LAG Play in PLO: Playing After the Flop

Note: What follows is an edited excerpt from Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha Vol. II: LAG Play.

Post-flop play is essentially identical regardless of pre-flop playing approach; the only real difference between post-flop play using a LAG-heavy pre-flop playing approach (opening fire on the blinds, attacking limpers in position, and 3-betting in position) vs. a small ball-heavy approach (flat-calling and limping more often in position and playing a pot-control game) is that you will be playing with the pre-flop initiative more often when you take a more LAG-heavy approach. This, in turn, means that you will probably be checking behind more often when taking a LAG-heavy approach than a small ball-heavy approach.

Here’s the basic situation: You open with a raise before the flop from the button, and only the big blind calls. The stack to pot ratio (SPR) > 8, so this is a deep-stack scenario where there are three legitimate bets left to play.

At this point, there are two basic possibilities on the flop: Your opponent will either (a) Check, or (b) Bet.

Situation A: Your Opponent Checks

The basic question here is whether to follow through with a c-bet or whether to check behind.

If you have a hand strong enough to withstand a check-raise – such as top set, the nut flush, a nut wrap, or the nut-flush draw with a gutshot – or if you have no piece of the board and little chance of improving whatsoever, then you should go ahead and bet. If you have a marginal hand or a draw that cannot stand a raise but has some value – such as a non-nut-flush draw, a gutshot or open-ended straight draw, or top pair or less – you should tend to check behind. You should also tend to check if you hit a pivot card (such as Q-J-9-8 on a T-5-2 board), where a lot of help can arrive on the turn to give you a big draw.

And the weaker, or more straightforward the opponent, the more often you should bet those marginal hands or draws. Meanwhile, the trickier the opponent – the more likely he is to attempt to check-raise you – the more often you should check behind those one pair hands and open-ended straight draws.

Situation B: Your Opponent Bets Into You

This is bit of a different scenario, but basically what it comes down to is that you must master the float.

If your opponent bets into you, you should tend to call (float) if you catch a piece of the board (such as top pair or two pair) or flop some kind of nut draw, such as the nut flush draw, a big wrap that contains some non-nut outs, a nut open-ended straight draw and perhaps a nut gutshot straight draw as well.

The key thing to remember is that the big pot hands are still the big pot hands, and the small pot hands are still small pot hands. So if you flop a big pot hand like the nut straight with a flush draw, the overfull, or a 13-card nut wrap with a flush draw, then you should still raise if your opponent bets into you. On the other hand, the small-pot hands such as the bare nut straight, middle set, top two pair and undertrips are still small-pot hands in a heads up pot, and as such, you should tend to smooth call with these hands when facing a bet.

In addition to keep the size of the pot down, one of the main benefits of smooth calling with these strong small pot hands is that doing so will add weight to the float. This is because if your opponents think you only smooth call with air, they will start firing second shots more and more often, which will devalue the float. If, on the other hand, your opponents know that you will smooth call with the nut straight, a set, and trips, they will be less inclined to keep firing once you’ve called on the flop.

Now if you miss the flop completely and your opponent bets, you should tend to fold, though you might consider a bluff raise if the board is paired or there is a possible flush on the board.

Below is a table using K Q T 7 as an example. K-Q-T-7 with a single suit is fairly representative LAG hand in that it is imperfect with a gap and a relative dangler (the seven does not help form a wrap and thus is a dangler, but does help form a nut straight and thus is not a complete dangler), but it has 13-card nut-wrap and flush draw potential. As a result, this hand is going to flop a small pot hand the vast majority of the time, but at the same time has some potential to develop into a big pot hand.♠

Jeff Hwang is a gaming industry consultant with HVS, and author of Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy and the three-volume Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha series.