A PLO Hand

[peterbirks]

Your thoughts on this one:

Blinds are 3000-6000 in a tournament. Passed round to the button who raises to 18000. Small blind with Ah Th 9s 4h calls. Big Blind calls.

Flop comes Ad 4c 4d, giving Small blind a full house 4s over Aces

Small blind has 100K. 54k in pot. BB has 200k, Button has 130k.

Small blind checks. Big blind checks. Button checks.

Turn brings Ad 4c 4d 9d

Small blind checks. Big blind checks. Button bets 36K. Small blind goes all-in. Button calls and shows As 9h 9c 6h for a full house 9s up.

Did Small blind make any mistakes?

Comments

[ribmeister.livejournal.com]

I would lose all my money also on that hand if I held A4. I believe long term you win more money by inducing a bluff here than betting and getting called.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't play tourneys but I would not have called the button raise in the first place in the sb. And on the flop, I disagree with ribbo because I don't think that underfulls are good trapping hands except against maniacs and over agressive players whom you are sure will bet. So I would have led out on the flop although having position and aces up the button might have called and ended up with the same result anyway. (I presume you were the sb.)

BluffTHIS!

[ribmeister.livejournal.com]

There is a huge range of hands you will raise from the button in an omaha tournament. When that flop comes and you are in the blinds, you want your opponent to feel you have nothing, you want to double through and give yourself as good a chance as possible to progress in the tournament. There are going to be no more than 2 cards from the 41 cards in the deck that can bust you, so by checking the flop you give your opponent a 5% chance to bust you, yet I would estimate the times he will bet either the jam or the turn after seeing you check twice to be higher than 10% and giving you atleast half as many chips.

Interesting dichotomy

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I was waiting for a view from BDD and one or two of the other PLO players. If it's any use, this is already in the money, rather than approaching the bubble. But there were no other massive short stacks at the table.

My initial feeling was to take Bluff's view, but the meister clearly thinks that one's action would be different in a tournament than from a cash game. Yes?

If there are no other contributions, I'll post my final thoughts tomorrow or on Tuesday.

Play up, play up, and play the game

[(Anonymous)]

Yup, I reckon Small blind should have drawn trumps, then created a diversion by swallowing the button and drop-kicking the pot over the wicket-keeper's head. Lay down a canasta, drop the 101st Airborne behind the lines, and Bob's your uncle. But, whatever you do, don't lesnerize.

-- Jonathan

[(Anonymous)]

On the assumption this is tourney play only- cash very different:

I dont defend the SB.

I probably bet something on the flop.

This is now a pot worth winning, and you are unlikely to get any bluff action - which can be the only hand you can expect there mostly - considering the size of the stacks.

But the worse mistake is defending the blind.

gl

bdd

SB's play

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad that we are all in agreement!

Personally, I would not defend the blind, but if I did defend the blind, I'd bet the flop and try to take down a pot which, relative to the total chips in play (this was in fact a final table with seven or eight players left, I think), was worth winning there and then.

However, the holder of the AT94 was Dave Lee and the raiser on the button (a man who seems to make very few mistakes) was Chris Ferguson. It was on the final table of the PLO tourney on ESPN a coupld of weeks ago.

I found Lee's play baffling, although I suposem, with the 9 and the Ace in his hand, one could slightly understand his all in on the turn. But what is he going to get called with? Reverse implied odds right the way down the line.

Let's just assume it was tiredness (not something that Ferguson seems to suffer from, ever).

I dunno, so far I seem to have got myself at war with Norway and now (see Gutshot), the Mason Malmuth fan club. I only await Dave Lee sending down his mates from Liverpool, and I'll have the full set.

PJ