$25/$50 Pot Limit Omaha is a BIG game.
But it’s even bigger when you’re up against a very tough, intelligent, and aggressive opponent, which sets the stage for today’s hand analysis.
First, an announcement.
Chris Wehner in a high stakes cash game
Chris Wehner is a high stakes Pot Limit Omaha professional who methodically grinded his way from the very bottom, $0.01/$0.02, to become a crusher at $25/$50. Over the last decade, Chris has studied poker “more or less every day” which has translated to an incredibly in-depth knowledge of PLO. As Chris likes to say, and as I’ve come to believe since I’ve started watching his PLO videos, “he has the answers.”
Dylan Weisman in the 25k PLO High Roller at the WSOP
Dylan Weisman has been playing poker professionally in some capacity since he was 16, when he started playing online to help support his family with his earnings. After taking a quasi-sabbatical from poker to focus on college and then a job in analytics and business intelligence, Dylan returned to the full-time grind in 2018. In the past 18 months, Dylan has grinded from $2/$4 to $10/$20 online, and he’s played in the largest live PLO cash games in Las Vegas.
Chris and Dylan have combined forces to create the Advanced PLO Mastery course, coming to Upswing Poker in early 2020.
Without further ado, onto the hand.
The game is $25/$50 heads-up Pot Limit Omaha.
Chris raises to $150 on the button with 9♣ 9♠ 8♣ 8♥ and mjparry calls in the big blind.
Preflop AnalysisStandard open-raise and size from Chris. He uses a mixed strategy on the button which includes about 70% raising, 20% limping, and 10% folding range (these are the theoretically optimal frequencies). 9988 with one suit falls squarely into the 70% of hands that will be raising.
The flop falls A♦ 8♠ 6♠ and mjparry checks. Chris bets $200 into $300 and mjparry calls.
Flop AnalysisIn single raised pots, Chris recommends using one bet size with your entire betting range, rather than splitting your betting range between multiple sizes (as a solver would). The specific size you should use depends on how dynamic the board is — the more dynamic the board, the larger you should bet and vice versa.
A-8-6 with two spades is a rather dynamic board, so a decent-sized bet of 66% pot is appropriate.
Chris dropped some serious knowledge when describing how to best build a betting range on this flop, so I’ll quote him directly:
So we want to be betting about half of our range when checked to here and some of those bets are very obvious. Hands like this, that are very near the top of our range, are going to be very high frequency bets regardless of their side cards.
But when we get more into the middle of our range, there’s going to be more mixing going on. If we look at some of our top pair combos, middle pair combos, straight draws, and flush draws, some of those hands are going to be mixing bet and check.
I think one good way to think about dictating our frequencies here is betting the ones that have more board interaction and checking the ones that have less board interaction.
So if we had a hand like top or middle pair with a spade, that is gonna lean much more towards betting and those same hand classes without a spade are going to lean more towards checking. Same thing with those hand classes having a 7, [which blocks a lot more straight draws].
Having that extra spade or that straight draw blocker is really going to generate a little bit more fold equity, which makes those bets that much more profitable.
This guy sure knows his four-card poker. Let’s take a turn.
The turn is the (A♦ 8♠ 6♠) K♠ and mjparry checks again. Chris fires a pot-sized bet of $700 and mjparry check-raises to $2,275. With around $22k behind, Chris makes the call.
Turn AnalysisOn this particular flush-completing turn, Chris recommends polarizing your range. Here’s what such a betting range would contain
What does it mean for a hand to retain robustness of equity? It means the hand maintains its equity on various run-outs versus the opponent’s continuing range. On this board, the prime candidates are sets, with top set being bet at a high frequency and middle/bottom set mixing bet and check.
When he check-raises, mjparry is representing the nut flush. Here’s what Chris had to say about this spot:
This is a good time to ask ourselves if any of the actions in this hand have led him to be discounted in the number of nut flushes versus nut flush blocker combinations he can have in his range.
And I think the answer to that question is “yes, one of those hand classes is going to be discounted.”
If we think back to the flop action, remember, we bet the flop. So we are going to have most or close to all of our nut flush combinations, but our opponent check-called the flop. Sure, he is going to check-call some of his nut flush combinations, but the majority of them are going to lean towards raising on the flop.
Chris goes onto say that running this spot in a solver confirms his expectation that mjparry should indeed be discounted in the number of nut flushes he has here versus nut flush blockers. Specifically, mjparry should have the nut flush blocker about 1.5 times more often than the nut flush going into the turn.
So this is a spot where mjparry has to be selective with which nut flush blockers he chooses to bluff. This is because if he check-raises all of them on the turn and follows through with all of them on the river, he will be bluffing far too often.
Going back to that robustness of equity concept for a moment, here’s another quote from Chris I want to share with you:
As this hand is playing out we see why there is so much emphasis on betting hands in position that have robustness of equity.
We much prefer to be in a situation like this where we have a set and if we are behind, we have some outs to the effective nuts. [Compare this] to having a hand like a middling flush, which is a pure bluff-catcher that can not catch up on the river.
With one out to the nuts and nine outs to the effective nuts, Chris has an easy call versus the check-raise. To the river!
The river 7♠ completes a board of A♦ 8♠ 6♠ K♠ 7♠. mjparry mashes the pot button, betting $5,250. Chris calls.
River AnalysisThe 7♠ may initially seem like a bad card. Sure, it didn’t pair the board and Chris still has a bluff-catcher, but its actually a good card in a couple of ways.
First, the 7♠ doesn’t change the number of nut flush blocker hands in mjparry’s range. At the same time, it does further discount the number of nut flushes in his range (A♠ 7♠ is no longer possible).
While this river is quite good for those reasons, Chris should still fold the river with some bluff-catchers and call with others. A set is near the bottom of his range and, according to the solver, basically all sets should fold on this river with flushes making up the bulk of the calling range.
But Chris decided to make an exploitative adjustment here. Here’s one last quote with his explanation:
Against an opponent like this who is very tough and also very aggressive, I think it is possible to consider exploitative adjustment.
When we look at the number of nut flushes vs. nut flush blockers on the turn, as we’ve described, in combination with this additional spade blocker on the river and [the spade blocker in our hand]…I think it’s reasonable to consider a call here.
And call he does.
mjparry shows A♠ Q♣ 6♦ 4♦ and Chris scoops the $15.7k pot.
There’s a lot to learn from this hand and Chris’ in-depth analysis. If you want to make sure you absorbed it all, re-read this article or re-watch the video.
Keep an eye out for more PLO content from Chris and Dylan as we approach the launch of their Advanced PLO Mastery course in early 2020.
(If you’re already an Upswing PLO member, check the private PLO Facebook group for some exclusive content from Dylan and Chris.)
Any questions? Drop a comment below and one of the guys will get back to you with an answer.
If you want to learn more, check out Dylan’s video/article 5 Preflop Mistakes You Are Probably Making in Pot Limit Omaha.
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