In this example there are only three different cards Five or lower on the board, so it is actually quite straightforward to spot the nut low. As in the previous case, it is simply a case of identifying the other two cards, Five or lower. Here the nut low is Hand B, using 5-2 to complete a wheel, 5-4-3-2-A. The best possible high hand is referred to as “the nuts” and the best possible low hand is referred to as “the nut low ”. The nut low will naturally depend on the variant. For example in Omaha Hi/Lo the nut low is A,2,3,4,5 while in 2-7 Triple Draw the nut low is 2,3,4,5,7 How to Use Nut low as Part of Your Poker Strategy. In this PLO8 hand the caller flops top pair and the nut low and wonders if he should bet the river. Should we be scared of being quartered at this level? The main reason that players will admonish you over betting a nut low is quartering. For those new to the game, quartering is when two players split either the high or the low pot. Most often, the low side is the one that’s quartered.
An online poker pro had an embarrassing moment during one of his latest Twitch streams as he turned the nut straight and check-folded to a single bet.
Kevin Martin was streaming a $31.50 buy-in tournament on GGPoker last Friday and held 87 on a flop of 652. He was in the small blind and check-called a bet from his opponent under the gun and the 9 came on the turn.
“[That’s] not exactly the card I was looking looking for,” said Martin on stream as he checked again. “[I’ll] probably just have to fold.”
At first, one might think he was trolling the chat. But he hit the fold button after he was faced with another bet and tossed his hand away. You can see the clip in the tweet below.
Playing some really great poker lately! pic.twitter.com/XqgaDqsIB9
— Kevin Martin (@KevinRobMartin) October 16, 2020
In a follow-up tweet, Martin said that if it wasn’t for being mocked by the viewers after the delay caught up, he would have never realized that he folded the best possible hand.
“I really have no idea how I missed turning the stone nuts,” tweeted Martin. “This is the most embarrassing play possible.”
Martin recently signed a contract with GGPoker to become a sponsored player and streamer for the site. He had previously had stints representing both PokerStars and partypoker before temporarily retiring from streaming in September of 2019.
It’s a mistake that is made by even the game’s best. Just a little more than a year ago at the 2019 World Series of Poker,Phil Ivey folded a 7-low during a seven-card stud hi-lo hand at the final table of the $50,000 Poker Players Championship in a spot where it was impossible for his opponent to have made a low.
En route to the final table of the 2009 WSOP main event, Ivey also infamously mucked a winning flush at showdown.
Photo Credit: Twitter @KevinRobMartin
Nuts - The best possible holding given the situation.
When a player makes the best hand possible it is commonly referred to as “the nuts.” When a player makes the nuts, the term “nut” is often used as an adjective to describe the hand that was made. For example, if the unbeatable hand was a flush, that player would hold “the nut flush,” and if it were a straight, that player would hold “the nut straight.” In certain situations, a set can be the nuts.Holding the nuts is an enviable spot to be in, but it is important to recognize that all nut hands are not created equal. If you make a nut hand that nobody else can even tie, you have “the exclusive nuts.” An example of this would be if you were playing Hold’em and held A♣ J♣, and the board read T♣ 4♣ 3♣ Q♦ K♦. In this situation, your ace high flush would be the exclusive nuts, because you cannot be beaten or even tied, given the board. In the alternative, it is also possible to make the nuts in a non exclusive fashion, depending upon the layout of the cards. For example, if the board read T ♥ 4♥ 3♣ Q♦ K♦, instead of T♣ 4♣ 3♣ Q♦ K♦, you would still have made the nuts with A♣ J♣, which completes an Ace high straight. You still have the nuts, but you do not have the exclusive nuts, because any other ace-jack can tie your hand, resulting in a chopped pot. This happens relatively infrequently in Hold’em games, and the non-exclusive nuts is still a monster hand that you can raise and reraise with.
Poker Nut Lower
This is not necessarily the case for all nut hands in all poker games. If you play hi/lo split games, like Omaha Eight or Better (O8), you will have to take a different approach to low nut hands than you do with high nut hands. One reason for this is that Omaha High/Low players must use exactly two of their hole cards when they form their hands, but they each hold four hole cards yielding six possible combinations. This often leads to multiple players making the same nut low during the same hand. Since Omaha High/Low is a split pot game, when this occurs, all eligible nut low hands must share the low side of the pot equally. This means that each player who holds the nut low could realistically get only 1/4th, 1/6th, or even 1/8th of the pot, depending upon how many other players are also holding the nut low. As the fraction of the pot you are entitled to shrinks, so does the return on the money you’ve invested into the pot. When multiple players make the same low, the return on investment (ROI) can frequently be negative. This means that you can end up putting in more in bets than you receive in winnings at the conclusion of the hand, and so you lose money. When you cannot win the high side of the pot, and you have to share the low side with another player, it is called “getting quartered.”
Because the risk of getting quartered is so high in Omaha High/Low, you need to be careful about how aggressively you bet nut low hands, especially if you do not have much of a chance to win the high side. Costing yourself bets by overbetting or raising a nut low hand when you are getting quartered is a frequent rookie mistake, and making it is almost guaranteed to annoy the other person who has made the nut low. In many situations, the nut low is often weak enough in Omaha High/Llow that you should opt to check and call rather than bet or raise. In Pot Limit Omaha Eight or Better (PLO8) the dry nut low is often so weak that it should be mucked outright when facing a strong bet.
Usage: Nut Full House, Nut Straight, Nut Flush, Nuts On The Flop, Nut high, Nut Low
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