After a nice session where I earned about 2.5 buyins I decided to play my last round, when this hand came up.

$50 PLO on UltimateBet

Me: on button with [8s][Th][Jd]. My stack is about $125.
There is a min raise and 7 people see a flop of

[7s][9d].

Pot is $7, EP (stack: $66) bets $7, MP (stack: $150) calls $7. I played with EP earlier that night, and he seems to be a solid, winning player. He will not play for his stack without a very strong holding. MP got lucky a couple of times, but doesn't seem to be making very loose calls.

I thought about raising but two things kept me from doing so: first, the fact that together they might have many outs against me (many spades, any pairing of the board) so that I'd like to see a safe turn card first. Second, that I was afraid to play a huge pot here and throw away all my winnings at once.

Turn: .

I still have the nuts. Pot is $28 now, and EP bets pot. MP calls. I'm now sure that EP has a straight as well, since he would not overplay a set on this board. I'm mainly afraid that one of them is freerolling against my stack, so I call. If I lose the pot, I can still end my evening being up almost 2 buyins.

River is the safe .

EP goes allin, MP goes allin, and since I have the nuts, a call seems in order. Pot is $316, and I'm waiting to see with how many I have to share that. To my surprise, it all slides my way. Both of them had 68 for the nuts on the flop, EP had the K-high flush draw to go with it, and MP had bottom set as an extra.

Any thoughts? The stack sizes clearly frightened me here; normally, I hate playing dangerous hand against other big stacks. How do I get myself to push in on the turn?

Pieter

I like your play on the flop; I would probably have raised against decent players because your redraw potential is really good here. You have lots of high wrapped cards to that board so any straight card can only improve you, and against a naked straight your flush redraw is looking nice. Even against someone with the nut flush draw, you slice him down a couple of outs because of your straight flush open ender. However, with such deep stacks here I don't mind calling either. If you think a raise will force out the caller you should make it; you have position and could very well be on a monster freeroll against the lead bettor. If not, I like the call.

On the turn you need to get all in. You have drawn the nuts, your straight may be good for the whole thing and you have a few redraws. You don't want to be bluffed out if a bad card hits the river, and you don't want to give anyone messing about with two pair, a non-nut flush draw etc any sort of cheap river. One of the two players is quite liable to be on a draw, but there's nothing to say the other one has the same straight as you; indeed, by now, it's much less likely than it was on the flop. Again, calling is not too bad but I think the advantages of getting it all in here outweight the possible disadvantages. If somebody has the same straight, you will have a freeroll. If your straight is good, then well over half the cards in the deck will win it for you outright; it's a win-win situation and a very good place to be pushing your money into the fray. Time to be brave and make the play, I would say!

Monk
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