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Poker Video: Pot-Limit Omaha by DJ Sensei (Micro/Small Stakes)

Fantastic, got something to listen to while I drive.

DC takes care of its people

Im liking this so far... I had read alot about realizing equities and such but it never really sunk in until now for some reason. Id be interested in seeing some examples of this and stopping opponents from realizing their equities...

Also - need poker hat for my dog, that thing was frickin awesome.

Really enjoying the series thus far.

Sry, I don't know how to insert time links.

But at 09:50 you say: "Almost every medium strength hand we're going to want to take down the pot immediately because flop equities are going to be very close and opponents make a large mistake by folding when they have about 40% equity"

And at 15:30 you say: "We want to keep the pot small with a marginal made hand to see a cheap turen card"

Hope you get my point. I haven't watched the rest of the video yet so maybe situation gets more transparent to me later on. Anyways I would like if anyone can explain to me what other factors to consider when I have a marginal hand on flop. Thanks

Sry, I don't know how to insert time links.

But at 09:50 you say: "Almost every medium strength hand we're going to want to take down the pot immediately because flop equities are going to be very close and opponents make a large mistake by folding when they have about 40% equity"

And at 15:30 you say: "We want to keep the pot small with a marginal made hand to see a cheap turen card"

Hope you get my point. I haven't watched the rest of the video yet so maybe situation gets more transparent to me later on. Anyways I would like if anyone can explain to me what other factors to consider when I have a marginal hand on flop. Thanks

Right on. So, as per usual, our play with marginal hands on the flop depends very much on our opponents. Against fit-or-fold players who tend to simply fold the flop very often if they don't hit it hard, we will usually want to bet and take it down. These guys will often have a good deal of equity against us, but they won't call often enough to realize it. Against very aggressive players, we are often better off checking behind to control the pot and take a free card.

Additionally, the particular kind of marginal hand that we have matters as well. Consider how many good turn cards there are for us. These could be "outs", improving our hand, or they could be blanks, likely keeping our hand in the lead. If we have a lot of good cards, but can't stand a flop raise, then checking the flop is often better because our situation will likely improve. If we don't have many good cards, then betting is usually best because we'd rather not see a turn.

And of course position matters as well. In position it is much easier to check back and control the pot, whereas out of position we may be better off trying to take it down with a bet because if we check we'll have no idea where we stand and may just have to checkfold.

I'm kinda confused, when it comes to realizing equity. I understand, that we want to realize our equity (and how we do it) and also I get the point of not allowing our opponents to realize theirs.
If we cbet we try to not allow our villain to realize his equity, but we risk getting c/r of our equity. I know that we can/ should check back, with backdoorequity and stuff, but if we check back everything except superstrong hands and airballs, which we don't care to get c/raised of, we are superpolarized and only cbet a relativly small %.
HELP!

I'm kinda confused, when it comes to realizing equity. I understand, that we want to realize our equity (and how we do it) and also I get the point of not allowing our opponents to realize theirs.
If we cbet we try to not allow our villain to realize his equity, but we risk getting c/r of our equity. I know that we can/ should check back, with backdoorequity and stuff, but if we check back everything except superstrong hands and airballs, which we don't care to get c/raised of, we are superpolarized and only cbet a relativly small %.
HELP!

I don't think its necessarily bad to have a polarized cbetting range in PLO, especially when stacks are somewhat shallow. Even if our opponent is smart (and observant!) enough to figure out that we have a marginal hand of some sort when we check back the flop, he won't know exactly what kind of marginal hand we have and which turn cards help us.

Also, SPR matters a lot in these situations. The smaller the SPR, the more we benefit from taking down whats in the pot already, but we need to pay more attention to the price we'll be laid if we get checkraised. If we estimate 25% equity against his c/r range, that isn't enough to call a c/r normally, but if he ships less than a PSB we might get priced in to call (so it might be better to check back the flop). If the SPR is high enough, then we can factor in implied/reverseimplied odds, betting more often with our nut draws (but checking back more with our non-nut ones).

Thx a lot!

Just wanted to say that bunny has made my day!

Time Link to 00:32:31

"they cbet far too much which results in them having to give up equity on later streets"
Is this because they cbet with a low-equity hand otf and get called or raised (which makes them not realize their equity right now)?

But the part I'm not getting is how does them cbetting and getting called make them have to give up on equity on later streets?
I mean yes they cbet with crap equity and get called and cant 2barrel because they have no equity.
So they check back the turn and try to realize it on the river, this at least assures that you do realize your crap equity unless you're expecting to get checkraised a lot on the flop.

Doesnt this combined with the amount of fold equity you do have otf (assuming you dont cbet 22A3 on TJKtt or something) make the cbet/check back line more profitable than checking back the flop, folding the turn?
Because by checking back you rep so weak and if you're facing a guy that autobets turns you end up only seeing your turn equity which isnt that great since your equity is crap to begin with and in this situation you "cant stand heat" either.

I guess this ties in with
"they bloat the pot and cant handle any heat"
Is this because by cbetting they tighten villain's range more so their crap equity is even lower?
But if they have real crap equity, they'd have to give up ott anyway if they do decide to chb the flop for example

thanks in advance!

"they cbet far too much which results in them having to give up equity on later streets"

It helps to think of equity here as (%equity * potsize), which gives our $ equity.

So if you cbet a weak hand and get called, you probably have a small % EV in the pot, but the pot has grown larger so your share of $ equity (that you're presumably 'giving up' much of the time) is larger.

If you cbet an airy hand and get called, chances are the only way to win the pot on later streets is to barrel bluff, and while it might work sometimes it is very expensive when it doesn't. This isn't 'giving up equity', per se, but it is giving up dollars, which is even worse!

Anyhow I don't think you should over-analyze this particular phrase. The long and short of it is that you should cbet as much as your opponents will let you get away with, but in PLO your opponents will hit the flop more often and so the optimal cbet% is lower than it would be in NLH.

Time Link to 00:43:01

About this putting sets into your chc range on wet boards to checkjam on blanks:

I'm guessing this is an adjustment to players that do like to barrel because otherwise (if he always realizes his equity or just lets us realize ours or not turn his straightdraw into a bluff when the flush comes in kinda thing -> let's us play more easily on those "half of the deck" turns) it would make more sense to checkraise the flop, wouldnt it?

And in that case we would also do the same with our big draws, right?
because if we chc our really big draw that has an equity edge on the flop but doesnt want to see a blank turn and he doesnt barrel much, a lot of the profitability of the chc line is lost I think

or does him not barreling and thus letting us see turns and rivers make up for that?


btw thanks for clarifying on the $ equity, I suspected that you meant something like that, I just never call it equity in my head, although literally speaking it would make sense

another btw:
Everyone always said PLO was so much more complex but I kind of didnt know why but already thinking about this spot and that he could bet or chb turns with dominated draws kind of made my head spin and that's probably only the tip of the iceberg of PLO postflop theory

About this putting sets into your chc range on wet boards to checkjam on blanks:

I'm guessing this is an adjustment to players that do like to barrel because otherwise (if he always realizes his equity or just lets us realize ours or not turn his straightdraw into a bluff when the flush comes in kinda thing -> let's us play more easily on those "half of the deck" turns) it would make more sense to checkraise the flop, wouldnt it?

And in that case we would also do the same with our big draws, right?
because if we chc our really big draw that has an equity edge on the flop but doesnt want to see a blank turn and he doesnt barrel much, a lot of the profitability of the chc line is lost I think

or does him not barreling and thus letting us see turns and rivers make up for that?

We definitely need a good read on our opponent to check-call the flop with a set. Especially top set. If he doesn't barrel the turn, chances are he's outplaying us and realizing his equity. SPR matters, of course, but not quite as much as our opponent's style/tendencies.

I'm also much more likely to take a passive line with middle or bottom set, because we have much to gain by seeing a turn card before getting lots of $ in. If it's a wet one, we might save money against higher sets, or get out cheaper against draws that got there. If it's dry, then we can commit the rest knowing that we have good equity against his entire range. With top set, I'm much more likely to play aggressively on the flop, because we want to get our money in against lower sets or 2pr hands as fast as possible, before they have a chance to see a bad turn card. If we blow out a weaker draw or made hand, so be it, we probably wouldn't get much more value from it anyhow.

If our draw is big enough, we can play it however we want. Just depends on his likely range and the way we'll get the most $ in. With strong but not super-strong draws, we should be more thoughtful of the circumstances.

First off, brilliant video, I absolutely loved it. I think this is acutally my favorite PLO video.
You guys are doing a great job explaining the really complex stuff in this game and the bunny is so awesome.
I have two questions:
Can you make a video like this with indepth theory about handreading in PLO? Or have you made one already i don't know about?

I play microstakes PLO on stars. And the games are filled with loosepassive calling stations.
I constantly get called with air, naked ten-high flushdraws, pair + gutshot and so on. And even when i fire two barrels i often get called and end up in a akward riverspot especially OOP.
Do you think it's the correct adjustment to simply stop cbetting anything but monotone/paired boards except when i have top pair or better?
Because im getting called so often even on the driest of boards that i don't think it can be profitable.

If you find yourself getting floated and being put in awkward spots again, your 3 main counters are going to be delayed cbetting (for pot control), focusing more on playing in position, and value betting thinner. Against loose passive types you you really want to be focusing on building pots when you have a hand and keeping the pot small when you are weak. Delayed cbetting will allow us to pick up the occasionally disinterested pot but by and large we are going to be looking to just keep pots small and not be too attached to the little ones. Check through your HH's and see how you are doing at showdown in those medium sized pots (ie 30-75bb pots), and see if you are playing hands where you could either be winning more by vbetting more, or losing less by pot controlling better. Hand reading will come with practice.

+1 to dcb's post, and I'd like to add that if you're in games full of loosepassive players, then some of the conventional preflop wisdom is suboptimal too. For instance, you should be limping behind instead of iso-raising with all sorts of "one-way nut hands" like A9ss83. If you iso, you'll often find yourself in a bigger pot than you'd like to be, and your cbets won't be as effective when your opponents hate to fold. Just see a cheap flop and build a pot if you like it. Also you can steal those limped pots fairly effectively too after your opponents all obviously give up. Just be sure that if you are limping behind you have strong nut components, because your SPR will be a lot higher than in a raised pot.