Pot-Limit Omaha At The World Series of Poker Europe

Things haven’t improved on the poker front unfortunately, but I’m not actually feeling as downbeat as I sometimes do about busting out of tournaments.

There were definitely hands I could have played differently in the World Open, but overall I think I played okay. With both of the World Series of Poker Europe tournaments that I played however, I don’t think I could possibly have done anything differently about the key hands.



I was quite looking forward to the 5K PLO as I prefer Omaha and I don’t have the chance to play as many big buy-in PLO events, so it was a bit of a disappointment when I exited the tournament so early.

You start the tournament with 3K in chips, and another three re-buy chips which are each worth 4K. I lost my first 3K quite quickly in a bit of a cooler when I flopped top and bottom pair, along with a nut flush draw on a 9-6-2 flop.

I was more than happy to put my chips in the pot, as a lot of the time here I’m going to be leading with two pair and also have the best draw. I know sometimes he’s going to have a set, but I think it’s more likely he’ll have played with a suited run-down hand and caught a big draw on this type of flop rather than have played a starting hand that contains 99/66/22 (especially when I have two pair).

As it happens though, he did have 99 and I couldn’t hit a spade.
By the time I played my next big pot, all of my chips were in play and I had about 10.5K left. Again, it was a bit of a cooler where I was happy to put my chips in and a case where a lot of the time I was going to be leading and have a good draw.

There was an early position raise pre-flop, the cut-off called and I called with J-J-9-8 double suited to see a T-7-3 rainbow flop. The pre-flop raiser made a three-quarter pot continuation bet and the cut-off raised.

I know he could have a set or a made hand, but if that’s the case I don’t mind too much as it’s close to a 50-50. Similarly to the first pot though, I think there’s a good chance that he could have a similar draw to me and my J-J could even be winning.



In my opinion I didn’t have any option but to stick my chips in here. This time I was up against top two pair with no other draw, so I actually liked my hand okay. I liked it even more when I made the straight on the turn, but somewhat less when the 10 arrived on the river to make him a full house.

I had the other guy covered so I was still in, but very short-stacked with around 2.5K, and I didn’t have to wait too long to get them in. Again, it was a no-brainer from my point of view and I was actually in great shape, holding A-A-5-4 against A-9-7-4, all-in preflop.



I thought he was drawing dead on the turn, and was struggling to see any outs for his hand, but I noticed one just as the dealer turned over the river card to make his straight. Pretty annoying, but like I said at he start I don’t think there was anything I could have done about it.



The same could be said of the two pots that I played in the following event, the 1K NL. I had 3.2K from a starting stack of 3K when I got into my first significant pot.

To be continued…