Vegas June 2017 (WSOP)

Day 3 - WSOP Omaha 8/b Mix

Last Updated: 2017-06-17 14:22:52

Friday got off to a decent start for us. Got in a 4 mile walk, baked at the pool for a little while and grabbed lunch at the buffet at Aria. Then it was on to Rio for a little poker.

The tournament I was playing in was 3 different varieties of Omaha 8/b. You get 4 cards, you use 2 from your hand and 3 from the board (unlike Texas Hold'Em where you can use both of your hole cards, one or none).

The "8/b" part is that you can win half the pot with a low hand. To make a low hand you must be able to form a hand comprised of 5 unpaired cards 8 or lower where ace is "low" and straights and flushes do not count against you. A-2-3-4-5 is the best low hand followed by A-2-3-4-6, A-2-3-5-6, etc. You still use any two from your hand and any three from the board, and they can be different than the cards used for your high hand. There will be 3 cards on the board that are 8 or lower and unpaired a little over 60% of the time, so that's how often a low hand is possible.

To make it more complicated, we played the game with three different rules: "Pot Limit" (you can only bet/raise up to the amount that's in the pot already), "Limit" (you can only bet/raise the amount of the big blind pre- and post-flop and double the big blind on the turn and river) and "Big O" in which you get a 5th down card, but still only use 2 from your hand and 3 from the board (betting is "Pot Limit").

Got it?

I love Omaha 8/b. Back when online poker was still huge there were long stretches when I played it almost exclusively. I like to think I got pretty good at it. "The Poker Database" sure thought I was pretty good, that's all I'll say :-)

To make matters more complicated, in case that isn't enough for you, we played different blind structures depending on whether it was limit or pot limit. For example for round 4 the blinds were 100/200 for limit games (so 200/400 limits) but for pot limit we played 50/100 blinds.

And my final note on the structure is that we play 7-handed due to the large number of cards being dealt in "Big O". If we played a standard 9-handed table we would run out of cards. 45 cards dealt, 5 on the board and three burn cards is 53 cards. Even 8 handed would use 48 of the available 52 cards, which would be too large a percentage of the deck.

Cards were in the air a little after 3pm so they could get in a bracelet ceremony for a winner from the previous day.

First two hour-long rounds went OK. I didn't win any big pots, didn't lose any either. The most interesting pot in that stretch was late in the first round when I scooped a pot with A-T-3-7 on a board of 4-6-6-J-4. It's very rare to win an 8/b pot with ace high...

Up to about 8000 from my 7500 starting stack at the end of the first two hours, on to round three.

I will say this much - often Omaha 8/b plays extremely loose. People get enamored with their 4 cards and don't know the difference between 4 good cards and 4 cards that will only get you in trouble. There are two basic "rules" you should follow when deciding whether to play a hand or not:

1) 95% of profitable hands contain an ace in this game. If you don't have an ace you almost certainly shouldn't be playing. There are only 4 aces in the deck, can't tell you how many times I've seen 5-6 people involved in a pot

2) You should play like 5 through 9 don't exist. Look at your hand. Remove all cards 5-9. How does your hand look now? Your goal is to win the whole pot, not just half, and the more cards you have that are 5-9 the harder it is to ever win the whole pot.

I was therefore shocked at how often blinds got walks. These people knew what they were doing, this was not going to be 3-5 people in every pot. It was very refreshing playing at a table full of competent players.

OK back to the action...

Playing pot limit (PL) I look down at A-2-2-J with the A-2 of spades. Not a great starting hand with the pair of twos but still playable with the suited ace. Flop comes 3-4-4 with the 3 and 4 of spades. Other guy bets about 2/3 of pot, I call. Turn is an offsuit Q. He bets, I call again. River is 5s. Wow. This is what we call a "Steel Wheel". A "wheel" is the nickname for the best possible low hand, but I also have a straight flush to go with my best possible low hence the "steel wheel". You can't make a better hand in this game.

He bet, I raised, he called and dejectedly rolled over 3-4-X-X. He flopped a full house and I hit a one-outer.

This illustrates what I was saying about starting hand selection. By playing a 3-4-something, he was setting himself up to almost never win the whole pot. Most of the time a low hand will be possible. All I needed was any 5-6-7-8 on the turn or river to take half the pot. The only way he can make the best low hand, and a low will be possible most of the time, he specifically needed A-2 to come on the board, which likely would have given me the best high. He's playing a hand that the vast majority of the time will only win half the pot, and is more likely to lose the whole pot than win the whole pot in the long run.

OK I'm done talking about how to play now :-)

10,025 at the end of the third round.

Early in the 4th round I won a nice pot when I "quartered" someone with two pair and a "live deuce." I think I had something like A-2-J-X on a board of A-3-J-4-7, he had something like A-2-4-X. So my two pair was better than his, we both used A-2 from our hand and 3-4-7 from the board to make our low. I win the whole "high" half and we split the low half with the same low - he gets 1/4 of the pot, I get 3/4. Oops, I'm explaining the game again...

I think that one was "limit", 11,500 at the second break 4 hours in.

I hit a card dead stretch and get down to 10K, but then take another decent sized pot when playing PL someone raises into me and I look down at A-A-J-2 with one suit. That's a pretty monstrous hand, I bet pot he calls. Flop comes K-A-2. Pot with my top set, call. He went away on the Q turn when I bet pot. Usually that's a risky bet with the straight possible, but again these were competent players. I don't expect a lot of J-10 hands to call a reraise preflop at this table. Over 12k.

11650 end of the 5th level.

Next round I win a decent pot but give it all back when I get quartered. 3-handed pot, one person won the high, other two of us split the low. I was ahead for high until the river FWIW. But then not long before the next break I take out a short stack when I flop a full house. He was on tilt, I was small blind and he was big blind. I had A-3-T-X, I had bet pot making it 1050 and he only had 2050. He put some chips out then said "what the heck all-in". I would have let him :-) but someone at the table correctly said since he put out less than a call first he could only call. Flop came T-T-A, I tossed out a 1K chip...he actually tried to find a fold for a few seconds, tossed out his last chip and showed a 10 but no ace to go with it.

12,275 3rd break. This is going very well so far. Of course I would like more chips, would have like to have won a monster pot or two. But I'm good with steady building at this point.

Start of 7th level is the end of registration. By the end of the level we get a final count of 688, there are 420 remaining, we're paying 104 places. Top prize a mere $194,343. Making final table of 7 gets you at least $20,767, even 11th place pays 5 figures. 56th place doubles your buyin.

Alas that was a bad round for me. Card dead all the way through the level, not a lot of playable hands and missed about every one I played. Down to 9500.

Took another hit missing the board, then got quartered and suddenly I was down to 6K. Almost 8 hours of playing time and I believe that was the first time all tournament I was below starting stack (I won 2 of the first three hands to start the day). But came back a little when I hit a flush playing some of the worst aces you can play - A-A-6-T with a suit. Probably should be folded preflop, you're probably playing for half. But I got enamored with the aces and it worked out for me...

Later caught a full house on a turn to claw my way back up to 12K at the final break.

Two hours to get to Day 2.

I win a huge pot playing limit. Borderline A-4-J-X hand (hey, I was suited!!!), board runs out 4-J-5-X-4, he also had a four but had a low draw, called me on the end with trips and a missed low. 18K. My high point for the day! And we're down to about 75 minutes to bagging up...

Unfortunately it mostly went south for me after that. Every time I'd have an A-2 or A-3 to start I'd raise out and miss. 20 minutes later I'm down to 13K, 15 minutes after that I lose a big pot and I'm down to starting stack. Oof.

But in the final round I scratch and claw my way back up to 12K. I had played A-A-T-(low don't remember), which again isn't great but I had A-T hearts. Board ran out 9-8-J-9-7 with three hearts. This guy (same as the 4's full of Jacks hand above) was constantly floating and trying to steal pots on turn and river. I had bet my flush draw, straight draw on the flop, then check-called when he bet the turn and river on the paired board. Lose that pot and I'm down to 2K or so...but all he had was trip 9s and my flush was good on that scary board. Sometimes you just have to play the player...

Then as soon as the blinds pass me I hear some of my favorite words on any Day 1: "Dealers, complete the hand you are on and then deal 3 more hands".

To prevent stalling at the end of the day, when there is 10 minutes left they randomly pick a number of hands instead of actually playing the 10 minutes. You are going to play that number of hands no matter what so no point in stalling to get to Day 2. I can walk away from the table and make it to Day 2.

So naturally I look down at a good hand for the first of the three. A-3-4-X with a suited ace. I raise out, the blinds are the trip 4s/trip 9s guy who already paid me twice and another guy who always defended his blind. But they both looked like they wanted to get out of there intact and they both folded.

I fold the final two hands and I bag up 13,100. Been a little while since my last Day 2!!!

Saturday I will be in the Miranda Room, table 613, seat 4. I am 162 out of 244 players remaining, I will be the second shortest stack at my table. Table leader is at 36K, which is good for 46th overall. Tournament chip leader is at roughly 92K.

Hopefully I'll have some more good stories to tell tomorrow!!!