PLO AA 4 way question.

Bfillmaff

Confused. Should I have raised pre-flop? Should I have called the 4 way?

I thought I was behind a set and folded. Are these guys playing bad or am I?

PokerStars Zoom Hand #113641446276: Omaha Pot Limit ($0.25/$0.50) - 2014/03/22 0:06:52 ET
Table 'Aquarius Dwarf' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: TSUCHI ($50 in chips)
Seat 2: Tk.Clown ($67.69 in chips)
Seat 3: albtosca ($25 in chips)
Seat 4: BeTePaH_733 ($34.85 in chips)
Seat 5: d0nkSTRIKER ($70.02 in chips)
Seat 6: niclassen18 ($52.08 in chips)
Tk.Clown: posts small blind $0.25
albtosca: posts big blind $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to d0nkSTRIKER [Ah 7c Ad Tc]
BeTePaH_733: raises $1.25 to $1.75
d0nkSTRIKER: calls $1.75
niclassen18: folds
TSUCHI: folds
Tk.Clown: raises $5.75 to $7.50
albtosca: calls $7
BeTePaH_733: calls $5.75
d0nkSTRIKER: calls $5.75
*** FLOP *** [7d 4c <acronym title="JavaScript">Js</acronym>]
Tk.Clown: bets $28.65
albtosca: calls $17.50 and is all-in
BeTePaH_733: calls $27.35 and is all-in
d0nkSTRIKER: folds
Uncalled bet ($1.30) returned to Tk.Clown
*** TURN *** [7d 4c <acronym title="JavaScript">Js</acronym>] [Jd]
*** RIVER *** [7d 4c <acronym title="JavaScript">Js</acronym> Jd] [2s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Tk.Clown: shows [Kh Qh Qd Td] (two pair, Queens and Jacks)
BeTePaH_733: shows [5c 4s 2c 8s] (two pair, Jacks and Fours)
Tk.Clown collected $19.70 from side pot
albtosca: shows [Kd 6h Kc 8c] (two pair, Kings and Jacks)
albtosca collected $80 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $102.20 Main pot $80. Side pot $19.70. | Rake $2.50
Board [7d 4c <acronym title="JavaScript">Js</acronym> Jd 2s]
Seat 1: TSUCHI (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: Tk.Clown (small blind) showed [Kh Qh Qd Td] and won ($19.70) with two pair, Queens and Jacks
Seat 3: albtosca (big blind) showed [Kd 6h Kc 8c] and won ($80) with two pair, Kings and Jacks
Seat 4: BeTePaH_733 showed [5c 4s 2c 8s] and lost with two pair, Jacks and Fours
Seat 5: d0nkSTRIKER folded on the Flop
Seat 6: niclassen18 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

trigs

you have aces, but you don't have great aces. your cards aren't very coordinated and neither of your aces are suited. however, i think you could argue calling or raising preflop here.

you'd be raising for the normal reasons: you most likely have the best hand atm and it's generally a good idea to raise preflop in PLO with the best hand while you have that marginal advantage because you want to be putting as much money as you can in while ahead, and you want to be building a pot.

on the other hand, your aces aren't great and you don't have a lot of redraws. with hands like this, i don't mind calling preflop sometimes. it disguises your aces and i think it's good for your reputation that you can sometimes call and show up with aces (i.e. you're not insta-raising with aces every time you get them). one reluctance to just call would be that there are still people left behind to act. i normally like to just call in position as calling here could most likely lead to a few callers behind and our aces, which were once so-so, lose even more value.

so specifically for this hand, i'd probably raise pot preflop here mostly due to our position.

as played, SB reraises and it's back on us with 2 other callers. you can't be reraising now, and folding would be horrible, so you're stuck with calling.

on the flop, all three villains lose their minds. you missed pretty much everything. easy fold and move on. doesn't matter that you would have won the hand.

think about it this way: preflop and 4 way - you are around 23% to win the hand. you are actually even behind the 5428 hand who's at 31% to win. on the flop - your odds did increase, but you're still only at 29% and you're still not the favourite to win the hand. 3 all ins before you? you didn't hit your ace? you're done.

on a side note, i play omaha zoom but only on the lower stakes. if i'm sitting at $25 buy-in or higher, i'll sit in the normal 6max tables. my reasoning for this is that i find the lower level zoom very easily exploitable as you have players who don't play omaha well and they don't adjust to zoom properly.

however, at the higher levels, they tend to be less exploitable as far as zoom strategy goes, and they tend to be slightly more competent at omaha. therefore, i feel that the value is a lot thinner in the higher zoom buy-ins. this is just my opinion obviously, but i personally prefer to sit at the table with them where learning their style is a lot easier.

Wetts1012

Trigs answer was the long version of saying your hand is shit. Fold pre. 4 ways youre basically never going to win unless you flop a set.

Bfillmaff

thx guys, exactly what I wanted to find out.

Bfillmaff

my first instinct was to fold for the 5.75. The hold'em brain took over and said "You cant fold AA preflop, dummy!!"

Who's the dummy now? me!!

bluesky

Either isolate to heads up pre or dump.

Hand is shit but its AAxx lol!

T8urmoney

Wetts1012;371579 wroteTrigs answer was the long version of saying your hand is shit. Fold pre. 4 ways youre basically never going to win unless you flop a set.

Nit.....

If u flat pre, you're set mining

If you fold pre, you're a nit, go invest in commodity stocks imo

If you 4-bet, you're going to narrow the field almost certainly....not many will put a buyin pre without AAxx or KKxx, and obv we don't mind KKxx. A pot 4-bet means that everyone is playing for stackzzzz....you played it perfect other than not re-potting pre. Stacks work out perfect that you will get a lot of folds.

Bottom line, I'm potting at 5.75 instead flatting all phucking day!!

Wetts1012

In most cases i might 4bet, if we were much deeper.

Check the stacks here though.

I dont think the originally raiser, or the 2 guys with 25% of their stacks already in the pot are folding to a 4bet.

i just hate putting in significant money pre with bare aces.

T8urmoney

Wetts1012;371641 wroteIn most cases i might 4bet, if we were much deeper.

Check the stacks here though.

I dont think the originally raiser, or the 2 guys with 25% of their stacks already in the pot are folding to a 4bet.

i just hate putting in significant money pre with bare aces.

One guy has 20% of his stack in, the other can fold easily.

I have no problem getting it in with dry AA's against one player....certainly sucks if the other bigger stack decides to gamboool....but I'm estimating most of the time he's not going to.

moose

Yeah flatting the 5.75 is pretty much terrible. Pot here to play for stacks headsup.

Bfillmaff

some good arguments for both raising and for folding pre flop. one thing certain is that flat calling was pretty dumb. appreciate the discussion, thanks!

GTA Poker

If you are deep then flatting is OK...you aren't deep and you have the perfect opportunity to shove preflop and that is the correct play.

This is especially true at low limits where players don't understand hand values and will call a shove pre with kkxx etc and fold middle runs to a shove