It seems that in these columns, I spend an inordinate amount of time reminiscing. The main reason for this is probably that in poker terms, I am old; the other is that I often cannot get over just how much the world has turned over with time. A fine example of this would be in the mathematics of poker and the accessibility of information and tools on how to understand and calculate such things.
Just under a decade ago, I played a hand of Omaha in what was commonly known as the biggest and softest cash game in the North of England. However, my opponent was far from soft. He had a reputation as being a cash-game expert and one of the winningest players around. In the hand in question, we were playing pot-limit Omaha and there was some action on the flop, which, knowing this player, fairly much signaled that he had top set, the current nuts. I had a 17-out straight draw and elected to just call and see what the turn brought. There was no change at all, in that the board did not pair and no flush draw appeared to reduce or increase my outs, and my foe set me all in. Inasmuch as I was getting better than 2-to-1, this was a fairly trivial call. Anyway, my straight duly appeared on the river, and as I started to scoop up the pot, my opponent started to mildly berate me. I was surprised, because the maths of the situation made it fairly straightforward to call on both the flop and the turn, and I told him as much. He was at first incredulous and then surprised. He snatched up a piece of paper and started scribbling. He did not stop for some time. I did not ask whether he finally figured it out; it didn't look much like he had, and I had done enough foolish education for one night. And yet, here was this formidable player, possibly the biggest earner of the whole area, completely oblivious to a more than standard piece of pot-limit Omaha maths.
Today, figuring out this kind of maths is just a click away on one of many simulation websites or pieces of software. Players no longer have to hand-crank spreadsheets, as I once did, and on some of the more advanced simulators, they can put in ranges of hands rather than just one specific hand, and thus get a truer picture of hand equity. But, people still make important mistakes even with this avalanche of information. One that I have mentioned before, but bears repeating, is that in pot-limit games, looking at just the last bet, when you will always have at least 2-to-1, can be a grievous mistake; you need to look at what the money odds were from when you were committed to stacking off, and work out your expected value from that point.
A fresh problem for Monday-morning quarterbacks can be found in the use of these more advanced simulators that can work on hand ranges. To the neophyte, they seem like Nirvana. By putting in the range of hands you believed you were up against, all of the mathematical heavy lifting is done for you. This is especially true for those applications that can work on random cards, which is especially useful in pot-limit Omaha, in which you "know" the main holding but not the side cards. You tell it that top set is out, and it figures out the equity effect of all of the other combinations of the other two "unknown" cards.
However, the very preciseness of this calculation can badly skew the results, as the weighting it gives to these hands is exactly the mathematical chance of it occurring. But the real world does not work so nicely. An example will help here. Let's say the flop comes J-9-5 and you have J-9-5-5 in the blind in a pot-limit Omaha game. Clearly, the chances that you're up against a higher set are small. You and your foe go to war and you put your whole stack into this originally tiny pot. Now, against most players, probably with effective stacks less than 100 big blinds, you are a favourite against their range of hands, which, because of your blockers, will probably contain a large proportion of straight draws. The simulator will make your chance of being crushed by a higher set tiny, as there are only two hands in which this is the case. If the effective stacks are smaller than 100 big blinds, the decision-making becomes even simpler. By the time you start to "worry" that the other two sets are out, you are effectively all in. But what about 150, 300, or even 500-plus big blinds?
In these situations, as is common in any big-bet game, the more money that is poured into a pot, the more likely it is that the nuts, or near enough to it, is out. Suddenly, the maths of the situation will be greatly skewed, with crushing hands much more likely to be out, and the simulator result will be flat-out wrong; you will be firmly in the territory of DIYDDIYD, as I have described in previous issues. As a recap for new readers - where have you been? - Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't is a situation that occurs often in pot-limit Omaha, in which you find yourself not in great shape versus a good proportion of hands - either even money or in disastrous shape. With no compensating situations in which you are in fantastic shape, it takes only a few times to be in terrible shape to really make this a negative expected value situation. Remember, if you intended to stack with your 300-big-blind stack, you are effectively getting only even money on this whole play.
So, what is the answer? In complicated spots like this, I'm afraid that you need to go back to the old ways, and dig out the spreadsheets and crank the numbers by hand. The answers can be both profitable and illuminating, and also can help you to gain a "feel" of certain types of situations, which you simply do not get as easily from pressing buttons on a website.
David has played poker all over the UK for the better part of a decade. Originally a tournament player, now focused on cash play and almost entirely on the Internet for the last three years, David makes a healthy second income playing a wide range of games.
