AA78ds

http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/14399680_3279A9B89F


Double suited aces are the strongest hand you can have in Omaha and it is only natural to raise with them in order to build a pot and so that you can rereraise if any of your opponents are foolish enough to reraise you. In live PLO games it is often more advisable to simply limp or flat your aces, because three betting is very uncommon and your opponents will be apt to put you on aces if you do take an aggressive action pre flop, but in this situation a raise seems like the best play. AA78ds is likely to flop well and it's important to start building a pot.  With 100 bbs we will be likely to four bet to a committing amount if someone reraises us.  A general rule of thumb is that if you can get 1/3rd of your stack in preflop with aces, you should, and then stack off after the flop.  But what if you can get in 27% of your stack?  Or if it goes 3, 4 or 5 way to the flop?  What then?  Should AAk6 no suit require a higher threshold of % of stack raised before you can safely commit to any flop, such as 40%?  and should AAJTds be reraised and stacked off with at a smaller % of your stack?  Or should it be reraised under any and all circumstances?  Unfortunately I am not three bet and we go three to the flop.

The flop is bad for me.  I have but a sole nut out, the ace of hearts.  Nut outs, and also the concept of good vs bad nut outs is important in omaha.  take the example of a board which is JhTh4s.  You are drawing to open ended with KcQc2c2s.  The As is a worse nut out than the Ad or Ac since you could end up more easily freerolled by the spade flush redraw. So I have a pair of aces, a weak non nut gutshot, and a backdoor flush draw.  Should I bet the flop?  Player 2 has shown weakness by checking, but he could easily be trying to check raise the preflop raiser, me, hoping that if I choose to check then Player 5 could take advantage of my presumed weakness and stab himself.  The jack and 9 are right in the play zone so this is the sort of flop my opponents could easily have.  As the player with the initiative my bet is always slightly suspect.  The situation is tenuous at best and it's difficult to find fault with a check.

After this I turn a set, Player 5 checks back the flop and Player 2 checks the turn. My opponents are showing weakness and my hand has significantly improved. It's possible someone could fold a low flush and if I am behind I will still improve somewhere around 22% of the time.  If either of my opponents have the nut flush or a high flush they would most likely have bet somewhere.  A king or queen high flush draw on the flop would usually also connect with the J9 in terms of a wrap, pair + straight draw, or two pair, unless the hand was massively disconnected.  And my opponents have been checking.  In poker you generally want to attack against weakness and bet when your opponents check, whether you are strong or weak.

If one of my opponents had called the turn, their most likely hand would be a flush.  Should I then try to bluff them on the river?  In general you want to try to bluff weak hands, not strong ones, so if they do call I should plan to check fold the river unless I fill up.  Then I should bet for value, around 1/3rd of the pot.