Playing Big Hands out of Position after the Flop in Heads Up PLO
Playing out of position in any game is all about figuring out how to control the action when you are at a big decision making disadvantage, when you have to act first. Poker is a game of decision making. If we are better at making decisions than our opponents we will win. Good decisions are made by maximizing the information our opponents offer us at the table. This information can come from betting patterns, tells, and player profiles. You have control over all of this information as long as you are paying attention. You can exploit all of these sources of information and the better you are, compared to your opponents, at exploiting these sources, the more you will win.
While you can control your decision making advantage in terms of information from betting patterns and the like, positional advantage is something over which you have little control since the button moves around the table. The person who gets to act last in a hand has an automatic advantage over his opponents since he is acting with the most information at each decision point during the hand. The person who acts last gets to not only see whether his opponent checks or bets before him but also gets to see his opponent’s demeanor when he acts. Out of position, you are acting in the dark. You don’t know what your opponent is going to do so the decision is more difficult. Learning how to control action when you are out of position and how to maximize your earn in this spot is the key to successfully playing heads up Omaha out of position.
Flopping Big Made Hands out of Position
They key to playing big hands out of position is understanding when the board texture is favorable to you and when it is not. Understanding the importance of board texture will allow you to maximize your profits with big hands and avoid situations that create difficult decision making. Let’s take an example of a hand like top set (or any set since we are playing heads up). When you have top set the key is to figure out how dangerous the board is to you. It is a very different proposition to flop top set on a board of K82 no suits than on a board of KJ8, two spades. On the first board, there is no texture, the cards on the flop are unrelated to each other so there is little danger to you. On the second board, the board is very badly textured. There are a lot of cards on the turn that will make you unhappy: Any A, Q, T, 9, 7 or spade is going to create an unhappy decision for you on either of the next two cards. One of those cards is a favorite to hit on the turn or the river.
Because of the difference in texture on these boards, the same top set needs to be played vastly differently. In the first case of the textured board, you want to stop the action. In the case of the untextured board you can play the hand more cagey to extract maxumim value.
In the case of the textured board, you want to win the hand right there. If you allow a bad card to come off on the turn, you might lose the hand to a suck out or, even worse, open yourself to a bluff. If a card like the Ts falls off, it is going to be very hard for you to continue in the hand if you face any bet from your opponent. Avoiding being bluffed is tantamount to winning play in heads up since bluffing frequency is much higher. So, on the first board, how do you stop the action? Well, this all depends on your opponents betting profile. If you are playing against an extremely aggressive opponent who you can always count on to take a shot at the pot when you check (especially if he has raised preflop) then checking is the play to stop the action. Check and let your aggressive opponent bet so you can check raise the whole pot. By check raising the whole pot only the strongest hands will call, hands like big wraps. Against the big hands you are going to get a ton of money in on the flop no matter what you do but against all the other smaller hands you will win the pot right there and not open yourself up to disaster on the next card.
Against a more passive opponent (especially if you raised preflop) leading out the whole pot will stop the action. If you can’t count on your opponent to bet, you can’t risk letting a free card fall off by going for the check raise. Against an unreliable opponent lead out the whole pot to stop the action. If he has a big hand, like a wrap, he will raise you and you will get a ton of money in the pot anyway. Otherwise he will fold and that is fine by you since there are so many disaster cards that can hit.
When the board is untextured, your goals are different. You don’t want to chase your opponent away, you want to suck him in. Against the aggressive opponent you have two choices: You can lead out small to induce a bluff from him or you can check with the intention of just calling to check the turn depending on the next card. It really depends on what kind of aggression your opponent has displayed up till that point. If you are against an opponent who bets a lot but does not raise on bluffs, an uncreative aggressive opponent, then you want to check. Even if your opponent checks back it is no big deal since he there is no card that you are unhappy about. If he had AA in his hand he would bet anyway, so you don’t even need to worry about the Ace. If he checks then on the turn you can check again if the turn brings another untextured card. I know very few opponents whoa re willing to check on the turn when their opponent has already check the flop and turn in front of them. So if the card dos nothing for the board you can go ahead and check to induce the bluff. If the card is more textured, say a suited Q or J you can go ahead and lead out small on the turn.
If you are against a super creative opponent who raises to bluff a lot, now you can lead out small, say half the pot. This lead out is one you will lose with a lot of weaker hands as well. You would make the same bet here heads up if you only flopped top pair alone, in fact. The lead out is meant to induce a bluff from you opponent and get him to raise you. This play is particularly potent if your opponent has not raised before the flop. If the hand was checked before the slop your bet will look like you are just trying to pick up against an opponent who has shown weakness.
Notice that by playing these hands correctly, you play becomes perceptually unpatterned to your opponent. When you flop a big made hand you sometimes check to call, you sometimes check to raise and you sometimes lead out. Your play depends on the profile of your opponent and the texture of the board but that is information your opponent will have difficulty processing. To him it will just look like you play sets randomly. You won’t need to “mix it up” because by playing properly you will already appear mixed up.
Playing Big Draws out of Position on the Flop
Let’s take the same KJ8 two spades board and give you a hand like QT9X two spades. Heads up this is a huge hand to flop. But at the same time you still have only Queen high. Because of this it creates an ideal poker situation where you are happy if you do and happy if you don’t. What I mean by this is that you are happy if you win the pot right there and happy if you get your money in as well. You are willing to gamble it but also willing to win the pot right there with Queen high. Because of this you play the hand the same way you play a set on a badly textured board. With a set on a poorly textured board you are also happy if you win right there, avoiding the bad cards on the turn, and you are happy if you get your money in the pot with the best hand as well.
So, against an aggressive opponent, particularly one who has raised preflop, you can check to check raise the whole pot on the flop when your opponent bets. When your opponent is unaggressive, particularly if he has not raised preflop, you can lead out. Notice that on these textured boards you end up playing sets the same way you do big draws. Again this creates the appearance of unpatterned play to your opponent.
Playing big hands in PLO when you are out of position is all about figured out when you want the action to stop and when you don’t. By properly profiling your opponent you will be able to accomplish this while, at the same time, creating the appearance that you are mixing up your play.
