Omaha

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I mentioned previously in the context of continuation betting that whatever you do, make sure you do it smartly. As a player, and particularly if you are one who errs on the side of aggression, you need to trade off the propensity to continuation bet with the requirement to control the size of the pot.

You also need to measure your continuation betting frequency – if you continuation bet too much you are leaving yourself open to being exploited by good thinking players and it will end up costing you dearly. If you don’t continuation bet enough then you are leaving value behind you on the table. You need to strive for the happy place that lies in between.

As a starting point you should arrive at your decision to continuation bet based on key factors, primarily the strength of your hand on the flop, the opportunity your hand presents for improvement and your relative position to your opponents in the hand with you.

Let us first consider the impact of the strength of your hand and particularly how you react to one of the likely subsequent plays by your opponent – a check raise or raise. For this I consider that there are 3 categories of hands.

1. Strong hand, proceed with confidence and comfort – these are your top set, top 2 pair and flush draw, wrap and flush draw type hands. You are confident that you can put the rest of your stack into the middle with decent equity against your opponents range. In normal playing circumstances the decision to continuation bet is a simple one as you are generally willing your opponent to make a mistake and commit himself to the pot.

2. Weak Hand – you have missed the flop completely. Having raised it up in position with a hand like 8877ds the flop has come down an annoying AJ10r, when checked to you the only opportunity you have to win the pot is to bet and represent the broadway cards. Irrespective of your opponents next action you generally have a very easy time of it.

   He folds and you win the pot, he raises and you have an easy fold, he calls and you need a further read before you can fire the second barrel although it generally isn’t a fantastic idea.

3. Mediocre Hand – semi decent holding with some strength but little nut potential. This is a small wrap on a flushing board or one pair, a gutshot and a couple of back door flush draws. The common theme here is that you begin to hate life when you bet and get raised as you generally have to ditch your hand and get angry with yourself for denying yourself the opportunity to take a free card.

   Continuation betting too frequently with this type of holding will prove to be a major leak in your game and you should tread very carefully as not only will you destroy potential value by failing to see later streets which will lead to profit but you will also be leaking valuable portions of your stack in situations where you continuation bet and are forced to fold to the subsequent raise from your opponent.

   Forgoing a potential future revenue stream and lending yourself to an immediate negative revenue stream magnifies your mistake greatly – for this reason the requirement to concentrate on your continuation betting decisions and to ultimately make smart ones is of significant importance.

Whilst the above is a fundamentally strong starting point upon which to base your decisions I have warned in the past against playing poker like matching symbols – with that in mind you also need to consider your opponent and his tendencies.

Is he weak tight and does he fold to continuation bets a lot? Is he a passive fool that check calls to infinity with silly draws and weak made hands? Does he check raise with frequency and what type of hands does he do this with? Is he a tricky player? Is he more aware of your play than you realize? Will he just call your continuation bet with top set in the hope of picking up further value from you on later streets? All of these are important things to consider, understand and add to your artillery.

I don’t mean to scare people into not continuation betting enough; rather I am hoping that people will consider their decision to continuation bet a little more carefully. After all it is one of the best tools to use and it assists in putting pressure on your opponents and makes them ditch certain hands out of position that they could continue with in position and indeed against certain weaker opponents we sometimes get them to fold hands in position that they probably shouldn’t.

As we can see the decision of whether or not to continuation bet lends itself to pot control. I’m tempted to chuck in some cheesy cliché about them being similar to a horse and carriage or a hand and glove but in the interest of preserving this column from such atrocities I would ask you to just accept that they are highly interdependent.

The importance of pot control increases significantly depending on your relative position. When you are in position you can play inflated pots more comfortably with marginal holdings – as we have demonstrated before you are the one applying pressure and making life difficult for your opponent.

The corollary holds that when you are out of position the importance of trying to control the size of the pot increases. Strong hands can be played quite easily from any position but when holding a marginal hand life starts getting tough.

In an earlier article I demonstrated at length the problems with continuation betting AhJhJd7s out of position on a Qc9c6d board against a tricky opponent and it would be a worthwhile exercise for you to revisit that article yet again as it takes a comprehensive look at situations like this.

Top Tips for Continuation Betting

1. Do it smartly – pay particular attention to how you play post flop with the mediocre holdings as you may be destroying value.
2. Get the balance right – make sure that your continuation bet frequency isn’t too high but also be sure that you are utilizing this strong weapon enough.
3. Respect position – don’t go bloating those pots out of position when you are holding marginal hands.

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I’m going to bet that the above sounds familiar to many inexperienced players like me. You have found yourself to be bored of 6 max NLH, the games have gone too tight, the fish are missing, it has turned into a war of 3 betting, 4 betting light and then 5 betting to balance your range or some other similar stuff that you read on the internet forums and it just isn’t fun anymore. So you have now found a new home amongst the many other burgeoning PLO enthusiasts.

Due to my day to day job I frequently get contacted by many of my customers who play on paddypowerpoker.com and they are constantly asking me how they can improve their PLO skills so in the following paragraphs I am going to tell you what I tell them. What I will impart over the coming paragraphs isn’t going to turn you into a skilled PLO player, it might not even turn you into a winning PLO player but it might help you to lose less in the early days and it will hopefully accelerate your understanding of the basic concepts and plug the bad leaks that are common to many who attempt the transition from 6 max NLH to 6 max PLO.

Stats

It is often suggested that 6 Max NLH is somewhat of a robotic game. Quorum has been reached on a range of preferred optimal and complimenting poker tracker player stats, whether they be 24/17 or 32/22.

In so far as people suggest that Holdem is solved the complete opposite is true for PLO. 23/17 isn’t better than 44/33 and neither could be argued to be better than 70/25. Each player brings a different skill set to the table. One players post flop skills may be so far ahead of the opposition that he can profitably play 70% of his hands.

Noted high stakes player Ben Grundy is one such example. He is on record of having a VPIP of 80% and a PFR of 42% over a sample of 115,000 hands. Admittedly these stats are skewed by Ben’s preference for shorter handed games but I think you will never find a winning Holdem player with similar stats over such a large sample.

Tight is right

Whatever your preferred style of playing Holdem may be, it is best to forget it when you begin playing PLO. It is commonly suggested that on average you see more flops in PLO as your starting hands present many more opportunities. This is a trap; do not immediately fall in love with seeing lots and lots of flops as a beginning player a conservative approach may be most prudent.

As you begin the journey of learning PLO I would consider playing too loose to be a mistake. Playing too loose will usually manifest itself in making many post flop mistakes as you find yourself in situations which you are not prepared for. You will pick up many bad habits and correcting these bad habits is a far greater task than it is to start out with the policy that tight is right.

This is especially true when playing from the blinds, don’t be afraid to fold you small blind in a limped pot when your 4 cards resemble a bag of spanners rather than a hand you can play profitably out of position. Count how many times you check fold an unimproved hand from the SB or BB and by the time you get to ten you will realize how big of a leak in your game this can be. If you can be a break even player from the SB and BB then you are achieving far more than most will ever achieve in this game.

When I first started playing 6 max PLO my poker tracker stats were an amazingly tight 23/8. I personally found that there were many fundamental benefits to this. I concentrated primarily on starting hand selection and it gave me a great understanding and respect for the benefit of position and also for the power of the fold button. The corollary to my tight stats was that my post flop aggression factors ran at a very high level. As my starting hands were very strong, the expectation is that they will also play well post flop and that overall this strategy should lead you towards the door that says profit.

Open your eyes

For an inexperienced player like me, starting hand selection and appreciation of position were the building blocks upon which to develop my game. The complete all-around players have many weapons in their artillery but they built them over time. As I became more comfortable with my game I began to concentrate on improving two other aspects of my play, firstly I began to play a wider range of hands in position and secondly I concentrated far more on my opponent than ever before.

The button is the most profitable position on the table in 6 max games. Not because the RNG skews the strength of hands you get dealt on the button but rather it is because you have the benefit of position over all of your opponents. Their action gives you information and you can use this to win more and more pots. The idea here is that you are representing strength and this must begin preflop so always make sure to enter the pot for a raise.

One habit which I urge people to get into is that of taking notes on your opponents. You need to learn other players’ tendencies and use that to your advantage. These don’t have to be extensive but every little helps. When I look at my player notes I see comments like, "always leads with a set", "plays strong draws very aggressively", "continuation bets with a massive frequency", "will bluff river when he misses draws" and "calls light, value bet this guy a little thinner", these notes are worth money to me over time.

If I know that a guy will call behind on two streets with a draw and then bluff the river when he misses then I need to be leading two streets with my top set or flopped straight and then I need to check the river as this is my only remaining opportunity to get value from my hand – after all it would be rude of me to deprive him of the opportunity to bluff me off the nuts.

These notes or awareness of my opponents’ tendencies also help me to play my hands optimally. It allows me to sometimes fire the 3rd barrel on the river when my opponents post flop play has lead to him pretty much turning his hand face up as a draw. It allows me to stuff the turn when I know a player will always check call my flop continuation bet with one pair on a dry board in the hope of the turn card improving his hand. All this information is profit over time.

Learn the odds

PLO is a game of percentages. The variance in the game is far higher than Holdem and the edge that you have over your opponent is often times reduced. You will rarely be a dominating 4/1 favourite as in Holdem with an over pair facing an under pair. With this in mind its worth spending some time familiarizing yourself with a PLO odds calculator. Are you aware of how strong a hand like a wrap and a flush draw is against top set, or are you aware of how strong a pair, flush draw and a gutshot is against a bare pair of Aces?

If you aren’t familiar with your postflop equity in spots like this then make it a priority to put at least 10 hands a day into an odds calculator, depending on how many tables you play at once you could leave the odds calculator open in the background and put in hands shortly after you play them. Knowledge is power so use it to your advantage.

Learn the odds

As with everything in life fundamentals are important. You can’t build a skyscraper on a sand dune, you have to ensure that the foundations are solid and this also holds true for all forms of poker. If you are starting the journey of learning 6 max PLO then concentrate on the foundations and hopefully from there you can build your very own skyscraper.

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As you know, you should focus on strong starting hand selection and have utmost respect for the power of position – add some good measured aggression into the mix and you are quickly brewing the ingredients with which to take your opponent from his comfort zone.

Simply distilled what you are doing by applying the above is controlling the size of the pot relative to A) your position and B) the strength of your hand. Some hands which are a fold or limp under the gun should be raised on the button and the simplest way to demonstrate this is by examining a couple of hands and dissecting the possible outcomes of your actions from various positions on the table.

You hold Ah Jh Jd 7s, this is a reasonably strong hand but lets take a look at how you play it from A) under the gun and from B) the button and how your actions dictate the action on later streets.

Under the gun

Option - Fold

Outcome - Folding here would be a mistake, you hold a pretty strong hand which has a positive expectation overall, you should continue to play the hand.

Option - Raise

Outcome - If you open this hand for a raise one thing is normally assured, you will proceed to play an inflated pot out of position from this point with a marginal hand (relative to your position) – this is bad. To progress from this point, if you get 3 bet from a late position player you will understand that under normal playing conditions the prudent move is to muck your hand.

This seems bad – you have deprived your self the opportunity to see a flop with this hand and often times you are folding the best hand preflop as an aggressive player may 3 bet hands like A10109ds from the button, irrespective of your knowledge that he may 3 bet with an inferior hand you will still struggle to get the better of a postflop battle.

What happens if the board comes A high? Well again you are going to struggle to win a big pot with a bare top pair and by you holding a pair in your hand you seriously decrease the chances of improving your hand to two pair or stronger and again you may be forced to fold the best hand by a more aggressive late position player.

Option - Call

Outcome - Don’t blush folks, there is certainly no shame in open limping in 6 max pot limit Omaha so long as you don’t intend to fold to a single raise. As with everything there are caveats to this but I will touch on these in later articles.

By open limping this hand you are more likely to play a smaller pot, on your terms and even if subject to a raise from late position you can profitably play your hand with greater implied odds that if you had raised and faced a 3bet.

On the Button

Option - Fold

Outcome - Under normal circumstances folding this hand on the button would be a mistake. Facing a raise and a reraise wouldn’t be normal circumstances and folding becomes more acceptable.

Option - Raise

Outcome - Whether you are facing a table full of limpers or if all your opponents have folded before it was your turn to act you should be entering the pot with a raise.

You have a strong hand in position and can proceed with the pleasure of having your opponent play the rest of the hand out of position against you – remember this is the preferred situation.

Unlike the first scenario above where folding to a 3 bet is optimal this is not so clear cut on the button. Depending on game dynamics and with the aid of a player specific read calling the reraise and proceeding with the benefit of position is far from a huge mistake.

Option - Call

Outcome - To a single raise calling is fine here, as we know by now our hand is strong and in position we give ourselves more than one opportunity to win the pot post flop – either through improving our hand or by applying pressure through betting and forcing your opponents to fold out.

As the strength of our hand increases we become more comfortable with raising and calling preflop and playing a bigger pot out of position. Remember some of our hands we want to play a big pot with and some hands are deceptive, naked big pairs for example. Initially they look strong but they can’t stand the heat of pressure when its applied, that’s when it becomes acceptable to open raise the button and fold to a 3 bet.

Some of the hands are not that obvious but here is a quick snapshot of some hands that flip between raising and calling a 3bet; limping and calling a raise; and raising and folding to a 3bet. The stronger the hand the more raise calling you will be doing irrespective of position and as the strength of your hand decreases you more down the line towards raise folding – this also changes relative to your position.

Remember egos are bad for your profit in poker, so don’t feel bad about either raising and folding, and open limping and calling. Also remember that you don’t have to always try and win big pots, if you can win enough of the small ones this will have a positive impact on your win rate also.

Depending on the strength of the hand you should picture them as being on a spectrum. The higher up the strength of your hand range you go the bigger the pot you wish to play, as you move down the more you don’t want to play the hand.

Hand AhJhJd7s
	Raise & Call	Limp & Call	Raise & Fold
Button	Yes	No	Maybe
UTG	No	Yes	Maybe

Hand KhQcJh10c
	Raise & Call	Limp & Call	Raise & Fold
Button	Yes	No	No
UTG	Yes	No	No

Hand KcKs7h2d
	Raise & Call	Limp & Call	Raise & Fold
Button	No	No	Yes
UTG	No	No	No

Overall this advice should make you think a little more about how certain hands play from certain positions. Of course, overriding all of these factors is how smart you play your hands postflop and this is something I will touch on next time.

Top Tips on Position

1. From the Blinds – do not fall into the habit of repeatedly completing your small blind in limped pots or of calling single raises from late position openers from the blinds either. If you can break even from these positions over time then you are achieving far more than many poker players. Just count how often you will check fold unimproved once the flop has come down and you will soon realize how much this advice is worth to you.
2. The Power of Position – In a 6 max cash game you play a higher percentage of hands from the button than you do from under the gun. An examination of your Poker Tracker Stats will show you that if you play 24% of your hands in total (VPIP = 24) then your positional stats will reveal that you play maybe 32% from the button and 18% from UTG. If you do not see a sliding scale of activity from UTG to the Button then you are playing too loose out of position
3. Hand Values Change - As the VPIP stats would indicate your hand values change according to your position. A hand like KK82os is a fold from under the gun but it is a raise from the button when it gets folded around to you.
4. Its ok to open limp – don’t be too cool for school – leave your 6 max NLH tendencies behind you, it is ok to open limp from early position in 6 max plo so long as you do not intend to fold to a single raise.

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Overriding all of this though is the need to do whatever you do smartly. Don’t get into the habit of continuation betting with 100% frequency, don’t always try to check raise a flopped set, don’t always check call the nut flush draw and certainly don’t feel the need to always try and steal the pot on the river when your draws have missed.

If you become predictable like this then opponents will begin to understand your tendencies and learn to play against you profitably post flop. This is a bad situation to find yourself in, but think about it and flip it around for a minute – are you working hard to understand your opponents game? Many players will fail to understand that they get into the habit of playing certain hands in certain ways – that is why you need to get into the habit of taking notes and using them to exploit you opponents weaknesses.

Again, your course of action is often dictated here by the old chestnut that is position. Let us take an example of two hands and see how playing them both in and out of position postflop on different flop textures makes life easy or difficult for us.

We can start with the hand I used in the last article; you are playing Ah Jh Jd 7s, and for ease of instruction let’s say that you are playing from A) Under The Gun and B) On The Button. The important thing to consider here is that to know why you are doing something and its likely effectiveness.

The Flop: Qc 9c 6d

Under the gun

Option - Bet

Outcome - As the preflop raiser the natural tendency is to want to continuation bet, you have raised preflop from early position and you want to continue to tell the story of strength from your hand.

However, you are about to bet into players and you are about to inflate a pot when you are out of position - we only want to do this when we have a strong hand.

On this occasion, our hand has not flopped very well and the correct course of action is to check. Why? Well this board hits a multitude of ranges with any number of 2 pair, flush draw and wrap type hands possible for your opponent to have.

It seems somewhat weak but the noble thing to do on this occasion is to check and fold to a bet from a late position player should they elect for that course of action. This may seem weak but as I keep harping on about - that’s the power of position.

Option - Check

Outcome - You don’t have to win every pot you play, if you do try to win all the pots that you contest then you are on a hiding to nothing as you will haemorrhage money to your opponents. Continuation betting this hand on the flop will only serve to make life difficult for you on later streets.

On the Button

Option - Bet

Outcome - Position is Power - If having raised this hand preflop and if checked to on the flop then despite your hand not flopping very well the decision to continuation bet has less to do with your hand and has more to do with both you and your opponents’ tendencies.

As a default I would tend to continuation bet in position and when we do so three things can happen - the first two outcomes are easy to deal with as we will be left with simple outcomes he folds and we win or he check raises us and we fold.

The third course of action by him is where the waters start to muddy a little bit - he check calls our flop bet. By doing this he reveals a lot about his hand, his range is strongly polarised towards draws - he should protect sets and even some two pair hands by raising and he should also be playing big combo draws (wrap and flush draw) more aggressively.

It is also not the type of board a villain should be check calling one bet with naked AQxx as play on later streets will prove to be extremely difficult.

Option - Check

Outcome - The option to check remains and doing so is good on a number of levels. You may currently have the best hand and you a depriving your opponent the opportunity to bluff raise you off the hand.

It will also serve to lower your flop continuation bet frequency and if checked to on the turn you can put in a delayed continuation bet as it is unreasonable to expect your opponent to check to you twice with a strong hand.

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As I have mentioned countless times in my last article, the better your starting hand selection the easier it is to play your hand post flop. Many times your starting hand is so strong that your position on the tables is of less importance. Lets take a simple example to illustrate how good starting hand selection can make life easy postflop.

Again let us assume a flop like above of Qc 9c 6d and assume that we have this situation both in and out of position. Using the same dynamic as above, your hand is Jc 10d 9d 8c – this is a somewhat idealistic match but its worth for the purposes of illustration is strong.

The Flop: Qc 9c 6d

Under the gun

Option - Bet

Outcome - With one pair, flush draw, back door flush draw and a wrap you should be comfortable betting as no mater what course of action our opponent takes none of them upset us greatly as we have a multitude of outs to improve our hand.

Our hand is very strong and thus we are less concerned about inflating a pot out of position or being raised by our opponent.

Option - Check

Outcome - Given a normal table dynamic there is no strong argument for checking in this spot. With the exception of flopping the nuts we have hit one of the best flops possible for our hand and checking seems counter intuitive.

On the Button

Option - Bet

Outcome - As a rule of thumb if you are happy to continuation bet and continue with a hand forcefully out of position then you are generally happy to do so in position also. On very rare occasion you may decide to check for deception but these situations are and should be very rare.

Should your opponent decide to fold, call or check raise you are not unduly concerned by his actions.

Option - Check

Outcome - As mentioned elsewhere there is no good reason for checking this hand on the button. Occasionally you may choose to do so but that decision is generally made with a different outcome in mind.

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The recurring themes of respect for the power of position and starting hand selection are of significant importance. The above scenarios serve as excellent food for thought regarding both facets of the game. If you can do enough to get the right mix of these two important factors then you have the building blocks for a successful transition to Pot Limit Omaha.

Top Tips on Postflop Play:

1. This one sounds obvious but it will always be my number 1 – Think – always pause for a moment to consider the texture of the board before embarking on your course of action.
2. Continuation bet smartly – depending on the number of opponents in the hand, your position and the texture of the flop, don’t fall into the habit of continuation betting with too high a frequency as you are leaving yourself open to the prospect of being bullied off your hand and folding draws that you should have peeled a free card with.
3. Consider your opponents tendencies – get into the habit of keeping player notes. Familiarise yourself with how they tend to play flopped sets, strong draws and what they do when there draws miss – information is power and this

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I have said in the past that there is a need to take time to consider an opponents style, furthermore there is a need to get into the habit of taking player notes and using these for your benefit in later hands. In general players tend to play a very set style. Many times players fall into set habits without realizing that they are projecting their playing style upon others.

Some advanced aggressive player tend to play all made hands and strong draws in the same manner thus balancing their range much better than a player who plays their top sets fast and check calls or calls behind with draws. The benefit of this comes from how your opponent begins to perceive your play – in short it can make it easier for you to get your top set paid off and can also lead to you getting opponents to fold top two pair when you are holding a draw which is effectively Ace high as you are constantly keeping your opponent guessing.

Lets examine a few hands where noting and understanding your opponents can lead to profitable situations. For the purpose of this assume that your playing style is well balanced and see how we can exploit other players’ tendencies.

This is a hand I played earlier in the year at a 2/4 table where we were 150 big blinds deep ($600), at this stage I had played a few thousand hands with this particular villain and I had player notes which suggested that he played draws passively and like to bluff occasionally when the opponent had shown weakness.

Pre Flop: I raised it up from early position to $14 with JcJh9s8s and got one caller on the button, bother of the blinds folded.

Flop:Ks Jd 7s (Pot $34) This is a particularly good flop for me; I have middle set with a number of redraws – none of which make me the nuts. I lead for $30 into the pot of $34, my opponent calls.

At this point I start to polarize my opponents holding towards draws and away from made hands as any set is likely to raise my flop lead.

Turn: 2h (Pot $94) This is about the best turn card I could have hoped for as it does not change the texture of the board in any way. I lead for $82 into a pot of $94. Again my opponent elects to call behind. This reinforces my view on his holding – I continue to weight it predominantly towards drawing hands.

River: 3d (Pot $256) Another fantastic card for me. I firmly believe that I have the best hand in this situation but given my interpretation of my opponents play to this point and also my prior knowledge about how he likes to play his hands I know that a river bet from me is most unlikely to extract any value.

Hence at this point the most prudent move from me is to check in order to induce a bluff from my opponent. He duly obliges with a river bet of $214 and I proceed to shove. Its fair to make a case for calling as he doesn’t have a hand that call my bet and you occasionally value stack yourself against a strangely played top set but the benefit from shoving here is huge as it will serve to frustrate your opponent and he may occasionally make a stupid call with a bad two pair.

Another situation that arises is where you flop the nuts but the nuts proceeds to change on a later street. Again this is also another example of where your knowledge of your opponents and their tendencies can stand you in good stead.

The hand is from a $1/$2 PLO game that I played in late 2008. The villain was known to me and I had noted that he played made hands strongly and also protected his marginal or vulnerable hands.

Pre Flop: In this spot we are 145 big blinds deep ($290), villain was UTG and I was in the Big Blind. Villain raised to $7 and it folded around to me in the BB and I called with QcQhTc9d.

Flop: Qs Jd 5h (Pot $15) In this instance I elected to check it to the preflop raiser to allow him to continuation bet, he obliged with a bet of $12 and I check raised him to $51 which he called.

At this point my opponent hasn’t defined his hand very well; he can have a wide range including AK109 combos, 8910J combos, smaller sets and other two pair hands. Pretty much as he has the benefit of position he could call my flop check raise with many hands.

Turn: As (Pot $117) This is a particularly bad card for me as it completes one of the most obvious draws (K10xx) that my opponent could have called my flop check raise with.

I elected to check and my opponent did a puzzling thing – he checked behind. At this point I am seriously starting to doubt whether this card has completed his hand.

River: 4d (Pot $117) This card changes nothing, I check to my opponent and he bets $86 which I decide to call. The deciding factor for me calling here was my opponent’s decision to check behind on the turn and in general I felt I was ahead of his flop calling and turn checking range.

As the As brought with it a back door flush draw I expect the villain to bet in order to protect K10xx hands against rivered flushes and also protect his hand against the board pairing. My opponent tabled 6d8h9h10s for a busted low wrap

Top tips:

1. Pay close attention to your opponents and their tendencies, this will help you to maximize your profit expectation.
2. Don’t deprive your opponent of the opportunity to try and bluff you off the effective nuts.
3. Don’t panic when the nuts changes, don’t always assume that your opponent was drawing to the nuts. Take the time to reassess the situation at hand and consider more deeply what hands your opponent would play that way.
4. Take notes – this is vitally important, get into the habit of taking good player notes as they will translate into profit in later encounters.

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You won't have to ponder that statement for too longbefore you realize the requirement to step away from this firstlevel thinking if you want to be a winning player. I bet at thisstage that you can see a theme here - in order to maximizeprofit you need to go beyond your own game and examine your opponents'.

This month I am going to examine what I feel to be a veryinteresting hand. Both me and my opponent are playing deeplyrelative to the blinds, we have a lot of history together, at thetime this hand took place in November 2008 I had played maybe 5,000hands with this particular opponent in the previous week or so.Finally I rated this opponent highly - he was a good thinkingplayer who seemed to be a little on the tight side. He wascertainly one of the top 3 regulars in the player pool at this time.

Game Details

• 1/2 PLO and we are playing five-handed
• I am on the button with a stack of $555
• My opponent is the big blind with a stack of $435

Preflop:The under-the-gun player who is playing $310 makes a pot sized raise to $7, the cutoff playing $345 calls, I call with Kc Kh 5c 5d and my main opponent in this hand calls from the Big Blind.

Flop:Ks Qd 8s - everybody checks to me and I bet $26into the pot of $29. My opponent calls from the Big Blind and everyone else folds.

Turn:Qs - my opponent times down a long way and bets $50 into the pot of $81. I call.

River:9s - my opponent times down a long way and bets $134 into the pot of $181. I call.

My opponent shows Qh Qc 9d 6h for quadqueens to beat my top full house. Some questions are raised here,especially why I didn't raise either the turn or river forvalue, so let's examine the play on a street-by-street basis.

Preflop: Playing five-handed there is nothingunusual about any of my opponent's play here. However, my ownplay should be called into question. I have a very strong hand andequally important I also have the benefit of position. Given thestack sizes in play I really should have put in a reraise from the button.

The smallest stack in play on the table was $310. I don'tneed to put in a pot-sized reraise but there is considerable meritin raising to $20 - $22. This serves a couple of purposes. It isgoing to cause my opponents to play an inflated pot with me out ofposition. Given the stack sizes I am placing the big stacks of myopponents in jeopardy - in short I am taking them out of their comfort zone - this is a key ingredient to success.

Flop: I have flopped the nuts and bet accordinglywhen checked to me. My play here is just about as standard as youget. My opponent calls from the BB with middle set no redraw- this may seem somewhat strange to some people, he hasflopped a big hand but has no redraw. There are many cards whichcan fall on the turn which can leave him drawing very thin forglory, especially in a multi way pot. Any A J 10 9 or spade is a bad card for him.

I can't say with certainty but I guess my opponent'splan was to wait for a safe turn card before building a pot andplaying for stacks - if say a 2c falls on the turn my opponents hand is still the 2^nd best but the relativestrength of it increases greatly. If we were 100 big blinds deepthen he could set the world alight on the flop and not feel badabout the outcome of the hand however when we are 220 big blindsdeep there is a lot of merit in protecting your stack. At thispoint he also doesn't know how the other 2 remaining playersin the pot will react to the action before them. As it transpired they both folded.

Turn: Bingo! From my perspective that is the firstthought that came to my mind. However, at this point I hadconsiderable table time with my opponent and my heart sank as mysecond reaction was that of disappointment as I figured I getlittle value from my opponents flop check/calling range. My nextreaction was shock, that's exactly what I felt when my opponent timed down and bet small into the pot.

At this juncture let's do two things - firstly letme expand on my opponent's general playing style and game,secondly lets have a think about the hands he is likely to check / call a flop bet with.

I rated my opponent highly, definitely a very competent player.I also figured him to be tight and unlikely to pay off with worsemade hands on dangerous boards (i.e. I would not expect him to payme with a set on a flush board or pay me off with a flush on apaired board). I also had a note that he timed down on the river before betting 2/3rds pot with the nuts.

As for his flop check / calling range I figured it had toinclude 2 pair hands, smaller sets, nut flush draw hands and flushdraw / straight draw combo hands - he was not the sort ofplayer to call out of position with AJ10x with no spade in his hand - further enforcing my view that he was a solid player.

However his flop check / calling range can be further refinedinto a range of hands that he would proceed to bet this particularturn card with. This was a lot narrower. He certainly wasn'tleading the turn with any flush now that the board had paired so I immediately discounted flushes from his range.

From there the only hand he could have would be a flopped set or2 pair that has now made a house. I accept that he is likely toplay the strong portion of this range fast i.e. KQxx and QQxx, anderr on the side of pot control, check / call turn and bet / call orbet / fold river, with the weaker portion i.e. Q8xx and 88xx, this especially true considering stack sizes.

By deduction I have narrowed his range to two holdings KQxx andQQxx. Given that I hold KKxx it reduces the possible combinationsof KQxx type hands that he can have. As a note here I must add thatit is important to understand that range distributions are not linear but this is should be the topic of another article.

Now let us return again to my understanding of the player andthe notes which I have on him. In this instance he timed down and bet a little under 2/3^rd pot - previously I hadnoted that he did this with the nuts. Furthermore this bettingpattern was largely alarming, he normally defaults to near potsized bets and he normally acts pretty quick when it is his turn toact - timing down without good reason certainly wasn't in his playbook.

I had to ask myself should I raise either the turn or the riverfor value? Well, what value was their in raising? He folds allworse hands to a raise, furthermore on the turn if he happens to beon a flyer and is deciding to run a bluff, by raising I deny him the opportunity to bluff again on the river.

River: Again he times down and bets a curious amount. Forthe reasons stated above there is no value in raising, it should benoted that there is now a possible straight flush on the board butI discount this almost entirely as he finds it very difficult to get to the river as played with any xxJs10s combinations.

Top Tips and Lessons Learned:

Don't let your playing style change according to yourholding. Just because you have the nuts it doesn't mean youropponent knows this. If you bet full pot with strong combo draws then be sure to bet full pot with the nuts.

As soon as you do something that is outside of your normalplaying pattern then you are telegraphing some information to your opponents.

Perhaps after all I played this hand badly, maybe I should haveraised but I reached my decisions based on a plethora ofinformation and table time with my opponent. Overriding all this,the hand is a good example of why it pays to study and understand your opponents, their playing style and the general game flow.

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