Huge Poker Pot At Casino
Macau Poker Pot Reportedly hits $13.8 Million. Hall wrote the following about the big play: Biggest hand I ever saw and arguably the craziest was a guy betting HK$28m (US$3.6) on the river into a HK$51m (US$6.55) pot with a gutshot straight draw against what turned out to be top set. He was down over HK$100m (US$12.8) at the time and hit it. The mother of all poker battles: Mike Matusow vs Phil Hellmuth - Highlights - Duration. HUGE €350,000 Pot - The BIG GAME - Duration: 25:05. VIP-Grinders.com 19,320 views.
A brand-new event on the 2016 World Series of Poker schedule is Event #53: Mixed Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low/Omaha Hi-Low/Big O, set to begin this afternoon at 3 p.m.
That last part of the event's name is a bit of a surprise, actually. Despite being a popular cash game variant at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino the last few summers, 'Big O' has never been featured in any bracelet event until now.
Big O is a version of pot-limit Omaha Hi-Low in which players are dealt five cards instead of four. As in PLO8 (and other Omaha games), players use two hole cards and three board cards to make a five-card hand.
With such a niche game, there's very little material out there, so it's possible there's a big edge to be had in this tournament.
One man with considerable PLO knowledge is John Beauprez, founder and head instructor of PLOQuickPro.com, a training site dedicated entirely to PLO coaching. Beauprez has also had plenty of success at the WSOP, having won a bracelet in 2013 in a $1,500 NLHE six-handed event for $324,764.
He agreed to share some thoughts with us regarding Big O strategy in advance of the WSOP running an event with it for the first time.
PokerNews: Tell us about your history playing Big O.
John Beauprez: Up until a couple of years ago, I didn't have any. I play a home game back in Colorado, and they all give me a hard time because I didn't even know what a low was 18 months ago. But, it's a good home game and the Big O action is good out here in the summers.
It's important for people to learn how to play. You'd be surprised how it can help your other games, whether you're a PLO player or NLHE. It's just a different way to look at poker and look at board textures and analyze opponents.
So most of your Big O experience is playing cash?
It's all cash.
For a player used to regular PLO or PLO8, what's the No. 1 adjustment to Big O?
It's super-important if you're going to play a big pot to have a draw to both sides. One of the most common mistakes I see people play is drawing huge to one side of the pot. If people are deep-stacked and have just the nut-low draw, they'll play it way too fast. They have a good draw but it's to only half of the pot. You really have to have a hand that draws both ways.
How can a player exploit a mistake like that?
I think the best players are really good at picking up when other people are weak to one side. They can use their nuttiness on one side of the pot to semi-bluff [out players on the other side].
How does having five cards versus four change the calculus of starting hands? Do you need three wheel cards to start (instead of two)?
Yeah, ace-deuce is still a really powerful combination, but you really want ace-deuce with another wheel card if you put in a lot of money preflop. The fifth card adds a lot more combinations. You're going to run into another ace-deuce hand pretty frequently, so it's really important to have ace-deuce with another low card. You have to play ace-deuce definitely a lot slower in Big O than you do in PLO8.
And to be clear, you still need ace-deuce or ace-three in your hand most of the time, especially in early position?
I would say so.
How important is it going to be that a player who enters this is competent in Big O?
It's huge. It's going to be a lot of the tournament, so it's an extra edge. The guy who just won the PLO/NLHE combo tournament is a good friend of mine, Loren Klein. [In that event, it was] a huge advantage for him because he's great at both games.
No matter how good you are at one game.. those tournaments where games are combined it's going to be a huge edge if you can at least hold your own in all of the games. You don't have to be Phil Ivey in all of the games, but if you can hold your own in all of them, it's going to go a long way for you.
And you would expect the Big O sections of the tournament to be the juiciest since it's the new game on the block, right?
Definitely. Big O and PLO8 games are legendary for being soft, so it's invaluable to be able to hold your own in those games.
Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!
Tags
tournament strategyBig Opot-limit OmahaPLO8WSOPWorld Series of Poker2016 World Series of Poker2016 WSOPJohn BeauprezLoren KleinRelated Tournaments
World Series of PokerRelated Players
John BeauprezLoren Klein
It might seem obvious — when you have strong hands, you want to play big pots. Meanwhile when you have medium or weak hands, you don't want to be risking significant portions of your stack. For most players, the latter is easier than the former.
With bad hands, they more often than not will take passive lines, checking and/or folding, or perhaps calling if their hand has some potential for improvement. They aren't being active by betting or raising, and so they allow opponents to dictate how big the pot is going to be — and if the pot gets bigger than they like, they get out.
There are times, of course, when players will bluff with bad hands, in which case they necessarily will be more active by betting, raising, or reraising. In those cases, they do have to decide how to size bets most effectively in order to elicit the folds they desire.
However, let's focus for now on those instances when you have a strong hand and want to build a big pot — those hands where you want your opponents to call, not fold. How you size bets on early streets (preflop, flop) will very often have a lot to do with how big the pot is going to be on later streets (turn, river).
The 'Stack-to-Pot' Ratio (SPR)
The connection between early betting and ultimate pot size eludes some players. They either bet too small early with big hands ('slow playing') and find themselves on the river trying to make a small pot into a big one, or they 'fast play' their hands and bet too big too soon, scaring away opponents and only winning small pots with strong holdings.
One way to help with this problem is to try to remain aware of the 'stack-to-pot' ratio throughout the hand. 'SPR' is a concept that has been explored and explained by others, mostly with reference to cash games (in particular, deep-stacked cash games), although it's an idea that has relevance to tournaments as well. (An early, thorough discussion of SPR can be found in Professional No-Limit Hold'em: Volume I by Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta, and Ed Miller.)
Let's imagine a relatively uncomplicated scenario in which you want to build a big pot with a big hand. It's a $1/$2 cash game, a player opens for $6 from late position, and you call from the small blind holding . The flop then comes , giving you the set of fives you were hoping to hit.
Let's also say in this hand that for whatever reason you know unequivocally that your opponent has pocket aces or pocket kings — that is, an overpair to this harmless-looking board — and so almost certainly is going to call any bet you make. Even though checking and letting our opponent bet in this spot is probably a good way to play a hidden monster like our flopped set, we're going to lead with bets postflop in order to illustrate a point about SPR.
There is $14 in the pot, your opponent has $210 behind, and you have a little more. That means the 'effective stacks' here are $210, since that's the most you can win. That makes the 'SPR' or stack-to-pot ratio exactly 15 (or 210 divided by 14).
The Always Fruits slot machine is a classic one-armed bandit developed by Amatic. It has 5 reels. There are no traditional paylines in the slot. The maximum possible payout for a spin is 2,500 credits. The gameplay includes a wild multiplier and free spins. The winnings can be doubled in a risk game. Play free Fruit Machine Games Online at SlotsUp.com. The fruit-themed free casino slots are available to play for fun from the SlotsUp list below or for real money in one of the casinos carefully chosen for you by our team. All the newest fruit slots are immediately listed below and you can be the first to play them. Fruit Slots – Themed Collection Game Machines ᐈ Play Free. Slot machines with fruits on the reels are known to most players. This is one of the oldest and most widespread genres. Almost every developer has fruit video slots in its game portfolio. These games are so popular due to their simplicity and wide opportunities for winning. All fruits slot machine free games.
If you make a small bet of $5 on the flop and your opponent calls, that will bring the pot up to $24 while reducing the effective stacks to $205. The new SPR is just over 8.5.
Say you bet $10 on the turn and your opponent calls. That makes the pot $44 and the effective stacks $195. The SPR becomes a little less than 4.5.
Then on the river you bet $25 and get called again. Ultimately you win a pot of $94 (to which you contributed about half), although your opponent who had his big pocket pair cracked managed to escape relatively unharmed with $170 still in his stack.
The less-than-half-pot bets on the flop and turn kept the SPR high enough that by the river the effective stacks were still relatively big compared to the size of the pot. In such a scenario, it would be preferable to get the SPR down low enough by the river to encourage your opponent to call a much bigger bet — perhaps even an all-in shove. Bigger bets on the flop and turn make this happen.
Go back to that flop and the $14 pot. Say you bet $12 and your opponent calls. The pot is $38, the effective stacks $198, and the SPR about 5.2. Then you bet $35 on the turn and get called again. Now the pot is $108, the effective stacks $163, and the SPR now right about 1.5.
An all-in shove on this river is still a big bet (1.5 times the pot), but not nearly as out of whack as it would be when the SPR at that point was about 4.5.
In the latter case, you made what were close to pot-sized bets on the flop and turn, which quickly got the SPR down from 15 to 1.5 before the river. Getting that SPR low by the river goes a long way towards getting a big bet called on the end in those situations when you want to get paid with a big hand.
The '13-4-1' Formula for SPR
Understanding SPR is important in all 'big bet' games. It's especially good to know in pot-limit Omaha where you can't push all in on the river, but can only bet the size of the pot. In other words, in PLO if you're heads-up and you want to stack your opponent, you have to get the SPR down to 1 or below by the river.
A handy formula to remember is that if you're heads-up and the stack-to-pot ratio is 13 going to the flop, you and your opponent can each make exactly three pot-sized bets, or one per postflop street. For example..
- After the flop: pot $10, effective stacks $130 (SPR = 13)
- On flop: you bet $10, opponent calls; pot $30, effective stacks $120 (SPR = 4)
- On turn: you bet $30, opponent calls; pot $90, effective stacks $90 (SPR = 1)
In our hand example above, the SPR was about 15 going to the flop, which meant pot-sized bets would've gotten the SPR down to almost 1 by the river. Knowing that the SPR was not that much more than 13, you know, then, that making big bets close to the size of the pot on the flop and turn can better set up that river shove.
Casino Poker Games
By the same token, if you get to the flop with a single opponent and the effective stack sizes already make the SPR less than 13, you know that there aren't enough chips left behind to make three pot-sized bets. And if the SPR is around 4, you know there are only two pot-sized bets left to go.
Jul 06, 2009 Kongregate free online game Texas Hold 'Em Poker: Heads Up - Improve your poker game! Play no-limit Texas Hold 'em poker in a 3D first-person perspective a. Play Texas Hold 'Em. Texas holdem free online 1v1. Texas Holdem Poker, free online casino games, tournament and other casual games online: Play at Pogo.com. No Limit Texas Hold 'em is a card game for up to four players. The object of No Limit Texas Hold 'em is to have the highest ranking hand at the end of several betting rounds.
There are many other important strategic points to make about SPR, including important ones about the danger of bloating pots with vulnerable hands (e.g., top pair) when deep-stacked. In any case, in those situations when you have a big hand and want to play a big pot, pay attention to the sizing of your preflop and flop bets, remaining aware of how they affect betting options on later streets.
Casino Poker Video
Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!
Online Casino Poker
Tags
cash game strategytournament strategyno-limit hold’embet-sizingpot-limit Omahapreflop strategypostflop strategy