A donkey gets rewarded

Yeah, it happens. A bad player makes a bad play with bad cards and somehow manages to get his hand to hold up and win a pot. While this is very frustrating, that is the kind of play you want to run into as it will never succeed in the long run. It stings a bit more in tournaments than it does in cash games. I was in a omaha 8/b tournament at my local casino. It was a small tournament and we had just gotten down to the final table. I was on a good run and had even made the steel wheel (a 5 high straight flush) to scoop a big pot earlier. I get involved in a big pot with a very aggressive player where I flopped top set and he turned a straight. I lost a key pot there, but still had enough chips to survive a couple of orbits.

Going card dead with a short stack is never a good thing. More pots were getting raised preflop and I just never had a good enough hand to see a flop. As the big blind was getting closer to me, I knew I had to get all of my chips in soon if I wanted to survive. We had lost one player and were 8 handed. A player new to omaha 8/b raised in middle position, a solid player made it 3 bets to go and I look down at As-2s-Kc-Qc. I made it 4 bets and that almost put me all in. I was surprised when the initial raiser called the 4 bets. I figured I would just go heads up against the solid player. I knew he had a hand, but I had no clue what the initial raiser held. I get it all in on a flop of 2c-4s-10c. I had a pair, flush draw and a back door low. The turn was the 8d and the river was the 9h. I missed my flush, had no low and a pair of 2s for the high. The solid player (who got all in on the turn) showed Ad-3d-5c-Kh. He had ace king high for the high and the nut low.

And what did our novice donkey have? 5h-5s-5d-7d. Yes, he open raised with trips in his hand. A horrible play. I can somewhat comprehend this play if he was on a straight steal. But I don't see how he can call two more bets preflop with such a horrible hand. Maybe he just didn't know how to play omaha 8/b. He called another bet on the flop with a pair of 5s and a bad low draw. He also put more money in the pot with our solid player got all in with his pair of 5s and 8-7 low. Obviously, his pair of 5s held up for the high part of the pot. Another bad play getting rewarded. I know the best preflop hand in omaha doesn't hold up that often, but this was a very frustrating hand as it knocked me out of a tournament.