POTD #129 Triton Jeju $100k PLO. I River the Nuts

How did I make such a big mistake?

A common theme in POTD has been me misplaying draws. I raise when I should call and I call when I should raise. Sometimes my draw is so strong I need to trap, and sometimes it is so strong I need to get money in immediately. It follows that I would have trouble playing PLO, a game where you always have a draw of sorts, and to quote Euro Rounders, every all-in is always 48/52. In NLHE, the types of draws and backdoors you can have are limited and easy to see; in PLO, that is not the case. Your four cards can give you two flush draws, wraps, backdoor wraps, running fullhouse outs, and so on. Every specific combo has different properties that and being aware of all of them is a key to playing well.

In many ways, PLO and other games that have more gambling (which is to say all-in equities run closer than they do in NLHE) seem easier, because what’s the worst that could happen? You get all-in and you hit your flush draw or a sneaky two pair or something else you didn’t even consider and win the hand. However, high variance games are also more technical and can lead to much larger blunders. You think you can call a pot-sized turn shove, but you actually have 30% equity instead of 33.33% equity, and you’ve suddenly made a mistake bigger than calling a river shove in NLHE with fourth pair. In today’s hand, I look at a hand where I flopped a very big draw that turns into a mediocre draw and I don’t know what to do. Then I make my hand, and like Maria Konnikova in POTD #47, I outthink myself when a four-straight fills on the river, Maria likely won the maximum, but I ended up costing myself a massive pot.

HH: Triton App

Triton Jeju 2025 $100K PLO Main Event Event #16

(SB/BB/BBA) (1k/2.5k/2.5k) 200K Starting Stack. Registration is Open

It folds to Li Tong (301k) who calls in the CO, it folds to me in the SB who makes it 10k with A♥️4♥️J♣️T♠️, Alex Foxen (302k) calls in the BB, Tong calls.

Flop (33k) Q♥️9♥️6♣️: I bet 24k, Foxen folds, Tong calls

Turn (81k) 5♣️: I check, he checks

River (81k) 8♠️: I check he checks and shows me K♠️Q♣️T♥️7♠️

What I Was Thinking

Preflop, I thought all AJT combos with a nut suit, but not three or four to a suit, were a pure raise over a CO limp, but especially so vs. someone who is probably not limp/raising enough. Generally, king and queen high boards favour limpers because they will often limp bad KK and QQ, but I figured I was not supposed to check range three ways, and my hand, a big draw with no pair, would be a pretty good one to start betting. The turn is quite bad for me; not only does 87 fill, but many of his one- and two-pair hands would have picked up flush and straight draws and become unfoldable. I determined my hand was too weak to pot/call, so I decided to check and hope to get a free river.

On the river, I thought that my range doesn’t look like one that has that many straights. Li Tong should bet any straight himself, and I want to give myself the opportunity to win more than the pot, so I checked. Li checked back not just any straight, but the second nuts, and tabled his hand to let me know just how big a checkback he made.

What I Got Wrong

Preflop is good, especially when I have Ah4h; I still have straight flush potential, but it’s also more likely I flush over flush someone else’s jack- or ten-high flushes. On the flop, I stand by my initial assessment that I should frequently check the flop with range, but not with this hand. Checking the nut flush draw with any gutshot seems reasonable, but with an open ender, it’s just too strong.

On the turn, I still am unsure about what to do. It’s possible my real mistake here was betting the wrong size on the flop, such that it would set me up with an awkward stack-to-pot ratio on a lot of different turns. Ideally, I want a turn where I can keep barreling and pile the money, and it’s unclear if this turn is so ugly that I can’t get my last 160% pot all-in. But I lean towards betting, because generally on boards this connected, if I check and face a bet it will mostly be pot-sized and I might need to fold a lot of equity, so it’s better to bet myself, try to fold out some hands and guarantee I see a river.

However, my biggest mistake of the hand by far is my river check. This is not like a spot where I have the nuts in NLHE and 4x pot to play and want to check to give myself a chance to stack my opponent. Yes, it’s a pot-limit game, and if I bet pot, I will not be raised by number two and cannot get a full double up, but I can still get 60% of my stack all-in on the river. If I check and he bets and I shove, it’s not a guarantee he will call. I also do not have a single pair in my hand, which means if he wants to hero call me with two pair or a set, he has a full array of potential hands to call with, but if I check, he’s much more likely to have a set or two pair that takes the free showdown. I would never have expected him to check back a ten-high straight on the river; if I did and I checked anyways, I should self-exclude myself from playing poker for real money. However, I could have expected him to check back a nine-high straight. My river check is bad in theory and bad vs. my opponent.

Types of Error

Trapped too much

Grade

In today’s introduction, I wrote about how PLO is a technical game where all four of your cards tell a story that leads you to the best way to play a hand, but poker is also a human game. PLO is a more technical game, but it’s harder to solve and played by fewer people than NLHE, which means when you are playing even the highest stakes PLO tournaments, you will run into a variety of different play styles. In today’s hand, my preflop and flop play are sound, my turn play is fine, and my river play might be good in theory, but it is not good vs. someone who will check a nine-high straight, and it’s a disaster vs. someone who will check a ten-high straight.

D+