Pot-Limit Omaha Quiz

The game: $1-$2 with 30¢ ante online (six-max), five-handed
Your position: Small blind
Your hand: K K 6 3

Seat 1: Cutoff ($414.25)
Seat 2: Button ($112.45)
Seat 4: Small blind — you ($464.25)
Seat 5: Big blind ($303.10)
Seat 6: Under-the-gun player ($316.90)

Preflop: The under-the-gun player ($316.90) opens with a raise to $8.50, and both the cutoff ($414.25) and button ($112.45) call.

1. Should you:
a. Fold?
b. Call?
c. Reraise?

Action: You ($464.25) call. The big blind folds.
Flop ($37.50): A J 6

2. Should you:
a. Check?
b. Bet?

Action: You check. The next player — the preflop raiser — bets $24, and the cutoff and button both fold.

3. Should you:
a. Fold?
b. Call?
c. Raise?

Action: You call.
Turn ($85.50): 6

4. Should you:
a. Check?
b. Bet?

Action: You check.
Hypothetical Action: Your opponent bets $55.

5. Should you:
a. Fold?
b. Call?
c. Raise?

Actual Action: Your opponent checks.
River ($85.50): 9

6. Should you:
a. Check?
b. Bet $10 to $25?
c. Bet $40 to $60?
d. Bet $70 to $85.50?

Action: You bet $43 and your opponent calls, showing the A♥ Q♥ J♣ 8♣ for top two pair. You win.

Grades and Analysis

1. a(4), b(10), c(0). With fairly dry kings in the small blind, three-betting is flat wrong — especially sitting more than 200 big blinds deep, and out of position against the opposition. Folding to a raise in the small blind is never really wrong, but kings with a suit are enough to call and try to flop top set in this multiway pot.

2. a(10), b(2). Betting out into three opponents with the nut-flush draw and underset (kings) and trip (sixes) draws is not a good idea. The play should be to check and hope to either get a free card or draw multiway action to give you odds to draw to the flush.

3. a(10), b(7), c(2). This is a tough one to grade, because you can make a case for both folding and calling. You can fold the bare nut-flush draw, getting just over 2.5-1 when you are more like 4-1 against actually making a flush on the turn. In addition, while you are facing a smallish continuation-bet, the bettor is unlikely to be bluffing in a four-way pot.

For that reason, raising on a semibluff in this medium stack-to-pot ratio [SPR] situation (SPR of 8) — judgment territory — would also be a mistake, because if he isn’t bluffing, a semibluff check-raise would not be likely to have the desired effect of getting the bettor to fold.

The case for calling would be based largely on how you view your opponent’s bet. The obvious question is how strong you think your opponent is: Do you think he would bet so small with a set of aces on a board with possible flush and straight draws? Perhaps he might if he had a set with a flush draw.

Alternatively, he might just be putting in a weak-stab continuation-bet. And if he doesn’t have top set, you might have a live set draw — and maybe even a live draw to trip sixes, as well. That possibility raises your potential equity.
That said, a call would be much easier to justify if you had position on your opponent and could see how he reacts to the turn card. But out of position, you probably are better off folding than likely facing a second barrel if you call and miss.

4. a(10), b(0). I don’t see betting being correct. You have trip sixes plus the flush draw, but now the board is paired and you could be drawing virtually dead. This is basically a one-bet hand, at best; if you put in more than one bet between the turn and river, it is unlikely that you will be able to show down the best hand.

The advantage of checking is that when you are ahead, you are not easily outdrawn, as you don’t fear a diamond appearing on the river since you have the nut-flush draw yourself. Meanwhile, the problem with betting is that your opponent is not likely to give you much action with hands that you can beat with bare undertrips.
Checking and calling should be the play.

5. a(2), b(10), c(0). There’s no value in raising, because you are not likely to get called by a hand worse than yours. That said, your opponent’s betting range here should be wide enough that you pretty much have to call at least one more bet; he could have a bare ace or two pair, or maybe a straight draw with which he is following through.

6. a(0), b(4), c(10), d(7). With your opponent having checked back the turn, this situation calls for a half value-bet/half blocking-bet. If your opponent had air and was going to bluff, he more than likely would have bet the turn. This means that your opponent likely either filled up with something like A-A-X-X, J-J-X-X, or A-6-X-X, or has a marginal bluff-catching hand like A-K-X-X; or, he might have air and just be too scared to bluff.

That said, you don’t want to check here and have him check back a marginal hand. Meanwhile, you don’t necessarily want to bet the max or close to it, and have to fold to a raise.

A token bet in the $10 to $25 range is probably simultaneously too weak and too obvious; if your opponent will call a $25 bet with a hand that you can beat on this board (like A-K-X-X), he will also likely call a $50 bet. But at the same time, a big bet in the $70 to max range is probably overdoing it, in the event that your opponent may be trapping.

Although you could make a case for betting any amount, I think your best option is a middling bet in the $40 to $60 range. ♠

Jeff Hwang is a semiprofessional player and author of Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy and Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha: Small Ball and Short-Handed Play. He is also a longtime contributor to the Motley Fool. His next two books — Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha Volume II: LAG Play, and Volume III: The Short-Handed Workbook — are slated for an October release. You can check out his website at jeffhwang.com.