PLO8 big draw decision on the turn

[devilmollusk]

[Kuso]

[briachek]

why did you raise preflop instead of checking?

[Felonius_Monk]

Don't raise that garbage preflop. You should probably fold it unless you're in the blinds, or perhaps in LP.

You need to bet full pot on the flop, you're giving them good odds to chase with a wide variety of hands by betting so weakly.

On the turn you have a mediocre 2 pair on a board with two flush draws, a multitude of straight draws and a low draw. Any card that doesn't boat you up on the river is, potentially, a bit scary, and so you're very likely to have to fold for a full pot bet on the river. You may also be behind already to a set, higher two pair, or a couple of drawing hands that have a huge number of outs to kill your hand. I'd just let this go on the turn, if the flop pot bet didn't shift them and if one leads out into you on the turn.

[Kuso]

briachek, i'm going to take a shot at your question... DM, please correct me if i am wrong. i've been thinking about this type of play a lot recently after looking at some of wintermute's hands, so i really would like to discuss the plusses and minuses of this kind of play.

the idea, as far as i can tell, is that you raise with three high cards and a low card operating under the assumption that you will often get low-only hands to call. the hope is that you get one or zero low cards on the flop, and then you have a strong hand and your opponent has, at best, flush potential and a backdoor low draw. as such, the pot will likely be taken down on the flop, and/or the PF aggressor (DM) will have a decent made or drawing hand (e.g., a str8) to continue with. furthermore, if DM is playing against another high hand, he will often have a backdoor draw to a low. i think that this is what DM was thinking.

as the flops that only have one or fewer low cards is only about 1/3 (37%) of the time, i think wintermute takes it a bit further by suggesting that a high hand can play aggressively on the flop even if an A or 2 hits with another low card. The idea is that your opponents low was probably compromised to some extent, and an A should help your high hand to some extent, so you can still hope to get a fold if you play the flop aggressively. this gives the play a few more percentage points to hit. of course, the success of this strategy depends on your read about the extent to which your opponent will only play premium (e.g., A23x) lows against a PF raise. could i use "extent" a bit more?

a quote from wintermute i read said something like "i will lose a lot of small pots but win a few big ones" -- a classic smallball versus powerball concept. i think that it has the further benefit of getting monsters paid off at other times due to seeming bizarre sequences of raises and folds that are probably hard to read.

i think that DM's implementation of this strategy had a few weaknesses. first, the starting hand was weak for a high hand, so even if he gets his wish (i.e., two or more high cards on the flop), he may end up with a trap hand (as he seemed to). second, his opponents were a bit too loose for this type of play to work -- namely, he wasn't able to narrow the field down to HU with a heavily low oriented hand. third, DMs backdoor low draw was weak -- i would prefer at least a 4 or 5 with the A. fourth, as monk said, the non-full-pot bet on the flop gave some drawing hand decent odds (implied, if not pot) to draw. fifth, he was out of position. with position, his flop bet (if he was the aggressor) probably would have given him better options on the turn (e.g., bet, take a free card, etc.).

anyway, i would love to have more discussion on this style. i certainly don't understand the nuances, and i definitely think that i might be wrong to try it at the 25plo8 tables, as i will be less able to put people on (low) hands. comments?

[devilmollusk]

Yes, you are correct in this. My thinking is very similar... if I have a high only hand I can get a lot of potentially dead money into the pot raising pre-flop. I do see how this hand is maybe too weak to make this play, but it is either a raise or fold I think. My basic philosophy so far with O8 is to trap try to call with scoop potential hands and raise with one-way hands, mainly high. I might raise with a hand like A23x rainbow, but I think you can get screwed with this one. However a hand like AAKQ I would most certainly raise pf. I want to either get dead money into this pot or thin the field to hands I can dominate for the high. I want the A2xx and A3xx calling my raise, and then if there are 1 or 2 high cards on the flop I can get the looser of these to call modest bets to the river, essentially gambling there will be no low.

Now in this case I see where this hand is really not strong enough to merit this play. But I have had sucess with this with my AA and KK hands.