Shortstacking PLO100 - 3 hands

[Holgininho]

I am reading Rolf Slotboom's "Secrets of Professional PLO" at the moment and decided to try out his short-stack strategy. So I sat down at a full ring table without practising any seat selection. For about one and a half orbits I was card dead, and the table as a whole seemed rather passive. Lots of limping, no preflop raises.

Then I got dealt better cards - and some action. The following 3 hands happened within only a few minutes. All comments on my preflop play are appreciated. I don't know much about PLO starting hand selection, and unfortunately Slotboom's book doesn't really cover the subject in depth.

This was the first preflop since I had sat down. I liked my hand a lot nevertheless:

Cryptologic
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $0.50/$1
9 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is BB with
5 folds, CO raises to $3.5, 2 folds, Hero raises to $11, CO folds.
Uncalled bets: $7.5 returned to Hero.

Results:
Final pot: $7.5

I wasn't so sure about the 2nd hand. Actually I think I made a bad play. I'll include the results so that you can see the raising/pushing ranges of my opponent's (the winner of the hand is the one who raised and folded in the first hand):

Cryptologic
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $0.50/$1
10 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (10 players) Hero is Button with
UTG calls, 2 folds, MP1 raises to $5.5, 2 folds, CO calls, Hero raises all-in $23.35, 3 folds, MP1 raises to $83.55, CO calls all-in $34.5.
Uncalled bets: $49.05 returned to MP1.

Flop: ($27.3, 1 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $72.55)


Turn: ($27.3, 1 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $72.55)


River: ($27.3, 1 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $72.55)


Results:
Final pot: $27.3

Okay, the converter doesn't show the results. MP1 had and took down the pot with a pair of queens. The CO showed . Not quite what I had expected. I'm not sure how bad MP1's hand is though. He had more than 40% equity preflop, I was at 37 %.

Even heads-up against I would have had 41 % equity, against single suited aces I would have had 38 % equity. The numbers seem to indicate my play wasn't that bad after all.


The 3rd hand:

Cryptologic
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $0.50/$1
10 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (10 players) Hero is MP3 with
2 folds, UTG+2 calls, MP1 raises to $4.5, MP2 raises to $16, Hero raises all-in $20, 2 folds, SB raises all-in $39.65, 2 folds, MP1 calls, MP2 calls all-in $4.

Flop: ($45.3, 1 player + 3 all-in - Main pot: $82, Sidepot 2: $1.3)


Turn: ($45.3, 1 player + 3 all-in - Main pot: $82, Sidepot 2: $1.3)


River: ($45.3, 1 player + 3 all-in - Main pot: $82, Sidepot 2: $1.3)


Results:
Final pot: $45.3

I guess I should have folded preflop? Or is this hand strong enough/well suited to play against a possible higher pair? I don't think so. Against two hands like and my equity is only 29 %.

It seems my hand histories have just been deleted, so I can't provide my opponent's holdings in this hand, and I can't tell if any of the players were involved in the previous hand. I think at least one, maybe two of them are identical though.

Edit: After thinking about it a bit more I think I seriously butchered the last two hands, even the 2nd - can it really be my goal to get the money in with 40% equity against my opponent's calling range? After all I didn't know they wouldn't call that loose...

[clabbers]

Hand 3 is a nice ace cracker, I'm OK with call or raise all in, not much difference. Kings seem to love to call aces, but they are much weaker ace crackers than rundown hands.

[Willem]

You need an aggressive player to your left so you can limp-raise preflop or check-raise on the flop. By having perfect relative position, you can trap the entire field between the aggressor and you, allowing you to fold after having invested very little, or come over the top after many players have put in dead money in the pot. You want to create a situation where you invest $30 to win something like $120 or $150 so you don't have to win very often. I think all three hands should probably be folded, Rolf advocates a very tight style which consists of mostly folding. I think you need to be more patient and tighter.

A few other remarks:
- In hand 1, you are just re-raising one opponent who probably has a better hand than you have. Putting in almost 50% of the money while having less that 50% equity is just EV-.

- I don't like the fact that your hand in hand 2 has three hearts. You can only use two of them so you are essentially blocking yourself. Pretty much the same story as when you have AAAx, three aces look nice but the third ace only halves the chance of flopping top set.

- I don't like hand 3. You have no cold callers who are caught in the middle. Your hand is also completely rainbow. The moment you need to make a decision, you have a raise and a re-raise before you. Against one AAxx hand and one rundown hand, I think you'll never have more that 30% equity while putting in 33% of the money.( Equity) Clearly EV-.