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March 2 — When the pot is large and your opponent only calls a big bet or raise without much money behind, there is a good chance he’s on a draw.

There are times, especially on the turn, where it becomes very obvious that your opponent must be on a draw. These situations normally occur when your opponent calls a big bet or raise without much money behind. Simple logic dictates that, if he had a made hand, he would simply move all in instead of just call. If you pay attention to spots like this, you can pick up some great bluffing opportunities.

I was involved with a hand last week at the Commerce Casino’s $5-$10 no-limit game which is a great example of this concept. In retrospect, I think I misplayed the hand on earlier streets, but was left with a river that I could not pass up in bluffing.

The hand started out with a solid pro in the cutoff raising over the top of a loose limper to $45. A very splashy, aggressive recreational player called in the small blind and I looked down to see 7 5 in the big blind with a $1,900 stack. The small blind had me covered. I thought in this spot, as long as I could get through the original raiser, I could profitably three-bet the hand to take it down a fair amount of the time. And even if the small blind called, it would not be the end of the world, so I reraised to $185. The limper folded, and unfortunately for me, both the opener and the small blind called.

The flop came out K 6 2, totally missing me. However, if I thought that the solid player in the cutoff may four-bet A-K with some frequency and he does not call three-bets with K-Q, that King really shouldn’t hit his range. And even if the small blind called me, I could set up multiple barrels on turn cards that gave me additional equity or take a free card in position. Instead, in the heat of the moment, however, I thought that the prudent play would be to make a delayed continuation bet to see what the solid player did on the flop. If he bet, I was just going to be done with it. However, the pot got checked around.

The turn was the 8, giving me an open-ended straight flush draw. The small blind led out for $375, and at this point I wanted to put maximum pressure on him. With about $1,700 left in my stack, I did not just want to move all in, as I thought that this would look too much like a draw. But I wanted to make it look like I was committing myself and protect against his draws, so I raised to $1,200. The original raiser quickly folded, but the small blind did something entirely unexpected. He thought for a long time, said “$1,200?” and finally called! At this point, I just could not believe it. I mean, I only had about $500 left in my stack and after his call the pot had over $3,000 in it. If he thought I was on a draw and he had a King, why would he not just move all in right then and there? The only conclusion I could make was that he must also be on a draw, whether it was front door diamonds or back door hearts, most likely with a pair or straight draw to go along with it.

The river rolled off a meaningless 10, and the small blind quickly checked. Obviously with seven-high, I had no showdown value, so with about $500 left in my stack, I moved all in to the $3,000 pot. The math on this bluff, by the way, is pretty easy to figure out. All you have to do is add your bet size to the pot and reduce the fraction. Here it would be $500/ ($500+$3,000) or 1/7. So, as long as our bluff works 1 out of 7 times with this pot and bet sizing, it is profitable. Anyway, the small blind cursed his luck, showed the nut flush diamond draw, and quickly folded.

The interesting thing about situations like this is that sometimes you may even share the same draw as your opponent and might not want it to come.

March 11 — Sometimes in PLO, even if you are ahead in equity vs top set with a monster draw, it may be better to wait until the turn to get all of your money in and avoid the board pairing.

To preface this section of this article, I have probably played 20 times more hours of live no-limit holdem than I have of pot-limit Omaha (PLO). However, it seems that mid-stakes PLO is actually starting to become more popular and there are times when even good no-limit players should game select and choose a good PLO table over a bad no-limit hold’em game. My biggest gripe with live PLO, however, is that the game moves too slow. Especially if the table allows running the board more than once, it seems like you get anywhere between 30-50 percent fewer hands per hour in PLO as you would in a no-limit hold’em game. That means that your dollars per hand must be considerably higher in PLO than no-limit when comparing hourly rates.

However, even in my limited experience, I still feel like I have a grasp over the game and, overall, the average recreational PLO player is much weaker than what is now the average no-limit recreational player. As a no-limit pro, I will certainly admit that PLO is much more complex than no-limit, as you cannot just play a preflop starting chart at a certain number of big blinds from a given position to “break even.”

As you transition from no-limit to PLO, one of the first things that is glaringly obvious is that the variance is way higher than its two-card counterpart. Even when you have the nuts on the flop, usually in the form of top set, you can certainly be a dog, and in most other cases, you are only a slight favorite over a monster draw.

One of the other things that is clear to an astute poker player is that most non-advanced players in PLO tend to play their hands “face-up,” especially from out of position, as new players quickly learn that it is basically suicide to slowplay and give away free cards. In PLO, the concept of denying your opponents the proper odds to call becomes paramount. This is much different than in no-limit.

However, even with a big draw, certain situations can become tricky. I played a hand last week at the Commerce Casino that really demonstrates this concept. The game plays $5-$5 with a $500-$1,500 buy-in with a mandatory “rock” straddle to the winner of each hand. In this particular hand, I was the straddle under the gun and the player to my immediate left opened to $40. Three people called, and the big blind, who is the villain in this hand, also called. I completed the action and called with A 9 8 6 from the straddle. The flop came down 10 7 3, giving me an absolute monster draw. The big blind checked, and I bet $150 into the preflop raiser, as I knew I was favored over basically every single hand. The pot folded around to the villain in the big blind, who was a typical mid-stakes, face-up, PLO player. We started the hand $2,000 effective and he raised to $600. I immediately knew that he 100 percent had pocket tens. At the time I did not know the exact equity, but figured that I was a small favorite over top set. However, I knew that there was no way he would fold pocket tens, so I decided just to call. Why?

If I am a professional poker player, am I not supposed to take any edge that comes my way? The answer to that question is yes, I am supposed to take this small edge, but I can vastly increase my overall EV for the hand if I call and see a non-board-pairing turn and call off again. You see if the board pairs, my equity goes down from about 52 percent to zero percent, so why not wait and see if that happens?

Again, I am by no means an advanced PLO player, however, even if my opponent folds on a heart turn card to what amounts to a pot-sized all-in, (and we are not saying that he will always do this), the play here of waiting to increase your overall equity is more positive EV than the money lost from him check-folding. This is a concept I have read over many times in PLO books and here put to practice. The only time this would be the wrong play is if our opponent was capable of semibluffing worse draws and getting us off of the best hand on a board-pairing turn or capable of raise-folding a hand for value on the flop, like middle or bottom set. ♠

Follow Bart for daily strategy tips on Twitter @CrushLivePoker and @BartHanson. Check out his poker training site exclusively made for live cash game play at CrushLivePoker.com where he produces weekly podcasts and live training videos.