Ugly hand at 3/6O8

[Felonius_Monk]

Well here's one for you to puzzle over. Thoughts on this one
requested...

3/6 kill O8. Regular 3/6 pot, I'm in BB and get dealt AAT8ds.

Not great, but not at all bad either. It folds all the way round to
SB, who raises it to $6, he seems to be winning but has played
aggressively so far and seems to raise a lot, especially in LP. Raises
a fair few hands PF too. I decide my hand is probably best in a heads
up situation with position and make it 3 bets to him. He caps, I call
the 4th bet. We both have tons of money left.

Flop KJ3, rainbow with 2 of my suits (I *think*). He bets out. In
this spot I go for a Mike Cappelletti move - my hand is certainly enough
to call with 9 SBs in the pot (4 queens to the nuts, 2 aces to a
probable win, and perhaps 3 3s to win if he has something like A2KJ, two
backdoor flush draws worth maybe 1-2 outs in total, given this is hi/lo)
but I might just be best here (or splitting with another AA) so I decide
to raise. He makes it 3 bets. Hard for me to see that I'm ahead here,
also hard to put him on a hand. Suppose a set is possible but who
knows... I call the third bet, pot's getting big now.

Turn brings an offsuit 6. Kinda troubling. I know have the weediest
of low draws, nothing else has changed. I still think a Q scoops, A
probably gives me at least half. He bets, I call.

River pairs the 3 on board. No flushes. He bets again, I breifly
actually consider raising with my top 2 pair because there's no low out
and he needs either a 3 in hand or KK or JJ to win it, but in the end I
decide it's hard to see him calling much I can beat (KJ or AK perhaps)
and I will lose two bets if he re-raises with a boat, so I call.

So, I end up basically firing out 7 SBs and 2 BBs with a hand that's
never really more than a bare pair of aces with a few sketchy draws.
The opponent later lambasted me for falling in love with my aces
(somewhat comically, I took a huge pot off him later with mega-draw that
decimated his aces for a river scoop), which in a way was kind fair
enough. I thought most of the plays I made, there's a decent excuse
for, though? Perhaps if I only called the raise preflop, and then
basically "missed" the flop, I could lay down, but I rather think I
would in fact have raised that flop heads up, and so it'd still have
cost me only one SB less to get to showdown...! Calling ALL the way
seems a little loose-passive, no?

Although this hand felt like I'd played it awfully at the time, I'm
struggling to see where I could've got away from it without much less
damage, though perhaps I'm thinking a little one-dimensionally here...
thoughts?

Monk
xxxxx

[JDLush]

Monk, heads up I can't see playing that any differently. With even one other caller it's a different story, for sure. Your biggest fear has to be KK, but I don't really like the odds of that being possible. I'd guess if you won it he had KJ and the river 3 gave you the higher 2 pair. I think he might have had a decent low draw as well, maybe A4?

[MecosKing]

Monkman:

Lemme preface this by saying that i am at best, a competent omaha player. I think i have a decent winning record, but thats only because when i play omaha, i play at th B&M back home where the house rule is that if a pot ever gets three bet, then everyone behind has to come in for a cap [okay, this isnt a house rule, but its kindof just the way its done there]

Anyways, this is an interesting hand, and its why i dont like to play omaha for big money, or as my primary game. There are just too frickin many possibilities...

In this case, my guess is that you were either beat, or you chopped it with another AA. The only reason for this is that when you three bet him out of the BB, he four bet you. Now, it is always possible (seen this in holdem a fair bit) that he figured you had him on a steal, and he put you on a resteal, and he decided for an extra bet, it was worth it to retain the lead on the flop. However, in Omaha, even HU, hands dont have the same kind of preflop value as they do in HE...which leads me to think that unless someones a pretty wild player, a four bet usually indicates some sort of premium hand, like KKxx or AAxx--small edges preflop in omaha just arent worth pushing usually, unless its PLO and you can push it hard enough to make someone muck maybe.

Then, there was the matter of the flop 3bet, and the river 'value' bet (or so it seemed). I dunno dude. Im not sayin that if i were in your spot id lay it down. Its possible he had something like AKQT and maybe pickedup a flushie draw, or some other huge draw that he decided to bluff on the river, or KJ for that matter, and got counterfeited. So i mean, im a calling station, esp. HU, and id have probly given it a call if i were in there on the river. My guess though is that you were no good, one way or the other.

I spose you couldve gotten away from it on the turn, maybe... but you picked up the low draw, and you still had the gutshot and the flushie? Also, A wins too prob, so who knows. tough hand...

[GooperMC]

[Felonius_Monk]

RESULT - He had KJ53 for a boat made out of one of the worst O8 hands I've ever seen capped preflop but I think he played it well after the flop. I didn't rate this guy much, but he seemed like a half decent player, even if he was way too aggressive at times and gave me a couple of big pots later when I simply let him bet my monsters for me and put raises in on the expensive streets. I admit to my chagrin that I gave him a bit of a bashing for playing KJ53 for 4 bets preflop, but I'd say that was about the only part of this hand that he misplayed. Of course, when you hit a flop as fortunate as that, it's kinda hard to misplay it....

Interestingly, I was correct in that I had odds to chase all the way, and, given his hand, the 3 on the river seemed a decent call as I'm sure he'd have made that bet with just KJ.

Monk
xxxxx