Marginal situations

[Aisthesis]

[Kuso]

[Aisthesis]

Yeah, the games are quite different, so not sure exactly what applies.

Here are two more that I thought of in the meantime:

5) Underfull. This is definitely a problem hand. Due to its lack of dynamic potential, I think it's also in the "take a stab" category.

6) Trips.These are pretty interesting, actually. I think they're worth playing very hard IF you have a full 9 outs to outrun the current nut full. For example, you have 89JT, and the board is 886. I think you can play that hand very strong. But if you had the same hand and the board was A88, then I think it's more "take a stab" and forget it if you get action.

[Felonius_Monk]

I agree with a lot of your lines. Some really interesting points here and playing some of these situations correctly is key to advancing from a simple nut-peddling solid winner to being a really good PLO player who can succeed against more complex opponents, at least in my opinion. I'll throw in my thoughts later if I have time.

[Aisthesis]

Cool! Would love to hear them.

Here's one more that I think belongs in this group (just had it and chickened out on barrel number 3 in a small pot--not sure whether it would have worked or not HU against bottom set):

7) Naked A for the flush bluff. I think it's obvious that you never want to DRAW to the pseudo-nut flush for any kind of money, but if you have naked As on a pure flush board, I think it's actually important (unless your opponents are absolutely horrible) to bet this through as if you have the nut flush--laying down to a paired board, but firing 3 barrels if necessary (my usual line here is pot/raise flop, pot the turn, half pot the river as long as the board hasn't paired--ideally you don't get to the river).

[Kuso]

ok, this could get long, so i'm probably going to split it up into a few parts.

first, i think 5 and 6 are key ones, and those are actually the ones that i was going to address first. so...

Naked A
OK, I'll start with this one first. I think the bare ace bluff is pretty dumb pretty much across the board (with regards to limits). at lower limits, they don't care -- they just see that they've got a flush, and that's a good hand, so they'll play for their stack. at higher levels, they realize that they prior probability of them having a decent flush (e.g., K or Q) AND you having the suited ace AND the flush making it are pretty low. that, or they're stupid. anyway, i wouldn't use this play unless i know the player is TIGHT and a nut peddler.

i'm not saying that you shouldn't bluff at flush boards, but having the ace in your hand is a minor factor to consider in that bluff, imo.

Trips
This is probably different in plo vs. plo8. in plo8, hands like trip 8s are relatively easy to play aggressively, because few people are going to have 8s in their hands. when they do, they're probably going to have some stupid 6789 type of hand (don't ask me why), so trips w TK is often good. that being said, it depends on how the board reads, and this applies to all trips.

when you have trips, you have to assume that anyone active in the pot also has trips or a boat. the trick is to put them on a likely range and then decide how likely it is that they have the boat. this is really more of an art than a science, but i think it's possible to make the crooked coin flip in your favor, and as a LAG, that's the best you can do. so in the trip 8s example above, if the board has another card between 6 and 10 and villain REALLY likes his hand, it's time to slow down or get out (depends on action, position, etc.). ditto if the flop is A88 due to the fact that people tend to play hands with aces. in plo8, a flop like 223 is likely to have a boat, while 229 is not. flops w AAx are damn near impossible to play with trips, because villain's sidecards can be in a VERY wide range, so boats are not unlikely. anyway, whether plo8 or plo, i think it's important to determine whether the non-paired cards are likely to be held in villains hand.

Underfulls
i suppose there isn't really much to say here, because this is just like trips. you have to determine whether the cards fit together in a way such that the bigger boat is possible. sometimes you just get screwed by the random PP, but that kind of stuff goes both ways over the long term.

here's an example (for plo8). flop comes 3TT and you have 33xx. ok, it's very likely your hand is good here because TT is fairly unlikely as is 3Txx. when a J comes on the turn or river, however, all of a sudden your hand goes WAY down in value. the TJ (or TQ or TK) holding is not that unusual, so your hand is probably not good if there's a lot of action. this is where postion comes into play. if you've got position, you can test the waters on the flop and then see what develops if the turn or river are scary. POSITION IS KEY FOR MARGINAL HANDS.

anyway, a lot of times (esp in plo8), you can look at things like VPIP, fold to flop bet, agg freq, and w$sd to get a feel for villain's range. i'll call down with any boat against a loose player, and i'll only play top boat against a tight player for a big pot.


fwiw, this was one of my biggest mistakes in my LAG session. is saw a guy check down third boat on the river for a small pot. to be fair, he was OOP, but both the turn and river were checked. i was a bit shocked and made a note. in a later hand, i picked up trip aces on an AAK board. i bet and he called. the turn came a deuce, and i had second boat with a low draw. he checked, i bet, and he raised. at that point, i should have just dumped. i figured him for the AK at that point, but i didn't care. that was a HUGE mistake. it was also a bit silly of me to bet the turn, because both A2 and AK are likely holdings, so the best case scenario was that we had the same boat and it was a coinflip if someone hit their kicker. of course, the worst case scenario was that i was drawing dead to the high end. anyway, i lost a buy-in unnecessarily there.


ok, that's it for now.


[edited to add last sentence to Naked A and fix my typo and more typos]

[Kuso]

[Ojingo]

[Aisthesis]

[Kuso]

[Aisthesis]

[Kuso]

OK, i see where you're coming from. no need for a HH.

i agree completely with what you say. this is ANOTHER reason why i like PTO and PAhud (i've had two or three people ask me if it's worth it this week). VPIP is useful for putting people on a range (or not), but "call preflop range", at leasat in plo8, often narrows the range drastically. for example, some 30% vpip players might only be 10% cpfr. in plo8, this usually takes out the 789T hands and usually means coordinated high, A2xx, A3WX, etc. some players even go down as low as 5% or 7% cpfr, so you can often REALLY narrow down their range.

as i said before, i think this is more of an art than a science. you'll never be able to guess the side cards of an A2XX (in plo8). it's still difficult to narrow the range down on a 15% cpfr% player, BUT you can certainly use this info for an edge.

also, in your example, it sounds like a REALLY loose game. imo, there's no harm in tightening up with only the occassional showing down of a marginal hand (specific to player and hand). you've got all the action you want, and you just have to wait for the cards to cooperate while not looking like the total rock that you are (e.g., by stealing small pots, raising with position, etc.). you DON'T have to wonder if your trips are good in this game. maybe call the flop bet and wait until you fill up. determine what kind of quality you need in your boat (top is usually to tight, "any boat" usually too loose), and show it down for your stack. fwiw, i think sometimes you might tread water for 500 hands (or more) in these types of games, but you'll ultimately you'll be stacking people for your fair share.