hand has equity to call all in HU against "obvious aces" with as little as one pair plus a backdoor or two on the flop. O8 is different from O high because of split pot dynamics but the point is, HU those stupid two pairs and trips and bad flushes matter.


We should always consider any plausible line so feel free to make the case. I think it's dominated by calling and dominated by 3-betting but I seriously consider arguments to the contrary.

However, if our postflop mentality in HU O8 is that the other guy always has a better flush draw plus a better low draw plus a better two pair draw, then yes, we should fold just about everything here, blind off through the limit games, and pray we get to the NLHE shoveament rounds so we can double up twice and mincash.



Very well said.

This is a reasonable argument that I want to give its due. It's the clearest possible example of Sklansky's skill edge argument. I mentioned this above: We're the lowest number table, so as far as we would not break for the rest of day 2.

I don't think it swings my decision because (1) no guarantee how long the guy will no-show. Keep in mind this is hand #1 of the day. People arrive 5 minutes late for things all the time. Also Day 1 started at 3pm, Day 2 at 2, so it's nonzero probability that he thought the restart was at 3.

(2) it's just not that many chips EV. He's blinding out at the same rate I am, so my share of the pie is 0.2 blinds for every blind I post. Really it's less because a flesh and blood player would often fold their blind too. The dead player has real value to me, just rarely enough to swing a decision unless the edge I'm passing up is really thin.

1. Epistemology and caricatures

If I'm going to protest against "thinking 3b automatically creates 1.5bb or dead money is ridiculous, esp since this HH demonstrates why" being a caricature--which it 100% is--then I must admit I'm kind of arguing against a caricature too.
I don't really think anyone believes all that literally, especially the last sentence. But it seems like a lot of replies tend to the exaggerations above. I'm trying very hard to not just dismiss those opinions thinking, "Nut grinders, they can't see why winning full ring loose LO8 strategies require major adaptation to shorthanded games." There's a lot of value to challenging my own assumptions.


Magnitudes versus absolutes


Most likely our disagreement is in magnitude, not categorical. In poker everything is about the odds and the probabilities:

• 
  how much are the blinds worth? .
• how often do they fold?
• how bad are the RIO I'm laying to a good range?
• how much is position worth to mitigate RIO?
  

Aside from making up a ton of assumptions and analyzing a very complex tree with lots of flops, I don't know how to make an airtight argument one way or the other. Very open to suggestions.

Man, I wish they still made the Wilson simulation software. Imperfect but interesting.


2. Some sanity checks

But I'm really curious if we're just on different planets about how different HU is from multiway. Let's check some of my assumptions and see if they're not widely held:

• 37K is a really good flop for me HUIP. We can agree on that, right?
• 359 is a monster (relative to the situation; 62% equity and scooping 1/4 of the time sounds like a monster in this spot).
• 7hTdKd, that's really good for me again.

But sometimes I do overestimate hand values and overcompensate for HU play. On 3hTdKd I'm much worse against a 12% range than I would have thought (although folding is probably still a mistake). Me pairing versus not pair really makes a big difference.

If I make a flush and lose high, HU, that's a mild cooler. I take that as self-evident.

If I make nines and sevens and lose high to a bigger two pair, HU, that's a mild cooler. I also take that as self-evident.

If I make aces and nines or sevens and deuces or whatever, on an unpaired board HU, I'm an underdog and probably way behind for low. Getting scooped is more common than the previous examples, but I also have a lot of scoops myself. Folding on this sort of board seems really bad:

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: K27

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
Ac2h9d7d	46.41%	137,819	390,864	12,146	7,384	33,792
12%	53.59%	182,108	196,990	12,146	325,441	33,792

I take it as obvious that all these "trash hands" that would be easy folds 5-handed have substantial value HU. But maybe that's not obvious at all.

3. Conclusion to a longwinded somewhat rambling post

I really think people are underestimating how many flops slam-dunk give me enough to call down against his bet-bet-(??) range, unless he really is passive postflop. (After this hand I think he might really be passive postflop. If he's straightforward and I know it, then my implied odds are even better.)

The point isn't that we're daydreaming of getting 40% equity so we can fist-pump call down or even 62%. The point is that (1) I believe it's bad to let CO run over our button, so folding a hand this good seems bad (2) Reasons already beat to death for 3! > CC, biggest being in position I don't think our RIO are bad at all.

I would just call preflop in order to preserve my stack (ICM considerations) but also because I can put all my stack in 3 streets if I like the board. Debate was long enough on the subject, the intend is not to convince

I'm probably to nit but I would have fold on the Flop. With such a small stack, I would preserve it for a better spot. We're drawing for a poor flush, a set or a runner runner low... That might have been different with 100BB deep.

I can see the arguments for raising, calling, and folding preflop.

But folding on the flop would be completely indefensible in my mind.

This flop actually noticeably improves your equity relative to a reasonable range we might assign our opponents. And regardless of whether it is a slightly above or below average flop for our hand, we are getting almost 15-1(!!), closing the action.

And this is why I think Matusow flatting the flop (if indeed he had A2Q) is absolutely atrocious. How could it possibly be correct to let me keep drawing at almost anything in a 14.5-bet pot?

If he raises I'm no longer closing the action and probably have to just fold. I actually recall thinking during the second he was waiting to act, "Oh ****, he's going to raise and I'm going to have to fold what might be substantial equity" followed by "Oh good, he missed the raise so I have an easy call!" And that was before I had reason to think he had a queen.