Heeding Jason's suggestion (let the criticism begin there), I signed on and 2-tabled $.02-$.04 PLO. Played for only about 30 minutes (61 hands total), but nearly doubled. Won $6.97 (bought in for $8).
A couple observations.
First, I found 2-tabling PLO much more daunting than 3-tabling NLHE. Obviously, it's because of my lack of familiarity and comfort with the game. It felt frenetic to me, and I mistakenly mucked (when I meant to raise) a monster (middle set on an otherwise dry board) when I was trying to bounce back and forth. Frustrating.
Second, I'm sure my pre-flop hand selection was awful. I tended to call somewhat liberally (most runs, any pairs bigger than 7, most big cards, if some suited help) and tried to play tighter on/after the flop. Everything came up roses tonight and so I didn't feel the pain I might've deserved, but any comments on that approach? I was able to do this because both tables were loose, passive (not a lot of pre-flop raising, except occasionally by me).
Because I felt a bit overwhelmed by the "action" of 2 tabling, I didn't track all the hands I found interesting. But here are three for your review/comment. Please let me know what you think of my decisions pre-flop and post-.
1. Wow, I lucked out on this flop. Three players and I limp on the button with 776T and call the SB's pot-sized raise. Flopped middle set (amazing, given he had the case 7), and decided that he was bluff check-raising me on the turn. Looking back, it's very possible that I misplayed every step of this hand....except for the raise on the flop.
2. Was my underbet of the flop a mistake (is it an underbet to bet 40% of pot?), when I flopped 4s full of 3s? I hammered the turn and river, but what is the proper play on the flop there? Super short handed like this, ok with me calling on the button pre?
3. Runner, runner rules. (Man, I do sound like Jason.) This one will make Marsh bellow about my "running like a god" good fortune. Who has a theory as to WTF this bozo was doing on the river? Why did he re-raise me all-in (for an additional $.69 into a pot of $6.00 or so) with, um, absolutely nothing? Weird, but thanks....
Maybe I should try playing just 1 table while I try to figure out some starting hand parameters. Or, do you think the loose/passive play pre-flop & tighten post-flop is reasonable, as long as there isn't too much action pre-flop?
$100 swing...the wrong way
14 years ago
4 comments:
To complete the story, I logged on again and played a single table of PLO...and got crushed. Played the same pre-flop, but couldn't (ok, didn't) get away from my flopped sets (twice top, once middle) when the board was very threatening (flush/straights already there). Lesson learned...at least in theory. Erased most of the gains from before, but still slightly up for the day.
PLO is beatable but it's playing with fire imo at this point in the challenge. The variance is generally thought to be about 2x as much as NLHE, but it can be more (or less).
I think on the hands you posted you just ran well. I mean you had a guy shove on you on the river with A high. You flopped a shitty set but it held up. The 4's full seemed fine to me post flop.
I think that you have played less than 100 hands and it's going to be hard to really figure out what is what until you get a lot more hands under your belt.
I would definitely lean towards just playing big hands unless you can see flops for really cheap often.
You really have to try to reduce your variance if you are running with only 20-buy ins in PLO. It means you can't really play optimally as well.
It is a tricky beast, as the play is far worse in a relative sense to NLHE.
The biggest mistake that I struggled with and it sounds like you are struggling with is overvalueing pocket pairs and sets. This is particularly easy to do coming from a Hold 'Em background.
Calling with any pair bigger than 7s is a HUGE leak. Set mining is way more -EV in PLO than it is in hold em, and playing pairs postflop in PLO is really, really hard. Even when you hit your set, you often don't have anything near the nuts.
I also think you need to be careful of falling into a loose-passive mindset just because the game you are in is playing loose-passive. I did this at first, and it leads to lots of multi-way limped pots that make it impossible to read people post flop and gets you in lots of trouble with marginal hands. Don't be the first limper in the pot, raise your playable hands from the CO and the BTN, and be a nit in general.
PF hand selection is something you need to adjust table by table, as a table full of HE players will generally have people playing weaker pf hands (things like AKxx and middle pairs). My usual starting range is AAxx, KKxx with at least a suit or another broadway card, 10 high rundowns and better (eq 7-8-9-10), J high rundowns and better with a gap (eg 7-9-10-J), and lower rundowns from late position. QQxx and lower get mucked unless I'm on the button, TTxx and lower get mucked from any position, and 3 card rundowns get mucked from anywhere unless it's three broadway cards with a suit and I'm in late position. Like I said, I may open this up a bit if there are lots of donks who stack off with top pair top kicker at the table, but that's what I start with. I don't limp any of these hands, and my coordinated AAxx and broadway rundowns get 3 or 4 bet pre.
PLO is very high variance but you can mitigate some of it with better pf hand selection and general nittyness. Don't worry about getting paid off if you're only playing the top of your range, people hate to fold in these games so just blast away. Just always be aware of what the nuts is and be very careful if you don't have it.
Thanks, Chuck. I'll try out your starting hand parameters. Still experimenting and getting my sea legs.....
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