So, as one of my New Month resolutions (?!) I've decided to make an effort to begin learning some new games. I'm going to start with limit Omaha 8, and I'm starting on the $0.5/1 tables at Party. It's not been going particularly well so far, although I haven't played many hands yet so it will hopefully change!

Here are a few hands that I wasn't too sure about:

Hand 1:
I'm in the BB with 3h Ks Qs Ah. 1 MP limper, then next MP raises, the button cold calls the raise, SB calls, I call, and the MP limper calls. Flop is 5 handed. I think calling this raise is correct for me? I can make the nut high hand a few ways, and have a possibility of getting low with the right flop.

The flop is 4c 5s 7d. Not particularly inspiring for me I don't think. SB. myself, and MP check, and the pre-flop raiser bets. The button and the SB calls and I fold. I assume this is correct? The only reason I ask is because I would've won with my A3 low.

Hand 2:
I'm UTG+2 with Ah 6s 3h 2c. UTG calls, I raise, 3 MP's call, and the BB calls, as does UTG. Is raising there OK? Flop is 6 handed.

Flop is 4d 8d 7h. So I have the nut low with an extra card. This means that, if I'm currently splitting the low half, I could win if my opponent gets counterfeited. I bet, next player folds, next raises. 2 cold calls and I call. Should I be re-raising here? I have possibility of a backdoor flush for high? Or should I call and raise the turn if I hit my flush draw?

Turn is 4 handed and is 3s. This makes no difference for low, and gives me no high assistance. BB checks, I check, the raiser from the flop bets, and we all call. Is this correct from me, or too passive?

River is the Qc. Checked to the bettor, he bets, the other 2 fold and I call. He had Qs 8h 2h Ad and I get quartered.

Hand 3:
I'm in CO and get 5s Kd Ah 3h. 4 limpers to me, I limp, button limps, SB folds and BB checks. Flop is 7 handed.

Flop is 5d 4d Jh. So I have a wheel draw, a backdoor flush draw, a non-nut low draw. The flop gets checked around. If there had been a bet, I was planning to fold - would this have been correct?

Turn is 4h. So now I have the flush draw, but on a paired board. Again, I go into check-fold mode, and it gets checked around again.

River is 2d. Now I have the nut low and a wheel (although I doubt it's good). There is a bet and a caller to me, I call, the Button raises. The original bettor raises, caller fold. It's now 2 bets to me, and the button may well cap. I really wasn't sure of the best play here. I tried to do some quick odds calculations, based on the fact I would be getting a quarter of the pot, and decided it was worth calling. They were something like; assuming the button caps, I am putting in $3. The pot was $3 on the turn. If the bettor and the button both put in $4, there was a caller who put in $1, and I've already put in $1, then I am putting in another $3 to win a quarter of $13 (I think!). This would be slightly +ve EV for me, so I call. Please correct me if I am wrong.

So I called and the button just called. It turns out that we all had the nut low and the same straight for high. So the pot was split 3 ways (better than I had hoped!). How was my play on this though?

Hand 4:
This one I got a little aggressive on. I'm UTG+2 with Js 9h Ah 2h and limp after UTG. Flop ends up 6 handed.

Flop is 8d Ts 3h. So I have the nut low draw, nut straight draw, and a backdoor flush draw. The SB bets, BB calls, UTG raises, I re-raise (too aggressive?), an MP cold calls, SB, BB, UTG all call. Turn is 5 handed.

Turn is 6s. So I now have the nut low and a straight draw. I think I should've slowed down now! SB checked, BB bet, UTG raised, I re-raised, MP folds, SB calls, BB caps, we all call. I re-raised here because I wanted to force out people with flush draws. This would give my straight more outs, and I have the nut low already. Looking back, I was almost certainly splitting the low with that action, and I could be counterfeited. I think I should've been calling at this point.

River is 8s and gets checked around. I ended up splitting the low with UTG. And the BB took the high pot with 97 for the straight on the turn.

I know I was too aggressive with this, but how should it have been played?



Thanks in advance for any comments,

Martin

Hand 1: Played correctly. Drawing to 2nd nut low with virtually nothing for high is liable to always be -ve EV in this particular spot.

Hand 2: Personal preference really. In O8, even with good hands, you tend to want players in the pot more than you want them out, especially when you're in EP on a loose-ish table, because you want to be paid off if you hit well. So if you do raise those sort of hands, try to engineer callers in whichever way it seems best (i.e. a small raise etc). Ah, I just realise it's a limit game! In that case I would probably limp with that hand. You want to let weak low hands (A4 etc) call and put money into that end of the pot for you, and you want weak high flush hands to limp and put money into that end of the pot, if you flop a draw. I hardly ever raise in EP in limit games, to be honest the main reason for raising in limit is to increase the size of the pot, plain and simple, and in the games I play you'll tend to limit the field by putting in 2 bets in EP. However, at 0.5/1 I guess half the table will call anyway so it seems more reasonable.

Betting the flop is OK though some would check; in a smaller field I'd prefer checking because you have so little for high, though with 6 loose opponents the nut low is a decent value bet here even if you get quartered. Check the turn, then call the bet. It's hard to see you getting more than 1/4 from this pot. On the river of course you check-call.

Hand 3: Limping is good.

On the flop, checking is good. Whether you call or not kind of depends on the better and how many callers there are. I can see your hand being marginal in a heads up pot, and with a huge field you're probably getting decent odds, but if there's 2 or 3 people in your hand probably belongs in the muck IMO.

I'd actually probably bet that turn, you have outs in both directions and this looks like a spot where no-one has anything and the turn is unlikely to have helped, so you may see a few folds or players calling with no pair hands with low draws against which you're ahead.

On the river when there's one bet and one call, I think the likelihood is that you're not scooping this hand, so just calling is fine. You might get an overcall from some garbage low etc that puts another bet in the pot. Your calculations look good, but regardless of that, there's a chance that the raising war is a full house vs a flush with no low out, so even if you lose money getting 1/4ed, a call is still OK on the off chance you snare half the pot.

Hand 4: The re-raise is good if everyone will call. You want volume in this pot so you're paid off if you hit big and scoop. If the hand is only liable to be 2 or 3 ways, your holding is probably not good enough to be raising if you assume one other player has the nut low draw. You also want to let in players with weaker low draws and semi-garbage hands, if you can, and most of those will fold to three bets usually.

Your analysis of the turn looks ok. The idea of pushing out flush draws is liable to be flawed; your raise may cost you extra bets and with two players liable to see the river anyway, one likely has some sort of flush draw, even if it's mixed in with other cards. Would be better just to call IMO.

Anyways, good luck with it all!

Monk
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