A game which has seen wonderful growth in popularity recently is Double Board Bomb Pot PLO. The game is similar to PLO in that a player receives four hole cards (occasionally it is played with five), and uses two from their hand and three from the community board to make the best five-card poker hand.
The twists are, rather than one board, two boards come out, and the winner of each board receives half of the pot. Additionally, the game is played bomb pot style meaning every hand regardless of position puts in an ante, and the hand proceeds straight to both flops (there is no betting round preflop). So, in an eight-handed game with a $10 ante, the maximum opening wager (pot-limit) on the flop would be $80.
Like any split pot poker game, the object of this game is to scoop, which brings me to a hand I recently played at the Venetian.
I was in middle position with Q
Q
J J
, an exciting holding in this game that is capable of scooping a massive pot if the cards come favorably. The flops came down Q 9 5 and K
8 7, so I flopped top set on one board and a mid-pair with no draw on the other.
In this case, I want to play my hand very carefully since I am only currently playing for one board. If a player going for the other board happened to have a set or two pair with a heart draw, they would be a massive favorite over me since they could complete their flush and beat my Q-Q to scoop, a situation I certainly don’t want to put my stack at risk for.
As such, I checked, and it checked to villain no. 1 on the button, a very splashy player who wagered $50 with about $300 behind. Villain no. 2 called with about $900 behind, and I called having both of them covered. The pot was now $230.
The turns were quite favorable, with the 9 pairing the top board and the A coming on the bottom board.
Now I had the nut boat on the top board, and added a valuable gutshot straight draw on the other.
It is important to note that in bomb pot, every hand sees the flop, so no holding is out of a player’s range as is typical when preflop betting is involved. It is entirely possible somebody could hold 9-9, for instance, though my hand is obviously very big on one board and has some potential on the other.
Villain no. 2 checked, I checked, and villain no. 1 fired $200 with $100 behind. Villain no. 2 called with $700 behind, and now I had a decision to make.
The question is, what is the most profitable way to now play my hand? If I flat, what if villain no. 2 happens to hold 9-9 and have me beat? In this case there isn’t much I can do since I am not laying down a nut boat, and the pot would be large enough for him to jam all-in on river.
Now if I am ahead of villain no. 2 on only one board, the most likely scenario, I generally want him to fold since I will then be heads up against the button for the existing pot which has $630 now, $830 if I call, and would grow to $1,030 with his last $100 and my matching $100. (Note, if I do decide to jam and villain no. 2 elects to call, the main pot would have $1,130 and we would have $1,200 on the side.)
What kind of hands do I want villain no. 2 to call with? Well, I want him to call if I have him scooped for the whole side pot, and fold if he has the bottom board so that I can compete with just the button for both sides of the pot.
On the board of K 8 7 A I know I have three pure outs with the offsuit tens. I also have two strong cards in the offsuit queen or jack. (Additionally, if villain no. 2 were to fold a diamond draw, I may be able to add the Q and J as outs to scoop the presumably $1,030 in the middle if villain no. 1 doesn’t have diamonds.)
If villain no. 2 has a mediocre hand for that board that I could drive out, not doing so would be an error costing me potentially half the $1,130, or $515. And finally, if villain no. 2 happened to hold A-A or K-K, I would have three outs against him on that board and he would have one out against me on my queens full.
All things considered, I finally elected to jam all in. The button called off his last $100, and villain no. 2 shrugged and called as well.
Everyone tabled, and I was quite surprised and thrilled to see 9-6-5-4 from villain no. 1 and 10-9-5-3 from villain no. 2. They both held nines full of fives and were drawing dead to me on the top board, and somehow my Q-Q were ahead on the other!
I was in prime position to scoop a $2,330 pot with just one pair on one board, and for the side pot I was in even better shape as my opponent could only win with a jack or six, giving him six outs. If he missed, the button had four additional outs against me with three fours and one five.
As it played out, the river was the 10 on the top board, and the 6 on the bottom board, completing an open ender for villain no. 2, and him and I split. Nevertheless, this hand speaks to situational awareness, hand reading, and profit considerations in split game pot-limit poker.
Mark Mazmanian has been a mixed-game specialist for more than two decades playing in games all over the country. The Las Vegas resident can be reached on IG maztastic1 or by email at markmaz17hotmail.com.
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