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Rory Rees Brennan plays poker for, writes with, and is sponsored by BoylePoker.com. Read his blog on www.boylepokerblog.com.

 
Here is the latest instalment, which I will reveal stage by stage

$5-10 PLO

Pre-flop:

 9d Qh 7d Kc

UTG (BeanMachine11 $2,160)
CO (tycon87 $1,037)
BTN (Hero $1,791)
SB (heruvim $3,913.27)
BB (cork4ever $1,625) (loose but capable)

• Folded to me on the button in a 5 handed game I am always going to open here. It’s not the greatest hand and I’d really like a higher flush-draw in it, but I’m still on the button, so there’s a good chance I’ll win it pre-flop or else we can just play a pot in position with an alright hand.
• Heruvim who is a good solid regular re-raises from the small-blind to $115, cork4ever flats this from the big-blind, so I make an easy call here. I might as well mention here that had cork4ever just folded I still would’ve called Hervuvims’ 3bet- since my hands still okay and I’m in position and I nearly never pass to 3bets in position (probably less than 5% of the time)
• At this point I suppose I was putting Heruvim on a pretty premium hand, since he’s not that aggressive pre-flop in general and here he has re-raised out of position here. cork4ever’s flat of the re-raise to me meant like a decent KKxx hand or like a good run-down type hand. These weren’t defined reads or anything, but it’s obviously good to start thinking about your opponents possible holdings from the beginning of a hand

Comments please and I will put flop decision up later

Standard play so far

Flop:

 Th 7s  8c


• I flop pretty modestly; bottom pair and an open-ender (only one of which is to the nuts). I thought there was a fair chance hervuvim had missed now that he didn’t continuation bet and thought that cork4ever would bet had he hit with a J9108, they both checked


What do you do when checked to?

check for me you'll get check raised more often than not by decent regs.

p.s. why assume that Cork4ever would bet the absolutes here into a pre-flop button raiser when he himself flatted a raise and re-raise pre??, just how strong do you think he wants to look?

I would tend to bet this flop, 3/4 pot-sized bet for me.

Next stage

 thought about betting and trying to win it there. However they are both tricky enough players, so trap-checking was possible and I really didn’t want to get blown off my hand by either of them, so I elected to check it back and see what happened on the turn.

Turn:

 Qc

• The Turn came off a Q giving me top and bottom pair to go with my filthy straight-draw. The Q also brought a club flush-draw, but did not change the nuts (J9). Heruvim checked again and cork4ever fires pot.


How do you respond?

I'm weak so fold here :)

I am happy to check the flop here.

I pass on the turn card as I do not think I am winning.

Possibly losing to the flopped nuts, a bigger hand or a bigger hand with a flush draw.

I bet the flop.

Whole hand is opponent dependant though

Anyway, I chose this hand basically because I was chatting to John in The Fitz one night and he was telling me that Tony Cooney previously said to him that he and I had played a very interesting pot

Since I was still looking for a hand to breakdown for the blog, when I got home I went trawling through my Poker Tracker to find it and eventually I did. I hope he doesn’t mind me using this hand here and I guess it should also be noted that I didn’t actually know at the time that “cork4ever” was Tony Cooney, however what I did know is that he was a relatively loose but capable PLO player.

I bet the flop because I've got a draw and one blocker to the nuts on a board where we've already said we don't think the reraiser hits this very often and I don't think the BB is going to bluff us often here with stack sizes as they are and being OOP.

I'm looking to take it down now as I don't want it to check round and have to pass to a bet on the turn even though technically our hand has improved with the Q. If we do get flatted we are likely to be able to peel a free one on the turn if need be too.

By betting the flop here we are going to take the pot down a lot of the time and opponents actions are going to put their hand face up allowing us to bluff/valuebet more effectively or pass when we are behind.

Checking the flop is just surrendering the hand and why would you do that having called the RR and semi-connected ?

You have a better than 50/50 chance of winning this right now imo, it's a bit like B on B but with better EV.

No Omaha player of sound mind is going to trap/check the n/str on rainbow flop without top set and if that is the case vul son.

coach me pls

Taking the piss? I can never tell on the interwebz

Surely he 's not taking the piss...taking the piss would be you asking for fashion advise from young Mr Martin.

 Since heruvim has checked twice and I had checked behind the two of them on the flop, it of course looked like neither of us had J9, (which we didn’t). This meant it must be a good spot for cork4ever to bet if he has the nuts, has a good semi-bluffing hand or even a complete bluff.
• Since it was also in my head that he probably would’ve bet the flop if he did have J9 or even 69, together with the fact that this seemed like a good spot for him to steal the pot from me and poor Hervuvim, I decided to call here. Also note even if he does have J9, I still have just under 20% equity – which isn’t great, but it’s something to go along with my other more important reasons for calling.

River:

 8h

• River comes an 8h counter-fitting my two pair and initially it looks like the worst card in the deck for me, since I’m now losing to overpairs and also other worse two-pairs may have filled up and dogged me.
• Here however, I want to look at this river card from cork4ever’s perspective. On the flop I have checked behind the two of them, then I have just called his bet on the turn – this pattern rules J9 out of my range and therefore my most likely holdings are draws, combo-draws and sets. So when the 8h hits he should be thinking that I have either missed all my draws altogether (which is most likely here IMO) or I have filled up with a QQxx type hand.
• To my surprise he now bets $660 into the $1,035

Do you call or fold?

LOL'ed hard at "counter-fitting", almost spilt my coffee !

I hate this hand now, having not bet the flop you've discovered nothing. You can only really be beating a bluff and it's become an expensive exercise to find out.

It's now impossible to know and why you shouldn't play these type of hands like a station.

Villain knows we can't have a straight as we didn't bet the flop or raise the turn so can valuetown us with this bet or bluff the $660 as he doesn't feel we'll be able to call.

What we do is just pure guesswork.

Fold or Raise. I don't like calling here at all.

I think the fold is the correct play. But if our read makes us sure he doesn't have a house or the straight then I think a raise can fold out quite a few of the hands we are not beating.

Conclusion

• To my surprise he now bets $660 into the $1,035 and I just thought- “if he did have it and it looks like I’ve missed my draw – why wouldn’t he check it to me and let me maybe bluff at it”. I think if I was him and lets say I held QQ44 or 101066 (hands he could maybe overcall a 3bet with) and I did fill up on the river, I think I would probably check it here since:
- 1. It looks like your opponent has missed their combo-draw so the only way to get more money is to get them to bluff.
- 2. If your opponent has made a worse full-house they are still going to bet it for value anyway and you can check-call with 1010xx or check-raise with QQxx.
• Final point on his river bet was the sizing. $660 was two-thirds of the pot and in general it does seem like a bluffy amount I find. Obviously you can’t live and die by this rule, but here it seemed like he was thinking ,“well if he has missed his draws $660 will do the job and if he did have a set then I’ll save a little by bluffing less”. This thinking is pretty logical as he would have gotten me to fold all my missed draws, however I would prefer just a half-pot bet on the river, since you save a bit more if I do have a house and it probably looks even stronger than a two-thirds pot bet. The sizing here wasn’t too crucial, but I think it’s still worth mentioning.

For these reasons I called his bet on the river and fortunately I was good. He had a pair and an open-ender, but then turned his hand into a bluff on the river. I don’t think I like his over-call pre-flop here, but he has a looser kind of style to mine and knows what he’s doing for sure.

Villain shows

 Ahrt 9h Ts 3s

Anyway I hope this hand helped you guys with your PLO thinking. Again it wasn’t too complicated and showed a reasonable thought process on my behalf throughout the hand. What I think is actually the biggest lesson in this hand is that you need to be able to get inside the head of your opponent and put yourself in their position, “what would he do if he had X or if he thought I had Y”. It is easier said that done, but if you can think like your opponents, or know how they think, then you’re always going to be on the next level and be one step ahead of them.

From now on I'm always betting 2/3 pot when I've got it...

lol

+1

I wonder what isn't a bluffy amount.


This one should just go into the "Hero call" thread IMO.