There are a lot of different approaches to playing those last few hands of the night, but in general, you may expect a player who is having a winning night to be especially tight and unwilling to risk a whole night's profits on anything but a monster hand. On the other end, you might find a losing player to be willing to gamble in an attempt to make up for losses. And somewhere in the middle, it comes down more to personality type. I was up a little here, and was planning on playing it pretty tight. So limped with a very playable Q-10-10-5, double suited, and it got messy from there...
$1-$2 PLO, 8-handed
Position: 4 from button
Hand: Qd-10d-10h-5h
PF Action: UTG limps, I limp for $2, 4 limpers behind, SB calls, BB raises pot to $20. UTG calls, I call and Button calls.
Pot: ~$80
When the button raises here, I should probably be letting this hand go. But being up only $70, I figured I'd take a shot to walk away with a little bit nicer profit, so I made the speculative call.
Flop: Qs-7h-5s
Action: BB bets pot for $85. UTG folds.
Question 1: Does Hero fold, call or raise?
So I hit 2-pair on the flop, and the PFR leads into me. Now, from what I had seen of this guy, he wasn't necessarily the type to overvalue an AA or KK hand in Omaha, so when he leads out for pot, I can't really put him on a naked overpair. Considering a reasonable PF raising range from the BB, the obvious hand that has me crushed is QQxx. The off-chance hands that crush me are AA55, KK55, AA77, or KK77. But the most likely hand here has to be AsAxx, with one of the non-Aces being a spade. So that's what I put him on.
Now the conservative move here is to fold, of course. I might be crushed, and if I'm not, there are ton of scare cards that could hit the board to shut me down (any A, K, 7, or spade). But if I push here, I really don't think there's any way that my opponent is folding, so we end up all-in and he has 2 cards to hit an out to bust me.
So I chose the middle ground. Call, see the turn, and if it is a blank, I could proceed aggressively, hopefully forcing my opponent to make a tough decision. If a scare card hits and my opponent bets, I can bail and have lost just $105.
Action: BB bets pot for $85. UTG folds. Hero calls $85. Button tanks and eventually folds.
Pot: ~$250
Turn: 3c
Board: Qs-7h-5s-3c
Action: BB checks.
Question 2: Does Hero check behind or bet?
Now the turn is the 3c, an absolutely perfect card. No spade, and no high card that would improve the BB's hand. Moreover, he has checked, declining to put pressure on me and leaking some information about the strength of his hand.
Now I could continue to play conservatively, checking a hoping for another blank on the river. But at this point, if my opponent is holding just the flush draw and overpair, and I bet the pot, pushing in my remaining $215, then he has to think he is behind and possibly drawing to just the nut flush. If he uses this logic, then he has only 9 or so outs, which doesn't give him the right odds to call. So I decided to bet the pot.
Action: BB checks. Hero pushes for $215. BB calls and shows As-Ad-Js-9
Wow, I got a read right. But I'm nowhere near feeling comfortable yet. As it turns out, BB has 9 spade outs, 2 Aces, 3 7s, and 3 3s, for a total of 17 outs, which gave him the right odds to call. But it's definitely a close call, and like I said, if he puts me on a made straight or a set, his outs drop to 11 or 9, which is definitely not giving him the right odds to call. A tough decision for the BB.
Pot: $680
River: 4d
Board: Qs-7h-5s-3c-4d
I dodged the 17 outs and took down a $680 pot on my last hand of the night. I walked out up $430 instead of $70. I also walked out with my blood pressure up to 250/140.
It's especially hard to believe that such a big Omaha pot (the biggest I've ever played) could be won with two-pair.
2 comments:
Minor correction here, but the villain actually had 15 outs, since you are double-counting the 7 and 3 of spades. With 15 outs, he was a 1.94:1 underdog, but the pot was giving him 2.11:1 odds on his money. So, mathematically (and with perfect information), he made the right call. However, you played it like you had a set, and if you did then he would have been a 4:1 underdog and would not have been getting even CLOSE to the right odds to call. After you potted on the turn, he should have laid it down and found a better spot to get his money in there.
Hef
Hef, right on with that correction. If he thinks it through and puts me on a set, he's making a bad call. But he called without really thinking it over, and perhaps I should have figured that there was a chance that would happen. But even if that was the case, I was still getting my money in ahead and as the odds-on favorite. So I don't mind it either way. Against a thinking player, I have a decent amount of fold equity. The key thing was the read, and the fact that there were very few hands he could have held that were already ahead of me.
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