It’s probably the most debated subject down here since I’m speaking about Pot Limit Omaha: Aces. Just like in Hold’em it still is the most exciting moment in poker after the cards are dealt: notice that you’ve received two shiny aces. Of course when you get what we call ‘rag aces’ there is not too much excitement and it’s very easy to play them, limp and try to flop top set. But all the other aces are a wonderful subject for a PLO-discussion.

The hand I will speak about here is Ah5hAd3c. Those are relatively good aces: you have the suited one and two connectors with your aces to make a (small) straight. So you’re definitely raising with this hand, look how it worked out:

Now this flop is no good for my hand: my flush and straight draw are dead now so I’m only playing my Aces till the river. The board pairs, which can be an advantage for Aces: you have Aces up and there’s a chance you’ll win the pot by leading out right there. However with the connecting 8 out there, there’s a small chance this will happen so I check. It’s checked around but the turn really kills any other moves I had in mind. The guy who flopped a boat bets pot and gets called by the guy who makes a straight flush^^. So remember: don’t overplay your Aces, preflop as well as after the flop.

Song of the day:

Kraftwerk - The Robots (The Man Machine, 1978)

Today I played some 3$ sit & go’s on Pokerstars. I’m playing there under the name of ‘RBuffaloQJ’ and you can further recognize me by my qofdiamonds-avatar (the beautiful face of the queen from the header of this blog, which is artwork of the figurative artist Annabel de Vetten), which is a nice feature that’s available on Pokerstars.

Altough this is helpful to recognize players you played against before, this is not the main reason to play tournaments in this cardroom. More important is the excellent blind structure that is used, which can only be matched by the one Full Tilt Poker uses. With the blinds going up much slower than on other sites, those rooms are better suited for the more advanced poker players, who don’t like the continuous pressure of being shortstacked.

I want to use this opportunity to discuss a typical tournament situation, which I experienced today. It was still early in the tournament and I woke up with 7s6s on the button with a lot of limpers in front of me. As this multi-pot was an excellent situation for my suited connectors, I limped too. Then the BB raised four times the BB and there still remained two callers in front of me. I decided I got the right price and also called. Subsequently the flop came as showed in the picture below and the BB made the same bet as preflop and the other players called towards me. I was a little bit confused and doubted whether to raise (to get some info on the BB: did he show weakness because his AK didn’t hit of was he slowplaying his overpair on this harmless flop) or check.

Checking seemed like the best option to me and as you saw a great card came for me on the turn. Now the BB suddenly made a way bigger bet and the other opponents folded. I decided for myself he had indeed an overpair (QQ,KK,AA) and was scared by this second spade with so many players involved. Meanwhile I had upgraded my hand with a flushdraw, gutshot straightdraw and my 6 and 7 were also still alive because my seven already paired. So I had exactly a 1 to 3 (18/46) chance to win this pot against his overpair. I decided not to call but to shove all-in and redirect the decision towards him (now I could win by my opponent folding right here as well as by hitting the river after a call).

He called and showed me indeed KK, but as you can see

a 6 came on the river and I made my two pair.

I enjoyed this double-up on the music of the historic Kraftwerk album The Man Machine from 1978. This album from the pioneers of the electronic music contains most of my favorite Kraftwerk songs, as you can deduct from my personal top-5 of this German heroes:

1. The Man Machine
2. The Model
3. Radio-activity
4. The Robots
5. Computer World