5K Post: Help a Hold'em Dork Not Suck at Occasional Omaha Hands
I used to be a big deal around here in what used to be called "Micro-Limit Hold'em." But then I lost my job, cashed in my winnings to stay alive, kind of forgot about poker for a while, got married and had a kid and started caring about my lawn and other weird dad ****.
In the meantime, limit poker went the way of the dodo, so when I finally rediscovered the game, I had to play 1/2 NL. I've done well some sessions, not as good others. But who cares.
I found a 1/2 NL game at a local American Legion that is softer than baby **** and the players stink about that much.¹ But what all the players there live for, even more than no-limit Hold'em, is their bomb pots.
I've played bomb pots at casinos, but those are just forced family pots with no preflop raising. Not here, as it was explained to me. Each bomb pot is a $5-ante, no-limit, double-board, potentially $1000-pot Omahapalooza. Already my head's spinning. I wish I could play decent PLO, but it makes my ADHD **** itself sideways. But these people suck at Omaha WAY MORE than they suck at Hold'em, and they treat bomb pots like a lottery ticket. Seriously, they know when bomb pots get triggered and mother****ers will join the table just for the bomb pot.
So help me not suck at these hands. If I get one right, I can make more money than hours of grinding 1/2 NL, even at these crushed-velvet games.
Here was my first bomb pot:
I'm in middle position, riding about $300, and I get dealt the mighty 3-3-10-8. With $50 already in the middle, the two flops come: 5-6-7 rainbow and Q-Q-3.
The guy who explained bomb pots to me bets $50 from early middle position. I know very little about him except that when he bet, several people around the table grumbled at him for opening, so I'm assuming he's the type of guy who ruins friendly pots and never gives free cards. Two folds to me.
I know enough to know I have a full house on one board and a gutshot on the other, but what the **** do I do with them?
¹Actual picture of me running my initial $300 buy-in to $1300+. Cashed out with $1,470.
4 Replies
I don't understand bomb pots. If you go to the casino and want to play blackjack, it's like 'every 20th hand you have to play roulette instead'. If you're just adding money to the pot and deleting a street, I can live with that, but deleting a street and turning it into double board?
Otherwise, bro, I love your style, lawns are ****, adhd is a PITA,
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My guess is you're supposed to fold, as even if you're good rn, someone behind you might have the old Q377. Hard to put someone on a range when their range is 100%
On the top board with everyone in and the "very bottom full" you could be already beat and if you aren't you likely have to fade two players holding a queen with them having mostly better kickers to beat you. When I say "very bottom full house" I mean someone not necessarily holding the queen (perhaps mostly playing the other board) hitting a bigger pair and making a better "bottom full house". That's a lot to fade.
On the bottom board a gut-shot isn't worth much (even eight out open enders on single board PLO aren't worth much mostly due to redraws).
Meanwhile what sounds like a decent player has bet into most of the field. This is an easy fold and it isn't close.
My casinos don't do many double board bomb pots so take my advice with a grain of salt but I do have lots of experience on split pot play. But if I was to start playing them frequently I'd check out Bart Hanson on Crush Live Poker. I'm a subscriber but Bart has one PLO bomb part video on YouTube that is worth checking out.
Good Luck!
march to the ron! nice post sir and congrats on 5k
i notice those chips in your photo don't say ''four winds'' on them - what's up with that?
Keen eye, King. I do thoroughly recommend Four Winds as a poker destination (if you like the two-card hold them game at least), but holy **** I've never seen a goldmine like the one I have here. I've logged about 14 hours of play and I'm up $1543. I doubt a $100+/hour winrate is sustainable at 1/2 NLH regardless of opponents, but goddamn — even if I cool off to, like, $30/hour I can still scoop one phat bomb pot on occasion and truly murder this game.
Speaking of which, I tanked for so long that the dealer thought I had forgotten that it was my turn to act, and then I folded. I'm impressed with myself that my instincts were sound, as stated by middlebridge:
On the top board with everyone in and the "very bottom full" you could be already beat and if you aren't you likely have to fade two players holding a queen with them having mostly better kickers to beat you. When I say "very bottom full house" I mean someone not necessarily holding the queen (perhaps mostly playing the other board) hitting a bigger pair and making a better "
I felt like a chickenshit for tossing in the second-nuts on one board and a draw to the nuts on the other, but I realized we were going to play for stacks, so unless I shoved right then I wasn't going to get anyone out. And even then, almost literally all the cards are out there — the only unseen cards are the ones the dealer burns — so a Q ain't going anywhere and it has 10 outs to improve. I didn't want to try to fade half the deck, and that assumes I'm not already coolered by QQxx or Q3xx.
I consoled myself with the one bit of Omaha wisdom I have, which is that it's a game of the nuts, and I didn't have them.
Spoiler
The turn put the 9 on the straight board and an A on the paired board, money came flying in like the
in that movie WarGames, and it turned out I would have lost my boat to AQxx and split the 10-high gutterball with the table sheriff, who was all over that board with T98x. So I would have gotten quartered. Which actually would have netted me a modest profit, but certainly not the kind of ROI I was looking for.
