Multi Stage Omaha hand from BoylePoker.com

[TightEnd]

 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:

 

• River comes an 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 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?

[Karabiner]

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.

[GreekStein]

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.

[daviebhoy]

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.

[TightEnd]

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

 

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.

[GreekStein]

• 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.

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

lol

[boldie]

• 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.

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.