4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 3,107
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Thanks for the reply saxton.
I called his re-raise for a couple of reasons. One, it was a min-re-raise that was giving me brilliant pot odds... that's the lesser reason, though, since my hand was so bad. Two, I had position on him and most of the time when I had position, I had been working him all night in all four games. I have a pretty good tell on him that allows me to steal a lot of pots on the turn and river, and believe it or not it's more effective in Omaha and O8 than in any other game. This tell manifests most strongly when he misses draws, and when he has a hand with two or three draws and misses them all (like let's say a double bellybuster plus a low draw), there might as well be a sign on his forehead indicating as such. I was finding it very profitable in this game to ride him down to the turn or river, and then if he looked unhappy just bet him out. Actually one of the biggest swings in the game happened on a hand like that, where I ended up betting him out on the river with one middle pair for the high and no low at all. I don't even know what he had, but I knew the pot was up for grabs. So you can see I was trying to stay in as many pots as possible, and see as many flops as possible, almost regardless of what my cards were.
And I forgot hidden reason number three: he hates raising pre-flop in Omaha or O8, and it's reliable as clockwork that if he actually does raise, he has AA or maybe A2 (in hi-lo). If he actually re-raises after I raise, there's no question in my mind that he has AA. And knowing half the contents of his hand makes me a big favorite in my mind, even if I completely miss - so long as there's no ace on the board.
You're right that there is generally less bullying value in games like hi-lo. A better play (that I had been using often) would have been to smooth-call his flop bet and then raise him all-in on the turn. I'd been using that effectively in hand after hand. Unfortunately there was the problem that the board was fairly draw-friendly, with two clubs and a possible straight draw, so I had to protect my hand; and also that he was short-stacked enough that another bet on the turn would probably pot-commit him even if he missed. So I didn't have a lot of wiggle room. I figured for that reason I had to make any moves I was going to make right on the flop. Of course here I actually wanted a call, but if I hadn't made my set I might have played it the same and then gotten demolished. Meh. It was a sound strategy for most of the night, but maybe with him getting down to the felt I should have eased up and started playing my cards a little more - at least in the Omaha games.
I mentioned the ace of clubs only because a thinking player will factor that into his decisions. It makes it slightly less likely that I have two clubs myself, and obviously I can't have the nut flush draw. In heads up play it's almost meaningless, but stray cards like that can definitely factor into decisions in fuller O8 games when you're on the fence about something.
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