Bad Call But How Awful Was It? PLO8 Rebuy

[Cooker]

I think the play on the flop is pretty bad and the the whole hand in general is pretty bad. If I am reading the action right on the flop, these guys are going to be facing another 20,000 or so into a pot containing more than 200,000. The worst part is that you are bluffing and will almost always be called. You aren't beating hardly anything, but seem you seem aware of this.

What you seem unaware of is preflop hot and cold knowledge. I will admit that this is not my area of expertise since I stray away from tournaments for just this reason, but I think I can point a few things out to you. The blinds are so high that virtually any hand played for a raise is going to get all in soon, so I would be forcing the action in ways that I think are favorable to me.

I want to take advantage of the fact that many players think a hand like yours is quite good when in fact your hand is pretty poor hot and cold all in preflop. The hand you hold is generally a good hand because it plays well postflop, but there isn't going to be much postflop play and so your below average A238 should hit the muck, especially against a preflop raiser. You are a dog to almost everything. AK3T is a 55 to 45 favorite to your hand preflop. Hands that dominate your high chances more than make up for having weaker low chances, and many hands that are playable for a raise dominates your high chances by having an A with a better kicker than 8. Still not many people can fold your hand, so I would play hands like A2KJ by usually reraising unless the table is so tight that a raise is almost always AA, and hope to be called by a hand just like yours or happily take down the pot.

Also, I would pay careful attention to any show downs. If no one is adjusting their standards in this way, I would pick a few suspect hands that I know do well against A2xx hands where xx aren't particularly coordinated. For instance A4KT is a favorite over A289. Granted when you do this, you will occasionally run into big hands and look foolish, but such is the nature of big blind short stack poker IMHO. The reason you are playing this way is because you can't want to wait for huge hands like AAw or A3KK. Some of this is going to be feel at the table, but the higher the blinds in comparison to my stack the less likely I am to limp marginal hands or call raises looking to the flop.

If I had A23J I would have shoved preflop unless the raiser was such a nit he virtually had to have AAw.

[flavius]

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I would play hands like A2KJ by usually reraising unless the table is so tight that a raise is almost always AA, and hope to be called by a hand just like yours or happily take down the pot.

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Lets fast forward to the next day new tourney. 27 spots paid 50 people left. MP1 was raising alot with what I considered marginal hands. Do you think my play is correct here?

Poker Stars
Pot Limit Omaha Tournament
Blinds: t150/t300
8 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: t6897
UTG+1: t13651
MP1: t8352
MP2: t2342
CO: t2124
cyan1de: t5869
SB: t1761
BB: t4127

Pre-flop: (8 players) cyan1de is Button with Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
UTG calls t300 <font color="aaaaaa">(pot was t450)</font>, UTG+1 folds, <font color="#cc0000">MP1 raises to t1350</font>, 2 folds, <font color="#cc0000">cyan1de raises to t4800</font>, 3 folds, <font color="#cc0000">MP1 raises all-in t8352</font>, <font color="#cc0000">cyan1de calls all-in t1069</font>.
Uncalled bets: t2483 returned to MP1.

[MotTrieuDong]

I would put it in this spot as well, Flavius.

[Cooker]

I think this shove is fine. I will say, that often you will be only be marginally ahead in these situations and he will be right to call your reraise (and most people know that they almost have to call the all in reraise getting 2 to 1), which in my opinion makes these tournaments pretty high variance. I don't think PLO8 makes a very good tournament structure for this reason. That being said, if I were going to make it a regular game, I would spend some time on 2 dimes trying to teach myself what plays well hot and cold. That knowledge with a decent read on how players are playing certain types of hands may be the best thing you can do to gain an edge in the range where everyone is medium to short stacked which seems to come up fairly often in tournaments.

[MotTrieuDong]

I think Sit N Go's help you with playing your stack the best.

[I dunno]

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The question, I would ask myself is: "Am I that desperate for chips in relation to the blinds?" I would say no. 100k chips at 3k/6k blinds is still enough chips to be semi-patient and outmaneuver, steal in position, and get your money in as a better favorite.



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And how does this contradict anything anyone else has said?

[bbartlog]

fast forward to the next day new tourney ... Do you think my play is correct here

I don't like it. A2QK rainbow may be a favorite over his range (but don't underestimate the degree to which being rainbow rather than suited damages your prospects). But the bigger issue is that you have position on this guy and are throwing that advantage away by letting him get it all in preflop. A flat call of his initial raise seems a lot better. Also, just looking at the preflop numbers, you are 50/50 or so against a wide variety of hands. Stuff like KKJTss or 9753ds. There's no way your move here is hugely +EV and you're risking tournament elimination.

[Cooker]

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fast forward to the next day new tourney ... Do you think my play is correct here

I don't like it. A2QK rainbow may be a favorite over his range (but don't underestimate the degree to which being rainbow rather than suited damages your prospects). But the bigger issue is that you have position on this guy and are throwing that advantage away by letting him get it all in preflop. A flat call of his initial raise seems a lot better. Also, just looking at the preflop numbers, you are 50/50 or so against a wide variety of hands. Stuff like KKJTss or 9753ds. There's no way your move here is hugely +EV and you're risking tournament elimination.

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This line doesn't make any sense to me. You have basically 1 bet postflop. Position hardly matters at all here. You are basically calling a quarter of your stack to try and hit a flop which you probably won't most of the time. If I didn't want to shove this hand, I certainly wouldn't call with it.

[bbartlog]

Position hardly matters at all here.

By flat calling you would commit less than a quarter of your stack. I agree that the advantage of position is greatly diminished by the fact that there is not any room left for multiple betting rounds, raising/repotting and so on. But in order for the all-in to make sense you'd have to assume that being second to act was totally valueless or even detrimental.
I do think that all of the money is going in on the flop with this hand almost all of the time (there aren't that many flops that totally miss you) but you gain enough of an advantage by being able to fold a few flops like T95 and the like that calling preflop and then playing the hand makes more sense.

[Cooker]

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Position hardly matters at all here.

By flat calling you would commit less than a quarter of your stack. I agree that the advantage of position is greatly diminished by the fact that there is not any room left for multiple betting rounds, raising/repotting and so on. But in order for the all-in to make sense you'd have to assume that being second to act was totally valueless or even detrimental.
I do think that all of the money is going in on the flop with this hand almost all of the time (there aren't that many flops that totally miss you) but you gain enough of an advantage by being able to fold a few flops like T95 and the like that calling preflop and then playing the hand makes more sense.

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I would actually say that being in position is worse on this hand. If he shoves every flop (which he probably should) then you are giving away the flops where neither of you improve much and this is going to be a majority of flops I think. At this stage I am looking to be the aggressor. If I don't think I have good value in reraising, because the preflop raiser has shown tendencies to still limp his weaker A2 and A3 hands (which I will have quit limping and be raising or folding almost everything) and his raise really signifies serious strength, I would give some consideration to folding. Since this player was described as raising a lot of pots, I think you have more value from shoving than from flat calling and seeing a flop.