The Perfect Storm: An Omaha Hi/Lo Story

I bring you a very interesting, and very gratifying, hand from a recent Omaha Pot-limit Hi/Lo Sit-n-go tournament I participated in on PokerStars. Let’s set the scene:

Blinds are 50/100

Chip stacks and positions are as follows:
Seat 1: lastbraincel > 1,615 in chips
Seat 2: kahanapat > 417
Seat 3, Button: SYNW (your hero) > 1,850
Seat 4, SB: Lisa24 > 1,071
Seat 5, BB: SS_McKay > 2,014
Seat 6: jmm53 > 2,535
Seat 7: blackfrog > 2,141
Seat 8: dennis888 > 1,565
Seat 9: TAYLS77 > 1,094
Seat 10: feddog8 > 698

So the blinds go in and the cards are dealt. I get AsJsTs9s. This hand in my opinion is just ever so slightly south of good and does not get me overly excited. On the plus side is the suited Ace and the 9,T,J which opens up a lot of straight possibilities down the line, especially since you can afford to have a card counterfeited. Of course another plus for me is my position. On the negative side is the fact that they are all spades, reducing the possibility that I will get that nut flush. Also, this hand has no low hand possibilities. That last thing there is what probably makes this hand not a great hand in my opinion.

The key to Omaha Hi/Lo is trying to scoop pots, if you can either win a pot without a low hand or manage to take both sides of the hi/lo you are extremely happy. So my hand is a good hand to scoop in one of those scenarios, but not really in the other.

So, jmm53 calls, blackfrog folds, dennis888 calls, TAYLS77 folds, feddog8 folds, lastbraincel raises to 200, kahanapat raises to 417 and in all-in.

So it is 417 to me. As the pot currently stands I am getting about 2 to 1, but there are several other considerations. First the implied odds will be much better as I am sure of the five players remaining several of them will call. But there is a concern that with so many still to act the pot will get raised again, especially from lastbraincel, who threw in the first raise. I know I do not have the best starting hand, though Still, I have position and if he raises again the pot will become pretty big. It’s marginal, but I make the 417 call.

Everybody calls around to lastbraincel, who, as might have been expected, raises to 1,615 and is all-in. Well now the decision is pretty easy. It will cost me 1,198 and I am getting better than 3.5 to 1. And the implied odds are much better, surely there will be callers from the other four players, the pot is just getting too big to stay out. Of course, the flip side is, with so many people in my chances of winning diminish.

My experience with Omaha is this. Even the best starting hands are not monsters. The best had in Omaha hi/lo is A2A3 with the Aces suited with the 2 and the 3. This is a very good hand to be sure, but it is not nearly as dominating as AA is in Texas hold’em and it can easily be beat, especially if there is no low hand. So even in the worst case scenario, lastbraincel is not extremely dominating, and considering I have one of the Aces I don’t think he has a monster starting hand.

So, I call (although why I just didn’t push all in is a mystery), Lisa24 calls and is all-in, SS_McKay calls, jmm53 calls, and dennis888 calls and is all in.

So where do we stand. Four players are all-in, I have 235 left, SS_McKay has 399 left, jmm53 has 920 left, and the pot is at 9,513 (I think). This was just a hard hand for anybody to get away from, really, it appears. Still when we see the cards there were probably a couple of people who had an opportunity to get off their hand.

The flop comes Qd2sTh. Certainly not a dream flop, but still, some potential. There is the straight possibility with either a King or an 8. Of course, I did catch a spade, so that is not yet dead. And only one low card means that it might not be a split pot. Still, I need some help.

Nonetheless, with only 235 left I push all-in. SS_McKay raises his last 399, is all-in and of course jmm53 calls.

So let’s see what we have here. Six of the seven players are all-in, there are 5 side pots in addition to the main pot. The pot I am in play for has 10,218 ( the total pot is 10,546). This is not your usual hand to be sure.

The turn is 4s. Good and bad. The good of course is the spade, giving me 5 more outs. The bad: a low card. Not horrible, but a low spade or the 8–Q straight for me will probably be a split pot. It is pretty hard to evaluate though, because I could pair my Ace or possibly Jack and end up with two pair and that might be good enough to win, certainly good enough probably to get one or two of the side pots. So I have a lot of outs to stay alive, I feel. But as far as I can tell, only a King will give me the nuts. A King spades will give me the nuts all alone, any other King I might split the pot with a similar straight.

And here’s the river.

Ks!

Oh, sweet, sweet river! How I love you! The nut flush, the nuts, period! No low hand, the entire 10,218 is coming my way! There was a bit of a screamed “Yes!” and a fist pump to be sure. I had, basically, the perfect storm of a hand. I didn’t even need to see what the other players had, but let’s check it out anyway:

SS_McKay: Ah2c2h4s, he wins the final side pot with a set. Just 328, though. A2 tends to get played a lot, it a pretty good starting hand for low, although I think it gets overvalued a lot. So I think he played it fine, considering how the betting went.

jmm53: 7hQh8hJh, what he was doing in this hand, I don’t know. That hand is garbage. I guess it looks similar to mine, but there are some big differences. I have the Ace, I also have better straight possibilities. I also have position, although position becomes meaningless as the hand plays. I think he just got caught up in the pot odds at each stage of the betting.

lastbraincel: Kh3dAd2d, a very good starting hand and he bet it fine, in my opinion. However, I probably would not have made the all-in pre-flop raise, because the hand is still speculative.

dennis888: 8d6c4hAc, not a great hand, I think. I think he tried to get in a cheap flop and also became a victim of the building pot odds. I think between dennis888 and jmm53 there is a good object lesson. You have to realize that even though the pot odds are getting favorable, your hand is not good and you need to get away from it. You are clearly going to be second third or fourth best. Even my hand might marginally qualify, but I don’t think so.

Lisa24: JcQsKcJd, a good starting hand, very similar to mine in it’s possibilities, Better, actually, since it has the JJ. Probably should have raised all-in first chance, probably would have gotten a few people off their hands, maybe even me.

kahanapat: 7sQc3c6d, not a very good starting hand. But with the short stack, and so many people in the hand an all-in push is hard to argue with.

So, in retrospect, an Ace or a Jack would have given me a decent pot, although it would have given Lisa24 the best hand. Any King would have allowed me to win the entire pot.

What was the aftermath, four folks out, my stack at 10,218, the other stacks: 328, 521, 2,141, 1,094, 698. I hang on (heh) to win, personally taking out all but one of the remaining stacks.

A very exciting (and profitable) hand for me. (BTW, this was a very small buy-in, so I am not quite set to retire). Obviously a bit lucky, but in the end you gotta go with the odds.

124 Hands for $18

Last night I decided to play a quick Sit-n-go on Poker Stars. Nine players, if I last to the end itshould be about an hours worth of play.

One hour and 45 minutes later I am on the wrong end of 124 hands of head-to-head play against a player named matwgood. A good player and a decent fellow. It was a lot of fun, but ended up being extremely frustrating. My average chip stack was 8,605, his was 4,895. I won 73 hands to his 51. I have plotted the chip accounts in the following link to help tell the story.

http://leftfieldsports.com/Image00003.jpg

To get to the heads up we had to play 31 hands of three way action. I took out that player when he tried to come over the top with 4h2d offsuit and I called his all-in with 9c7c. It was a kind of loose call, possibly, but I was getting 3 to 1 on my money. I had really killed his stack a few hands earlier and he had since then gone all-in 3 times. It seemed like a reasonable call as I felt he was trying to buy the pot. Anyway, I got the flush and he got nothing.

So now we are at heads up and I am way ahead in chips: 11,200 to 2,200. But it is tricky, because with the blinds at 200/100 he is managing to be patient. A lot of folks, myself included, would probably push all in with any two decent cards I suspect might be live, but I think he was trying to be more patient than that. Also, I am being a bit cautious myself, trying not to give him free chips early on, not until I can figure out how he is playing it.

About hand 20 I start raising from the small blind and collecting his big blinds as I recognize that he is playing conservatively. He is actually folding the small blind quite a bit. He is in a tough spot, but I think he is showing good patience.

Hand 39 was where he won his first big pot where he flopped a pair of Kings to beat my pocket 5’s. I underbet pre-flop and I paid for it. He had Kc7s and a higher raise probably would have put him off the pot. He went all in post-flop and I called, which was really dumb, considering the King on the board.

That put him in the lead. But he still was folding a lot of hands and on hands 40-87 I won 33 of the pots. In hand 89, however, he managed to get all-in with Ac4d which I called with Ah2h. Too loose? Probably. Heads up I kind of feel like I have to play the Ace. Anyway, I am not sure what the odds are on this. I will check Cardplayer.com later. The flop came Kh3dQd, not great, I would’ve preferred three cards 5 or higher. But it all became moot when the turn came 4c and the river didn’t give me the miracle straight.

So now I am way down, 2,450 to 11,050. Talk about your reversal of fortune. It gets worse as my stack eventually get whittled down to 1,375. The blinds are going to increase soon and I have no choice but to play some hands. So I go all-in with 8c3s and he folds. Next hand, I go all-in with Jd6d and he folds. Next hand I go all-in with 3d3h and he folds. He folds from the small blind the next hand. Next hand I go all-in with Tc9d and he folds. And the next hand I go all-in with Qh2h and again he folds. Over those six hands I go from 1,375 to 4,125 without seeing a single flop.

The blinds and antes are increased.

So we go back and forth for a bit and the chips are his 8,075 to my 5425. I have had some luck being aggressive and winning a lot of pots, but he has managed to win some decent sized by pots by playing against my aggressiveness. In hand 112 I get Qd6d on the button. Trying to stay aggressive, I raise three times the big blind to 1800. He raises over me to 3,000. Getting 4 to 1 at the point I make the call. The flop is 4dQhKs and matwgood leads out with 1,800. Given the pot odds I have to make the call, of course, and in fact I go all-in because a call would only leave me with a little less than 600. He makes the call and turns over Ac6c. My pair holds up and again the tide has turned.

I am at 10,850 and he is at 2,650.

I make him fold a couple of hands and we stand at 12,200 for me and just 1,300 for him. This is hand 115 and I get AdAh. Hooray, I can probably end this now. I raise and he calls all-in because he basically has one blind left. He figures he has two live cards when he flips over 9c2d. Sweet. I believe I am a something like an 85% favorite to win. The flop comes Kh2h5h. Not a bad flop for me, better for him. I have the flush draw and I am still ahead. He hit one of his live cards. But the turn comes Tc and he is down 4 outs. I am finally going to get some sleep. He congratulates me with a “gg” and we see the river….9d.

Arggghhh!! I mean it only gets him up to 2,600, but I am so ready to stop playing. This doesn’t really put me on tilt, meaning I wasn’t upset at the bad beat, more like I was frustrated to have to keep going. I just felt like, “Why are we still playing? 115 hands in and AA loses 92. C’mon! I mean come-the-freak-on!”

I say “Let’s keep playing” and we do. But my head is elsewhere. I am not getting good starting hands. I am trying to push with marginal hands, he re-raises all-in and I am obligated to call, doubling him up. This happened a couple of times. I tried to steal and got caught. He takes a decent chip lead, 9,000 to 4,500. And then the final hand was a complete blowup. He min raises and I call with 4c3s. The flop comes 9h2c9d and I push all in trying to represent that I have a 9 . I think I am tired and just trying to either double up or go to bed. Well, he ain't buying that I have a nine, or he doesn’t care, because he calls and shows 2s2h. Boat. Sigh. Out in second place.

He won $45 and I won $27, A lot of work for $18, huh?

Wagging the Tail of The WSOP

So there are almost 9,000 people entered and the winner will take home $11 million. Wow! Wowee Wow Wow!

I would love to be able and go back and look at every hand the winner ends up playing. I would honestly love to know how lucky this person got. This person undeniably will have had to find themselves on the tail of the luck distribution. And by luck I don’t just mean winning when from behind or hitting a flop. I mean generally, like getting an inordinate number of good cards in the hole. Getting action when you get good cards, and/or hit flops. Your mistakes being relatively cheap.

But the winner will also have to be on the tail of the skill distribution, at least for this week. Looking through his or her hands would be fascinating to see how well they were reading the situation? How many times did they laydown or call when it was appropriate. Look at their betting, were they able to push hands off draws when need be? Were they able to trap folks? How was their timing?

Still, for $11 million I wouldn’t care if I was lucky or good. Would you?

7-2 Offsuit: The Myth of the Worst Hand in Hold’Em

What is the worst starting hand in Hold’em? Easy, 7-2 offsuit, right? WRONG! I am here to tell you, straight out, the worst starting hand is JJ.

Whoa! That’s crazy talk! 7-2 is horrible, you say. 7-2 is dominated by every other hand, you proclaim. JJ is a pocket pair, pocket pairs rock, you exclaim. It is paint and paint, how can that be bad, you opine. It is better than all but three or four starting hands (depending on where AK belongs), you bellow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut your yap. Have you ever lost a big portion of your stack holding 7-2 offsuit? No. Have you ever lost a lot of your stack with JJ? Yes. Yes you have, all the time, probably. Of course you have never won a lot of chips with 7-2 and you have occasionally with JJ. But my experience seems to be this: J-J gets busted … ALL THE FREAKING TIME! And when it gets busted you don’t just lose your blind, you usually lose a lot more.

Sure 7-2 is worse than say 10-4 offsuit, or 9-5 offsuit, or J-6 offsuit. But only in abstract terms. In practical terms it is not much worse and in some ways might be better. If you play 7-2 in a hand you will be dominated, that is for sure. But there is also a good chance you will have two live cards. Compare that to something like J-6 off, which you see the occasional person play. They lack the same paucity of straight or flush possibilities as 7-2 offsuit, all you have going for you really is the J. But unless you can clear out a lot of hands with a strong bet (a position bet possibility), the possibility is pretty decent that the Jack will not be live and going against a stronger kicker. And almost certainly it will be up against an Ace or a King.

All of the discussion of 7-2 being live is moot though, you won’t play it, I won't play it. Gus Hansen will play it, but neither one of us is Gus Hansen. But, 7-2 is just one of a number of hands that you won’t play. So in practical terms, it is no better, no worse than a lot of other thands. So at worst it is a neutral hand that you have to fold and does not deserve the monicker of "Worst".

No, the “worst” starting hand, the one that will take your chips from your stack and give it to your opponent is J-J.

That’s right, J-J.

The problem with J-J is that it is so hard to get away from. It feels like a high pair, when in reality is more like a middle pair. It feels like the kind of hand you should win a lot of chips from, but in reality you need to flop the set, or win a race, to really get paid off. (And we all know that everybody loses every race they are in. It’s true, you never hear someone chat up, 'Wow, I just won another race! Cool!" You would think that on average people win half the races, but Hold'em represents, apparently a statistical anomoly, where everybody loses every race. Just ask any poker player they will all tell you they never win races).

And what's worse is that I sometimes we get into the mind-boggling stupid mindset that I will get paid off, even if the flop comes A-K-Q suited, with God as my witness I WILL BE PAID OFF FOR THESE JACKS. So I keep firing away, get pot committed and end up losing a lot (all) of my chips.

OK, so what I just admitted was I am a bad poker player, at least part of the time.

Of course all of this is my own personal experience. I just feel like J-J has been the end of me too many times and I am bitter. I probably misplay it all the time, for the reason s stated above. Nonetheless, JJ can go straight to hell (until next time I get it and my eyes widen and the raise button on my computer is just a click away).

But 7-2 offsuit has never hurt me and it has never hurt you. It has never steered me wrong and deserves to be left alone.