i wandered over to 2+2, and found this hand posted there. i thought it would make for good discussion here.

the hero made three mistakes in the posted action, find them!

(and no cheating--i posted the mistakes on 2+2 already)

Ill take a shot

1. We should c/r the flop due to our relative position, but Im not sure if we should be c/r-ing as often in O8 when compared to LHE when against a pfr.

2. We should just call the raise on the turn????

3. Something something preflop????????

maybe you're right, maybe you're not .

explain WHY, though. that's where all the important discussion about this hand is going to be. there are very important principles behind all three of the things i'd do differently from the hero here.

3 orbits ago he posted in the CO. this is such a terrible mistake, i doubt it needs any further discussion, however i assume this is not one of the mistakes checky is talking about.

if the game is 4-5 handed, hero should really be raising UTG+1 to clean up his low outs if he gets counterfeited, to buy the button, and to take the lead in the hand. also, there is a lot of meta-game that happens when the table is short and many players make the mistake in O8 of limping A2 and A3 to get people to come along. in a 4 handed game i played last week, i folded A4xx on the button after UTG limped, because he only limped first in w/ A2 and A3.

when it gets back to hero preflop, he really needs to be raising 3 handed for value.

as played, i like to c/r the flop for value. we don't want the CO to isolate the BB. if we had a hand like A247 then i like to lead hoping the CO isolates so we can clean up our outs one way or the other.

equity wise, i don't think we're far enough of villain's range (when he raises turn) to neccessitate a 3 bet.

Tried to not read replies, but I saw Moneyball's first reply, which also happened to be what I was going to say...

1. c/r flop due to relative position, since we want to build here, not drive away.

2. is pf standard here? the dynamics at 50/100 have to be much different than at 2/4... would we rather raise this? no idea.

3. hit a 7d on the river.

I really have no idea, I thought I'd be able to do this much better, but apparently I'm rusty.

navy,

I post in the CO in LHE full ring, it can't possibly be any more of a mistake to do it in O8, as a matter of fact, I suspect it's negligible.

i think i read somewhere that only 14-18% of hands are playable in LO8.

thus, hand values are such an imperative in LO8 that posting early w/ a hand that's only gonna be playable 1/6th of the time is a leak.

its like how its almost always correct to complete in the SB in LHE, but very rarely correct to do so in LO8. sorry, i'm drunk, but i think it makes sense.

I like raising pre short-handed, particularly in a higher limit game partly because picking up the blinds becomes important, and if you get called it's a big enough hand to raise for value?

Given there are 3 betting rounds and 3 mistakes I guess you don't like the flop play. OK, you'll explain at some point.

On the turn it would appear something unfortunate has happened and we are up against a big hand. Given we're still drawing both ways and villain may have an A2 anyway I would slow down.

i dont like the threebet on the flop. multiway this hand has warrants raises and capping, headsup oop going to three accomplishes nothing.

as played betting the turn is silly, going to three again on the turn is just crazy.


these things do cost very little though, as in fractions per bet put in. ide say that this guy wasn't thinking about what he wanted to accomplish with each bet he made, he was thinking very lhe-ish and saying i have good hand me raise.

edit: read through respones and i didnt look at the action enough. a checkraise is definitly better on the flop. however, lets say you check he bets and the bb folds, im not sure if you should raise or just call here.

Posting in the CO is absolutely not a problem, unless there are only 4 players in the game.

It would be helpful to know how many players were dealt in. Was there only 4, or is the OP just mentioning the 4 that were in the action. I make it at least 6, since OP is UTG+1 and there is a CO.

Depending on how loose you are with high only hands, somewhere between 25-30% of hands are playable in O8.


As for the mistakes...

I don't like the turn raise without at least one side of my hand made. Too easy to be against another A2 and/or a bigger flush draw.

The preflop UTG limp may be subject to debate, but without a better high hand (at least having the A suited) I'm OK with it.

Maybe the flop could be c/r, but it doesn't look like it would have made a difference. The BB was folding and the CO isn't going anywhere. Well... maybe the BB calls the CO for one bet, so c/r may build the pot.

it doesnt make a difference that it wouldnt have made a difference

i'm drunk, let's give some answers.

most of you were pretty spot on:

1. assuming this hand is shorthanded, this is a raise preflop. the high potential is not as bad as one would think with three-wheel-six. it also has a soot. so raise before people figure out that you only raise AAxx in EP and you get annihilated, esp at 50/100. this might be different at full ring, but i would raise in full ring as well in any game with any number of thinking players because any thinking player reads an ep limp as A2xx or a well-backed-up A3xx, and any ep raise as AAxx or a hand that prefers to be HU. at higher limits, also, it's much more important to err on the side of raising--you'll inflate pots to the point of ensuring that you can draw at half pots profitably. (nb: as played, the "hero" should go back upstairs 3way. with counterfeit protection and decent high potential, this is a pot-inflating hand for sure). another added benefit of raising is that you will fish out AAxx ALL DAY LONG when it three-bets you, and you can play any four cards very profitably against someone advertising AAxx in a HU situation. FYI: i recently ran a personal 3000 hand experiment wherein i limped more often for deception rather than raised more often for deception. my winrate dropped over 1BB/100 for the duration of that experiment.

2. as most of you said, c/r-ing the flop is the correct play, hands down (this is also the most egregious error made by the "hero"). the original preflop raiser raised a limper, so that means he's more likely to be going low than high (an open raise usually signifies a high/HU hand, whereas the more limpers that are raised the more sure we can be that the raiser has a good low), so there is no reason to expect that he will be checking behind on this flop. but why should we keep everyone in here? that has to do with the STRENGTH of our draws on the flop--a ginormous wrap that includes a wheel will make the nuts if it hits most of the cards that help it, and the board has flopped rainbow. the important thing to note here is the general principle for LO8 that you want to thin the field when your draws are multiway but not to the nuts (or one way nuts only), but keep everyone in when all or most of your drawing outs bring you a nut/nut type hand. since this hand falls into the latter category, and since the preflop action indicates nothing to suggest that we won't be bet at by the CO, this is a very very easy c/r. honestly, if i saw someone bet into a raiser on this flop and show down the hand the "hero" had, i'd immediately label him/her as a target for checkraising and other manipulations of overly aggressive and isolation-happy o8 players. that a conceivably winning 50/100 player would do this makes me LOL, and long for the days i get my roll up to those stakes .

3. turn 3-bet is bad. when someone raises the turn on a 2-low board, s/he ALWAYS has a hand that is ahead of whatever we have for the high. a board pair or non-low non-heart ****s us here, a significant portion of our outs are 1/2 pot outs and/or 2nd best flush outs perhaps, and 3-betting is terrible when the villain raises the turn and tells us s/he has a legitimate high hand that s/he wants to show down (this is what a turn raise on a 2-low board signifies, unless a player is extremely tricky and has a read--in any case, i can surmise from the hand action that the villain in this hand, the CO, is 10x the player that the "hero" is, even without knowing what the villain holds). and we don't often lose a bet if we just call and c/r the river instead when we hit, either.

with regard to #3, a seemingly interesting discussion becomes one connected to the question asked by the 2+2er at the end: the river pairs the queen, no heart--what action now? if one really understands the turn action--a flop raise/caller saying "ok, i'm likely behind" turning into a turn-raising "ok, i'm likely ahead now," even if we 3-bet that raise--it is JUST PLAIN RETARDED to think that firing anything on the end would ever induce a fold. this would be a horrid spot to continue through on a whiffed-outs bluff on the end, since the villain raised the queen when it hit, and then the river paired his raising card. the ONLY conceivable hand in the villain's range that would consider folding a paired queen river is a34x, and that is probably the least likely hand the villain could be holding here. i'd say this is AKxx/AAxx/KQ nearly 90% of the time, and those hands are just not going to fold the end. that the 2+2er thought this was the really interesting question related to the hand also makes me LOL (since he fucked up so badly earlier), but i'm drunk often and LOL easily, so i can't say that it was really objectively that funny. i just found it hilarious, and thought the hand made for interesting o8 discussion for other reasons.

also, let me know if posting stuff like this helps--i can round up at least 2-3 hands from every session i play that i could set up in a similar way.

I'll give it a shot... but then again I have never played online O8, short handed, or higher than 20/40 so I may be off.

1. I understand the three bet on the flop because you have a good chance to possibly pick up the pot if they fold or scoop or at least 3/4 the pot if you hit but I agree that c/r'ing is the better way to go. I say 3/4 the pot because it is likely that he also has A2. This is where more information on the player would be better because we dont really know what range he has been playing so... who knows there. The one major flaw I see through out is the 3 bet on the turn. The player has raised every street and obviously has a solid hand. If not a good high with a low draw (possibly AK2X AA2X or AQ23 with hearts) he at least has a good high hand and we are only playing for anywhere from 3/4 to a 1/4 of the pot. Realistically there are only 3 cards that we can hit that I would feel remotely close to be able to scoop or 3/4 the pot. The non heart 7 would give us the high straight but possibly split the low... 3 outs to 3/4 the pot is not very good in my mind... why 3 bet? I understand that you are tilting but abandon ship or just call 2 bet.

2. Already mentioned the c/r issue above.

3. Him playing 50/100 O8...

4. I am going to go out on a limb and make up an error that I am sure he did when he missed on the river! just an assumption... no one would post this hand if they won... maybe they had the same hand so he was laughing it off or they got sick called by a pair of 3's and lost so he was even more pissed but still... I assume he missed. I also will assume that he, with out thinking, tried to bluff his missed card. The major error here.... that he spent another dime on this hand thinking he could pick up the pot on the river with a bluff... Sadly, a pair of 3's would have to at least call his initial bet because the low missed and the straight missed and the flush missed, the pot is at (3 players 2 bet preflop - 300, 2 players 3 bet flop - 300, 2 players 3 bet turn - 600) 1200 plus the bad bluff attempt laying now at 1300 giving the player 13-1 odds... With all of those missed draws and no low, 13-1... 3's might possibly be the best hand.

So, that was my shot at it... I may be wrong with my reasoning but worth a shot.

Stuff like this helps. Please continue to make similar type posts.

Yes please.

Allright the newbie shall take a shot....

1. You have to raise preflop here. If any non-high cards fall, we are either locking up high or low. You've got 4 hands working here, and to get the most +EV here you have to put as many bets in as you possibly can. There is only one texture of a flop that hurts you and thats a 3xPaint flop. Anything else you lock up at least 50% (assuming that no more than 3 people will see the river.)

2. You absolutely can't three bet the flop here. You are drawing to a low, and have NO high hands. You are very possibly playing for a quarter of the pot. Why bet when each bet costs you 75%?

3. Why are you drawing to the non nut flush? Thats a standard rule in Omaha/8, no?

as many as 16 clean outs for high makes us a huge favorite over a naked KKJJ (or something similar)



in shorthanded LO8 games (especially those above 10/20) you've got to be willing to force action w/ non-nut flushes and non-nut flush draws, or else people will make free card plays on you like they were born to. low limit full ring LO8 is different because people love to play suited aces and very rarely is a 10 high flush draw live w/ 4+ to the flop.


i'd really like to discuss the merits of posting in the CO in a 6 handed game. no matter how i reason it, i can't imagine that this can ever be correct. but i'm a nit who doesn't even buy the button so what do i know.

I would never post in a 6 handed game, I had assumed this was full ring.

Yes, in a six handed game what are you, 3 deals away from the BB in the CO. I would wait then, but full ring, I would post up.

of course its -ev, but probably not by very much.

I lied, there's one game I'll post in, while playing 6 max, and it's any game featuring CHUCK999 on AP. Gotta get cards before he goes bust and moves to a new table.

I saw a mind-numbingly boring analysis of this in the context of short-handed LHE. And I am not sure why I would bore you cats with it it, but the short and probably self-evident angle is that you can figure if any late-post is +EV just by checking your EV-by-position stats.

Checky, I read that a little while ago but didn't reply before (shtty of workloads from my job, as you may have known, being a software developer can be very busy and very relaxing sometimes). I think your reasonings were good and sound but I disagreed with your dismissal of betting on the flop.

As the level moves up the players get more aggressive, the preflop raiser is almost guranteed to continue to bet on the flop so you reasoned for a CR. But if I know that when I bet then the aggressive preflop raiser is very likely to raise (aggressive players are likely to be ego players as well) then I will bet first and hence induce a 3-bet by me (I forgot how many players were in the pot, but if I bet then the pf raiser raises then it will be likely getting rid of the other players to go hu). The reason is simple, I had a gigantic drawing hand (if I remembered that hand it's like a wrapped straight draws and nut-low CF protected draws and some other goodies) and hence PE, I am OOP and hence it gave me a big FE on the later streets.