Omaha Hand Dissection

[Rico]

Hi all, I have decided to start posting Omaha hands to generate discussion and solicit feedback among PNW Omaha players. This is the first hand. It's a hand that happened today about 5 minutes after I bought in short, as is my custom, at PL Omaha table on full tilt poker. This hand itself isn't the most interesting but the level of action (4 players all-in) amused me so I decided to write my first annotated HH post about it.FullTiltPoker Game #1062272600: Table Atlantic (6 max) - $1/$2 - Pot Limit Omaha - 2:29:05 ET - 2006/10/03Seat 1: epokerounder ($52.65)Seat 2: tffloors ($226.05)Seat 3: StickNCuffs ($50.25)Seat 4: postmodern ($80.50)Seat 5: ChkOutXpres ($143.55)Seat 6: mikesantana ($361.90)epokerounder posts the small blind of $1tffloors posts the big blind of $2The button is in seat #6*** HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to postmodern [Qh 5c Ac Js]StickNCuffs calls $2postmodern calls $2ChkOutXpres calls $2mikesantana calls $2epokerounder calls $1tffloors checks*** FLOP *** [Tc 4c 3h]First thing to note here is that this is a limped multi-way pot. So the 'you need the nuts' rules apply. In Omaha, these rules don't always apply. In my opinion, in certain situations much weaker hands/pure bluffs can be used to force laydowns in high pressure raised pots, but that is the topic of another hand dissection. epokerounder checkstffloors bets $12StickNCuffs calls $12My reading of the situation here is that I have a draw here to the nut flush, a gutshot to a non-nut straight and a gutshot straight flush draw. I have 10 outs to the pure nuts, 8 outs if StickNCuffs has a flush draw with his straight draw and 13 if I want to be optimistic and think my straight draw is good. So, postmodern calls $12ChkOutXpres raises to $72Pretty clear where top set is. That's good news for me because those two non club-tens make the deck richer in clubs. mikesantana foldsepokerounder foldstffloors raises to $224.05, and is all inNow I deliberately didn't comment on tffloors original bet. tffloors is what good poker players would call 'a live one'. Now think about the action in front of him. He bet, received calls from the 2 tightest players on the table and got raised by another player. So of course he raises and it's pretty clear that we can give him credit for middle set. This is great news for drawing folk, as again the deck becomes yet richer in our outs.At this stage I estimate I am 10/38, which is good enough to call here.StickNCuffs calls $36.25, and is all inpostmodern: good oddspostmodern calls $66.50, and is all inChkOutXpres calls $69.55, and is all intffloors shows [4s 8d 4h 3d]StickNCuffs shows [Jd 5h 2c 6h]postmodern shows [Qh 5c Ac Js]ChkOutXpres shows [Qc Td Ad Th]Uncalled bet of $82.50 returned to tffloorsThe bloody aftermath...*** TURN *** [Tc 4c 3h] [3c]The board repeating is not good for my flush draw. But I have a 1-outer redraw, the deuce of clubs for a straight flush. (cue in the Disney soundtrack) ‘When you wish upon a star....’*** RIVER *** [Tc 4c 3h 3c] [3s]tffloors shows four of a kind, ThreesChkOutXpres shows a full house, Tens full of Threestffloors wins side pot #2 ($126.10) with four of a kind, Threespostmodern shows a flush, Ace hightffloors wins side pot #1 ($90.75) with four of a kind, ThreesStickNCuffs shows three of a kind, Threestffloors wins the main pot ($202) with four of a kind, ThreesStickNCuffs is sitting outpostmodern is sitting outChkOutXpres is sitting out*** SUMMARY ***Total pot $421.85 Main pot $205. Side pot 1 $90.75. Side pot 2 $126.10. | Rake $3Board: [Tc 4c 3h 3c 3s]Seat 1: epokerounder (small blind) folded on the FlopSeat 2: tffloors (big blind) showed [4s 8d 4h 3d] and won ($418.85) with four of a kind, ThreesSeat 3: StickNCuffs showed [Jd 5h 2c 6h] and lost with three of a kind, ThreesSeat 4: postmodern showed [Qh 5c Ac Js] and lost with a flush, Ace highSeat 5: ChkOutXpres showed [Qc Td Ad Th] and lost with a full house, Tens full of ThreesSeat 6: mikesantana (button) folded on the FlopOf course the player who had a 6% chance of winning on the flop takes it down by catching running 3s to go from bottom pair to make quads. Below I have posted the enumerated odds in this hand, which are pretty interesting.Omaha Hi: 528 enumerated boards containing Tc 4c 3hcards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EVJs Ac 5c Qh 163 30.87 363 68.75 2 0.38 0.311Qc Ad Td Th 141 26.70 385 72.92 2 0.38 0.2692c Jd 6h 5h 190 35.98 338 64.02 0 0.00 0.3604s 8d 3d 4h 32 6.06 496 93.94 0 0.00 0.061I do this alot, and the first interesting thing that jumped out at me was how much EV the straight draw has here. StickNCuffs actually has higher EV than me. This surprised me because when I do these analyses, straight draws often tend to be dominated by flush draws. My gut instinct when I first looked at this was that StickNCuffs would be +EV but no way did I think he would be as good as he was. I changed the cards around a bit, to see if the odds changed much if StickNCuffs didn't have the backdoor flush draw (they didn't) or if I had a better straight draw (they did). If I eliminate the 2 flush cards from my single suited opponents, I gain about 4% EV for each one, but having the only two flush cards in a 4 way-all in is probably a bit too much to ask for.Now lets look at everyone's EV, say if each person put $1000 in the pot.JA5Q - 311 x 4 = $1244 EV OF $244QATT - 269 x 4 = $1076 EV OF $762J65 - 360 x 4 = $1440 EV OF $4404834 - 061 x 4 = $244 EV OF -$766It's pretty clear that tffloors (the winner of the hand) is the sucker in this pot. Everyone else is +EV. It's worth mentioning that it's marginal EV for top set to participate in this pot. When the money went in top set's expected profit equity in this pot is 1/13 of the amount he is risking. In other words, although he wins about every 1 in 4 times, he has to play this situation fairly frequently to get a decent return on his investment. About 13 times on average to realize better than 2:1 return on his investment according to my quick back of envelope calulations.The point being that if the money he was risking in this pot was a certain percentage of his swingy Omaha players bankroll, he might want to fold here.So while all this this isn't news to good Omaha players, it may come as a surprise to NL HE players that it is often correct for a rational player to fold the flopped nuts in Omaha. Hands I will post later will describe this in more detail. Omaha tends to have very big swings associated with it and if ChkOutXpress knew how bleak it looked, only winning about 26% of the time, he might decide to fold and pick a better spot to reduce the variance in his bankroll. In this case his call is correct, especially given the pot odds, but with less money invested it might be reasonable for him to pass here.So a key observation that I will make here is that it's much more important for Omaha players to be concerned about variance than HE players. They will encounter it alot more than typical NL HE sharks. This seems to be a key issue for Omaha players to be concerned about and one worth talking about. Discuss.

[footy]

dude, awesome post.i stink at omaha and now i know why. i need to look at hands more like this. please keep these coming.

[Punty]

Nice post."In this case his call is correct, especially given the pot odds, but with less money invested it might be reasonable for him to pass here."Do you mean if he knew that 3 of his outs to the fullhouse were gone? Obviously this is only hypothetical because there is no circumstance where someone should fold the nut top set on the flop, just to try and control variance.If you are worried to get your hand in with the best of it because of the high variance, you might as well drop down limits where you are happy to take any small edge. On top of that its only pot limit so there will always be a bit in the pot, compared to the bets.I found the odds surprising as well. I count 7 outs for you and 9 for the straight draw and I suppose your flush redraws wouldn't make up for those extra 2 outs."So while all this this isn't news to good Omaha players, it may come as a surprise to NL HE players that it is often correct for a rational player to fold the flopped nuts in Omaha."The only reason would be because you are negative EV, not because of high variance. That IMO is not rational.

[kokomo]

Rico does this mean i will be able to make you lay down sets tonight? (ill call you weak tight!!)Great post mate. i am amazed by the EV here.i would love to see a dissection of a hand after floping nut str8 and coming under so much heat from flush/sets?

[Rico]

Yah I forgot when I was writing that - that I pick up the straight flush draw on the turn.Obviously this is only hypothetical because there is no circumstance where someone should fold the nut top set on the flop, just to try and control variance.I can think of situations when it would be odds-correct to do so, unless you felt the implied odds were good if your opponent's massive draw bricks the turn.I think laying down top set is more a Omaha/8 than Omaha high thing, but even in Omaha high an example might be: eg. JhJd2h2d vs 8s9sQcKc on a 3sTcJc board. That isn't a completely improbable hand match up, I have a few HHs like that in my database.

[Charles de Guzm an]

gr8 post rico,next time i flop a straight on the flop in ohama & ur on the table i wont pot it! i guess in omaha, river determines the nuts & might be wise to check, fold straights. i mite even check fold flopped straight in NL HE. haha...as if!GO BRONCOS!

[flusher83]

can i firstly say that this post is one of the best I have seen on this site.it was suprising to me just how much EV the straight draw had versus the flush and top set. This question ties in with the above hand. Does anyone play straight draws with a flush draw out there? The reason i ask this is due to the omaha hand i posted a couple of days ago in another thread. As a general rule i never play straight draws when a flush draw is out there - let me know what you all think...

[Rico]

Thanks to all who enjoyed the post.It does contain at least one mistake. I miscounted the number of outs.This was just mental laziness on my part, I tend to count the straight draw as an extra out, even though it's not to the nuts as it does increase the strength of the hand somewhat.That concept probably works alot better in a heads up pot instead of a multi-way pot.

[kokomo]

How should someone correctly play a hand when they do flop the nuts. eg: top set or str8. when there is flush draw on board. I have thought about ways of getting the read that tell you your EV is through the floor!! (assuming your against a good players) You flop the nuts with a flush draw on board.Pot or re pot any bet, and then fold to a re / re pot.It is not unusual to see a player (like me) full pot with just a flush draw. so the re pot would get rid of an agressive player or charge him plenty to draw. im fairly confident that playing the hand this way you will find out where your hand ranks.How would you play this situation now?