The Beautiful Game

Heh, back already for the second post in one day. I haven't the time or (nor?) inclination to write up some of the cool stuff I trailed at the end of the last post. Instead I just want to quickly talk about a hand from last night, which sums up the beautiful situations you can get into in Pot Limit Omaha.

In short, I had 2c 2h 3c 5d in an unraised pot in late position. The flop came 2d 4h 6c. Kaching! A set, if a barrel-scraping one, to go along with a flopped nut straight. A bet and multiple calls on the flop. The turn came Kc, giving me a tiny flush draw also. I raised one opponent all-in making a pot of over 90 dollars.

I am loving this situation, and it shows the wonderful multi-way hand situations that arise in PLO. I have the nut straight, a set, and a small flush draw. It is possible that my set would be no good if the board paired, or that my flush draw would be beaten if it hit, OR that the river could make a higher straight for somebody. But the chances of a solitary opponent covering ALL those eventualities is more remote than Pluto. (Note to self: find out which planet is actually farthest away). Really, whatever four cards you put in his hand, I have to be a favourite here, the only question is how big a one.

Well, the result was that he had the same straight, no clubs but had turned two pair so some of my full house outs were contaminated. The river bricked and we split the pot, but I was in a close-to-freerolling situation. It was 60% to split, 30% for me to scoop, 10% for him to scoop.

These are the situations that make us Omaha players wonder why we ever played Hold 'Em. How frequently would you get a GOOD opponent to go all-in with you at Hold 'Em when you were in such a positive expectation situation?

Anyway, I know hand stories can be boring, I just wanted to give some idea of what I like about Omaha. Also, it occurred to me today as I replayed the hand in my mind (specifically, thinking that if I had raised preflop as I considered, my opponent would have folded) that this was a good example of poker camaraderie.

By which I mean, that my opponent in this instance was not only a decent player, but a guy whom I like and respect - at least in as far as I know him through the medium of a poker chatbox - and here we were throwing chips in, both hoping to take a whole buy-in off one another with a deceptive hand if we possibly could. And if one or other of us had scooped it, we would still have continued to chat amiably about football.

Note: I assume most pokerblog reader are American (since most pokerblog writers are, and its a frickin' big country) but I will not be calling football 'soccer' for your benefit! Unless I am horribly mistaken, Association Football predates the gridiron game and therefore has first dibs on the name. So American Football is American Football. And by the way I love that too, and not just because my favoured Patriots have turned into a dynasty over the last couple of years!

Further note: I have spent much of today reading another excellent blog. Great stuff from HDouble.