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

Time Link to 01:10:20

Think fold is fine here with J(T8)7 and this is a hand/situation that is vastly overvalued by most because of how pretty it looks pre.

The idea of disciplined folding when you flop semi-marginal is fine in theory except that the number of semi-marginal flops is actually fairly high and makes up a bunch of our equity, like especially when we can't happily get it in multiway with an underwrap on a twotone board or something, even when there's just a TON of dead money. If we make too many of these disciplined folds we barely ever continue.

I think overall people tend to overestimate the amount of good flops, and underestimate the amount of bad flops where we fold or worse, the bad flops where we reluctantly get it in because theres 100bbs of dead money in pre.

The lack of a decent suit here 4-way properly kills us in postflop match-ups; just consider how many flops come twotone and how often anyone has a flush draw multi-way. This is a classic situation where we call pre to draw to a piece and then get the rest in as an underdog, and occasionally flopping well and even when you do you're getting it in as a 60/40 fav or something.

The thing about complementary cards when we flop top two isn't actually that big of a deal, just because first it's actually really hard to flop top two in the first place, and how it will always only be an added gutshot in those situations which add a couple % but unless in the case of 87x flop it's not that amazing; e.g. JT, J8, T8 flops, your gutties are going to actually be worth pretty little against the hands you usually get in versus and their hands will often have pretty great equity. And remember you have to flop 87x where x is small to be really happy; people seem to instinctively forget how unlikely that is and think you never flop bottom two on Q87, K87, where you just hate life. Basically it's pretty hard to flop that clean of a top two (I think like 5-8%?), and even if you do, you basically are flipping anyway on average.

Cards working together also isn't that big of a deal when flopping a pair multiway, compared to heads up, like when we flop a wrap plus one pair, having the extra pair is quite big HU but its pretty worthless when we pick the best hand (or two) out of 3 opponents to get it in against. The main difference there being is it comes J94 HU, your J gives you a huge amount of equity if they just have a bare draw or a worse pair, while multi-way you're usually gonna need to make a straight.

Also it's cool to have the dominating wrap, but that's actually only on two boards where we do in fact have the nut wrap, 97x and 96x where the x doesn't screw us in some way, like a K, Q, J (in case of 96), or whatever. There are however a lot of boards where we make a non-nut wrap that may either be reluctantly getting it in or reluctantly folding and easily dominated, like 9T, J9, Q9, 98 (that ones better than the rest but still meh) and like you still have to be worried about a guy behind you with a FD having you crushed 3-way with your wrap plus nothing else. Obviously having T high spades gets us in trouble too a lot when it comes weak flush draw + something equally weak or whatever and you look at the pot having $100 in it and don't want to fold, so you pray someone doesn't have better spades.

All that plus relative position just makes this a painful spot to be in. I think there's a tendency for a lot of players to know that good position is good, to know that high suits are good, but then end up still getting into bad spots in bad position or with bad suits like this when they shouldn't.

Basically JT87 here is a lot worse than people think. There's a few % of flops that we love (fullhouses, trips, nut straights) and a few more % of flops we hate but get it because we created that situation. Just never having better than a J high FD (and in this case, only a T high suit) in itself is terrible in 4-way pots with low SPR, and that's where a lot of the equity is going, just some fish playing a suited ace or king and picking up a FD, and you're the one in terrible shape when you flop a top 10% flop. The J high wrap is actually fairly dominated, just anyone having a QJT, JT9, KJT component leaves all your combo things in flipping/crushed territory and it happens much more often than you'd expect.

Care to expand on that?

But seriously, awesome explanation. I think this is the next evolution of PLO, people going further than "our hand flops well" kind of thinking (irrelevant of whether this thought process is right or wrong).

Think fold is fine here with J(T8)7 and this is a hand/situation that is vastly overvalued by most because of how pretty it looks pre.

The idea of disciplined folding when you flop semi-marginal is fine in theory except that the number of semi-marginal flops is actually fairly high and makes up a bunch of our equity, like especially when we can't happily get it in multiway with an underwrap on a twotone board or something, even when there's just a TON of dead money. If we make too many of these disciplined folds we barely ever continue.

I think overall people tend to overestimate the amount of good flops, and underestimate the amount of bad flops where we fold or worse, the bad flops where we reluctantly get it in because theres 100bbs of dead money in pre.

The lack of a decent suit here 4-way properly kills us in postflop match-ups; just consider how many flops come twotone and how often anyone has a flush draw multi-way. This is a classic situation where we call pre to draw to a piece and then get the rest in as an underdog, and occasionally flopping well and even when you do you're getting it in as a 60/40 fav or something.

The thing about complementary cards when we flop top two isn't actually that big of a deal, just because first it's actually really hard to flop top two in the first place, and how it will always only be an added gutshot in those situations which add a couple % but unless in the case of 87x flop it's not that amazing; e.g. JT, J8, T8 flops, your gutties are going to actually be worth pretty little against the hands you usually get in versus and their hands will often have pretty great equity. And remember you have to flop 87x where x is small to be really happy; people seem to instinctively forget how unlikely that is and think you never flop bottom two on Q87, K87, where you just hate life. Basically it's pretty hard to flop that clean of a top two (I think like 5-8%?), and even if you do, you basically are flipping anyway on average.

Cards working together also isn't that big of a deal when flopping a pair multiway, compared to heads up, like when we flop a wrap plus one pair, having the extra pair is quite big HU but its pretty worthless when we pick the best hand (or two) out of 3 opponents to get it in against. The main difference there being is it comes J94 HU, your J gives you a huge amount of equity if they just have a bare draw or a worse pair, while multi-way you're usually gonna need to make a straight.

Also it's cool to have the dominating wrap, but that's actually only on two boards where we do in fact have the nut wrap, 97x and 96x where the x doesn't screw us in some way, like a K, Q, J (in case of 96), or whatever. There are however a lot of boards where we make a non-nut wrap that may either be reluctantly getting it in or reluctantly folding and easily dominated, like 9T, J9, Q9, 98 (that ones better than the rest but still meh) and like you still have to be worried about a guy behind you with a FD having you crushed 3-way with your wrap plus nothing else. Obviously having T high spades gets us in trouble too a lot when it comes weak flush draw + something equally weak or whatever and you look at the pot having $100 in it and don't want to fold, so you pray someone doesn't have better spades.

All that plus relative position just makes this a painful spot to be in. I think there's a tendency for a lot of players to know that good position is good, to know that high suits are good, but then end up still getting into bad spots in bad position or with bad suits like this when they shouldn't.

Basically JT87 here is a lot worse than people think. There's a few % of flops that we love (fullhouses, trips, nut straights) and a few more % of flops we hate but get it because we created that situation. Just never having better than a J high FD (and in this case, only a T high suit) in itself is terrible in 4-way pots with low SPR, and that's where a lot of the equity is going, just some fish playing a suited ace or king and picking up a FD, and you're the one in terrible shape when you flop a top 10% flop. The J high wrap is actually fairly dominated, just anyone having a QJT, JT9, KJT component leaves all your combo things in flipping/crushed territory and it happens much more often than you'd expect.

Pretty epic post; thanks a lot for taking the time to share your input. During the video I remember thinking that it was closer than we made it out to be, but I think you pointed out all the major reasons why calling with the JT87 is going to hurt us in the long run. Probably the worst part of all is the fact that we have poor relative position. With good RP I think it's a lot closer but with bad relative position it's more like a close fold.

Thanks again for checking out the vid! Are you coming out to the WSOP this year? If so give me a shout so I can grab your contact info.


JB

Great Video!
One slightly off topic question: How do you get the HUD to work for Deep ante tables on Stars? I use Holdem Manager for PS and let's say for example I have 2 regular tables open and 2 ante tables open the HUD will only work for for the regular tables.

Thanks,
acdcaces

Updating to the latest beta version solved that problem for me. You can find it in the HEM forums.