WCOOP Event 11: $320 PLO8

PLO8 is one of my favorite poker games, and it’s also one of the toughest to find played for meaningful stakes, so I was pretty stoked for this event. I did in fact have a good time, even though it ended in disappointment. Early on I was pretty tight passive, limping into pots when I got involved at all. PLO8 is a tough game to play out of position, so i didn’t want to bloat pots, and I also felt people were going to make their biggest mistakes post-flop. I chipped up a bit like this, then went up and down for a while in the second and third hours.

One key hand gave me some chips to work with:

Poker Stars
Pot Limit Omaha Tournament
Blinds: t75/t150
8 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: t5250
UTG+1: t3825
MP1: t8670
MP2: t14616
CO: t2525
Button: t9246
SB: t4035
Hero: t4745

Pre-flop: (8 players) Hero is BB with :2c :9c :kh :ah
UTG raises to t450, 2 folds, MP2 calls t450 (pot was t675), 3 folds, Hero calls t300 (pot was t1125).

Flop: :5h :5d :4h (t1425, 3 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets t1100, MP2 calls t1100 (pot was t2525), Hero raises all-in t4295, 2 folds.
Uncalled bets: t3195 returned to Hero.

Results:
Final pot: t4725

I was pretty sure UTG had AA, because that’s about all most people will raise UTG. I didn’t know if he would fold to a shove or not, but it didn’t really matter. As long as he didn’t have AA2x, I would be in OK shape. Scooping with no showdown was pretty sweet.

About four and a half hours into the tournament, I’d gone card dead and blinds were getting big. I picked up Aces in a great spot, but it didn’t end well:

Poker Stars
Pot Limit Omaha Tournament
Blinds: t250/t500
9 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: t8137
UTG+1: t14289
MP1: t8950
MP2: t11764
MP3: t22400
Hero: t9381
Button: t12625
SB: t8978
BB: t9928

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is CO with :6s :jh :ah :as
2 folds, MP1 raises to t1750, MP2 calls t1750 (pot was t2500), MP3 folds, Hero raises to t7750, 4 folds, MP2 raises all-in t11764, Hero calls all-in t1631.
Uncalled bets: t2383 returned to MP2.

Flop: :4c :kc :2c (t-4381, 0 player + 2 all-in – Main pot: t21262)

Turn: :9h (t-4381, 0 player + 2 all-in – Main pot: t21262)

River: :2d (t-4381, 0 player + 2 all-in – Main pot: t21262)

Results:
Final pot: t-4381

The guy who called me with Ax 8h 5h 2x and rivered the scoop was none other than WSOP champion Joe Hachem! I was thinking it was kind of a questionable call, but when I ran his equity against any Aces, which is probably what my range is, he’s only a 60/40 dog. Even if you give me one low card, it only improves to 63/37. In related news, Pro Poker Tools is an amazing free resource that enables you to run simulations like this.