This is really related very specifically to the casino game I've been playing (had another game tonight, but no really interesting hands--except that I flopped the nut straight once and got outdrawn on the river, but it was a pretty straightforward hand, then the table broke, so I made back my losses there in NLHE).

Oh, and I guess I should post a funny one that I won just to give you guys some idea of my table image: It's getting short-handed and only 2 limpers, so I make it $20 to go in CO with AQT8ds. One caller and the flop comes A77. The caller folds before I've even bet, and another player says, "Thank God I laid down A7!" Just as point of information, while the caller had played with me when I was just starting in PLO, he hasn't played with me since, and I'm not at all sure I would even have made that raise on AA in light of this image... But I definitely would have on any strong ds wrappish hand....

Anyhow, on the drive over, I was rethinking some strategy and came up with some stuff that I'd at least like to post, although I fear it's still a bit vague.

First, I'm sticking for now with the $300 buy-in in this game, which will often mean that a raise or check-raise is just all-in. At least in a lot of situations, what you have here is a very flop-oriented game (shove it all in or not).

Here's my basic thought: Betting pot (at least HU) simply defines a certain odds criterion, with 2:1 being the magic number.

When you're playing for stack, you want your range of pushes to be somewhere around 2:1 favorite over the range of calling hands for your opponent. On the other hand, if you flat call, that should mean roughly that you're behind against the betting range, but have at least 2:1 odds to catch up.

Anyhow, let's say hypothetically that you always push top set to a bet as starting point (that's actually a question mark here). Ok, top set is never big underdog, is an overlay against some of the hands they're betting, etc.

The question is: Where is the point where it becomes interesting for them to call with middle set and nothing (middle set with other outs becomes more interesting--I'm guessing somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 outs plus middle set, they're probably correct to call if you simply were to show them a dry top set)? Well, if you have top set 65% of the time or more on this particular board, then the remainder of the time you could have absolutely nothing and they'd be incorrect to call, since they're essentially dead for the 65% of the time.

But let's say there are some hands that are roughly a coinflip against middle set and that those are your other push hands. Ok, middle set wins half the time against those hands and almost never against top set. So, you now would want to have x + y/2 = 65%, where x is the probability that you have top set and y is the probability that you're a coinflip. For example, if you have top set 15% of the time and a coinflip the remaining 85% of the time, your total equity is 67%, and it becomes a marginal call for a dry middle set.

Well, where I'm trying to go with this (as I said at the outset, I'm still a bit vague on this) is that a lot depends on board texture. For example, if the board is KJ6 with flush draw, assuming I'll push KK, then JJ should actually fold if I throw in a range including AA with flush draw, AQT9 without flush draw, and a number of others.

Well, forgive me for rambling, but where I'm tending to go with this is that a push on top set becomes more attractive on drawy boards, and your hand range should include a fair number of decent draws there to make the decision difficult for other possible hands. Also worth noting is that on that board AA with flush draw should be ahead of most wraps, is definitely ahead (minimallly) of top 2. If they're inclined to bet and call the big raise with draw, then you're still in good shape.

Ok, so much for my ramblings. I'm still just trying to figure this out.