OP: Make Penneywize Not Suck At Omaha

So, here's a quick rundown of my poker experience:

• Donked around for about 6 years playing NLHE tournaments, was a marginally winning player from 2003-2009
• Banked one large tourney score once, pissed money away
• Re-started learning NLHE 1 year ago, built roll from 2NL to 50NL
• Stopped playing due to focus on 4th year Econ studies, got into sweet MA program beginning next fall
• Cashed out roll on Black Friday (didn't need to, as it turns out; I'm Canadian)
• Used most of the cashout on living expenses
• Redeposited 100$ two weeks ago

I've always wanted to learn Omaha, and given the reduced bankroll and the situation I am in currently, I feel now is pretty much the best time to make the switch over. Given that I was only playing 25s / 50s by the time black friday rolled around, it's not as though there is a huge opportunity cost for me to drop NLHE. Couple this with my vague understanding that 'PLO games are somewhat softer' and that in the long run, the game is likely to continue to be a real growth area in poker (especially if the market reopens to Americans sometime in the future), switching to PLO seems to be a bit of a no-brainer for a guy in my position. This all may end up being entirely wrong, and I'm sure some NLHE grinders are in serious disagreement with these assumptions, but what the hell, right? I've convinced myself as much, and I'm motivated.

So I'm learning Omaha from scratch, using Bugs' 'PLO from Scratch' article series as a starting guide. Thus far I've covered up to part 4, which works out to quite a lot of material. The explanations of concepts and examples provided are articulate, methodical and very informative. Kudos to dranger / roid rage for finding this gem, without it I doubt I would have been able to make the switch.

PLO From Scratch - Part 1 | Discussions | Donkr

At any rate, here's an overview of what this OP is about and what I plan to accomplish in the coming months.

I am starting out at 5 PLO with a BR of 250$ or 50 BI. I will use the 50+10 BI scheme as a guideline for moving up; that is, grind up 50 buy ins of the current stake I am at, plus ten buy-ins for the next stake. Once this is done, I use the ten buy-ins as my "shot", and either I will reach 50 buy-ins + 10 for the next stake, or lose the 10 buy-ins and move down to the previous one. Pretty straight forward.

Bugs posits that it would take somewhere in the region of 113,000 hands to move up from 5PLO to 200PLO, assuming a winrate of 7.5 ptBB/100 and that all shots work out on the first try. Seems pretty lofty, but is likely possible for an experienced player.

Personally, given the amount of time I will have to spend studying the game I think it seems imprudent to try and strive for a given winrate or amount of hands I should finish the OP in; but it should nonetheless be worthwhile to set a goal and see how I measure up when all is said and done. I will use this space to track my progress through the stakes.

/// modified the below on 7/4/11 ///

This OP will end when I have reached 100 PLO.

So here's the breakdown, given my starting BR of 250$:

• $5PLO to $10PLO: Grind in 20 BI ($100) at $5PLO and build the roll to 50+10 BI ($350) for a shot at $10PLO.
  ***Complete 8/05***
• $10PLO to $25PLO: Grind in 40 BI ($400) at $10PLO and build the roll to 50+10 BI ($750) for a shot at $25PLO.
  ***Started 8/05***
• $25PLO to $50PLO: Grind in 40 BI ($1000) at $25PLO and build the roll to 50+10 BI ($1750) for a shot at $50PLO.
• $50PLO to $100PLO: Grind in 35 BI ($1750) at $50PLO and build the roll to 50+10 BI ($3500) for a shot at $100PLO.

A total of 135 BIs will need to be won over the course of this OP. Assuming an average winrate of 5ptBB/100, I will win 1 BI per 1000 hands, so a total of (drumroll) 135,000 hands will need to be played. Guess I should move to 6 tables from 4 at some point, huh?

Other than tracking progress, I'll be posting hands and going over concepts that I either find troublesome or want to reinforce my understanding of. I should note, I might end up posting hands on 2p2, which I'll link back to this blog, because there isn't a large PLO community here at FTR.

If any FTR PLO regs (Ahem -- drmcboy, courtie, swiggidy) want to chime in every now and then, it'd be greatly appreciated of course, and might save me the rather unpleasant trips to 2p2.

Alright, gogogogogogogo etc.

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bikes

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

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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 A:c:K:h:J:c:9:s: 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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bikes

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

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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?

Quote:

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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?

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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

http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/a...e/june2plo.jpg

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 :jd: :kd: :ks: :as:
1 fold, dtroitwt raises to $0.17, Penneywize calls $0.17, 1 fold, 9SKIPX calls $0.15, 1 fold

Flop: :2d: :jc: :tc: ($0.56, 3 players)
9SKIPX checks, dtroitwt checks, Penneywize checks

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

River: :ts: ($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 :ac: :3d: :ah: :9h:
2 folds, Ydna75 calls $0.05, VARDIZAO raises to $0.20, Penneywize calls $0.15, Ydna75 calls $0.15

Flop: :2s: :jc: :6h: ($0.60, 3 players)
VARDIZAO bets $0.57, Penneywize calls $0.57, Ydna75 folds

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

River: :6d: ($5.06, 2 players)
VARDIZAO bets $2.50, Penneywize calls $2.50

Final Pot: $10.06

Results omitted!

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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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by baudib

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

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

thanks for the comments all.

Quote:

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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.

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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?

Quote:

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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.

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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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paratrooper99

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

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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 :6s: :ac: :ad: :6h:
1 fold, Penneywize raises to $0.17, 2 folds, Gonnaw1n raises to $0.53, Penneywize raises to $1.61, Gonnaw1n calls $1.08

Flop: :qc: :jh: :3h: ($3.24, 2 players)
Gonnaw1n checks, Penneywize bets $3.08, Gonnaw1n calls $3.08

Turn: :3d: ($9.40, 2 players)
Gonnaw1n checks, Penneywize bets $8.94, Gonnaw1n goes all-in $9.82, Penneywize calls $0.88

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

Final Pot: $29.04
Penneywize shows
:6s: :ac: :ad: :6h:
Gonnaw1n shows a full house, Threes full of Jacks
:ah: :as: :3c: :jd:

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 :td: :tc: :ks: :ad:
2 folds, So sick dude raises to $0.17, Penneywize calls $0.15, enzirob calls $0.12

Flop: :2d: :5c: :8d: ($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
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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:h: 9:s: Q:d: J:s:

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

Flop: :8c: :ks: :as: ($1.08, 2 players)

Hero bets $0.80, BTN calls $0.80

Turn: :kd: ($2.68, 2 players)

Hero checks, BTN checks

River: :9c: ($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.

Quote:

---

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.

Quote:

---

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.

---

Quote:

---

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.

Quote:

---

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:
http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/a...LOjuly2011.jpg

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

http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/a...y2011STATS.jpg

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 :9s: :kc: :4s: :ac:
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.

-----

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 :jd: :8c: :ah: :qd:
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.

-----

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 :js: :7d: :6s: :as:
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.

-----


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 :9h: :7d: :8d: :qd:
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
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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 :8d: :qs: :as: :7s:
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 :jc: :ad: :kh: :9d:
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.

Quote:

---

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.

Here's my cumulative 5 PLO graph, for the sake of posterity:

http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/a...LO-all5PLO.jpg

Interestingly, around the 10.9k hand mark it is clear to see the effects of the changes I've made to my game recently.


---

Here's a fun hand, pretty much the one responsible for putting my BI goal for 5 PLO over the top. Any questions / comments are welcome, as usual. I let the results show here as it's pretty obvious I won the hand given the context I provided.


Reads (important in this hand): UTG is 85/50, BB is 33/27 with an aggression factor of 4.0 and I have not seen him show down a very strong hand following multiple streets of bets yet.


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

Stacks:
UTG ($6.14)
UTG+1 ($8.96)
CO ($14.92)
Hero (BTN) ($12.90)
SB ($8.74)
BB ($25.97)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 6 players) Hero is BTN :qh: :8s: :jh: :js:
UTG raises to $0.17, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.55, 1 fold, BB calls $0.50, UTG calls $0.38

Flop: :4d: :ac: :jd: ($1.67, 3 players)
BB bets $1.19, UTG calls $1.19, Hero calls $1.19

Turn: :3h: ($5.24, 3 players)
BB bets $4.99, UTG folds, Hero goes all-in $11.16, BB calls $6.17

River: :kc: ($27.56, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $27.56
Hero shows three of a kind, Jacks
:qh: :8s: :jh: :js:
BB shows two pair, Aces and Threes
:3c: :8c: :ah: :9h:

Hero wins $26.20 (net +$13.30)

BB lost $12.90
UTG lost $1.74

---

does the flop play, in particular, seem ok to everyone?

pretty sure we should raise the flop. nh

So about 2.5k hands into 10 PLO I'm down a BI but I find, despite what my all-in EV curve would indicate, that I've been running pretty bad. I could easily be up about 3-4 BIs by the point, and by all rights and respects I feel I should probably be up there, but this is PLO and that's just how shit goes in this game I guess.

Despite "feeling I deserve better" (a completely fucking useless thought process in terms of my development) I have realized that I have fallen into some old habits I had thought I had shaken back at 5 PLO. I'm going to list here some facets of my game that need improvement and other things I feel I need to get to in the near future.

- analyze my c-betting - I am in all likelihood not doing this often enough, and probably even choosing poor situations when I actually do it.
- continue to work on my isoing and 3-betting, especially when light
- need to take advantage of position postflop in small pots - looking over previous sessions I find situations where I check behind weakish boards when turns have little likelihood of helping my hand. this obviously goes hand-in-hand with my c-betting habits
- work on noting villain river betting habits if I spot anything out of line. even passives bet large on rivers without the nuts sometimes, though rarely
- conversely, need to respect river bets, particularly in larger pots, both as a default v. unknowns and v. those who have demonstrated unbalanced betting ranges in these spots
- analyze my bluffing habits

In terms of study, I plan to:

- read articles 6 and 7 of PLO from scratch
- start watching / noting my way through the 'PLO' video series from DC

hey dude. while i can't really ever chime in with any information of any value, i'm enjoying following your blog. following someone grinding up from the very microest of micros in PLO is cool and a welcome break from 99% holdem focus of this forum. keep it up. and i might see you around the 10plo tables, if my drunken hours coincide with your grinding hours.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Penneywize

So about 2.5k hands into 10 PLO I'm down a BI but I find, despite what my all-in EV curve would indicate, that I've been running pretty bad. I could easily be up about 3-4 BIs by the point, and by all rights and respects I feel I should probably be up there, but this is PLO and that's just how shit goes in this game I guess.

---

Welcome to PLO.

Have you read Hwang's book(s)?

Glad you're enjoying the blog rpm, I try to play around euro peak hours on stars at the 10 PLO tables as it seems the games get shitty any time after 10 PM my time (EST). If you're ever on around then, well, I'd say to look me up but I'm pretty sure I have searches hidden on stars. SN is Penneywize09 though.

baudib, it's definitely on my to-do list but probably not any time before I beat 25s or 50s. I still have to finish the PLO from scratch article series, which is 11 segments of about 10k+ words each... pretty in-depth and complete imo.

Take a look:
PLO From Scratch - Part 5 | Discussions | Donkr

If ever you get a chance, look it over and let me know what you think, I'd be very interested to hear a more experienced PLO player's impression on it.

lol I'm reading Hwang's first book now, like a donk I read the second one first.

Here's a hand from last night's down session. I think this is incredibly standard for the most part. Both villains are the loose/passive variety common at PLO micros and I haven't seen either get out of line. For the sake of argument (I don't feel like pulling PT3 up and checking for sure atm) just assume each of these guys run something like 35/12.

$0.05/$0.10 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($9.85)
CO ($8.26)
BTN ($5.25)
Hero (SB) ($10.89)
BB ($36.32)

Pre-Flop: ($0.15, 5 players) Hero is SB :qc: :ad: :qd: :ac:
UTG raises to $0.30, 2 folds, Hero raises to $1, BB calls $0.90, UTG calls $0.70

Flop: :6d: :9d: :th: ($3, 3 players)
Hero bets $2.85, BB folds, UTG goes all-in $8.85, $6 to Hero ($7.04)?

I understand there is practically no way this isn't a call - even against something like a set + straight + flush blockers I am at something like 28% equity. For completeness, I see villain's range being:

87xx roughly 80% of the time
sets + FDs about 10% of the time
two pair + FDs about 10% of the time

he will also occasionally show up with a real monster like a straight + set or a straight with flush draw blockers (or a straight flush draw) but this is probably only an arbitrarily small percentage of the time, and the equity difference is not too great to have that big of an impact

against 87xx I have 39.7% equity ProPokerTools.com - Serious tools for serious players
against sets + FDs I have roughly 30% equity ProPokerTools.com - Serious tools for serious players
against two pair + FDs I have over 52% equity ProPokerTools.com - Serious tools for serious players
against straight + straight flush draw (i.e. lots of blockers) I have ~23% equity - so overall not a huge equity difference here ProPokerTools.com - Serious tools for serious players

Putting all of these together:
0.8 * 39.7 = 0.24
0.1 * 52 = 0.05
0.1 * 30 = 0.03

Giving me an average equity of roughly 32% against his range. Since the pot is 14.70, and the bet to call is 6.00, I need an average equity of (6.00 / 20.70) 28.9%, so this is a fairly clear cut call.

I didn't post this hand up to analyze the all-in however (the range + equity bit was more of an exercise for myself more than anything else).

I am mostly concerned about:
A: my betsizing pre and
B: my flop pot sized c-bet.

any thoughts on the above?

Well, obviously not long after posting the above hand, I've spent some time reading further on Bug's PLO strategy series and have made a few realizations.

1) due to the low SPR on the flop, I should be a lot less willing to fold here, especially given the strength of my hand against villain's probable range
2) villain is definitely pushing a wider range than the one I stated, probably including hands like KcKd6c8d and that type of thing.

I didn't state any assumptions indicating that he is a thinking player, etc, but even novices have some idea of fold equity and stack to pot ratio - even if they haven't articulated or properly internalized such concepts i.e. "well the pot is so big, he might fold, his c-bet might be automatic, and I still have a draw so WTF IM ARR IN".

Looking back I believe my intention should have been to c-bet this board and insta call any raise (or shove if this villain doesn't raise enough), rather than humming and hawing over pot odds and analyzing an all-in. Folding anywhere here would probably be a huge leak. Even if both players shoved in front of me I still likely have decent enough equity to call.

Interesting hand. Villain (BTN) is 88/50 w/ a 25% 3-bet over a tiny sample <20 hands.

I have two questions - firstly, I'm not entirely sure of this being a great spot for a c-bet. I stand a chance to gain a great deal of equity on the turn which would make my play from that point on more straightforward, and it is probably better not to build a huge pot with non-nutty hand potential. One of the upsides to c-betting is that this opponent is very likely to continue, even with marginal holdings, and I could possibly get value from a currently 'worse' hand, though I will often not know when he actually improves to a better hand on future streets.

So, to c-bet or not to c-bet? and secondly, once we do c-bet and get raised, what's our play here?

I believe we can discount AAxx since he did not 3-bet pre which would seem to be a bit of a no-brainer given his stats and position (though, sample size does leave something to be desired).

So after his flop raise, the top of his range may look like sets, QQxx, 88xx and 33xx, possibly with flush draws. More often he will just have a pair + FD or just a FD, sometimes an inside wrap, two pair, or weakish holdings like Qxxx with an inside straight draw. An arbitrarily small percentage of the time he will have just a pair and mostly be on a bluff (which ironically still has okay equity v. my hand).

Given the tiny sample size and little knowledge of our opponent it becomes rather difficult to narrow down the probabilities of each holding listed above, and thus hard to estimate our equity here...

$0.05/$0.10 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($3.85)
Hero (UTG+1) ($10)
CO ($17.85)
BTN ($16.16)
SB ($5.22)
BB ($10)

Pre-Flop: ($0.15, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 :ks: :7d: :kc: :3c:
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.35, 1 fold, BTN calls $0.35, 2 folds

Flop: :3h: :qc: :8c: ($0.85, 2 players)
Hero bets $0.60, BTN raises to $1.80, $1.2 to Hero ($9.05)?

In that last hand b/f is like super blah(We really can't) and b/c sucks because we're going to be way behind a lot and not going to know what to do on a tonne of turn cards(9JT, we have horrible reverse implied odds with clubs, 3 is possibly bad card we'll never fold on). b/3b is good if villain is VERY aggro and we know this but we don't. I opt to check in this situation atm from what I've read mostly because I can't b/f but I don't want to end up having to b/c and not knowing what to do on like ANY turn.

without reading any of yaawns post before writing mine in this spot I would recommend checking back the flop because betting puts you in a spot where if raised you are basically screwed vs the guys range and there isn't much value in betting but if you check u give urself free cards to hit flush or set with your kings and once u get that u can prolly get 2 streets of value from hands that outflopped u but then end up being behind

checking also sorta balances ur check back range a bit because its a hand u can probably peel at least a turn with so ur check range isn't just total whiffs that u wanna give up entirely.

AAQQ hand is a fist pump call. Running 66J8 so it kills your queen really doesn't make sense. If you need an OESD to go with your bottom set and FD in a 3b pot you're playing way too tight. He will be jamming Txxx+ here (all these hands will have some other draw) especially if he has any inkling you're going to consider folding THIS hand ever. If you're ever folding AA+NFD in a 3b pot you've made a mistake somewhere.

KK73 hand this is a decent open limp spot given this guy is OTB. The rest is super read dependent, vs possible goof ball I'd just bet/cram. to me c/c has all the problems of bet/call except you've shown less strength so it will be more unclear what to do if you still have KK on blank turns. c/r then bomb most turns also seems better than c/c. c/c OOP doesn't/shouldn't scare people into not betting in future hands but c/r will. We are for sure not screwed against this guy's raise flop range which has lots of dominated draw+pairs.

Operation resurrected!

Cliffs for the last year: I've completed my Master's degree and have taken a position as an Econ researcher for a Defence Economics consultancy here in Kingston. For the time being however I have a great deal of free time, until I have my office and am expected to show up every day (should be a few weeks) I can pretty much make my own hours, which is pretty sweet in terms of flexibility obv.

All this is to say that I've got time to play poker again a few hours a day at least. And, of course, being away for over a year has made me miss it somewhat. I figure I'll continue treading down the path of pot limit omaha, since I am still fascinated with the game -- if not sometimes infuriated with the large amount of variance -- and still have the motivation to keep going.

Being excited as I was to resume my PLO journey, I studied for a few hours - mainly went over my old notes and analyzed hands from last year's sessions - and hopped right back on the saddle.

The results were nothing short of disastrous.

http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/a...wize/vvbad.jpg

So I essentially burned through my ~10 BI shot at 10 PLO and now feel that moving back down to 5s is the best plan to iron out the kinks in my game.

Yes, I ran rather badly over that stretch; 6 or 7 BIs under AIEV in 3k hands is pretty horrendous even by PLO standards. But I still feel that there was a general downward trend in my winnings, and I'd have needed to run above AIEV to break even.

Also, it bears mentioning that RAKE has been a significant factor at 10 PLO: over those 3kish hands, PT3 shows roughly 30$ paid in rake. Not sure how this is calculated, but it seems that I'll not only need to beat the variance but beat the 5ptbb drain on my BR to successfully get past 10 PLO. Once I get back there, that is.

At any rate, I'm heading back down to 5 PLO and will play a session later tonight after I spend more time studying. Will be playing deep as much as possible, 4 tabling, putting in ~2 hrs if all goes well.

I'll be posting up hands I have difficulty with in this space, so if you're a PLO aficionado I'd appreciate your input.

Here's a hand from one of my sessions this week.

Villain is 30/3 over a small sample, with low aggr freq (~1.3).


$0.05/$0.10 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($16.39) 164bb
UTG+1 ($5.18) 52bb
CO ($6.99) 70bb
BTN ($9.60) 96bb
SB ($6.63) 66bb
Hero (BB) ($10.25) 103bb

Pre-Flop: ($0.15, 6 players) Hero is BB :kc: :5d: :ah: :qd:
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.10, 1 fold, BTN calls $0.10, 1 fold, Hero checks

Flop: :ac: :kh: :5c: ($0.35, 3 players)
Hero bets $0.30, UTG+1 raises to $1.23, BTN folds, $0.93 to Hero ($9.85)?


Post-flop thought process:

I'm pretty sure I can get value here from a great deal of potential holdings like flush and straight draws, pair + wraps and so on, so the flop donk bet is fairly standard I think. I chose the size that way because I want to balance out my cbet range a bit, where I normally select a size of 2/3rds or so, though in retrospect I probably should have gone bigger (80% pot?) here due to the obvious wetness of the board.

Once I get repopped by UTG+1, his range is looking a lot more like strong draws like gutshot + FD, wrap + FD and so on. I can't really discount strong hands like QJTXds based on his preflop limp, since the guy is obviously so loose/passive in the first place he's probably just limping gigantic portions of his pf range. In addition to draws, he'll occasionally show up with sets like KKxx and 55xx, sometimes with draws to accompany them. I'm blocking these somewhat, so I should discount these possibilities accordingly.

Thoughts on what I should do here? I could just call it off and hope to "bink" a non-scare card on the turn. If a flush completes, even holding the Kc here, I'm not sure I can fold off a lower flush by betting since villain is not going to be very deep after another street. Another problem with this action is that I'll just be oop on the turn without a real good plan, and I usually won't be too certain what cards help me.

There might be an argument here for a raise, given that villain's most likely holdings are strong draws and I hold blockers ofc.

Thing that gets me here is that the villain is incredibly passive and just pots out facing a cbet in a multiway pot. If I weren't blocking so much I'd just assume this to be a set most of the time.

Anyhow, what's my play here?

Are you sure playing PLO is best until you reach like 100PLO? Pretty sure the people at the stars meetings confirmed everyone with a huge sample size at X stake and <X stake were losers so unless you. They didn't say what X was but I would guess it's either 50PLO or 25PLO.

I think you can plug that last hand into a calculator and get a pretty good idea of what the next step is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Icanhastreebet

Are you sure playing PLO is best until you reach like 100PLO? Pretty sure the people at the stars meetings confirmed everyone with a huge sample size at X stake and <X stake were losers so unless you. They didn't say what X was but I would guess it's either 50PLO or 25PLO.

I think you can plug that last hand into a calculator and get a pretty good idea of what the next step is.

---

Well I've beaten 5 PLO before, see previous graph; it's much easier to beat the rake playing 250bb deep.

Like I've said earlier, rake hovers around 5ptbb for 10 PLO, which makes it significantly harder to beat, all things considered. But, it's certainly not impossible, and many people have been able to work their way through the micros up to 100s.

I'd say the reason people with huge samples at X stakes are all losers is probably because they're not good enough to move up in stakes in the first place. The same might actually hold true for holdem, though to a lesser extent (there are guys like Blackrain who never move up and just keep making money at cheeseburger stakes).

Consider that for most of us players who improve and put in the time, we won't spend more than 30-50k hands at a given stake in the micros before moving up, and most of the time it would take far fewer than that. I think to get to 50s in NLHE it took me around 100k hands total, starting with a banroll of about 100 and playing 2s.

Anyway, it seems to hold logically that if a person sticks around in a given stake over a large sample, it's likely because they fail to improve and therefore do not move up. This isn't exactly earth-shattering news.

As for the hand, yeah I've def run it on pro poker tools but I wanted to get some opinions on how I've thought things through.

Ran across an interesting thread on 2p2 that discusses AIEV and meta, I'll just leave the link here for future reference.

variance / aiev / meta thread - Small Stakes Pot Limit Omaha - Small Stakes PL Omaha Forum

Also a nice one on finding leaks in a specific circumstance:

Plugging Leaks w/ HEM: 3b pots, CB gets raised - Small Stakes Pot Limit Omaha - Small Stakes PL Omaha Forum

Weird hand.

All opponents other than CO are running something ridiculous like 60+ / ~10 over a small sample. CO runs 30 / 15 or so.

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

Stacks:
UTG ($1.31) 26bb
CO ($12.25) 245bb
Hero (BTN) ($12.64) 253bb
SB ($11.78) 236bb
BB ($4.73) 95bb

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 5 players) Hero is BTN :jc: :ad: :ac: :9h:
UTG calls $0.05, CO calls $0.05, Hero raises to $0.25, SB calls $0.23, BB calls $0.20, UTG calls $0.20, CO calls $0.20

Flop: :4c: :4d: :ts: ($1.25, 5 players)
SB checks, BB bets $0.40, 1 fold, CO raises to $1.20, $1.2 to Hero ($12.39)?

So, BB donks out for 1/3rd pot and gets raised 3x by CO here. Unusual considering that PF ranges are incredibly wide and this board is very dry.

While I don't really understand BB's bet, the raise by CO is even more strange. It seems unlikely he'd be playing 4xxx this way, and even overpairs would prefer just a call here. His range is really hard to figure, but I feel like it's mostly air - he probably feels as though he has fold equity enough to pull this off, given the small bet by our passive friend in the BB and only one player who's not acted yet behind on this street (me).

I end up snapping off here. Good / bad?

I would call the flop in the above hand, but I am terrible at PLO :)

Low stakes PLO rake is just nuts. When I was trying to learn the game, I was playing $50PLO and I'm pretty sure I was still getting raped by the rake.

Interesting blog, I love PLO but I suck at it vs competent players.
Snap folding the AAxx, not close for me. Like I say though, I suck.

gl

Thanks for the comments guys, I certainly appreciate any perspective you could offer.

I am thinking of posting hands on 2p2 for quick(er) analysis and x-posting the links here, but I think I'd want to hear from admins on that beforehand. Thoughts?

Also, I think when I do move back up to 10 PLO I'm going to play the deep / ante tables. Going to be much easier to beat the rake if I'm able to stack people for 200+ bbs with made hands and such. I think it's fairly obvious that playing 100 bb deep is more conducive to running hot and cold than deep stack. On the other hand, there will be fewer clean-cut decisions like 3 or 4-betting AAxx pre and getting it in ASAP; and there will definitely be greater reverse implied odds considerations.

Anyway, seems fun nonetheless. Playing deep will probably help along my development as well. I'll consider playing 100 bbs maybe once I get to 50s or so (god willing) but that's aways off.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OngBonga

Interesting blog, I love PLO but I suck at it vs competent players.
Snap folding the AAxx, not close for me. Like I say though, I suck.

gl

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by donkbee

I would call the flop in the above hand, but I am terrible at PLO :)

Low stakes PLO rake is just nuts. When I was trying to learn the game, I was playing $50PLO and I'm pretty sure I was still getting raped by the rake.

---

FWIW here's the rest of the hand. I wanted to avoid being results-oriented and see if I made a correct decision by snapping off the flop raise.

weaktight | Hand Poll | JcAdAc9h - $0.02/$0.05 Pot Limit Omaha Hi

CO checked the A:s: turn and folded the blank river, leading me to believe he had some big pair like KK or QQ. Obviously I binked like all hell, but I feel like I may have made out okay on blanks.

BB ships river, which was unfortunate for him.

lol you were good on flop. I was thinking about the maths of this hand after I posted, satisfied folding was correct, just because of the sheer volume of people seeing this flop. With 16 cards live vs us from an unknown deck of 45, I figured there was around 70% liklihood of one of these guys having a 4 in their hand, assuming any four cards being played. Of course any four aren't being played, so it's gonna be less than that, but with three of them playing too many hands, figured it wasn't gonna be all that much lower, plus TT is possibly out there sometimes. I really hate AAxx in PLO because I always feel my pair is beat, in the micro games I sometimes play I usually limp/cold call AAxx with unsuited rags and c/f flop when I brick. Of course this AAxx is fine, but I hate the flop with this many people. But I really do suck at range assigning in PLO, which is why I don't play it all that often.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Penneywize

I am thinking of posting hands on 2p2 for quick(er) analysis and x-posting the links here, but I think I'd want to hear from admins on that beforehand. Thoughts?

---

I am okay with it. If any admins don't like it they can let you know, but for now I give you permission ;)

No big problem with it here but would be cool if you post at least some of the hands in their own threads, would be fun to get some Omaha chat going - I'd love to learn

Okay, for the time being I'll cross-post in the All Other Poker forum and link here. If it gets really dry and I'm unable to get helpful commentary I'll consider x-posting to 2p2 (no return link obv, I feel like that'd get me banned there!).

Here's a hand from my latest 5 PLO session:

http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ml#post2109221

http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/upl...ed-quickly.jpg


How best to erase an 11+ buy-in downswing, whereupon I ran approx 8 buy-ins under EV?

Simple. Move down one stake -- and win 30 buy-ins in ~4000 hands, running 10 buy-ins over EV.

http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps175f394a.jpg

Granted, I ran like baby jesus for short bursts during this stretch, specifically including an 800-hand godmode session where I racked up over 13 buy-ins.

Sadly, while I do feel like I'm approaching the game from a better perspective, putting in the hours studying, and doing my best to be mentally prepared for and stable during sessions, I feel my recent results have probably clouded a great deal of the leaks in my game.

In this spirit, I'll continue to post hands and read articles in attempting to find areas I can improve upon. I have a list of things I need to work on, which I'll post up here sometime in the near future.

Even though I've more than made up the money I lost during my poor stretch a few weeks back, I figure I'll remain at 5 PLO and try to win another 10 buy-ins or so (i.e. 50$; yes, I'm playing deep but I think it still makes sense to quantify things in terms of 100bb buy-ins) before giving 10 PLO another shot.

Also, when I do move back up to 10 PLO, I decided I'll be playing the deep / ante tables exclusively, as a means to sort of mitigate the effect of rake. I'm actually wondering if there is truth to this hypothesis or if it's largely a mental thing. Anyhow.

I'll put in another session tonight and then come back with some links to hands I'll post on 2p2. Go me.

TL;DR:

In this post I just discuss a few aspects of my game that I've thought need more attention / improvement. These largely deal with my positional stats and such. Let me know if any of you are interested in seeing my stats, and I'll post up a pic of them later.


Some notes on areas I need to look into / improve:

- I seem to be losing money in the SB. I feel as though this is related to my disproportionately loose play from this position (I'm 26.4 / 7.4 in the SB). I think the issue here is likely not all that different from that which plagues others who lose money in the SB: I enter pots due to the perceived "discount" from having paid the small blind - limping behind, calling small raises, and even limp / calling hands I otherwise would not have considered playing. Then, I stand to lose more money when my hand flops decently but either doesn't complete or doesn't hold up due to relatively poor hand structure. Also, I'm out of (absolute) position on all betting rounds, making it harder for me to steal reliably.

- I'm running something like 21/10 with a 2% 3-bet. This seems far too loose and not nearly aggressive enough to me, however I wonder if this is appropriate given my current stakes. As I've alluded to earlier in this thread, my main plan is to make hands and value bet, stealing the occasional pot via cbet or river bluff when appropriate. Given that players at 5 or 10 PLO are not all that savvy in terms of building opponent's ranges and such, I'm not all that certain the devalued steal-equity we gain from 3-betting pre is worth it in many instances. Regardless, I should start to acclimate myself to a more aggressive playstyle, since once I move up to a stake where players aren't quite so oblivious (say 50 PLO) I will definitely need to find new areas in order to have an edge.

- My c-bet percentage is 45%, which is probably a little low for PLO. I'm basing this off what I've read in articles and heard in videos like Vanessa Selbst's PLO series (suggesting a c-bet rate of around 60% is good). As for the situations I'm choosing to c-bet in, I feel like I'm doing a relatively good job i.e. I don't c-bet my marginal draws to second-best hands (against opponents who play straightforwardly postflop, anyway) for instance, because I'd prefer not to get c/r'd in these spots. Further, if I'm out of position, I tend to pass up c-bet opportunities with good cbetting hands if I feel my opponent is aggro enough, and certainly if they were the preflop aggressor. Of course, each situation is different, and I hate to generalize, so take what I've said with a grain of salt.

- While I feel as though I've gotten better at putting opponents on a range, I seem to call down too light in spots, especially on the river. I have a won $ at SD percentage of about 56%, which is fine but probably could be better.

- I've made an effort to find profitable bluffing situations - not strict bluffing, per se, but usually good semi-bluffs and sometimes even good river bluffs if I feel my opponent can fold given their stack size and tendencies, and only then if my line would make sense. A pretty standard spot to find a bluff is one wherein you chase down a draw, calling a few streets off and, when the river misses you, but completes some other relatively obvious draw, bet a decent size. This obviously works better if in position. So far, while this is probably a fairly basic concept, I've found it profitable.

More to come.

Well, shit. I said I'd wait for 10 more BIs to move up, thinking that would take some time. I won over 9 BI in 2 hours of play today:

http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/a...e/more5plo.jpg

What can I say. When you run good, you run good. Funny thing is I'd be content with running == EV, that way the shittiness of my game wouldn't be concealed, and I'd be able to work on my more obvious problems before having them exposed later on.

And who cares about running good at 5 PLO? Seriously? This money means very little to me. Anyway, I guess I should accept the rungood when it comes and stfu.

Your previous post makes a lot of sense. I agree with you for the most part about not playing more aggressive/entering more pots. I think you still get to the flop nearly 100% of the time regardless of if you open or limp and you are paying slightly less rake by bloating pots after the flop instead of before which might not seem like much but is probably what is needed to have a decent winrate at these stakes. I think you can 3b slightly more for value however ALTHOUGH I can't say much because maybe your opponents aren't opening a tonne in the first place but maybe you could start 3bing KKBxss+ and BBBBss etc. Pretty sure AAxx is top 2% no? I also assume your opponents never fold to 3bs and probably only 4b AAxx so it should be easy peasy. Message me on skype tonight. I might join your PLO fiasco. I'm pretty sick of hold em and poker in general and I may just play it for recreation in the near future.

Actually I'm not sure about what percentage of hands AAxx represents. I will say that I generally only 3-bet "good" AAxx, leaving the raggy rainbow versions out of my 3-bet range, and generally only 3-betting premium AAxx (like AsAh7s6h) out of position i.e. in sb or bb and flatting the rest.

I'm down to talk PLO any time man, I'll fire up skype now and see if you're on.

alright this is bugging me:

player is dealt 4 cards, and can make AAxx the following ways:
AAxx
AxAx
AxxA
xAAx
xAxA
xxAA
or 6 different ways.

In any of these cases, the chances of being dealt the first A is 4 / remaining cards and the second, 3 / rem. cards. The chances of not being dealt A are 48 / rem. cards and the second time 47 / rem. cards.

So we get [ (4 * 3 * 48 * 47) / (52 * 51 * 50 * 49) ] for each of the 'ways' of being dealt AAxx. This is 0.004167, and times six = 0.025 or exactly 2.5%

Well that was fun.

Edit: the number's a bit bigger if you include AAAx and AAAA but seriously fuck those combos.

So Yaawn I looked for you online and apparently you're not there. I have my skype on DnD but don't let that stop you. I should be grinding pretty soon tonight, would be cool to discuss things with you at some point!

Some great posts, really good thread. Would be grateful if you'd keep posting hands in the PLO section - I'd really like to learn and that seems like a good way for me to read advise and see what people say. I've had a couple of shots at playing to learn and neither went well. Could you recommend any training material?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pascal

Some great posts, really good thread. Would be grateful if you'd keep posting hands in the PLO section - I'd really like to learn and that seems like a good way for me to read advise and see what people say. I've had a couple of shots at playing to learn and neither went well. Could you recommend any training material?

---

I'll continue posting in the Other Poker forum here for the time being, as I seem to be getting interesting comments and insight from guys like Drmcboy.

As for learning material...

From starting out knowing little / nothing about PLO, start here:
PLO From Scratch - Part 1 | Discussions | Donkr
this article series will take you all the way through to moderately advanced play concepts.

Other than that, the "2 X 6" video series by vanessa selbst / whitelime on DC is necessary viewing, preferably done in concert with the aforementioned article series.

Once you're done with those videos, move on to the "PLO" video series by Galfond and whitelime. Just listening to Galfond talk about PLO concepts is incredibly illuminating.

By the time you get through those videos, you should be close to done the article series and have most of the tools necessary to beat levels up to 100 PLO. Of course, all this assumes you have some propensity to internalize the information being given to you, and take the time to study, review, ask questions, comment on other people's hands etc. you know, the usual 'getting good at poker' shit.

I should mention that having not beaten anything beyond 10 PLO yet I can't confirm that this is enough material or w/e but it seems to me to be more than enough.

Time for an update. I've been away all weekend and a chunk of this week for thanksgiving, work projects picking up starting next week. I don't imagine these will completely consume my time but it'll be nice to be busy; and compartmentalizing my days can't be a bad thing given I've been waking up at noon or later for the past month or so.

Poker-wise, I've moved up to 10 PLO and have been alternating winning / losing sessions for a net of roughly zero over ~3k hands. I'm not discouraged, I know I need to improve, play better, and that way I at least will be setting myself up for long-run profitability in this game, regardless of short-run EV considerations.

-----------------

Some hands I fucked up pretty badly; my comments are in bold:

BB is 11/5, AF of 2, and CO is 85/22, AF of ~0.7

$0.05/$0.10 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($8.12) 81bb
Hero (UTG+1) ($10) 100bb
CO ($5.10) 51bb
BTN ($12.82) 128bb
SB ($36.48) 365bb
BB ($6.72) 67bb

Pre-Flop: ($0.15, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 :ah: :as: :kd: :qd:
UTG calls $0.10, Hero raises to $0.40, CO calls $0.40, 2 folds, BB calls $0.30, UTG calls $0.30

Standard so far.

Flop: :3c: :ad: :2d: ($1.65, 4 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Hurr durr I'mma not bet this flop because of reasons. Reasons that are shitty and bad.

Turn: :8c: ($1.65, 4 players)
BB bets $1.10, 1 fold, Hero calls $1.10, CO calls $1.10

As played, I think calling here is probably not such a bad option; the upside being that our loose donk in the CO might just call behind if the sizing isn't too out of hand. Of course that's an extra 4 cards to draw against my made hand, and I'm not liking any club river that doesn't pair the board. On the other hand he may improve to some second best hand on rivers that I can bet for value. So, it's close.

Raising has the merit of folding out hands that have equity against our holdings, while creating a larger pot vs. BB who may be unlikely to fold to a modestly sized raise here.

River: :6c: ($4.95, 3 players)
BB bets $0.60, Hero calls $0.60, CO calls $0.60

Pretty meekly played here, given pot size I think it's close between calling and folding. Yes, I need something like a 10% chance to win here for this to be a profitable call, but how often do my trip aces hold up here three handed? Not to mention, I would not be closing the action, though given CO's tendencies he seems unlikely to be doing anything but calling here unless he has the nuts.

I've omitted the results, they're really not important here. Am I correct in saying the correct line would have been to b/c flop with a plan to bet say 1/2 to 2/3 on all turns? Does this maximize our expectation given our opponents?

Edit: I neglected to mention UTG runs 43/7 with an AF of 1. All are smallish ~50 hand samples.

Edit x2: I'll post the next hand in the Other Poker forum and link it here.

Next hand is up for discussion here:

http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ml#post2111081

holy jesus, don't you have the nuts on the flop in that hand? i mean, you'd be an equity favourite over 54xx with all your redraws wouldn't you?

i mean the A32 twotone flop hand

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rpm

holy jesus, don't you have the nuts on the flop in that hand? i mean, you'd be an equity favourite over 54xx with all your redraws wouldn't you?

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This is accurate. I suppose my concern at the time revolved around having the deck crippled and never getting value, but this is omaha and people are much more likely to have weird draws / 54xx / two pair and so on. It indeed was a pretty large mistake not to bet that flop.

Update on 10 PLO:

http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/a.../10plo2012.jpg

For fuck's sake, 10 PLO, what is your problem? I think I am destined to run shitty at this level and never move past it.

A more likely issue, however, is the mother fucking rake. I'm down ~4.5 BIs over ~4.7k hands (and ~6.5 BIs under all-in EV) and have paid $80 in rake over that span. That's just f'n ridiculous.

It's really looking like the only way to beat 10 PLO is to simply not run under all-in EV.

I've got about 50$ left in my shot at this level. I'm going to play 4 tables of 250bb deepstack and see how that works out. I get stacked twice, and I move down to 5 PLO and regrind 100$ for another shot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Penneywize

A more likely issue, however, is the mother fucking rake. I'm down ~4.5 BIs over ~4.7k hands (and ~6.5 BIs under all-in EV) and have paid $80 in rake over that span. That's just f'n ridiculous.

It's really looking like the only way to beat 10 PLO is to simply not run under all-in EV.

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Yeah I think I said it earlier in this thread, but I wouldn't play lower than $50PLO. I even think $50PLO is a bad idea cuz I got raped by rake there, too.

Yeah rake is pretty ridic. But I am beginning to think that 10 PLO is indeed beatable, so long as you don't run some huge value under expectation. Players are just generally very bad, it's quite possible to win a great deal by keeping exploitation to a minimum (and minimizing neutralish-EV situations) and just valuetowning bad players when you have the nuts.

It's just such a swongy game though, definitely not for the faint of heart. Maybe I'll be able to speak with more authority on this topic when and if I beat 10 PLO finally.

Alright, time for a stats checkup. Roughly 7k hands at 10 PLO:

http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/a...stats10PLO.jpg

Looking over this, I seem to be playing very passively (low 3-bet and cbet percentage, low raise flop cbet percentage) which may need to be adjusted somewhat. I'm probably opening too widely out of UTG, and completing too widely in the SB. For some reason, I'm raising more out of the CO than the BU, but maybe this is a more common phenomenon than in NLHE.

So, let me have it. Thoughts, commentary, (semi-constructive) insults welcome.

are the 3 bets just AA? < 2% is suspicious, I would change to a mostly different set of 3 bet hands (leave in AAxx DS/connected tyoes, add lots of rundowns).

raise/3b more OTB, play less hands from blinds. In general, when I played too many blind hands, they were meh pair hands or unconnected Axs hands.

I think you're absolutely right actually. Looking at the hands I'm calling off in the blinds, often they're just like a suited ace with a small pair or other relatively unconnected side cards. I think this would be a smaller mistake in multiway pots, but even playing somewhat nutty hands out of position isnt all that profitable. This might be a significant leak for me actually.

As for 3-betting, my range consists largely of strong AAxx and premium broadway and rundowns like JT98ss+. I would refrain from 3-betting bad, or even mediocre AAxx out of position. For example depending on the table dynamic I may not 3-bet AcAd9s7s from the big blind.

It's fairly obvious that I need to be expanding my 3-betting range, especially in position. If I am to succeed at higher levels I can't just be 3-betting premium hands. There certainly needs to be a 'speculative' portion to my 3-bet range, and even a smallish 'outright bluff' portion.

Anyway, I'll try and adapt from here. Thanks for the input.

Well fuck me.

The Smashing Pumpkins release the greatest album they've made in ~14 years, and I'm completely unaware. They go on tour and I miss the fucking Montreal tour date (i.e. today). JFC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVCHpKvyCAg

Anyway, poker update. I've played another 5k hands or so over the last 2 weeks (incredibly weak volume I know), generally playing badly and running shitty.

I've noticed a bunch of horrible patterns creeping back into my play. One is calling down too lightly. Another is calling check-raises on the river without the nuts. Another is tilting towards the end of sessions being all like "w/e, this is PLO, I have equity. Implied odds, and such <clicks 'call'>", and it's costing me.

I think I'm only up about 20$ since my second try at 10PLO, down from a peak of about ~85. I'm still running below EV, but that's hardly the reason for my poor results.

Over the past few weeks I think I've had a tendency not to put in full review sessions, nor work on equities with Propokertools and what have you. This is probably part and parcel of my maladies as of late, and it's got to end.

So, for now, I've got a hand to post, let's see if I can get some advice on it.

Villain is 50/28 with an AF of 2 over about 100 hands.

Pre seems std, as for the flop, I don't want to over-rep here by raising; I'm not raising the nuts here very often if ever, and I'll sometimes, but rarely, raise sets here for balance / deception. Regardless, I call, and it's doubtful he'd even be aware of such tendencies.

Turn, I think I probably should have bet here; primarily as a means to get value from worse flushes, but also for creating fold equity against AsXsXX in the event of the board pairing on the river. Villain's deep enough to fold to a 2/3 psb on river if he calls a bet on turn. As for sizing I'd go something like 1/2 on this street.

If board pairs I figure worse flushes might give a crying call some non-zero percentage of the time, enough to make bet/folding the turn profitable.

Anyway, I don't bet the turn. River is just fucking weird. Is it not legitimate to think that he'd lead all of his nut hands here? Or have I played passively enough (given turn) to convince him that the only way to milk me is to check and hope I bet?

At any rate, once he check-raises, this is a fold, yes? Obviously my bet was designed to get some value from weaker flushes and rarely, other hands. Any chance he raises as a bluff here with any frequency?


$0.05/$0.10 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($12.65) 127bb
CO ($9.64) 96bb
Hero (BTN) ($10) 100bb
SB ($19.25) 193bb
BB ($8.13) 81bb

Pre-Flop: ($0.15, 5 players) Hero is BTN :7s: :kd: :9d: :qs:
UTG raises to $0.35, CO calls $0.35, Hero calls $0.35, SB calls $0.30, BB calls $0.25

Flop: :4s: :js: :ks: ($1.75, 5 players)
SB bets $1, 3 folds, Hero calls $1

Turn: :9h: ($3.75, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: :2s: ($3.75, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1.80, SB raises to $8.98 ...