The biggest pot of the year - Isildur1 vs WithColor

Viktor ''Isildur1'' Blom and Sean ''WithColor'' Rafael have been battling each other at the $200/400 Pot Limit Omaha tables for weeks and the duel resulted in the biggest cash game pot of the year so far. The $365,895 pot was shipped to Isildur1, check out the details and analysis of the hand below!

At the time of the hand the heads-up battle has been going on for a couple of hours so the stacks were already very deep, the effective stack was over 450 big blinds ($183,000).

WithColor opened from the button to $1,360, Isildur1 3bet to $4,240 and WithColor called. Isildur1 bet $5,200 into the $8,480 pot on the flop of 8-7-3 with two clubs.
WithColor raised to $15,800, Isildur1 3bet to $56,000, WithColor 4bet to $176,000 and Isildur1 5bet shoved for just a little bit more.

Showdown:
Isildur1: J-9-8-8 (two clubs)
WithColor: K-8-7-7 (two spades for a backdoor flushdraw)

The players decided to run the remaining streets twice, Isildur1 hit a flush in the first run and held up in the second one.

Poker player and writer Rainer Vollmar recently analyzed the hand, this was his take on the situation:

''The fact that the money went in on the flop this deep really shows that neither player had much of a choice in this spot. Rafael raised a hand that has both strengths and weaknesses. He has a second nut flush draw possibility with his two spades and had a fairly well connecting 87 that could bring straight possibilities, but this hand is definitely not in the top of his range in the situation.

The J-9-8-8 in Blom's hand is a better hand because it connects better, so it's not surprising to see him 3bet with a hand that is stronger than most part of his opponents range.

The flop was huge for both players, Blom hit top set and a flushdraw while Rafael hit middle set with a blocker for top set. Although set-over-set situations are common in PLO, in heads-up play middle set is much stronger than in a full-ring game, so it's not surprising to see that Rafael wanted to get all the money in, especially with a blocker.

Rafael had less than 9% equity on the flop (seven for quads + backdoor flushdraw) but it would've been very hard for him to not go broke in this spot, Blom could easily play a monster draw or bottom set + draws the exact same way.''