Matusow's O8 article

[KneeCo]

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I just read an O8 article he wrote on full tilt: http://www.philivey.com/phil-ivey-tips.php?learntips=94, where he justifies cold capping 9KQ2 in a multiway pot from the big blind preflop. I think he is really incorrect for cold capping a basically 3 card hand from the second worst position. Does any one else agree with him? Perhaps you can help me see the light (if there is any).

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This is a horrible OP, a key to the article is that it's a tournament hand.

Also the point re: predicting live cards based on pf action in o8 is hugely valuable regardless of how you feel about the particular hand used to illustrate.

[slik]

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This is a horrible OP, a key to the article is that it's a tournament hand.

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The fact that it's a tournament should result in Matusow gambling less, not more. Moreover, it is rarely +EV to make a -cEV decision. Which brings me back to my original question: does anyone here think this play is +EV?

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Also the point re: predicting live cards based on pf action in o8 is hugely valuable regardless of how you feel about the particular hand used to illustrate.

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Thanks for rephrasing his thesis statement that got tangented because of his (seemingly) bad example.

[Buzz]

Slik - Mike makes an interesting point, one worth pondering.

If you pull Mike's cards out of a deck (I made his hand a rainbow, since he didn't specify suits) - and then if you pull out the four aces, three deuces, three threes, three fours, and three fives for Mike's four opponent's hands, there are 32 cards left in the stub, enough cards to deal out 10 flops if you don't burn anything.

I shuffled and dealt. I couldn't believe Mike would find many favorable flops for his hand, even with the aces plus twelve low cards pulled from the deck.

And he didn't.

But then it dawned on me - nobody else did either!

There are 17 high cards left in the stub, but only 15 low cards left in the stub and they're bunched (mostly sixes, sevens and eights). We could list all the possible lows, tabulate how many flops could have three low cards, two low cards, one low card and no low cards - but we don't even have to do that. Intuitively the number of possible flops with three low cards is low, and the number of flops with two low cards is also low.

When I tried the experiment - pulling Mike's cards and the sixteen low cards for Mike's opponents out of the deck, then shuffling and dealing the ten flops, there were only three flops out of the ten that had at least two low cards (eight down).

The problem was, holding Mike's cards, I would only like three of the ten flops myself.

But Mike is a Texas hold 'em player! Mike's perspective is that his opponents probably do not have good flop fits!

And he's absolutely right!

It's a tournament. Mike presumably has reasonably competent opponents. They're all generally prudently getting the Hell out of the pot if they don't find a flop fit!

Playing Omaha-8, at least limit Omaha-8, we don't usually look at possible flops from the perspective of how poorly they will fit our opponent's hands. Instead we think about how well they will fit our own hand. We do that because if four opponents see the flop, usually one of the five of us will have a decent connection with the flop. Our reasoning is, "If it isn't Hero, then it must be one of the Villain clan that has the decent flop fit."

At any rate, Mike has a very interesting, and maybe not all that unusual, perspective, one worth pondering.

Mike's starting hand is trash and he's not likely to have a good fit with the flop - but his opponents are not likely to have a fit with the upcoming flop either, and even less so because he has the one deuce. Capping is still a gutsy play by Mike, not one I'd make, but not entirely unreasonable, if you're playing your opponent's cards as well as your own.

Thus Mike's strategy here is not as whacko as it first appears.

I don't think the strategy would work well in most of my own games, but it's food for thought.

Buzz

[niss]

Buzz,

A couple of comments arising from yours.

1. You seem to attribute (at least somewhat) Mike's success in this hand to his read that his opponents were "prudent" players who presumably would fold the unfriendly flop he expected. If his opponents were all prudent, however, then he should have considered that, given the number of players raising and then calling 3 bets cold thereafter, he would not be the only one coming along for the ride with high cards, and any reasonably playable high hand probably crushes him.

I am loathe to give Mike any credit for how he played this hand other than for the fact that he saw a bunch of players before him, deduced that low cards were out, and played a high hand, which is not a novel idea. But he played a bad high hand, and got lucky (1) that he was the only high hand out there and (2) that he didn't merely have a semi-fit on the flop, he flopped the nuts.

In fact, I have to question whether his deduction is even correct. For with that many players calling pre-flop raises, the more correct assumption may be that the deck is stacked with *middle* cards and not *high* cards. And a flop of 6-7-8, 6-8-x, 7-8-x, any flop of paired middle cards, and the like, don't seem to help him at all and would seem to risk having at least one caller who has a decent pocket pair with a low draw.

In addition, if he assumes the Aces are out, then he's got *no* chance to make the nut straight. Meanwhile, a very reasonable range of hands may have the advantage, or at least +EV to continue to play, on what will look to him like a friendly flop. Even on the flop of 8-10-J, he's not out of the woods, as a hand like A-2-Q-K certainly has enough equity to keep playing, as may a hand like A-2-3-Q or A-2-4-K, and that's putting back-door flush draws aside. That's another critical flaw in Mike's thinking, in my opinion.

2. Your limiting the statement "we don't usually look at possible flops from the perspective of how poorly they will fit our opponent's hands" to limit O8 is extremely appropriate. Because so many more hands at PLO8 are heads up or 3-handed, a player who does not consider in most cases how the flop hit his/her opponents, and tailor his/her play appropriately, is missing an important skill set.

[Buzz]

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If his opponents were all prudent, however, then he should have considered that, given the number of players raising and then calling 3 bets cold thereafter, he would not be the only one coming along for the ride with high cards, and any reasonably playable high hand probably crushes him.

[/ QUOTE ]Niss - Good point. You're right.

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I am loathe to give Mike any credit for how he played this hand other than for the fact that he saw a bunch of players before him, deduced that low cards were out, and played a high hand, which is not a novel idea.

[/ QUOTE ]I agree the idea is not novel - and it would be usually incorrect in my own games.

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But he played a bad high hand, and got lucky (1) that he was the only high hand out there and (2) that he didn't merely have a semi-fit on the flop, he flopped the nuts.

[/ QUOTE ]Agreed.

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In fact, I have to question whether his deduction is even correct. For with that many players calling pre-flop raises, the more correct assumption may be that the deck is stacked with *middle* cards and not *high* cards. And a flop of 6-7-8, 6-8-x, 7-8-x, any flop of paired middle cards, and the like, don't seem to help him at all and would seem to risk having at least one caller who has a decent pocket pair with a low draw.

[/ QUOTE ]Good point.

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In addition, if he assumes the Aces are out, then he's got *no* chance to make the nut straight.

[/ QUOTE ]another good point.

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Meanwhile, a very reasonable range of hands may have the advantage, or at least +EV to continue to play, on what will look to him like a friendly flop.

[/ QUOTE ]If he has read his opponents correctly, something I suspect he's good at, then maybe the probability is low of an opponent having a hand falling within that range.

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....and that's putting back-door flush draws aside. That's another critical flaw in Mike's thinking, in my opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]Agreed.

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Your limiting the statement "we don't usually look at possible flops from the perspective of how poorly they will fit our opponent's hands" to limit O8 is extremely appropriate. Because so many more hands at PLO8 are heads up or 3-handed, a player who does not consider in most cases how the flop hit his/her opponents, and tailor his/her play appropriately, is missing an important skill set.

[/ QUOTE ]Yes. I can't speak for pot limit Omaha-8, but that makes a lot of sense to me.

All the same, I think I'll try thinking more about how the cards in my own hand affect the possibility of various flops, and what the impact of that will be on various opponents.

Buzz

[Paragon9]

They don't really write their own articles, google Clonie Gowen rebuy article.

[Jim Morgan]

I disagree with Matusow's overall statements, but there are some interesting points that are tangent to all of this.

First, what does a re-raising hand in O8 look like? It seems like one might do it with something like A234 or A23K double suited, but do I really want to go to war knowing that I am likely against another quality A2xx hand? I'd much rather have a quality high hand with maybe a duece, such as AA2x, AKQJds or AJT2ss.

Second... Against known solid citizens, is there really any future playing with hands like AsQd8c2h?

So.... should he play that hand in the BB?
I think it depends. If all his opponents are the kind who would call with AsQd8c2h or re-raise with low cards, then calling is reasonable. As for capping, I think that is just testosterone.

[chaos]

A problem with Mike's analysis is that he doesn't worry about flushes and makes no mention of suits as Buzz points out.

Those players with good hands containing an Ace are likely to be suited. I think the most common winning high hand is a flush. If all of Mike's opponents have suited hands that cover all four suits and Mike is either unsuited or drawing dead to his flush, then I think he will be an underdog to win high.

- chaos

[Micturition Man]

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It's not something that I would do, but he explains it pretty well. If you think everyone else is playing the low cards, then the board is far more likely to bring high cards.

I know Gus Hansen said something similar for NLHE which is why in multi-way pots he loves the low cards.

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Dubious as Matusow's O8 argument is, Hansen's HE argument is awful, assuming you have paraphrased it correctly.

[Truthiness24]

I think that Buzz hit on the key part of this post and the Matusow article.

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I shuffled and dealt. I couldn't believe Mike would find many favorable flops for his hand, even with the aces plus twelve low cards pulled from the deck.

And he didn't.

But then it dawned on me - nobody else did either!


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We can make strained arguments to support Matusow's extremely stupid & -EV play if we want to. Truth be told, I think that the play is only marginally -EV for a pro-level player, and it pays for itself in tiltboy value if you get to scoop a monster & show that you're capable of playing those cards. But I think that this misses the point. There IS something useful in here.

One substantial hole in the games of ordinary O8 players is that they don't look beyond they own hands to consider that of others. They assume that you have to nut-peddle in order to win. They assume that, if they didn't hit the flop, then another player did.

Wise posters here know that this thinking can be exploited with aggression. But ordinary players, and sometimes really good ones, understand the importance of aggression but forget why they are doing it.

Let's say that I open (PFR) from the cutoff with A2JJ. Or KKT5. Or KT93. It really doesn't matter. BB calls.

Now I'm not going to automatically c-bet the flop, but I am going to c-bet a whole lot of the time. And I'm going to c-bet for one of two reasons: either I hit the flop, or I think the BB missed the flop & I can pick it up right here.

I believe that it is way more useful (and fun!) to catch a flop with junk, drive it home, and show it than to make the conventional play. When you do that, you earn respect, an unpredictable image, and room to really play. It is here where I think that Matusow's article had a good point. (That said, I really just think he tilted & is trying to minimize his own embarrassment.)

It is going to seem elementary to most posters here that you put your opponent on a range of hands and act accordingly. But I am really sure that this is NOT the way that most people think when they play O8. They don't see beyond their own hands because they think that they will be beat if they don't have the nut hand or nut draw. They seldom consider that your positional raise may be some form of bluff, and, even if they do read it right, they often don't have the stones to do anything about it.

I read something above about Matusow being a NLH player playing O8. The tone suggested that this was a bad thing, that he just didn't "get it." I think that there is more to learn from bringing a NLH perspective to Omaha that most people think.