OP: Make Penneywize Not Suck At Omaha

you fail to leave in the equation with your winrate how absolutely brutal rake is for nsplo to ssplo

Originally Posted by bikes

you fail to leave in the equation with your winrate how absolutely brutal rake is for nsplo to ssplo

Well, I did mean my winrate as in clear of rake. I had a discussion with m2m last night and we agreed the rake at 2 PLO was beatable given how soft the games are. I'll play for a while and maybe have to adjust the OP.

If I find out rake is just too horrible for 2PLO I may just deposit up to 5 PLO (another 150) and make the OP to get to 100 PLO. Anyhow, I do have all my hand history and info from when I did the run from 2NL to 50NL, so I can compare the rake between the two fairly easily (unless I'm missing something -- can the rakes for each of these be compared straight up?).

Thanks for the comments bikes

gl dude !

Part 4 of the aforementioned "PLO from Scratch" article series deals mainly with two important preflop concepts: overlimping/iso-raising and 3-betting. As a means to ensure I am properly internalizing these new concepts, I will be posting relevant hands and explaining my thought processes. Enough prefacing - here goes:

This section of the article series makes a distinction between 3 types of preflop 3-bets: value, speculative, and bluff 3-bets. I'm sure we're all familiar with what a value 3-bet is - most of the situations I've come across for these are pretty standard so far, and in essence aren't all that different from hold 'em - but the concept of speculative 3-betting pre is somewhat of a different animal in PLO.

Simply put, speculative 3-bets are for situations where we have good-but-not-great holdings (otherwise the bet could be purely classified as being for value) and we wish to capitalize on primarily post-flop steal equity created by our seemingly stronger range and other factors -- position, our opponent's tendencies, number of players in the pot, etc.

So here is a hand that came up in my last session:

weaktight | Hand Poll | KhJcAc9s - $0.01/$0.02 Pot Limit Omaha Hi

My opponent is running 39/18 over 60 hands or so and opens from the button. His range is of course rather wide and is likely more weighted towards marginal and trash hands, especially given the fact that I had currently been running 14/11 (somehow) and he would expect that I fold to most opens in this spot.

With AKJ9 it's not as though I have some borderline hand, so this lands somewhere between a value 3-bet and a speculative one. My bet allows me to:
A) build a larger pot with a hand that flops well a very large percentage of the time, and
B) increases my steal equity post flop, which will come in handy on boards where I miss; my range probably looks a great deal like AA** and High pairs with suited and connected side cards, or premium suited rundowns.

This allows me to confidently c-bet the vast majority of boards and reasonably expect to not get floated or bluff raised.


Since this was a bit of a borderline case - I did have a very strong suited ace hand - I'll try and post up another hand or two in order to better illustrate my understanding of these 3-bet concepts in the near future.

A few notes since it's been a little while since I updated this OP:

- I've been running fairly bad over a small sample and am behind by about 8-9 BIs. Standard shit obviously, welcome to PLO I guess.

- I am beginning to think the rake is making things tougher on me; it appears to be about 25-30% more than that of 2NL.

- Most of my time thus far has been spent studying. I've begun the 2 X 6 PLO video series on DC by Vanessa Selbst and Whitelime, taking a ridiculous amount of notes and going through the video sessions rather ponderously. I think that between this and the PLO from Scratch article series I should be set in terms of my early PLO development.

- Once I feel more comfortable with the game, I will deposit another 150$ and play 5 PLO due to rake concerns. I think this is pretty much the ideal stake to start out at. While it is unlikely I fail at this stake, in the case that I go down substantially I will probably just redeposit. 2 PLO just doesn't appear to be a good place to start out, and the 5 PLO game is reportedly incredibly soft anyway. Before I do this however I want to spend at least another 5-10k hands 4-tabling at 2PLO and keep up my learning and session reviews.

That's all for the moment, I will be putting in another 2 PLO session tonight. I think I'll begin posting my trouble hands here as well, and address new concepts as I did above as they come up.

Booked a pretty nice session, didn't really run good but got my opponents all in in spots where I had the nuts w/ redraws. Well, I guess cold decking people counts as running good. Anyhow, at this point I'm down 4.5 BI and still 8 BI under all-in EV. I think I'll just shut up about all-in EV already and keep focusing on my game.

I may still put in another session later tonight. One thing I want to concentrate on is cbetting flops and barreling turns against players who are either generally tight or have a demonstrated ability to fold non nut hands postflop. Of course, I'll have to bear in mind that this works more often against deep-stacked opponents.

Quick update" I've booked a few rather short winning sessions in a row, which is nice for the confidence, however I'm beginning to think more and more that rake is just ridiculous at this level.

Regardless, I'm a bit behind target in terms of my hours of play and total hands this month, but I've been putting in a lot of effort into study. I suppose this is still probably the best way to go about things. I am beginning to recognize more profitable situations and acting accordingly, and I'm picking up on more of my many newb leaks.

In no particular order, I am:

- Playing far too loosely from the small blind
- Not table selecting as effectively as I should (this will probably matter much more at ssplo, obv, but it doesn't hurt to get into the habit)
- Not cbetting and barreling turn enough. What's worse, I'm not really benefitting from my opponent's rather straightforward play resulting from my lack of cbetting. If I don't cbet flop in position, I should generally bet turn a large percentage of the time when checked to.
- Playing too many marginal hands from out of position - this probably results from justifying too many calls pre on the basis of implied odds. Implied odds, preflop, just don't work the same as they do in hold'em.
- Paying off too light on the river
- Passing up too much value on the river with 2nd-4th nut type hands -- obv this is very situational and opponent-dependent, but several of these have come up in recent sessions; spots where I got to showdown and could have easily milked another 1/2 pot bet from my opponent

More to come as I complete 2x6 and continue with the PLO article series.

running 10,20,50,100 bi below ev in plo is std. get used to it.

Originally Posted by bikes

running 10,20,50,100 bi below ev in plo is std. get used to it.

I think the silver lining behind this may be that bad players who run good can stick around the game a lot more than bad holdem players. Any truth to this, you think?

Originally Posted by Penneywize

I think the silver lining behind this may be that bad players who run good can stick around the game a lot more than bad holdem players. Any truth to this, you think?

Yea it makes logical sense to me. I think the same applies in large field mtts vs sngs. Also omaha is just a more "fun" and "action" game from a fish perspective. I really notice this dealing and playing lol dealer sessions of omaha live. anyways GL will follow I started occasionally playing 10plo on stars so maybe I'll see you there.

Alright, guess it's that time of the month... as in time to post my lolgraph



overall I ran pretty shitty, but as I played more and more and kept up with my studying I feel I have become a lot more comfortable, not hemorrhaging money calling lighter than I should on the river, finding situations to pull off low risk bluffs etc. My redline (not pictured) evens out considerably in the last 2k hands, probably due to playing tighter oop and not creating large pots that I ultimately end up folding... that kind of thing.

I think that is it for me at 2 PLO. I'm going to deposit about 150$ or so and revise the OP as I said I might. The rake is, as advertised, ridiculously high and, while beatable, I feel I have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish at this level and it's time to move on to greener pastures.

My goals for this month are to play roughly 5 to 6 times as many hands i.e. at least 25-30k total, and hopefully beat 5plo and be on my way through 10plo, time permitting. I will also need to finish up the 2 X 6 video series (I have a doc with about 4500 words worth of notes on the first 5 videos alone) and continue along with the PLO from scratch articles - which, to date, have been nothing short of invaluable.

Started playing 5PLO, so far so good. Still running poorly, but it seems that since I am generally playing uber deep (250bb), all-in spots with cards to come seem to be less frequent. This is obviously helped by the fact that I'm selecting tables with usually multiple deep players; especially those with very weird stack sizes i.e. I tend to look for tables where there is at least one super-deep stack... this usually means another player at the table has been stacked already and may be somewhat tilty, and since the players doing the stacking generally suck themselves it's pretty much win-win.

I decided I'll start posting more hands in this thread. Here are a few fun hands from my first complete 5PLO session:

$0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG bayern999 ($3.36)
UTG+1 dtroitwt ($9.27)
CO Penneywize ($19.79)
BTN blakas1 ($17.49)
SB 9SKIPX ($9.64)
BB 0legik ($13.63)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 6 players) Penneywize is CO
1 fold, dtroitwt raises to $0.17, Penneywize calls $0.17, 1 fold, 9SKIPX calls $0.15, 1 fold

Flop: ($0.56, 3 players)
9SKIPX checks, dtroitwt checks, Penneywize checks

Turn: ($0.56, 3 players)
9SKIPX checks, dtroitwt bets $0.45, Penneywize raises to $1.89, 9SKIPX folds, dtroitwt calls $1.44

River: ($4.34, 2 players)
dtroitwt bets $4.13, Penneywize folds

Final Pot: $8.47

dtroitwt wins $8.26 (net +$2.07)

Penneywize lost $2.06
9SKIPX lost $0.17

Thoughts: pre is fairly std, I didn't have much reads on dtroit other than that he seemed rather passive (ran something like 35/14) and I like calling in position here rather than potentially having to fold to a 4bet from AAxx. His range here looks a lot like my own, and since he's generally just going to be playing his cards anyway I'd rather see if I can outflop him with some type of strong 2p, set, or combo draw. Further, I can bet out most dry flops when checked to and expect to take it down a good percentage of the time.

Flop: I didn't see much value to betting here, board is incredibly wet and with two opponents in the hand and potentially drawing to nut straights or flushes, I didn't stand a great chance of folding out better holdings, and getting literally no value with my overpair, except from maybe Jxxx type hands with flush draws that are both A: unlikely and B: probably ahead of me anyway.

Turn: incredibly standard imo, I turn gin and have flush redraws; great spot to be in overall. with villain flatting, his range is likely K9xx, some sets and some flush draws with two pair. part of the time he has AKxx but I really discount this since a player at this level would probably get all 'NUTS OMG OMG ARR IN!!!' on me in a spot like this.

River: again, super standard. another read I have is that villain was playing a relatively large number of tables (I think 6 to 8 or so) and that his bet came very quickly. I just can't fathom this being a huge river bluff ever; not from a passive and not from someone playing as many tables as he was. So, when the board pairs and a pot sized bet comes out, there really is no question here.

Another fun one:

$0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG blakas1 ($14.20)
CO 9SKIPX ($13.82)
BTN Ydna75 ($12.33)
SB VARDIZAO ($13.92)
BB Penneywize ($12.50)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 5 players) Penneywize is BB
2 folds, Ydna75 calls $0.05, VARDIZAO raises to $0.20, Penneywize calls $0.15, Ydna75 calls $0.15

Flop: ($0.60, 3 players)
VARDIZAO bets $0.57, Penneywize calls $0.57, Ydna75 folds

Turn: ($1.74, 2 players)
VARDIZAO bets $1.66, Penneywize calls $1.66

River: ($5.06, 2 players)
VARDIZAO bets $2.50, Penneywize calls $2.50

Final Pot: $10.06

Results omitted!

---
Starting with reads: SB has been running a ridiculous 85/38 with a 25% 3-bet percentage over a smallish sample, so he struck me as rather spewy and I didn't take his pfr too seriously. In retrospect I probably should have repopped against his weakish range, even with a raggy AAxx, especially given that I'd probably get a fold from the rather loose CO (55/12 or something) which would give me position post.

Flop: villain's bet seemed really off to me here. A more straightforward player would probably not even donk out their strongest holdings i.e. sets, and likely not with that type of sizing. His range is of course rather wide given history and reads, but it's hard to imagine this board texture hitting his range that hard at all. At best he has binked two pair, possibly with a three-broadway w/ a dangler type hand like AJT6. Overall however his range looks like a lot of air with crappy draws, so I decide to call one off here. I expect BUT to fold all but sets in this spot so I'm not too worried about him either.

Turn: the K does complete a bunch of two pair hands for our villain - his most likely holdings at this point in my view - but with the nut flush draw and two pair and top set outs I am not terribly worried. He could also be firing with pair + gutshots or pairs + weaker flush draws. The only thing i'm legitimately crushed by here is a made set on the flop, which as stated is an unlikely holding given his line.

River: villain fires again, this time with a sort of fishy sizing of a 1/2 pot. given my previous reads / line I can't realistically call off two streets and then fold to a smallish bet when my hand improves significantly. I've now got all his two pair holdings crushed, and since no obvious draws completed + funky sizing I think a call is a decent play. I feel like if he had some type of two pair hand that turned into a boat, or some other weird 6xxx hand (somehow?) he would size differently here. Combine all this with my line looking uber weird and drawy, leading villain to believe my range is rather weak etc, and it's not even close imo.

Thoughts on this hand? How do you feel about my estimates of villain's range throughout? How's my line / thought process in this hand?

No way you can fold, I think raising the river is pretty interesting.

both of the last two hand look standard to me, though my PLO understanding doesn't go much further than understanding what beats what, and having a loose understanding of the equities of some of the more common spots. plus all the stuff which is applicable from holdem like pot/reverse/implied odds etc

call river. never raise. he is repping a set on flop and turn. give him credit and just call.

H1 Looks great.

H2 I like a 3bet pre as people like this never fold anything ever + we'll be HU and ip. Call this river for sure, quite a few draws bricked and he's pretty aggro/spewy.

I would probably just jam turn in hand 2. You caught a great river but there are a lot where it will be unclear what to do. If he played straightforwardly calling would be better but vs a crazy guy I would rather just put it in. He's calling with lots of hands you have in bad shape. it's good for balance too although I dunno if that matters much vs 85/38 guy. but you'll have sets/two pair a lot here and would always jam those.

he's 85/38 so he can have many versions of 6xxx. say 6543 - you're ahead but it plays well against you because the outs look good to you plus he can bluff in some spots you can't call.

it's almost impossible for you to call the turn without two hearts in your hand so he should give up on river hearts although again he's goofy so maybe not.

Originally Posted by baudib

No way you can fold, I think raising the river is pretty interesting.

I didn't even notice hand 1, sorry. as played is totally standard/perfect.

thanks for the comments all.

Originally Posted by drmcboy

I would probably just jam turn in hand 2. You caught a great river but there are a lot where it will be unclear what to do. If he played straightforwardly calling would be better but vs a crazy guy I would rather just put it in. He's calling with lots of hands you have in bad shape. it's good for balance too although I dunno if that matters much vs 85/38 guy. but you'll have sets/two pair a lot here and would always jam those.

he's 85/38 so he can have many versions of 6xxx. say 6543 - you're ahead but it plays well against you because the outs look good to you plus he can bluff in some spots you can't call.

it's almost impossible for you to call the turn without two hearts in your hand so he should give up on river hearts although again he's goofy so maybe not.

to be honest I hadn't even considered shipping turn there, but I can see the merits of it now that you mention it, in terms of how it manipulates my range and takes advantage of fold equity.

re: the 6xxx type hands he may have - I see what you mean about the outs looking good to me, however I'm not sure I follow what you meant by 'he may bluff in spots we can't call'. Are you referring to cases where, while he holds 6xxx, the river comes K, Q or T or J probably and I'm left thinking he either definitely binked a big two pair, three of a kind or made a broadway straight, for example?

Originally Posted by HoopyDude

H2 I like a 3bet pre as people like this never fold anything ever + we'll be HU and ip. Call this river for sure, quite a few draws bricked and he's pretty aggro/spewy.

Yeah I like a 3bet pre also, esp since it would fold out BUT like 95% of the time and give me pos on a spew fish.

Originally Posted by paratrooper99

call river. never raise. he is repping a set on flop and turn. give him credit and just call.

lol, what?

Hey all, first off thanks for the replies to my previous hands, notably drmc and swiggidy (everyone else can fuck off, obv )

So after winning like 8 billion sessions in a row, I finally had a pretty horrid session at 5PLO, losing 3.5 BIs in rather short order. I ended my session immediately and took about an hour off to work out and shake off my tilt. The thing is, most of the losses came from this one hand where my AAxx went up against an opponent's AAxx while we were both 250bb deep. Unfortunately for me, villain's 'xx' happened to make him a boat on the turn and his AA didn't play, and I shipped anyway. Anyhow, here's the hand:

Villain was running 65/35 w/ a 17% 3bet over a small sample.

$0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG CristianUrso ($8.24)
CO Penneywize ($14.65)
BTN Royalkid7575 ($12.50)
SB C.MSRBIJA ($12.53)
BB Gonnaw1n ($14.51)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 5 players) Penneywize is CO
1 fold, Penneywize raises to $0.17, 2 folds, Gonnaw1n raises to $0.53, Penneywize raises to $1.61, Gonnaw1n calls $1.08

Flop: ($3.24, 2 players)
Gonnaw1n checks, Penneywize bets $3.08, Gonnaw1n calls $3.08

Turn: ($9.40, 2 players)
Gonnaw1n checks, Penneywize bets $8.94, Gonnaw1n goes all-in $9.82, Penneywize calls $0.88

River: ($29.04, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $29.04
Penneywize shows

Gonnaw1n shows a full house, Threes full of Jacks


Gonnaw1n wins $27.62 (net +$13.11)

Penneywize lost $14.51



So, in retrospect I feel I played this hand pretty horribly. If we're each 100bb deep - which will be the most common scenario once I get up to 10 PLO and further - it's fine to shove all flops after 4-betting pre (what I mean by this specifically is that this is a generally unexploitable play). The problem is I think I took this vague concept and applied it to 250bb stacks and, even worse, shipped on the turn on a board that looked like total shit to me.

Given all action up to the flop, villain's range obviously looks like either AAxx, some type of premium double suited broadway, or a high double pair like KKQQ. So why then would I decide this is an excellent flop to pot out when checked to this deep? I'm not really sure, I suppose I expected to get it in, failing to realize that this type of strategy - if my opponent were to realize I'm employing it - can be easily exploited by cherry picking boards where they have decent equity against my obvious holdings etc.

Anyhow, I want to point out that the main reason I'm posting this hand is to make sure I'm not being results oriented in my analysis of it... I just need to pay more attention to the changes in dynamics that come with playing 250bb deep as opposed to 100bb.

As played, then - check behind flop, or bet a smaller amount (perhaps 2/3)? c/f turn when I don't improve?

hard to comment objectively knowing results. that said, I wouldn't 4-bet pre as our hand is almost never going to flop anything worth getting it in 250bbs deep. This flop is pretty bad and we're behind top 17% so it's probably a bet flop/give up or check flop/call 1 street thing.

yeah it's pretty fucking bad imo. I just think I made a huge mistake of applying 100bb stack play to deep stack... It is obviously so +EV for him to flat with a wide variety of holdings in order to outflop me, even without, and probably especially without AAxx.

Alright, new hand coming up. Thanks Baudib.

Villain is 5/3 over 60 hands -- I obviously discount this a little bit, as over 60 hands we have a pretty wide confidence interval as to what his actual long-run stats might tend towards. Regardless, we still assume a rather tight open range, even from the button.


$0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG russkov187 ($4.95)
CO mutola ($5.70)
BTN So sick dude ($8.96)
SB Penneywize ($17.59)
BB enzirob ($9.89)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 5 players) Penneywize is SB
2 folds, So sick dude raises to $0.17, Penneywize calls $0.15, enzirob calls $0.12

Flop: ($0.51, 3 players)
Penneywize checks, enzirob checks, So sick dude bets $0.40, $0.4 to Penneywize ($17.42)?


Thoughts: Standard cbet obviously; while I do expect him to cbet the majority of his holdings here, even on a somewhat coordinated (but low) board, his range is obviously quite tight given his preflop tendencies. Here's how I have his range broken down:

Overpairs such as AAxx, as well as KKxx and QQxx, the latter two having suited and/or connected side cards.

Rundowns such as JT98, JT97, JT87, T987, 9876 and so on, usually at least single suited.

There are relatively few sets in his range imo. The only really plausible set hands he might have would either be those that are double-paired, like JJ88, and occasionally those that have suited and connected side cards, like (98)(87) or something similar.

Some percentage of the time, he will have air-ish type holdings that looked good pre but completely whiffed the flop, such as four broadways or something like ATJ9.

Given all of this, I am behind the vast majority of his holdings at this point. In terms of my action here, I am sort of torn between a 3/4 pot sized raise and just calling (can't imagine folding here given my nfd + clean overset outs).

I'll try and explain the merits of each action here.

Raising would likely fold out his overpair type hands a good percentage of the time. Since these hands have generally little potential to improve in situations like these -- and fall prey to reverse implied odds -- it would be relatively hard to peel one off (and I could probably continue my aggression on the turn in most cases).

His other holdings -- the suited rundowns in particular, will either peel or re-raise me with strong equity, and sort of put me in a shitty spot. Sets are usually raising in this spot as well.

Calling would obviously allows me to retain my equity and keep the pot rather small, though it has the negative aspect of turning my hand rather face-up; I will usually bet turn once I bink a non-pairing flush on the turn or river, and I'll not often extract much more value out of my opponent, except for the odd case where he holds a second or third nut flush and decides to look me up. I do however have a small chance to complete a clean overset with my TT, which would probably allow me to get another bet or two out of his stronger holdings, but other than that my outs will lead villain to shut down on future streets.

It seems to me that my action here depends on how I weigh the likelihood of his holdings - I have a lot of fold equity if he holds overpairs and air, but relatively none against strong draws or sets. Against the latter, a call is preferable, hoping to get the maximum from a second nut hand / weaker set when I do bink.

Any thoughts on this hand, or, in particular, my thought process in general?


EDIT: I should also point out I'm not terribly concerned with BB here

Created a new sig for my OP, go me!

I apologize for nittiness, but I think given your experience, position and this guy's stats this is a fold in the SB. We're probably well behind his range and will face a lot of RIO flops if we hit top pair.

As played, we can't be in terrible shape with 10 clean outs to the stone-cold nuts so I like raising, especially if we can the BB to flat with dominated draws and/or BTN can fold a naked overpair.

Alright, time for an update.

Thus far I've not accomplished anywhere near what I was hoping to at this point in the summer. I've got 5 weeks left or so before moving to kingston and about 10 days of it will have to be spent boning up on math econ and econometrics. So basically one month, give or take.

I figure I'd set some goals for myself during this period, hopefully leading me to actually get shit done and get the ball rolling faster on this OP.

For starters, I want to play 8.5k more hands between now and the end of the month; this should allow me to reach silverstar (bfd, right?).

Other, more important goals involve slight lifestyle changes. I'm going to post them here in order to sort of create more pressure to adhere to them.

Exercise: I generally do about 40-50 minutes of cardio 3 or 4 times a week. I want to bump this up to 60 minutes of cardio 5 days a week. The reason behind this is, primarily, weight loss; I'm not at all concerned with building muscle / developing some kinda douchebag strong guy physique. I'd settle for getting myself down to about 180 pounds from my current 208. Once October rolls around, I'll be playing for the Queen's econ hockey team (probably on the fourth line, heh) so I really want to be in shape by the time that comes up.

Food / Diet: Generally, I want to stop eating unhealthy fast foods as I have grown quite accustomed to doing this over the last 3 years since I moved to downtown Montreal. This should be pretty easy, a little discipline is all it takes imo. Certain foods from certain restaurants are fine - think cold cut sandwiches from Subway, for instance, or a chicken & bean sprout soup from Thai Express, but pretty much anything else is off-limits.

Drinking: So, I've been partying it up quite a bit this summer, which is pretty awesome and all but I've really got to cut down on my alcohol - and beer specifically - consumption. I figure I will allow myself to drink twice a week, and only hard alcohols either neat, or mixed with club soda. Wine is not so bad either, calorie-wise, but if I do drink wine I'll limit myself to 3 glasses or so total.

Sleeping: Been sleeping till about noon almost every day. My goal will be to wake up at 10:30 every morning, and no longer take any naps during the afternoon.

Alright I suppose that's about it. I will post once a week and report on my progress and general adherence to each of these goals. Each of these posts will include a mention of my number of hands played, exercise sessions done, and eating/drinking/sleeping habits for that week.

Starting up a session now. I figure 8.5k hands will require 4 hours played for the next 7 days or so. Obviously, I may be out on weekends so I'll have to put in extra hours mon-fri to sort of compensate for that.

Naturally, I'll continue to post hands / trouble spots / conceptual issues as they come up.

GL me!

Raise flop in AKTT hand, if not just fold pre, you can't flop much better with this hand. In theory a BW flop with diamonds is better, but that will be much better for his range as well. If you flat it should be with a plan to fire all turns.

Assuming you get flatted after raising flop I'd fire two more.

Thanks for the comments drmc

Here's one that I found rather surprising. Let's play this from BTN's perspective. BB is running 9/6 over about 100 hands, and given his 3-bet his range is effectively AAxx preflop.

$0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($6.65)
CO ($10.41)
BTN ($19.67)
SB ($5.08)
Hero (BB) ($12.50)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 5 players) BTN is dealt: K 9 Q J

2 folds, BTN raises to $0.17, 1 fold, Hero raises to $0.53, BTN calls $0.36

Flop: ($1.08, 2 players)

Hero bets $0.80, BTN calls $0.80

Turn: ($2.68, 2 players)

Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($2.68, 2 players)

Hero bets $2.55, BTN ????



BTN's play on river = ?

BB's range, as mentioned due to preflop action / general tightness, is largely AAxx and possibly some broadway rundowns that may or may not have binked quite as hard (think AKxx, KQxx/KJxx/KTxx) and perhaps some premium drawing hands that missed by the river, like QJTXds.

Noting that we are quite deep against BB, is there an argument for a raise here? Call only, or is folding a possibility?

BTW if there are any issues with my play in this hand (BB) feel free to set me straight.

im so tilted that u bet check betted here. in general bet check betting is the most tilting play of all time

Can't see raising with KKK99 there; I like your play if you are bluffing with a blocker to AA and Qs, boats should basically be bet on the turn.

Originally Posted by bikes

im so tilted that u bet check betted here. in general bet check betting is the most tilting play of all time

lol. Yes in retrospect I really don't like my line, the turn check obv sucked. Especially bad given my holdings however I don't want to spell it out just yet in case anyone else wanted to comment on villain's river play here.

K9xx then is a call on the river, never raising? How bad is raising?

I'd be raising so it must be really, really bad.

it's much better to never 3 bet than to just 3 bet AAxx. It's also terrible to expect anyone to be running a HUD/thinking at .02/.05 and or try and get them to fold trips since you must have have top full.

If you want to play 9/6 I'd play LO8, not PLO. If for some reason you insist on super tight PLO, 3 bet 100% of the hands you're playing.

Originally Posted by drmcboy

If you want to play 9/6 I'd play LO8, not PLO. If for some reason you insist on super tight PLO, 3 bet 100% of the hands you're playing.

Originally Posted by Penneywize

BB is running 9/6 over about 100 hands

drmc, the 9/6 stats I mentioned were just those he saw for me over a small sample where I didn't really get dealt very much.

I run something like 18/12 in reality, but that is only over a total of like 15k hands - literally my first ever hands taking PLO seriously... So i expect this should converge to something sensible over time.

Since people seem to not be really getting why I posted the hand that way -- mainly I was trying to understand opponent's line and figure out whether he made a decent play on the river - I did hold AAxx by the way.

BB's range, as mentioned due to preflop action / general tightness

this implied to me that this is your style, not 100 hands of randomness. You also didn't qualify the stats in any way (ie I'm running a card dead 9/6) so I'm not sure why we would assume anything else. I commented on it because not playing 9/6 would be a lot better for your game than anything else you could get feedback on itt.

If we pretend BU has a HUD and isn't clueless, he should flat the flop and give up on any board pair and most other turns assuming you ~pot. He can't hardly make the nuts and his hands will all be face up.


He raised because he had a full house and that's why he sat down, to make full houses. He is not thinking about what you have at any point. It is impossible for him to make a good play, except by accident, since every good line should consider at a minimum your hand and your opponent's hand. You can't learn much from that except flop hands, get paid. And that playing .02/.05 plo is a profitable choice!

you should usually not raise with a non nut full and certainly not when the nut full is AAxx, there was a 3 bet pre, and said 3 bettor has played the hand in the exact manner you'd expect him to play aces full. But I feel like you already know that which is I think why this post didn't go in the direction you wanted.

thanks again for the comments man, I do really appreciate someone who's as experienced in PLO as you are taking the time.

A quick update re. my weekly goals: I've followed everything as outlined at the beginning of the week; playing a minimum of about 1k hands per day (~3 hours each day), working out for 1 hr, and eating well. I have however failed horribly on my sleeping habits, having not gotten up before 11:30 even once this week.

As for results, obviously the majority of my poker time has been spent grinding away, chasing silver star for no real reason other than the fact that I had literally no volume in this month and wanted to make something out of my July. This has, predictably, backfired on me somewhat. I think I am up about 1 BI over the 4-5k hands I've played this week.

This would have been 5 BIs except that in my last session I lost a 77/23 with a nut flush on the turn while 250bb deep against a fish who c/r/rr'd me with just trips and ultimately binked the river. Then I lost another similar spot where I had a nut straight on the turn, with flush redraws, and had to fold river in a gross spot where villain's range was exactly sets and the board fucking paired. Long story short I lost 4 BIs in short order, despite feeling like I played decently, at least as 'decently' as it takes to beat 5 PLO.

No one gives a shit about bad beat / runbad stories so I figure I'll just grind through it and hope to eventually put in enough hands so that everything balances the fuck out.

Once July is wrapped up I'll return to a more balanced schedule of study and play, and hopefully show some real progress in the month of August. My goal, as it stands, is to have at least beaten 5 PLO and hopefully be well on my way through 10 PLO by the end of next month.

What are your stats like? I think 18/12 is probably way too nitty for 6-max, but leaning toward nitty is probably good when you're learning.

im all for nitty in nsplo to ssplo as well when learning.

Ok, time to update re goals and such.

• Made silver star (yippee!)
• ~10k hands for the month - far below my goals, natch.
• 3.44 ptBB winrate - below projection

Overall I believe I need to simply put in more time and effort if I really want to accomplish what I set forth. I had originally planned to be at 25 PLO by the end of the summer; short of my playing somewhere in the neighbourhood of 60k hands this month, this goal seems rather unlikely. I think, however, beating 5 PLO is within reach, and by the end of this month I may be well on my way through 10 PLO if all goes to plan.

Lolgraph:


And - I figure now I'll post my positional stats for all to criticize. Any comments / analysis on this would be greatly appreciated.



Notes:

• So I run about 15/8, which is obv ridiculously nitty and it's plain to see that I need to open up quite a bit more.
• I don't cbet anywhere near enough. Optimal cbet percentage is probably somewhere in the 60-70% range for this game, and I need to continue aggression on the turn far more often.
• I believe I've been limping behind too much and should either iso raise my weaker, non-nutty holdings (this increases my FE postflop as well) or fold these in multiway pots.
• I feel like my 3bets pre are almost exclusively premium AAxx and rundowns. I am probably leaving heaps of sweet monies on the tables by letting profitable 3bet situations pass me by on a regular basis.
• I 3bet and fold a lot from the BB, seems bad?

why are you playing so much more from SB than BB?

I wouldn't get too loose pre, start by adding a ton more hands on the BTN and go from there.

Bump, just realized it's Ultra Mega VIP month or whatever at Stars so I should be able to bank platinum star. Another reason to put in more volume!

I've been reviewing some of the material I covered in the "PLO from Scratch" article series and have, astoundingly, seem to have not properly internalized a lot of the concepts I took for granted when I first began my study in May. I think a great deal of the issues with my play stems from preflop situations where I take suboptimal actions, such as overlimping in spots where I could iso-raise and thin the field / increase my postflop fold equity; forgoing value 3-bets (I am doing this a shit ton, apparently) and ignoring speculative 3-betting entirely. I can't even remember a single situation where I pulled off a speculative 3-bet.

With this in mind, I figure I will post several hands from upcoming sessions where I iso-raise or 3-bet and provide justification for each of these. If nothing else, this should serve to reinforce these important basic concepts and get me thinking correctly.

After reviewing the 'preflop concepts' portion of PLO From Scratch, I put in a session with everything clear in mind and had some rather positive results. Over 1k hands I 3bet 4%, iso'd a ton, and my redline evened out considerably (yes, I'm aware that this is at most dubiously indicative of any improvement, but it still felt great nonetheless).

As promised here are a few hands where I elected to 3-bet and iso. I'll try to leave out obvious spots like 3-betting premium AAxx or isoing KQJT against a single limper etc.


Iso spots

Iso Hand 1: UTG is 52/22

$0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($6.95)
Hero (CO) ($13.81)
BTN ($2.65)
SB ($13.81)
BB ($11.60)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 5 players) Hero is CO
UTG calls $0.05, Hero raises to $0.20 ...


Seems fairly good, UTG is limping a wide and weak range here and I want to maximize the probability of playing heads up and in position; further, isoing this wide gives me increased fold equity postflop, if he does elect to call here. The blinds aren't particularly tight, but if one or both come along I do have suitedness / connectedness hand strength going for me, even if my hand isn't particularly nutty.

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Iso Hand 2: UTG is 31/1

$0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($12.96)
Hero (CO) ($12.60)
BTN ($10.63)
SB ($8.10)
BB ($6.63)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 5 players) Hero is CO
UTG calls $0.05, Hero raises to $0.22 ...


A very similar spot; I have somewhat weak holdings and want to get HU. I should nevertheless have an equity edge against UTG's limping range here, and increased fold equity works in my favour as well.

The BTN and blinds are sufficiently tight (less than ~30% VPIP each) for this move to make sense.

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Iso Hand 3: UTG is 33/9

$0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($9.58)
UTG+1 ($14.41)
CO ($10.69)
Hero (BTN) ($13.43)
SB ($8.52)
BB ($21.36)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 6 players) Hero is BTN
UTG calls $0.05, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.15 ...


This hand structure is similar to hand #2, and the villain is just as passive. The blinds however are 67/22 and 44/21 respectively, so I really question whether this is a profitable spot to go multi-way in a raised pot. I think given the looseness of the blinds I should be deciding between folding and limping.

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3-bet spots

3-bet Hand 1: UTG is 47/24, blinds are tight (<20 VPIP each)

$0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($10.06)
UTG+1 ($17.21)
CO ($11.86)
Hero (BTN) ($13.05)
SB ($5.09)
BB ($6.34)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 6 players) Hero is BTN
UTG raises to $0.15, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.52 ...

I think this is a prime example of the type of light 3-betting I should have been doing all along. UTG's got a very wide range, even from that position, and while I'm not certain to have an equity edge (not likely, to be honest) I have created a great deal of fold equity with my 3-bet - and I'm in position, obv.

-----

3-bet Hand 2: CO is 32/21, blinds are fairly loose over a small sample

$0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($11.85)
CO ($23.84)
Hero (BTN) ($12.50)
SB ($10.97)
BB ($13.28)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 5 players) Hero is BTN
1 fold, CO raises to $0.17, Hero raises to $0.58 ...


I suppose my thinking on this 3-bet begins with the fact the CO's raise is potentially a bit wider than usual given his position. If he doesn't use a HUD, it's quite possible he overlooked the looseness of the blinds and was merely trying to pull off a steal.

Even given this however I have trouble thinking this was a good spot for a 3-bet. While my assumptions about the wideness of CO's range may be correct, the blinds' propensity to call in situations like these (while probably reduced by the size of the bets they would potentially be facing) in all likelihood reduces the profitability of a speculative 3-bet. Thoughts..?

-----


3-bet Hand 3: UTG is 38/26, SB is very tight (9/0 over a small sample) and BB is rather loose (39/17)

$0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($9.88)
Hero (UTG+1) ($12.68)
CO ($2.19)
BTN ($25.18)
SB ($10.01)
BB ($9.02)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1
UTG raises to $0.17, Hero raises to $0.55 ...

This is probably more of a standard 3-bet spot than those above given my hand strength. Anyhow, UTG has been raising quite a bit pre and I probably have a significant equity edge against his range at this point, and the blinds aren't much of a concern (if BB comes along, I'll have position, FE and likely equity working in my favour).

-----


That's all for now. I'd appreciate comments on any of the above if possible, but I think doing this exercise has helped me reinforce everything I've covered lately.

Very recently M2M posted (in his 'ask me anything about...' thread in the BC) about how so many players are stuck doing things because they are 'standard' and don't really "get it" at the end of the day. So I consider this exercise as part of an effort to understand the why behind every action I choose... and not just an attempt to train myself to simply choose the correct action in a given situation.

Quick update, a few sessions later and things are moving along quite nicely. The changes to my game over the past week have, thus far, led to rather impressive results.

While my BR stands at over $360, and thus already adequately rolled for 10 PLO, this includes a few bonuses I've collected during the past few months and I believe I'll stick the plan and just grind out the remaining BIs needed to advance.

I don't like ISO in Hand 2 really but the rest are cool.

This may be wrong, but I actually don't care if the blinds are loose when 3-betting. If you have a reasonable hand, it will be so difficult for them to play well OOP in bloated pots.

Originally Posted by Penneywize

Quick update, a few sessions later and things are moving along quite nicely. The changes to my game over the past week have, thus far, led to rather impressive results.

While my BR stands at over $360, and thus already adequately rolled for 10 PLO, this includes a few bonuses I've collected during the past few months and I believe I'll stick the plan and just grind out the remaining BIs needed to advance.

Well that didn't take long. A <200 hand session was all it took for me to play my way (read: cold deck my way) into another 5 BIs.

I've updated the OP to indicate I've completed 5 PLO. I now have a 10 BI shot at 10 PLO, and will move down to 5 PLO to regrind if I fail to catch on on my first attempt.

Here's to hoping for some move-up rungood!

I'll be starting with 4 tables and adding two every few thousand hands until I reach 8, where I suspect I'll stop adding until I get the 40 BIs I need to advance to 25 PLO.

Seems like 10 PLO will be my home for the foreseeable future. I'm strangely excited about this, let's hope things pan out.