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Most Mondays I play in a pretty fun home game that is a $5/$10 Pot Limit game, dealer’s choice. Now, obviously, I am not playing for the money. The buy-in is only $300. I am playing because I really enjoy all the people in the game and it is just funfor me to be there. Sometimes, I like playing some friendly poker where the intensity level is taken down a few notches.
A couple of Mondays ago I was playing in the game and an interesting 5-card Stud High/Low hand, with a replace and declare, came up. Now, don’t worry, I am not going to try to teach you anything about this game. It is a gambling game that is actually very silly. It is so silly, in fact, that I almost always just fold so I don’t have to endure playing the game. No, the reason I am discussing this hand is not to get you to become an expert in this game. I am using it to illustrate why most people play split games so poorly. So, on to the important part of the hand …
I was showing 6-5-2 of hearts on 4th street (remember this is 5-card Stud). I happened to have a 7 in the hole (which is irrelevant to the hand). The second man in the pot, we’ll call him Carl, was showing 9-3-3. The third man, call him Gary, was showing 7-2-3. He has a 3 in the hole right now, which is relevant. On 4th street I bet the whole pot and Carl called. It was then up to Gary, who called. This is where the hand goes south for him because he is not getting anywhere close to the right price to call here. He knows his best result is half the pot (well, he was supposed to know this since Carl has to have 9-9-3-3 and I might have a flush or a great low). He knows he will have to pay to replace the 3 since he is paired. So he has to hit a good card on 5th street and a good card on the replace and hope that I hit bad on both 5th and the replace, if I even need it.
At the end of the hand (the result of which is also irrelevant), Gary got ribbed by Carl for calling on 4th street. Gary defended himself by announcing that he was getting 3 to 1 to call from the pot. Here is where he went terribly wrong and where players most commonly make a mistake in split games. He wasn’t getting anywhere near 3 to 1. (I am putting aside the fact that 3 to 1 would not have been enough to hit the parlay he needed anyway — him hitting good twice and me hitting bad twice — I am just concerned with his odds calculations on the pot right now.) First, he knew he was going to have to pay for the replace, which would cost him $80 more, so that need to be added into his calculations. That reduces his odds right there. And, with a 7 in his hand, he might just be drawing dead after 5th street to my hand anyway (I hit a 4, btw, so that looked like a possibility). But that aside, he forgot to consider that the pot was going to get split, so he would only be getting half. Therein lies the rub.
In a split pot game in which it is clear that there is both a high and a low, you need to split the pot in half before you calculate your odds. I actually did the calculation based on the fact that Carl was clearly going high and getting one half of the pot and that Gary was going to have to pay the 80 for the replace: Gary was getting 5 to 4 on his call. That’s right, he was getting only slightly better than even money to hit two good cards in a row and have me hit two bad cards in a row. That was possibly the worst call I have ever seen in that home game, getting 5 to 4 to hit a parlay.
The thing is, I see people drawing to flushes when the board is 8-6-2 with two hearts in Omaha 8 or Better all the time. I see players try to take top two pair all the way to the river on those kinds of flops as well. When you ask them about it, they say “Well, I was getting 3 to 1 on my flush draw from the pot.” Indeed, if that were true, the call would be a moneymaker with two cards to come; but they are forgetting to cut the pot in half since they are only drawing for half ... there is already a low out there. Once they do that, they are only getting 1.5 to 1 with two to come; and that is a losing call, my friends. With two to come, if there are no full house draws — and this is Omaha so there will be — the flush draw would be slightly over a 2 to 1 underdog. If I call, getting 1.5 to 1 on a 2 to 1 draw, I am going to be broke pretty quickly. In the case of top two pair, I have to take 1.5 to 1 that neither a flush nor a full house will hit, or a bigger two pair. Trust me; you are getting the worst of it there.
So remember, boys, the pot gets split in high/low games. Don’t forget to take that into account when you are calculating your pot odds.
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