This weekend saw some matchups we haven’t seen before at the PLO tables, and the most notable one was that kingsofcards tok his roll from the hold’em tables to challenge the PLO regulars. Unfortunately for him, he was on the losing side of the 3 largest pots of the weekend, and the beneficiary in all the hands was Brian Townsend.
Kingsofcards flops a straight, but Townsend rivers a flush to take a $213K pot.
Townsend’s Aces hold up against kingsofcards straight draw in a $189K pot
Again Townsend’s Aces hold up. This time against kingsofcards pair which fails to improve. $169K pot.
It is very interesting to look at kingsofcards play on these three hands. In each of them, he holds a hand that can only be described as less than premium, but still he bets them preflop as though they were the holy nuts. Now, I am pretty sure that kingsofcards is aware that the hands are not very good, so I think it is safe to assume that there is something more to these plays than meets the eye.
In Omaha, you are never really that far behind before the flop. You are rarely more than a 2-1 underdog if all the money goes in before the flop. Of course, this is very rare with stacks this deep, and I have a feeling that kingsofcards strategy was to get a lot of money in before the flop, and then get out on the flop if he completely whiffed on it. This way, he can get his opponent to commit his chips, while he doesn’t necessarily have to. It is kind of like being able to move all in, but then taking half of your bet back if you don’t like the flop. I haven’t really seen this strategy before, and I may very well be mistaken, but it is the only explanation I can think of to explain his overly aggressive play with this kind of hands.
What is considered a whiff when you are so heavily invested before the flop, might be a bit different than when you keep the flop small before the flop. As you can see from the last of the three hands, bottom pair was enough to call all-in the continuation bet from Townsend. I am not sure about this strategy. It seems very counter intuitive, but it may have its merits. It certainly makes for a lot of action.
Like last week, I am hosting a bounty tournament at BETnGO.com this Thursday. The first one was a lot of fun, and we will have the same bonuses and added money as we did in the first one. Have a look in this forum post, to check out the details.
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