First off, thanks to all of you for the very insightful comments on the first part of this Hot Hand post. I'd like to spend a minute discussing the comments and then move on to Part II of this same pot-limit Omaha hand. So it seems like the commenters are approximately evenly split on whether to check or bet here, given that I've got the nut straight on a board with two spades and no high cards. I think there are good arguments for both sides. The only suggestion that I could not see myself doing is betting something less than the whole pot. Those of you who have played pot-limit games with me in blogger tournaments before may have noticed that, in general, I tend to bet the entire pot most of the time I'm betting at all, so I'm not a huge fan of betting less than the pot anyways. But especially on a drawing flop, and with only 60 total chips in the pot right now, I'm going to have trouble keeping my opponent from drawing against my nut straight even if I bet the full pot, so betting less than that doesn't seem to serve any of the interests I might be trying to get at with my action on the flop. Drizz gives a very concise explanation for why he likes the check here -- basically, that there are almost more scare cards in the deck for my hand than there are good cards, so why put unnecessary money into the pot now when my opponent is likely to call anyways due to the small pot size at this point in the hand. Ryan, who is as much of a poker tournament expert as is ever likely to comment on any of my posts, has an excellent anlysis in his comment which basically explains his preference for checking because (i) my opponent is going to call the 60 full-pot bet with his drawing hands anyways, and (ii) my opponent is likely to try to bet with worse hands than mine, but not likely to call a bet from me with hands that are too much worse than mine, putting me in a bad situation.
It's hard to argue with Drizz's and Ryan's arguments for checking here, but that's just not how I roll. Most of the time, in a game like Omaha where the nuts rules and there are typically lots of draws out there, I prefer to bet the pot with my strong hands, pricing out whatever draws there are to the best of my ability. Although I'm very confident that as a rule my strategy of betting the pot with the nuts on any street in Omaha is a winning one, I think there is solid logic to adjusting that strategy when you can see that the pot is small and that therefore your opponent is likely to call your pot-sized bet anyways. But I tend to favor an approach of betting the pot to protect my nut hand on the flop, in particular with a drawing flop on the board, regardless of how early in the tournament I am. Remember, if this guy has no flush draw there he will probably fold, which is a great outcome for me given how vulnerable my hand is, so I went ahead and bet the pot for 60 chips. My opponent called. And the turn card falls: 
An offsuit King, now making me a higher straight (King-high) with my Q9 instead of the Jack-high straight I held on the flop with my 97. However, even though my straight is now a King-high instead of Jack-high, see how I am no longer the nuts on the board? Now, if my opponent happens to be holding AQ in his hand, he will have the nut broadway straight and have me dominated. Action is to me, and the pot has 180 chips.
What's the best play here? There are still no flushes or full houses possible on this board with just one card to come, so a straight remains the nut hand thus far here on the turn. But I now have the second-nuts, instead of the nuts that I had on the flop. So, do you bet here? How much? Or do you check? If you check, are you doing that so you can checkraise here with your second-nuts, or are you hoping to see a non-threatening river card and then make your move? How do you play it?
I'll be back shortly with the follow-up piece to this hand. I'll tell you right now -- somebody gets stacked.
1. I didn't get my comment up in time yesterday for Part I, but normally I would have played it the same as Drizz/Ryan, unless I had a read/info on that particular opponent that would lead me to feel differently about the situation.
However, at this point I want to get an idea of where I am at in the hand. If you check, chances are extremely good he will bet at the pot and that won't give you any information at all, so I believe that you have to bet out (~pot-sized) here to see how he responds.
This is a very interesting hand with a lot of variables:
- If you bet and he comes over the top of you, could you/would you lay this down?
- If he smooth-calls, is he slowplaying the AQ, or is he still on a flush draw? Or worse, does he have the AQ AND a flush draw?
- Again, he may have a similar hand to your own and is playing the straight too.
There are a lot of possibilities, but I'm inclined to put him on a fairly good hand here, probably because he limped into the hand UTG to begin with and is sticking around to see more cards. Also, if he had absolutely nothing it wouldn't make for such a good hand history.
Though I may be giving him too much credit, I'm putting him on either As,Qx,Xs,Xx, or two pair - likely JTXX.
So according to my logic, I'm guessing that he catches either the flush or the boat on the river and you get KO'd. I'm hoping that isn't what happened, but that is my guess.
Posted at 12:11PM on Oct 20th 2006 by Joanne Lutynec