Just put some money on Bodog and have been trying things out. Caliber of play is noticeably worse than FTP as I expected. Decided to sit at a PLO8 table. I've played omaha h/l in limit form but never PL. I'm not sure if I played this hand well or not, check it out:

Loose/passive table with lots of minbetting/calling/minraising with occasional pot sized bets out of nowhere.

Hand history from scratch since Bodog hand histories are weird:

.5/.10 PLO8
10 handed table
UTG rasies to .20
Two callers, I call with As 9s 9c 4h.
Two more callers, villain raises to .25 (???)
Everyone in the pot calls.
Pot $2.40

8 players to the flop which comes 9d 6d 6c.
Villain bets .10, three calls.
I for some reason only raise to .30
Two calls, Villain raises to .40
Everyone calls.
Pot $5.50

Turn - 10c
Villain bets 3.50
Two folds
I raise to 7.00, folds to him, he calls.
Pot 19.40

River - 10s
Check check
He turns over 2h 3h 5c 6s
My full house beats his trip 6s (!!!)

So his mistakes are really of no interest.

My main question is what to do on the flop? I'm not sure what I was thinking with the .30 raise with a 2.70 pot. I was a little concerned about chasing folks away since two more low cards would have me playing for half the pot. On the other hand, should I be betting big on the flop to shut out low drawing hands? Once the 10 came on the turn I was just trying to get the money in until the 10 on the river shut me down.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I'm a novice at omaha h/l, trying to develop some skills outside of NLHE.

A reasonable size bet on the flop would be appropiate. You want to charge the people looking for runner runner for the low. I would not make it too much because you want some of those runner runner draws to stay around. In omaha someone will have that 6 so you realize you will be paid off (if your lucky in 2 places)

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Kickboyswoop

I personally have not tried Bodog. The reason is smiple I do not want to tempt myself into doing the sports betting part of the site. I know i would win moneyn the poker room but i am not strong enough to stay away from the sports betting.

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Kickboyswoop

Overall my advice would be to dump this hand pre-flop. As played, raise a little more on flop and pot his re-raise. Pot his turn bet if that isn't a pot bet but there is no real problem on the turn. nh.

Not really sure what your scared of on the river, thats a bet every time for me.

If I read the hand correctly, the only hand that beats you is 6-6, 10-10, and 10-9, and you have all but one 9, so 10-9 is unlikely

I think you should bet 1/2 to 2/3rds of the pot here and hope to get paid off by a 6.


Jason

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I'm Not Lucky, I Have Good Karma !

Yeah I don't know but for some reason it slowed me way down, I didn't think the hand over before hitting the check button. With the quality of hands that this guy had shown down to this point were any indication, he would be incapable of checking the nuts on the river, so it would have been a safe bet. Even though I won a decent sized pot (for the stakes) I realized that I had totally butchered the hand. Thanks for the advice and analysis, everybody.

I forgot to cover the river.

I half pot the river. It screams "I have it" but I think you should definetly be betting for value here.

Clear fold pre-flop here - pot limit betting will maginfy any mistakes, and playing a hand which will usually end up 2nd or 3rd best both ways in a contested (albeit only limped) is a clear error.

Flop bet should be a little bigger.... but villan re-raises again and gets 2 calls from the others in the pot right? Could we have trapped even more dead money with another raise - half pot or so? (this one would be read depedant for me)

Bet more on the turn and bet that river! if he holds 10-9 or 10-6 then he deserves your stack for being 'donk-of-the-year'.

Playing 2h 3h 5c 6s out of position (he is in the blinds right?) in this way is an abomination - a good lesson for Omaha Players here though... do not go broke with anything less than a full house on a paired board.

NH... agree with Powda, fold pre-flop... as played bet more on each street looking to get the money in as early as possible in the hand.

Cheers, Mark

BTW, I just figured out that I should have posted this in the hand analysis forum...

This is normally a hand I would fold playing on FTP, but given that almost every flop was seen by 6-8 players (limping) I decided to call and got lucky. I guess the overall message is that more aggression is needed in my Omaha game. I'll be working on this in weeks to come.

Mark, you missed a perfect opportunity to mention omahaplanet.com, allow me to do so! I still haven't read all the articles on there so I'll check it out this weekend. Thanks again.

clar I think the big thing to bring up in this hand is playing it in the first place. Honestly you will rarely get such a perfect flop for this hand.


Lets look at your hand more closely. You were holding:

As9s9c4h

You have 6 playable "hold'em hands" so lets break them down.

As9s: Meh, okay if there are a bunch of spades, your opponent doesn't pair, AND there is no low. Some scoop possibility here but I try not to play a hand that only contains a naked flush draw.

As9c: Can't make a straight or a flush. Your chances of even having top 2 aren't that good and then the chances of it holding are even slimmer.

As4h: You can make a low with this hand but you need 2 perfect cards (a 2 and a 3) to hit to make the nut low. Remember we are always playing for the nuts in Omaha! Even if you hit your low you have no back-up so if pair your ace or 4 or if no third low card comes you have to put your hand in the muck and your money in your opponents stack. Your prospects for high here are pretty slim.

9s9c: There are a few problems with this being the best holding you have. If you flop a 9 a few things are very likely to happen that may keep you from taking the whole pot or even half.

1) There will be overcards which will create a straight draw or the possibility of a higher set.

2) There will be low cards creating the possibility for a low and possibly a straight draw as well, taking half of the pot or all of the pot from you.

We need to play for the nuts and with 99 being right in the middle of the hand rankings we really open ourselves up to losing either early in the hand or even worse late in the hand when we are heavily invested.

9s4h and 9c4h: Both of these are pretty obvious. Bad hands with little chance for winning high and zero chance at low.


So we can see why it is so important to have 4 cards that work together. Sure we won this time but don't expect to be so lucky in the future. Only around 15% of Omaha high low hands are going to be lifelong winners. Picking a good starting hand is the biggest decision you will make in any hand at the table.

Next time muck it pre-flop.