Piper on Pot-Limit Omaha

Check or Bet?
Pot-limit Omaha is a fascinating game. One reason is that equities run much closer together than in hold’em, and it’s often difficult to determine whether to check or bet in any given spot. Will your opponent call you with a worse hand? Will he check-raise, forcing you off your hand? From an early stage in our poker career, we’re taught to continuation bet (c-bet) with a high frequency, but in today’s tough, aggressive games, the c-bet doesn’t get as much respect as it used to. How, then, should you adjust your play?

Betting Strategy
Especially in a live setting, you’ll often hear people say, “I had to bet to find out where I am.” This practice is known as betting for information, and is usually done with a marginal hand. If your opponent calls or raises, you know you’re beat. The problem is that these bets are expensive and rarely worth the information gained. The more information you have, the better decisions you can make — but profitability is your end goal, and information is only a means to that end.

If someone will neither call with a worse hand or fold better, betting is bad, and we should check — at least, that’s the standard line of thinking for good poker players. In certain spots, worse hands can call and better hands fold, notably on draw-y boards. For example with bare middle pair on a A 8 5 board, underpairs to the ace will have a tough time calling, as they can’t improve, but draws can. Let’s examine more factors that should come into your decision.

Protection
In position with A A 8 8, you raise preflop, getting one caller from the blinds. The flop comes J 6 3 and your opponent checks. On this board, he’s unlikely to give you credit for a set, and knows you can have a lot of draws, so he’s never going to fold better made hands, probably raising some of them. As there are lots of draws that you might want to get all in, he probably isn’t going to check-raise as a bluff, but will call or raise with his good draws. On balance, this looks like a check, in order to get your hand to showdown. However, he’s almost certainly check-folding all his one pair hands without a draw, of which there are quite a few. If he has J-10-9-8 he can’t call but this hand has 11 immediate outs against you. Denying him a free card is a good result. This is called “capitalisation of dead money”.

Betting also protects your hand against a bluff. If you check, he will know you don’t have a good hand and will usually fold the turn when he bets. If you bet, you prevent him from bluffing.

Semibluffing
If you flop a strong draw, you should bet. If you get check-raised, you can still call or reraise, while checking tells your opponent that you have no hand right now, so he might not pay you off when your draw fills. He can fold weak made hands and call with worse draws. You want to win the pot there and then, but also to build the pot so that when you hit, you win more money.

Inducing
Against aggressive opponents, a useful tactic is to bet to induce. He knows you’re aggressive and c-bet with a high frequency, so he doesn’t need a good draw to check-raise ­— he’ll do it with air, not only as a bluff, but to prevent you from c-betting so often. You’re one step ahead of him, though, and jam or call according to factors like stack depth and the relative strength of your hand.

Against this type of opponent, who optimistically takes every action as a sign of weakness, you can check to induce as well. You should do this with slightly weaker hands you want to get to showdown. Now let’s look at other good reasons to check.

Nothing Can Pay You Off
When you flop quads, it’s extremely hard to get paid off. There are so few hands that hit this board hard that you’re better off checking. There are two main reasons for this. First, you make your hand look weak, and you might find an aggressive opponent trying to push you off your hand. Second, your opponent might catch a card on the turn that gets him to pay you off.

Pot Control
When you flop a non-nut flush against a tricky opponent, deep, you’re not happy getting your entire stack in, as he mostly has the best hand when this happens. You won’t be able to tell just by his checking two streets that he doesn’t have you beat, either. He might be tricky enough to check-call the flop and turn and check-raise the river all-in with the nuts.

Counteract this by deciding on the flop how strong your hand is, in terms of how many streets of value you think it’s worth. If you flop the king-high flush, you might decide that, while he sometimes has the nut flush after check-calling flop and turn, he has worse enough of the time to justify firing three bullets. You might decide he’s too good to fall for that, so would fire two streets only. Once you make that decision, decide which two streets to fire — whatever looks the most bluff-y. Sometimes your opponent will have a set, and checking the flop or turn gives him a free shot to fill up but that’s a lesser evil than getting your entire stack in drawing dead.

Balance
Hiding the strength of your hand is a crucial aspect to profitable poker, especially when stacks are deep against tough opponents. If you always bet when checked to, aggressive opponents will re-bluff you or call down light. Combating this is easy — check it back occasionally. Which hands to check back is a very interesting topic in and of itself, and depends on the evolved dynamic. If your opponent gives you respect, check back some weak made hands that you want to get to showdown, or weak draws that can’t stand a check-raise. Against a highly aggressive opponent, check back stronger hands to induce his bluff. In the heat of the battle, it’s very difficult to see clearly which reasons outweigh the others, and even if you decide that your opponent won’t call worse or fold better, it’s often good to bet anyway, just to keep the hand simple to play — but if you do this, remember that it’s not the most profitable way to play the hand, rather the way to keep your decisions easy.

HH examples to accompany ‘Check or bet’
6-max PLO, $1/2
Stacks:
CO (you): $223
BTN: $448
SB: $56
BB: $200
Your hand: A 8 9 J
Action: you open to $6, and both the button and SB call. Pot: $20
Flop: A 7 4
SB checks, you?

Few better hands fold (7-4 might), but there are plenty of worse hands that can call and that you don’t want to give a free card to. If you are beat right now, you probably aren’t getting raised, so can hit a better two pair or back-door straight or flush. If you bet and the button raises, it’s an easy fold, as you will probably have to pay the rest of your stack to get to showdown and will mostly be drawing thin. If the small blind reraises all-in, it’s an easy call as you’re only in trouble against a set and will have draws far more often. Bet about $15.

6-max PLO, $0.50/1
Stacks:
HJ: $44
CO: $224
BTN (you): $195
SB: $99.50
BB: $88
Your hand: J J 9 7
Action: HJ limps, CO raises to $3, you call, two folds, HJ calls. Pot: $10.50
Flop: J 10 8
HJ checks, CO bets $10, you raise to $35, HJ folds, CO calls. Pot: $80.50
Turn: (J 10 8) 6
CO checks, you?

Your flop raise is standard — only one straight beats you, and he has lots of draws he can call or reraise with, you’re never in bad shape and often in great shape with your straight flush redraw. On the turn you make a medium flush with a good few redraws. You should now check. He is unlikely to call with many hands that you beat. If you check you can take the free card to beat him, and if you’re ahead there are few cards he can hit to beat you.

Michael Piper has been playing pot-limit omaha online for a living for more than three years. He coaches at cardrunners.com and posts online under the screenname wazz.