I play in a live daily Omaha hi-lo 15-30 game. I know the players pretty well, especially the ones in this hand.

I am 10 seat with $10 SB. 9 Seat is a tight, good player on the button. 1 Seat is a very tight player. We all have plenty of money for this limit hand. My table image is that I play quality hands and am considered a solid winner in this game.

Folds to button and the 9 seat will very often give the walk and let the blinds chop in this situation. He looks and says "well crap I have a hand" and raises to $30. I find Ad 2D 9D QH. Button says "Let it go, I have a hand" and I say I have one too so I call. BB calls.

Flop is AS QC 5C. Me and the BB check and the button bets. I check raise to see where I am hoping to take it down. BB would bet a high and will call two on the low draw is my guess. BB folds and the button immediately 3-bets me.

Cap, Call or Fold?

I don't play this game that much but I think I'm folding. You're playing solely for the high and even if you're ahead there's plenty of nasty cards to come on the bigger betting streets where you're oop check calling and praying.

The button normally gives you the walk and didn't this time and has been saying repeatedly he's strong. Try and get him to agree to show his hand if you fold the flop, saying it'd be tough to fold the draw but you're not feeling lucky or whatever.

why not lead the flop?

I would 3-bet the button for sure, even a nit's range includes A4 and A3 type of hands which we are ahead of here. Your hand also can both ways and does better in heads up situations rather than in multi-way pots. Folding is not an option in this situation; I vote peel and play accordingly.

PS: I'm not really a fan of talking in a hand (unless it’s a weekly drunk home game chicka chicka yeeeaaa ), and even though you may not think you are giving away information, you probably are as is the button to observant opponents.

Possibly to vary his play?

this is a huge reverse implied odds situation to me. how do you not fold the best hand when a low pushes you around and then not pay off two-ways draws that hit to scoop you?

is the pot big enough where c/c, c/c almost without looking at the cards is good? maybe fold if a low flush card comes on the turn?

lo8 is such a tough game for me. i would love to know a bit about your thought process in this hand as played from the flop onward.

Well I don't have much information about the players rather then they are fairly straight forward. I would think straight forward opponents here would be 3-betting only with hands like a set, a low draw with a flush draw or some kind of 432 draw combinations. That definitely means peeling is the best option since we are behind all three. We will then be in c/c mode on certain turn cards like a offsuit 7, and regain the lead when a blank like a 9 pops up. If a card like the 3 of clubs pops up then we can safely assume he wouldn't bet the turn with a set and ONLY with a flush or nut low. The only tough spot we will find our self in, is if we bet on the turn when either the 5 pairs or a blank hits and he raises back, then we have to try and figure out if he would re-raise there with just a draw or if he made a full house (the latter seems more likely). Again I don't have much information on these players so I could be way off but based on the given information this is how I would analyze this particular hand.

ty

You nailed it here in my mind. I folded faceup after a bit of thought and got quite a reaction out of the table. The button stared in amazement for what seemed like a minute saying "I don't want to show my hand.." or something similar. He finally flashed the hand to me and mucked it. This is why I love live poker.

Here was my thinking first and foremost. I don't care what he has as only 2 cards in the deck make me comfortable with my hand. The two aces that are possibly left in the deck are all that would be good for me. Basically my hand is made, I have little hope for improvement, I am up against a player who has proved to play quality hands, and I have to fade low cards, straight cards and clubs. There are too many cards in the deck that lead me to c/f on the turn that moving forward with this hand isn't worth it. I would have to do that again on the river as well. I didn't want to close my eyes and call 30 twice just hoping I stood up. Knowing this guy, he had a betable hand and I was going to see two more big bets.

I put him on a23 with some sort of club draw, or aa xx. Nothing else made sense to me. I think even if it was ak23 with clubs, I am still behind. My low draw is gone as I am not runner runner drawing anything heads up.

btw - I do not lead the flop for two reasons. 1. I want to see the strength of the BB hand first. He checked, so he wasn't high. If he calls two, I know he is going low or has a club draw. 2. c/r in this game is a sign of strength and I wanted to show strength and get heads up with the button. The three bet took me back to a re-evaluation of the hand.

If you are interested in what he had... He flopped perfect and should've made more money off me.

Ac q 2 3c

I think your fold is un-profitable in the long run, you should for sure peel, he's not going to have a set all the time and more often than not based on your description he is going to have a big draw (the fact that he had exactly AQ32 is irrelevant), the pot is big enough to justify calling and continuing in the hand on most turn cards.

PS: If you put him on A23 with a club draw, you for sure should have peeled since you can play prefectly against him. He isn't going to have trip Aces that often.

Yeah the hand continues to make me think for three days now. As I said, what he ended up having doesn't matter for what I choose to do. It just so happened I was right. However, thinking about it more, he was the only player at the table in which I would've folded that hand.

I used it to my advantage as well since about 15 hands later I c/r again and got three bet. I capped and smoke bet the turn and they folded. I only had top and bottom on the flop, but a perceptive player tried to play back at me again.

Limit Omaha 8 is like any other limit game. If you are getting the right price on your call... lets just say 6-1 on the river, you basically ask yourself "am I in a winning spot 1 in 6 times?" the answer is usually yes against most players. Against very solid very tight players the answer would probably be no.

I would have led the flop. Check raising to show strength doesn't make much sense to me. I have top 2 any lo draw is prob going to peel any flush draw is going to peel as well as any combo draws. I lead and get called I can put my opponents on a range of hands. I lead and get raised I call and again can put my opponent on a range of hands. I check raise and just get called I don't think I gain as much info and if I get 3 bet yeah I can narrow the range, but it cost me 3 bets to do it. In this scenario this guy has 2 clubs with a lo draw or a set 99% of the time unless he is a complete maniac IMO. If it were me I call and make my decision on the turn card as to what I do next

most of the reasons have been given already, but imo:

c/r/f>b/c/donk/fold nonlow turn>mash the call (button?!?)>>>>>pretty much any other line. i don't really have a problem with any of the first three, fwiw--they're all very close and metagame/stylistic concerns could sway me to argue for any of them as being best.

the only thing that hasn't been said yet is that 95% of live o8 players through 20/40 have no ****ing clue when it's a good idea to get happy with a low draw on the flop, whether it's a wheel wrap or not. this is why i think c/r/f is the best line--you're representing something pretty good by c/ring, and the villain is very likely to just mash his own call button with anything but a pretty huge monster. very, very few live players have a clue when to 3bet any street without a set or hand of similar strength.


if the villain is a strong, aggressive player, i like closing your eyes and calling down.