Stack-to-pot Ratios - How can we utilise this for omaha?

[Dr_Chris]

[ QUOTE ]
Chris; could you elaborate on how you drew those conclusions please?

Thanks Guys

[/ QUOTE ]


I’m not a great PLO player so please don’t think I’m trying to teach you anything, about the game, but SPR is a easy way to adjust to different stack sizes, setting up conditions for winning large pots, and avoiding sticky situations.

One such sticky situation is playing a AAxx type hand with a SPR of 4. My hunch is that your target should be 0, 1 or 13. 0 means your all in preflop and get to showdown without any further tricky decisions, 1 means you have one pot sized bet let that may chase away some weak drawing hands since there is no implied odds for them it they hit, of course if you figure that your pot equity is abysmal you don’t have to put the rest of your chips in. With 13 you are looking to flop a set or some other very strong hand then get all your chips in with three bets.

You may argue that 9 or 18 is better for a speculative hand but my main point is that since we are playing pot limit you can not expect to river the nuts and get 99 bb into a 3 bb pot against the second nuts as in NL but instead you have to start planning for a large pot preflop with your good hands. At the same time a poorly planned raise preflop has little hope of picking up the pot because of the pot limit giving everyone who has entered the pot good odds to call and may leave you in a bloated pot in poor position but still with plenty of chips behind.

For an example of why a SPR of 4 is bad for a AAxx type hand lets say you pick up one in the blinds and the button who has been relentless in stealing your blinds raises, you repot and button calls, pot is 20 bb with 80 bb behind and you see a flop of T 7 3 twotone. Now a C bet only has to be successful a little more than 50% of the times to be immediately profitable and if called you may improve or get to showdown cheaply and win, with a single opponent and this flop you will probably pick up the pot two thirds of the time. At the same time the button knows quite well what your holding and may play perfectly, fold when he has no pair and no draw and re-raise you all in with his twopair or better hands, his strong draws and also with marginal hands like one pair + gutshot that are a coinflip against your actual holding. You need better than 33% equity to call and if you decide that you only have 25% and fold you will have forfeited you 25% chare of 60bb or 15bb. Maybe your sidecards are so good that you figure that your equity actually is 40% against villains range and you call correctly. But this means that while you have played the hand correctly you got 9bb in as a 60-40 favorite and 80bb as a 40-60 dog and that is not profitable poker.

So to answer your question Guys, that with a speculative hand in poor position you want to set up the pot so that if you hit the flop hard you can win a large pot. A miniraise from the blinds preflop only costs 1 bb but if this means that the pot becomes 8 bb instead of 4 you have opened up the possibility for you to get 104 bb in the final pot with 3 PSB. Now if you have the same hand in great position, you may want aim for a lower SPR because you will often pick up the pot with a c-bet and then you want it to contain some chips.

I’ll try to post a hand late where I think this type of analysis helped me play correctly and win a large pot.



Chris

[Dr_Chris]

[ QUOTE ]
The problem is lets say 1 limper then hero raises to 3 bb. well BB and limper call. Hero has spr of 10. If you are raising hands in a pot limit game to hit a specific spr, what happens with multiple callers? Additionally, if you hit ttp with your akj9 ss hand on a flop of AJ8 two diamonds, how hard do you really want to bet out when checked to? If I pot the flop and a queen shows up on the turn, do I fire again with an spr of 3 or do I check behind?

[/ QUOTE ]

Having a plan for your hand is good but it doesn’t mean you cant change it when you see what SPR you actually reach (and the number of opponents you are up against).
A ttp hand would probably be good for getting all your chips in if your SPR had been 4. But the upside of having a higher SPR is that you actually can play some poker, and your opponents will have to give you some credit for having a set of Aces when you C-bet, if you get check raised you might have to let the hand go. If your only called it probably means they are drawing or have a weaker made hand that they are worried about. If the board pairs on the turn a half pot bet will pick up most pots. Otherwise check behind and call river if a blank hits as this is often a missed draw or a weaker made had that thinks he is good.

You can probably find a better line but the point is that with a high SPR you want a very strong hand to commit, but in position you can use pot control to play a medium sized pot with your medium strength hand.


Chris

[DeNutza]

[ QUOTE ]

seems SPRs would sometimes help determine what to do postflop, but often your hand dictates your action.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your SPR AND hand would always dictate your action, even
if you dont know about the SPR concept, a good player
would still apply it intuitively.

How does a hand play itself regardless of stacks and pot
sizes?

[jipster]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

seems SPRs would sometimes help determine what to do postflop, but often your hand dictates your action.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your SPR AND hand would always dictate your action, even
if you dont know about the SPR concept, a good player
would still apply it intuitively.

How does a hand play itself regardless of stacks and pot
sizes?

[/ QUOTE ]

agreed; hence my comment about SPR being around a long time before those gents wrote P NL; players are doing this intuitively;

let me ask, after watching some high stakes poker last night; do any of those players use SPR in their preflop strategies? would it help if they did?

Back to omaha; i got to thinking about a hypotheitcal 250BB against a mediocre aggro player who will reraise oop with ONLY AAxx or AKKx... so you look to isolate with a lot of hands that run well against aces (or any hand if you play like me!)

For ease of calculation i'll forget the blinds:

So here villain raises 5BB; with AA or AKK

Hero flat calls; SPR = 245/10 or 24.5

Hero reraises to 15BB; Villain calls: SPR = 235/30 or 7.8

Villain rereraises to 40BB total; hero calls; SPR = 210/80 or 2.6

Which situation are you mroe likely to stack him? The answer is obvious; and your happy to get 20% of your stack in against obvious aces or kings in position...

When you raise and he just calls you have decisions to make; say you hit two pair with a rundown that leaves a straight possible on board; are you going to stack off when your spr is 24.5 or even 7.8? More importantly; how much are you willing to stack off against this opponent?

Furthermore: lets assume you min reraised; and your man again potted OOP; in this case you would have 30BB in the hand with 220 left, or an SPR of 220/ 60; or 3.7

Is 3.7 preferable to 2.6? Does it make any difference to how you might play certain hands?

[Dr_Chris]

[ QUOTE ]


Is 3.7 preferable to 2.6? Does it make any difference to how you might play certain hands?

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting question, and unless the blinds are supertight you have to raise to isolate since you otherwise are inviting them along, and while you have a pretty good idea of what the raiser has you have no clue to what the blinds may have.

At the same time you want to put in as little money as possible while behind, and keep the SPR as high as possible to give yourself more room to maneuver and use your position on the flop.

Out of the different options miniraising and achieving a SPR of 3.7 seems to be optimal. If villain C-bets you may fold, call (as a trap) or put in almost a PSB, if you want him to fold.


Chris

Edit to say; if a SPR of 4 is bad for our opponent it has to be good for us, right? And we only have to put in 10% of our stack to achive it HU.