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Hand of the Day #4

Posted By: Stick
Date: Monday, 17 June 2019, at 6:43 p.m.

PLO
7 players
$1-$2-$4
I cover everyone.

I'm UTG with Ac 9h 6c 5d. As we've already established in these games I play looser preflop than I'd recommend to most players. To play this loose and get away with it you have to have stone solid post flop play and be sure that you aren't being punished preflop too much for trying to play this type of hand. As it happens in this session the table is very passive preflop. Lots of limping. I don't mind this sort of table because you get to the flop with a lot of players (everyone limps) and then the postflop play is fairly bad.

6 of us limp to the flop.

Pot: $24
Flop: Jd 6h 5c

First to act leads out for $15. Two players fold and action is to me with two players behind. Leading out into 5 players should be seen as a fairly strong move. So strong in fact I'm torn between calling and folding leaning strongly towards folding for many reasons.

• There are two players behind me still to act and should one of them raise my hand is worthless


• There are two players behind me still to act and should one of them even call my hand seriously goes down in value


• The original bettor could have a variety of hands but a lot of those hands have me in trouble. For instance, he could have flopped any two pair and since I have the worst two pair my hand is near dead. He could have flopped a set in which case my hand is dead. There is no flush draw out there so the only other hand he could potentially have is 78xx unless he's extra fishy and has something like J74x. He was in the SB in a limped pot so virtually any hand is possible at this point.


• There are very, very few cards that could come that are good for me. Aces, sixes, and fives can all be considered good. Any club is decent but outside of that there are a few throw away cards but most of the deck leaves me having no idea where I am on the turn no matter what comes esp. when the player bets out again.

Last thing of note, the guy that led out only started the hand with $116. I would advocate folding in this spot in general and had I not had the nut backdoor flush draw (worth ~4% and permits me to play certain turns well) I would have folded. I decided on a call though. Luckily for me the two players behind folded so I get to the turn heads up and with position.

Pot: $54
Turn: Qc (board: Jd 6h 5c Qc)

He leads out for $17. This is a really nice turn card for me coupled with the fact that he led out for $17, that's 1/3rd pot. That's not a normal by sized bet in PLO. It's either great weakness (by far most of the time) or rarely, great strength. This board is too wet to be great strength really so it has to be weakness. This weakness could still be strong enough, perhaps he flopped top two or even top and bottom and is now worried I had QJ and nutted him on the turn.

However, I take this as a sign of bigger weakness than that taking into account that his flop bet was $15 instead of pot, $24. While it didn't mean much at the time because he could bet out strong for $15 into $24, when you take it in conjunction with a weak turn bet it means his hand is vulnerable if not plain weak. I decide to raise pot putting him all in. I am pretty sure of one of two things, I'm either ahead or he might even fold the best hand (two pair). Even if the worst were to happen and he called with a better two pair or miracle set, I still have some outs.

He ends up making the call and flips over 789J, no clubs. I'm happy about my read and I got it in with about 63% and he still had to make the call. He could have easily decided to fold his hand too which is why shoving the turn is so right. River came a blank and I held.

Stick