blonde poker forum

We're sat at a 2/2 PLO cash game with 250 bbs.

Table usually gets a raise up to about £12 to juice the pot and there's multiple callers.

If someone re-reaises there's usually a couple of callers.

There's 3 players with similar stacks to mine and they are all happy to play flops with pretty much afc. Not much gets checked down.

So to the hand in question.

I'm in the SB and there's 3 limpers including 2 of the big stacks. MP raises to £14 from his £76 stack. 2 callers including other big stack.

I've got  Ad Ac Ahrt 3s.

Now if I'm short this is an easy shove. Pot raise is £78 and is likely to get at least 1, probably more deep stack callers.

My options as I see it are:

1 - fold
2 - raise to 40. Hope for the pot to get boosted a bit then isolate short stack if he shoves.
3 - raise pot and hope everyone passes.
4 - Flat and hope one of the limpers behind me raises and the pot gets big enough to get most of my stack in.

So what's the best move?

3 aces, all different suits?  This is an easy fold surely?

fold for me...but I'm a nit...you've got a big hand of nothing OOP against 3 callers.

i dont mind passing here pre but raising to 40 seems good so that you can get shorty to move in and you can reship.

This but im a bit of a donk at PLO.  I only like to raise with naked aces pre if I can get it in with one bet on the flop.

i fold here...

Well I could've probably achieved that but the problem is what flop do we want to see?

If I make it £40 I expect 4 callers. If the shorty raises I can get most of my stack in now which is perfect.

If it's just called round I just check the flop and someone will bet 90% of the time so I could crai. I don't like this though because we're only ahead of a bluff and we've got such a small improvement chance it's untrue.

It's either get 60%+ in pre then shove any flop or just pass I think.

As it happened I made the £40 raise. Shorty faltted along with 3 others so it's a 5 way flop which was  6d 8c 2h

1 oppo bets out for £80 with £80 back. Called in 1 spot by a stack that covers me.

Back round to me and I pass.

We've now got the chance to get it all in. Would this be your play given the action?

no, fold now.

I did obv.

Was just checking what the boss does for future reference :)

I pass here.

Its so easy to pick up chips at that PLO cash game that you dont need to take silly risks when you may or may not be ahead.

If I have naked aces im really going set mining unless I can get my stack in on the flop.  If this is the case I dont really care what the flop is.  If I ever have more left behind in my stack than a pot size bet then im treating it really as a set mining exercise.

Why does this seem standard to raise to £40 preflop?  I'm not knocking you but I'd like to understand the thinking behind it.  You know someone will at least call so what sort of flop are you hoping to see?   Is it player/table dependant?

Why is raising > calling > folding here?

We don't mind callers as we're hoping the shorty will ship and we can then raise again and shut everyone else out of the pot

Wouldn't raising pot be better to isolate the shorty?  £40 is going to attract too many callers, and after putting £14 from a £76 stack, he should be coming
along anyway

The raise to £40 is intended to bring along 1 or 2 callers.

The initial raiser who is short stacked on £76 then hopefully shoves. With a bit of luck we get another caller so by the time it gets back to us we can get our whole stack in with AAxx.

It's then very difficult for anyone else to call us so we end up with a load of dead money in the pot in a HU encounter with the short stack.

We only risk £76 but there's maybe a £300 pot to be won.

4 to 1 on our investment with AA is always a good thing.

Obviously if someone else comes along with an equivalent stack we're probably up against double suited connectors but we don't mind a flip.

if we pot it and the shorty shoves we cant re shove. 40 is raising 26 leaving him 50 more to shove and not closing the action when it comes back to us.

No we're too deep to do that.

Pot raise was about £70 which gives others the implied odds to call us and hit against our now face up AAxx.

We are too deep to expect a pot raise here to isolate and our hand plays so terribly on any flop that we're going to have to junk it thus wasting £70 quid.

We make the £40 raise and hopefully shorty is savvy enough to know that we're looking to isolate him.

He ships and we get to put in a pot bet of about £400. We then don't care what the flop is it's going in and everyone knows that so it's much harder for them to call.

Ah I see, I'm there now.  Thanks for explaining.

If shorty doesn't there's very few flops we're going broke on and will have only lost £40 in doing so.

Just fold preflop.

AAA2 with no suits is so poor it only really works heads up. There are so many players in this pot its unlikely you can get it all in heads up.

If you get it all in against two other players, yr equity will shrink to something like 25-30% of the pot. Against THREE other mediocre-good hands you could be down to as little as 12%. So why enter this world of pain?

If you can't get it all in, you will be first to act in a raised multi way pot, where the only flop you want to see is one with the case ace on it.