Just as I predicted in the last post, the online poker madness was far from over! Patrik Antonius and Isildur1 (the new high-stakes sensation) just crushed the old record:
At just before 9:30 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday night, Antonius and Isildur1 were in the middle of a three-table, $500/1,000 pot-limit Omaha match on Full Tilt Poker. On the “Royal Guard” table, Antonius had built up his stack to nearly $1.26 million from his initial $200,000 buy-in, while Isildur1 was sitting on $678,000. These two high-stakes rivals had already tangled in an $815,000 pot earlier in the evening (then the second-largest online pot ever), and many railbirds believed it was only a matter of time before they saw seven figures at stake on a single hand.
The pot was five-bet before the flop, Isildur1 opening for $3,000, Antonius three-betting to $9,000, Isildur1 repotting to $27,000, and Antonius coming back over the top for $81,000. Isildur1 called and they saw a {5-Clubs}{4-Spades}{2-Hearts}flop.
Antonius bet $91,000 into the $162,000 pot. After a little thought, Isildur1 repotted to $435,000, leaving himself only $162,473 behind. Antonius reraised to $773,000 and Isildur1 called off the rest of his stack, creating a $1,356,946 pot.
Antonius turned up {A-Hearts}{K-Hearts}{K-Spades}{3-Spades}, having flopped a wheel, while Isildur1 revealed {9-Spades}{8-Hearts}{7-Diamonds}{6-Diamonds} for a higher straight draw.
Although Antonius was a 55 percent favorite on the flop, the {5-Hearts} on the turn made him a more than 3-1 favorite over Isildur1. The river was the {9-Clubs} and Antonius raked in more than $1.35 million.
The action in online casino rooms is getting crazier and crazier. In an attempt to still their hunger for action Durrrr (Tom Dwan) and Ziigmund (Ilari Sahamies) gave their own twist to PLO: instead of playing the normal game at the $500/1,000 tables they both agreed to raise and reraise every single pot, both committing $9,000 before the flop comes down. Ofcourse this results in some massive pots, including the largest online pot-limit omaha pot ever, worth $703,000!
This is what happened:
After Dwan made the compulsory opening raise to $3,000 and Sahamies put in his required reraise to $9,000, Dwan pushed the action with a four-bet to $27,000. Sahamies called and they saw a flop of {J-Spades}{10-Hearts}{2-Spades}. Both players checked and the {7-Diamonds} landed on the turn. Sahamies led out for $54,000, Dwan raised to $216,000, and Sahamies moved in for his entire $324,463 stack. Dwan called, having him covered, and showed {Q-Spades}{10-Diamonds}{8-Spades}{5-Diamonds} for a queen-high flush draw, a gutshot straight draw, and a pair of tens. Sahamies was a 3-to-1 favorite, however, with {J-Diamonds}{9-Diamonds}{8-Clubs}{7-Spades} for a jack-high straight and two pair. The river improved Sahamies’ hand further, falling the {J-Clubs} to make him jacks full of sevens, good for the nearly $703,000 pot.
Pot-Limit Omaha is often called a game of draws, and often this is true, especially compared to other poker games such as Hold’em. So, it’s quite important to know your pot-equity whenever you picked up a nice drawing hand (or what at least looks like one).
Calculating your equity is harder than in Hold’em. This is because your opponents can have blockers against your hand or re-draws. Blockers are cards that your opponent might be holding that you need to complete your hand. For example, if your drawing to the nut-flush but your opponent is holding two cards of that suit too, that’ll cost you two outs. Re-draws on the other hand mean that although you might hit your hand, your opponent still has a chance to improve and beat your made hand. For example, if your opponent flopped top-set, you made the nut-flush on the turn, he can still make a full-house on the river. Such a re-draw to a full house cuts your equity by 20%.
On the other hand, your hand can sometimes be stronger than you might expect at first, this is because back-door outs. On a rainbow flop, for example Ah Kd 3s, a hand like Jh Th 9d 8d has two back-door flush draws. A back-door flush draw usually improves your hand by 5%, and like in the case of this example your hand even improves by 10%.
This all might sound complicated, but actually there is an easy and quick way to calculate your equity when holding a drawing hand. You take your total number of outs and multiply them by 4 on the flop and 2 on the turn. However, we’ve just seen that because of re-draws and blocking cards that number can signigicantly drop. Because of this a nut-flush draw can drop from 45% to 25%. But, if you have some backdoor-outs that number can again increase to 30%.
So, determining your equity in PLO isn’t all that easy. It’s important to consider what your opponent might be holding and how that affects your outs and chance of winning the pot.
I never read a poker book on Pot-Limit Omaha, but I came across this new book on Amazon today. It’s called Secrets of Short-handed Pot-limit Omaha: How to Beat PLO Games with Six or Fewer Players and is written by Rolf Slotboom and Rob Hollink.
It’s description is quite interesting:
D&B Publishing present the PLO Dream Team. Rolf Slotboom and Rob Hollink join forces to produce the definitive guide, short-handed Pot-Limit Omaha (tables with six or fewer players). Do you know Pot-Limit Omaha is one of the fastest growing forms of poker? Do you know that the biggest games online (in money) are Short-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha? Rolf and Rob will tell you how to: gauge the optimum size of the buy-in; decide whether to check-raise or bet into the raiser; represent big hands; misrepresent hands in order to get paid off; get your opponents off good, but non-nut hands; and, judge when to raise with drawing hands. The team – Rolf Slotboom – author of the classic “Secrets of Professional Pot Limit Omaha”. In his first attempt in 2007 on the World Series of Poker he cashed four times, including the main $10,000 event. Rob Hollink has been a leading player for over 20 years and has won both a European tour title and, in 2008, a World Series bracelet.
I’m going to buy and review it for you all. Check back later!
I good way to learn how to play a new kind of poker game is to watch good players play it. That’s why I made a Youtube playlist of the PLO 10k event of the WSOP 2008.
Because of the close hand ranks and the important role of drawing hands in PLO, the game becomes a high variance poker game (much more then NLHE for example). Because of this high variance factor bankroll management is very VERY important if you want to become a winning Pot Limit Omaha player.
Here are some basic guidelines you should follow if you don’t want to go busted (by simply being unlucky):
In a Pot-Limit Omaha game swing can be very big. That’s why you need a buffer that’ll prevent you going broke by simply catching a bad run of cards. I would suggest bringing only 3% or 4% of your total bankroll at a table. And whenever your stack represents more then 10% of your total bankroll, you should quit, to avoid losing your profit with a single bad beat.
In a Fixed Limit Omaha game you should simply follow the ’300 Big Bets’ rule: make sure you always have 300 Big Bets of the limit you are playing in your bankroll, and everything should be fine in the long run.
I hope these simple and basic, BUT very effective, guidelines can help you build a healthy Omaha bankroll online.
Trap hands are hands that look good, but can easily cost you your whole stack, because when you make your hand it more than often proves to be second-best.
In Pot-Limit Omaha there are three kinds of trap hands:
Small-Pair hands
Low-Wrap hands
Small-Flush hands
Small-Pair hands
Hands with small-pairs will often flop bottom or middle set, which are very hard hands to get away from when you’re beat. Hands like 5543 can be easily dominated on a flop such as KQ5, and can suddenly be drawing to one out. So always think twice before comitting chips with bottom or middle set.
Low-Wrap hands
Another dangerous type of hand is the low four-connected hand, such as 5432. Although it looks like they have great potential, it’s very simple to flop or draw to a low end of a straight. Which most of time means you’re drawing dead.
Small-Flush hands
Small-flush hands are risky hands. When you flop a flush with a hand like 5432, you can’t commit a lot of chips, because when you get any action at all, you’re likely drawing dead. So avoid small flushes!
5
4
can be easily dominated on a flop such as K
, and can suddenly be drawing to one out. So always think twice before comitting chips with bottom or middle set.