Thus far in the series we have concentrated almost exclusively on hand selection and pre-flop play which are crucial to success in Double Board. Many hands go to showdown in Double Board thus hand values dominate. However, as in all poker games, making bad decisions after the flop will negate your advantage from playing better than your opponents on the first betting round.
Sometimes it’s a matter of avoiding the big mistakes that are prevalent in multi-way pots. The most common mistake is drawing to half the pot with a draw that will not make the nuts. If you have nothing on one board and just a Queen-high flush draw on the other, you need to muck your hand when several others are contesting the pot. Other times you may have to fold a made medium flush when other players are going to war. Good players will also fold small sets when they have no potential on the other board although most of this is avoided by not playing hands with small pairs to begin with.
Adhering to split pot fundamentals is important. If we have a lock on one board and virtually no chance to win the other it usually pays to keep other players in the pot.
Suppose you hold K
Q
T
9 and have Kings full of queens on the 1st board and the 2nd board is A
45. Keeping the pot multi-way is probably in your best interest. If instead the second board is something like 558, then raising a bet may be the optimal play. In this situation, someone may be leading out with trip Kings on the 1st board and/or a draw on the 2nd board in which case we can possibly scoop by pairing. It’s also noteworthy that on the 2nd board we hold a three straight which will sometimes come in allowing us to beat trip fives.
Sometimes we may have a pretty good hand on both boards and miss an opportunity to get the pot heads-up which would increase the odds to scoop or at least salvage half. This can be risky but will generally increase your expectation in the long run.
Heads-up pots often tend to play themselves particularly when you are playing solid starting hands containing high cards and suits. We are often going to have either made hands or strong draws where we can keep our foot on the gas pedal in an attempt to deny equity.
While the main goal of the game is to scoop, sometimes in a particular hand we are unfortunately reduced to mostly hoping to split. When a pot is re-raised we are often forced to continue on with good average equity on just one board due to all of the money in the middle. Of course, if there was only one raise and thus not as much in the pot we should not get too showdown bound with weak holdings.
Let’s take a look at a few sample hands that illustrate a few of the principles discussed above as well as reinforce previously discussed concepts on pre-flop play.
Hand #1
The action folds to hero on the button who opens with the AQJ4 and is met by a re-raise from the player in the small blind.
Hero calls and the boards come down as:
9 7 2
6 Q 3
Villain bets and hero calls. In this example, we will assume that villain is three-betting approximately the top 15% of his holdings. Some will re-raise lighter than this and others may only re-raise with AA or KK. Encountering players that only re-raise with big pairs may be somewhat rare but should not be completely discounted.
Against a 15% range, hero has approximately 24% equity on the first board and around 56% on the second for an average of 40%. Overall our situation is not great but we cannot fold due to the fact that there are four big bets in the pot after villain wagers the flop. Throughout the series we have stressed the importance of scooping and our opponent is around twice as likely to scoop us as we are to scoop him but we just have too much equity on the second board to consider folding.
On the first board some players may be surprised that our equity is as high as it is. In Omaha, equities can be surprising and in addition to possible pair outs we have some backdoor straight and flush potential. Being suited at least once is very important, without back door spade potential our equity on the first board is only around 21% while the second board equity drops to 54%. Details like this add up especially in unsavory situations where we have to call down but expect our opponent has a scooping advantage.
In general, we are going to simply be a caller in these spots on the flop and turn as AA and KK have us in quite bad shape and are never folding. There are definitely some turn situations that we can raise, such as when we improve on the second board to two pair and also pick up a draw (or at least a pair) up top.
While in this example we are going to show down our holding on the vast majority of run-outs, our hand can probably safely hit the muck when the turn develops as follows:
9 7 2 7
6 Q 3 K
We did not improve at all on the first board and the King on the turn on the second board while giving us a gut-shot draw may have easily paired the villain. Against a 15% percentile we now have 15% and 36% equity respectively for an average of around 26%.
It is true that we are getting 5.5 to 1 odds on our turn call but it will often cost us two bets to see the hand through for effective odds closer to 3 to 1. In addition, our opponent is not always going to fire the turn when he has little hand. When his range is stronger than the top 15% and he’s in auto-bet mode, we are in really bad shape.
Hand #2
In a six-handed game, the under-the-gun player opens and hero re-raises one seat over with KKT9. While this pair of Kings lacks a suit the T9 combination adds much value to the holding. The action folds around to the button who cold-caps and everyone calls. Given this strong action from the button we should have a healthy concern of being up against aces.
The boards come down as:
7 5 J
4 7 2
The action checks around on the flop, therefore mostly alleviating the fear of the button having Aces as he almost surely would have bet. It is thus somewhat likely the button has four high cards with no pair and no draw. The turns are as follows:
7 5 J Q
4 7 2 9
On the turn, the initial opener leads out and the action is on hero who has an easy raise. While it’s true the bettor is uncapped here and can have a very strong hand that whiffed on a flop check-raise, raising is very important to put pressure on the player behind us. On this turn, the button will be hard pressed to have a hand that he can continue with other than possibly a strong draw up top along with possibly a pair of nines on the bottom.
The bettor can have a plethora of different hands. He can have many different draws, as well as possibly AA, QQ, or QJ in the hole. We fare terribly against AA as we are behind on both boards and on the top board most of our straight outs are busy. However, since it’s highly likely the button has an Ace given his pre-flop re-raise, the odds are stacked against the turn bettor holding AA. Meanwhile, with an overpair on both boards in addition to a straight draw on top as well as a pair of nines on the bottom the turn raise is the clear course of action for us.
Both players called the turn raise and hero ended up scooping when both boards bricked on the end. The turn bettor had AQT3 and the button held AKQT.
If the Ace was suited the AQT3 [PPT ranking 22] would be a fine UTG open but as constructed it is probably only playable from the cut-off. The turn lead is okay, hero’s hand is undefined but button’s hand cannot be super strong. It definitely helps his cause that he at least has a gut-shot straight draw on the second board.
The button holding AKQT made a few errors in the hand; the first being not sending his hand into the muck before the flop. It may seem strange to fold such a seemingly strong hand in position, however, when two early position players have raised and re-raised it is best to just get out. Against a top 20% and a top 10% hand the equities are as follows:
AKQT: 27% equity
20% Hand: 34%
10% hand: 39%
With position in a three-way pot, this situation is not completely awful. However, the re-raiser can have Aces in which the corresponding equities would be as follows:
AKQT: 20%
20% Hand: 28%
AA**: 52%
Amongst the actual hands that were out the equities were:
AKQT: 17%
AQT3: 23%
KKT9: 60%
Now if the button was double-suited his hand would definitely be playable:
AKQT: 25%
AQT3: 21%
KKT9: 54%
AKQT is a holding we should never consider folding no matter what action occurred before it was our time to act. In this theoretical matchup, it is unlucky that all of its pair outs are dead and more or less relying on its flush and straight draws. Still, it has 25% equity three-ways along with position and implied odds.
The main takeaway here is we should not overvalue mediocre four Broadway cards in the face of too much action. AKQT just loses too much of its value when either Aces or Kings are out. Being suited to the ace is very important. Many players will cold-call weaker hands such as AKQ6 and this is a huge leak.
On the turn, folding the AKQT was definitely the best play as the button had absolutely nothing on the second board. And on the first board while he had a pair plus a broad-way wrap, the value of such holdings is severely diminished with two flush draws on board. In this game, you cannot be calling turn raises on a mediocre draw to possibly win half of the pot. On the turn the equities were as follows:
Limit Omaha Double Board is a really interesting game to play because with two boards one must become very adept at recognizing the value of your holding and making the best decisions. It is certainly helpful after a session to review the choices that you made and the equities at various points in the hand which will help fine tune your decision making in future hands.
