[HH, 1/2] In The Matrix Playing 5D Chess at Spread-Limit Ohama on the River
Playing in the 2-100 Spread Holdem/Omaha Hi mixed game at Canterbury Park in the Twin Cities today and this hand happens.
Background: In Minnesota, we legally cannot make a wager of over $100 in casino cash games. As such, we're playing 1/2 blinds with a max wager of $100 in any action. So, basically it's like No-Limit until the pot is big enough where it turns in $100 big-bet limit poker. Very strange.
Villain: MAWG who I have never played with before but is an aggressive, aggressive, actiony player. Loves making it $15-$50 to go if it's limped to him regardless of position, hand strength, or how many people are in the hand. Saw him make it $50 to 4 limps, then we when the UTG player limp/max reraised him, he called, then donk-maxed/called the less than $100 raise on K92r with KQT9-single suit and held. Max bet $100 on the river with AK4ssJsssAx with A4 as his two playing cards in 3 people with heavy betting on every street. Likes to bet big pre and flop, but I've noticed that he folds to a lot of turn raises if it goes big bet/C, bet/raise and nobody has really waited until the river to raise him at this time. Also, Hero got a massive double-up through Villain about 20 minutes ago during a holdem hand where he squeezed AQo pre from the big blind against a button open and a villain flat, villain double flats, and hero goes $50, $100, $100 on T72KssJsss against what the villain claimed was bottom set. I'm mostly a hold-em player and that's known by the table, no idea what my Omaha image is, but I'm definitely the spot in the Omaha game.
Anyways, onto the hand.
Hero is in the big blind, looks down at (AJ) JT. 3 Limps (which has become the norm when the pots are routinely getting popped every hand by Villain), and the Villain makes it $15 from the small blind. Hero, for the first time this session in an Omaha hand, 3Bets it to $60 from big blind. Folds around to Villain, who calls.
Flop ($126): T94r [backdoor NFD]
Villain checks, Hero bets $60, Villain calls.
Turn ($246): The best card in the entire deck, the offsuit queen as Hero has just hit the nut straight.
Villain donks $100, Hero, so excited that he's about to trap the **** out of this guy, smooth calls after about 10 seconds because he has seen Villain fold to turn raises, even when he takes the betting lead.
Did you catch it? Because I ****ing didn't. Literally as the money is being raked into the middle, Hero comes to the horrifying realization (rememberance.?) that, you ****ing donkey, no you don't have the king-high striaght, BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE A ****ING KING IN YOUR HAND!! You have second pair-top kicker and a double blocker to the two straights, which you are currently drawing to with one of them being the nuts and one of them being to the butt-end of a four-liner that loses to an already made king-high straight.
River ($446): A (Final board, AQT94 with no flush). Not the bailout to Broadway we were praying for, but hey, you can't possibly expect runner-runner Broadway twice in 300 BB pots within 30 minutes, can you?
Villain donks another max bet of $100. Hero thinks for about 15 seconds, and decides that just because we don't have the straight doesn't mean that we aren't double-blocking it, and there's no way that a line of Bet/Call/Raise doesn't look insanely strong. Hero takes out 8 green chips and max raises it to $200.
Villain snap calls. **** my ****ing life. What a way to torch over 200 big blinds to a guy who is just throwing money around and calling down.
Hero sheepishly says "I was making the play with blockers..." and felts the two jacks, and throws in "I guess I have aces and tens," making to be shown a straight or set.
Villain looks PISSED, shows his cards to a neighbor, and mucks.
Hero rakes in the over 400 big blind pot. Villain is overheard saying "How do you make that call on the turn??"
After the game breaks, Hero is chatting with the dealer of the hand and the dealer says "I thought you made an insane soul read value bet."
Nope. I'm a dipshit who misremembered his hand and threw up a Hail Mary bluff that was actually a merge bet somehow at the end.
5 Replies
I think your hand is strong enough to just call river. He’s not folding better for 100 more.
I think your hand is strong enough to just call river. He’s not folding better for 100 more.
In retrospect against an aggressive opponent, 100%. I think that I was so flustered by having such a bad hand-reading gaff (my first in thousands of hours of live) that it kinda activated a bit of a fight-or-flight response when I didn’t need to bluff.
Just to narrow down we're either hoping to get him to fold a lower straight, which we block, or a set, but villain doesn't have many sets in his range to get to the river and shouldn't be betting sets into an aggro opponent that should have either the nuts or a bluff. Would have to be a set of aces looking to get thin value from TTT or QQQ, and I don't know how much spread limit could make that a good bet.
Reminds me of a big pot I played at rio wsop $2/5 where I jammed river with like QQTT on 98644 with a missed fd and got called and won. Being a wildcard can get thin value out of crazy thin callers sometimes. #feelsgoodman
Just to narrow down we're either hoping to get him to fold a lower straight, which we block, or a set, but villain doesn't have many sets in his range to get to the river and shouldn't be betting sets into an aggro opponent that should have either the nuts or a bluff. Would have to be a set of aces looking to get thin value from TTT or QQQ, and I don't know how much spread limi
Appreciate you taking the time to weigh in! A lot of these thoughts went through my brain after the fact, and I really hated my river raise for exactly the reasons that you outlined. It’s weird as I’ve played hundreds of hours of online PLO and have no problems with “splitting” my hands into two NLE hands, but live, sometimes I don’t think about my hand entirely holistically. Maybe it’s because I’m staring right at all 4 of my cards online and I’m memorizing the cards live, but this isn’t the first time that I’ve lost track of the entire scope of all 4 of my cards live.
I thought river raise was thinnish value against this sort of villain as well. He bet slightly more than 20% of the pot and you min-raised him, your value range can be much much wider. Probably spew against someone reasonable though.
Villain's river bet was not a donk.
I suggest a max-raise to $115 preflop and a max bet on the flop. Sizings chosen "as if" you were constrained by pot-limit betting don't make sense in this kind of game.
