LO8: Top pair, nut flush draw and 1 blocker

[Doofus]

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No reads on villain. I don't have PT Omaha and this is definately not my main game.
Does anyone fold this if its not suited preflop? Or am I being to nitty?
Figured I might be good on the flop and pick it up uncontested. Is my turn bet good when villain shows no resistance?
River call is horrible right?

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 2[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 2[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, Hero calls, <font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, CO calls, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, BB checks.

Flop: (3.33 SB) Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
BB checks, <font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, CO calls, BB folds.

Turn: (2.66 BB) 8[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, CO calls.

River: (4.66 BB) T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">CO bets</font>, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 6.66 BB

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
River call is horrible right?

[/ QUOTE ]Doofus - Wrong. River call is correct.

Buzz

[GreenAndGray]

Even if it's not suited, you have the straight draw to shoot for on the flop. I think you played it just fine.

[FBMike]

Aces-up probably won't win under normal circumstances, but you did open the door for non-normal circumstances with a check on the river. If you think a man off the street will bluff 1-time-in-7, you have to call. With an opponent who you might play with for many hours, this call should be automatic for many reasons (decent enough pot, seeing how an opponent plays, "image", etc.) The only real question is if you should raise, thereby giving you better chances to escape showing your halfway good hand in a somewhat dicey situation.

[CheckRaiseFo]

Omaha is not my game either, but I think the issue of the river call is a general poker question...

The CO is utilizing his positional advantage with his river bet. Sure he may have something, but he may not. You are getting almost 6:1 on your call, and his only likely hand to win is another T

On the flop if he had broadway, two pair, or a set (and position in a shorthanded pot) he almost certainly would have raised you, if not on the flop then on the turn. Just calling says to me straight draw, straight draw w/ a pair, or an Ace (w/ king kicker or worse). Also, with position, he knows that he has some chance of taking the pot away if you slow down later in the hand.

You can beat most of those hands. Sure he might have a Ten, or a boat, I guess, but it seems unlikely, and it is cheap to find out.

My question for the forum is this - Preflop raise w/ this hand in early position (in what seems to be a fairly tight game)?

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
My question for the forum is this - Preflop raise w/ this hand in early position (in what seems to be a fairly tight game)?

[/ QUOTE ]CheckRaiseFo - No. At least not in general. I like limping with this hand from UTG+1.

Assuming your opponents have a reasonable grasp of the game and are trying to win, if you keep track, I think you’ll find, on the average, fewer opponents see the flop with you when you raise before the flop from early position than when you don’t. And it doesn’t matter if the game is tight or loose.

My own opinion is that you should mix up your play somewhat with respect to raising. Raise some of the time and don’t raise some of the time.

When should you raise? That depends on various factors, including your opponents, your position, and the type of hand you hold.

I can’t speak for your opponents, only for your position and the hand itself, and only for the hand in a limit game, not a pot limit game. With those limitations, some hands are more suited to raising from early position than others and some hands are more suited to raising from late position than others. And it doesn’t much depend on how good the hand is as a starting hand.

It would be very hard for me to believe a raise would have no effect on how your opponents would play a hand. But if you have somehow found yourself a table of opponents who have no card-sense and who are unaffected by your raises, then by all means go ahead and always raise with the hand.

And it seems possible there are games or times in games where some of your opponents might become so wary of you that they behave the very opposite of how it seems, in their own best interests, they should behave. I suppose against opponents who stubbornly read your raises simply as attempts to get rid of them, and who call all your raises just to be try to thwart you, maybe you also should raise with all your good hands, including this one.

However, normally you raise when you want to push opponents out of the pot and you do that from early position because the tactic doesn’t work well from late position.

And you limp from early position when you want to pull more individuals into the pot with you.

From late position, you can raise or not, depending on how much information you will give away by raising or not, and depending on how the raise from late position will affect the behavior of your opponents on subsequent betting rounds.

In a limit game at a full table of individuals who are not entirely lacking in card-sense, and who are not completely befuddled by you, this particular hand is not well suited to raising. It's a "pulling" hand rather than a "pushing" hand. What I mean is you should want to pull as many opponents as possible into the pot, rather than try to push them out. When you make your nut low, you want customers and when you make your nut flush, you also want customers. In a full game, most playable Omaha-8 hands are pulling hands. (But that changes in short handed or heads-up play).

By not raising before the flop with this (pulling) hand, you're not exactly slow playing the hand, but rather waiting to see how things develop. This "wait and see" approach is an aspect of Omaha-8 that is very much different from Texas hold 'em, in my humble opinion, and it is also very much different from various other poker games.

Buzz

[Grandma_DOG]

I'm wondering why the Turn bet here. There aren't enough players to warrant pot odds to bet the draw again, and he only has top pair which seems very thin.

Is it a +EV semi bluff? Trying to buy the rights to bluff on the river if a brick falls?

[Buzz]

Grandma - This hand is six months old! You're really digging around in those old posts! (Good for you.)

To answer your question. If Hero doesn't bet the turn, Villain will - and if so, then Hero should call. Right? But then Hero won't know if Villain actually has something or not, whereas Villain will suspect Hero has nothing but possibly a draw.

Hero might not know any more by betting the turn, but possibly Villain will fold to the turn bet.

Sometimes Hero wants to induce a bet from Villain. And checking the turn is the way to induce a bet from Villain. But in this particular situation Hero does not want to induce a bet from Villain. Hero simply wants Villain out of the pot. And the best way to do that is to bet.

Turns out it doesn't work here, but another time it might.

Buzz

[Grandma_DOG]

You damn right I'm digging for pair specific posts! I have a leak in my post flop game, Buzz, and I desperately need to find and plug it.

My first thought on my leak is maybe how I play pairs, in low limits with so many players in the pot, pairs are damn dangerous. I'm almost tempted to slink up to 2/4 3/6 to not worry about it, but that would be bankroll deadly and I would fail to master the underpinnings of adapting to large multi way pots. I love game theory too much to cheat.

I didn't see the 'push Villian off pot at Turn' bet because I'm too adjusted to low stakes. Simple oversight -

1. Villian will call me to showdown with any 2 pair, and sometimes 1 pair. Even less on a bluff.
2. Villian often will check behind me.

But back to the hand. Does the turn bet option statistically dominate the check option? And does check/fold have +EV to it?

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
But back to the hand. Does the turn bet option statistically dominate the check option? And does check/fold have +EV to it?

[/ QUOTE ]Grandma - I don't know. I think it depends on your opponent.

When people start playing Omaha-8, many of them tend to be pre-occupied with their own cards. Then after a while, they start thinking on higher and higher levels. Usually they move up in limits when this happens.

Although there's a lot of over-lapping, in general you encounter tougher opponents as you move up in limits. One reason your opponents may be tougher is because they may be trying harder to out-think you, rather than being primarily pre-occupied and concerned with their own cards.

And so you have to disguise and mix up your own play more, and also play your individual opponents more in order to continue to be successful as you move up in limits. The difference between a dull-thinking calling-station who has no very good idea of what cards you may be playing and a tough, tenacious opponent who is reading you is not obvious, based on the play of only a few hands.

Mixing up your play doesn't mean the optimal way to play your cards is to meekly call each betting round. It's true that sometimes you might call rather than raise, so as to confuse your opponent, but usually you want to put some pressure on your opponent, to make it tougher.

And the plain truth is it's tougher to play when your opponent bets and raises than when he checks and calls. Conversely, you're tougher to play against when you bet and raise than when you check and call.

You probably do better against most groups of players if you don't over-do this by playing like a maniac. But at least somewhere in a hand, I think you want to give your opponent a better chance to make a mistake by playing aggressively.

And in the particular hand you're citing, by betting the turn Hero makes it tougher on Villain to cope.

Buzz