Okay, not literally. PLO didn’t carry me to safety from a burning building. But it DID, in a very big way, reinvigorate my interest in poker and thus, my poker career. As those of you reading this may already know, the online and live NLHE MTT grind can be just that – a grind.

I have been playing hold ‘em tournaments for a living since 2007, and thus far in 2012 my interest in the game has been at an all-time low. I had even begun entertaining thoughts of quitting playing poker full-time. Tournaments were getting monotonous, I wasn’t learning anything new, and other parts of my life became more interesting by comparison. Even moving to Canada to reactivate my PokerStars account only reinvigorated my passion for the game for a little over a month. In no time at all, I once again felt like I was riding a stationary bike for hours on end – repeating the same motions over and over again and seeing nothing new while doing so. All of this boredom and discontent was taking its toll on me, and my game was suffering as well. And then I discovered Pot Limit Omaha.

My friends and roommates in Windsor all play the game almost exclusively for a living. In fact, I may be sharing a room with one or two of the top 50 PLO players in the world. I started sitting in on some of their online sessions – taking at first what could be best described as a polite interest in their results. I’d ask some questions over “why this” or “why that,” but nothing really sunk in or stuck. Shortly thereafter, I started occasionally watching some PLO training videos and gave.25/.50 6max a try for fun. And I was hooked.

Low and micro stakes poker is different. PLO Lab; Adv. Poker Training. Home » Poker Strategy » How to Make Winning Adjustments in Low Stakes Games.

Between then and now I don’t even know how many thousands of hands of PLO I’ve played, but every day I approached a session with an interest and optimism I haven’t had since I started playing live $1/$2 in high school. I love playing it, I love learning, and above all else, I WANT to set aside time from other things to do so!

Most importantly, playing a lot more PLO and immersing myself in PLO strategy has had a positive effect on my NLHE game. Those of you that already play PLO probably already know – it’s just more FUN.

Four cards means 6 possible HE hands, which means flops, turns, and rivers become infinitely more complicated – and for those of you like me, the fun is in the complications. I see ranges and board textures in a different way and have made adjustments in my MTT game that undoubtedly contributed to my recent Sunday Second Chance final table. The moral of the story: if you catch yourself slumping, or getting bored with poker, try a different variant! Personal Website Templates Html5 With Css3 Interview. If you play NLHE MTTs like many of the pros and members of this site, immerse yourself in some cash strategy, learn PLO, or even try one of the dozen or so other variants of poker! Believe it or not, taking a couple days or even weeks away from 30-50 tournaments a day can do some very definitive long-term good for you as a player and a person.

As I said at the beginning, PLO saved my (poker) life. 4 Responses to “PLO Saved My Life” • • •.

Posted 4 years, 9 months ago Best strategy for microstakes PLO? The microstakes seem to be very fishy and lots of high vpip players with stationy went to showdown stats (>32%) There is also many multiway pots and it feels as if balance doesn't matter at all as no one ever folds to 3bets and such. Is my best strategy going to be only playing near premium type hands? AAxx suited, Broadway wraps, high pocket pairs with suits/connecters and double suited wraps with 1 gap max?

Is there even any reason to play hands like A456, 6644, 7643, AKQ7 all singled suited atleast and so on (apart from the button). I find I am playing a lot of 3 broadway type hands with a dangler and 3 suits which is probably terrible? KJT3sss I just realized I am breakeven after my last 15k hands (many buyins below ev) and maybe I am playing too wide a range when most of the pool are fishy players and poor regs.

My stats range from 27/20 to 24/20. Is there any material out there that targets how to play the microstakes vs a lot of fish for PLO?

The hand ranges still confuse me.

If no-limit hold’em is the Cadillac of poker, then pot-limit Omaha must be a souped-up Lamborghini Diablo. With its bigger pots and wilder swings, PLO is starting to race away from its more conservative counterpart. PLO has rightly captured the imagination of many of the top players in the world, including Phil Ivey, Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan and Patrik Antonius. Now it’s time for you to join the action! In this article we’ll set you on the right course to beating PLO – specifically the low stakes ($0.10/$0.25) online cash games – by giving you a broad understanding of the concepts you’ll need to master in order to beat any PLO game. Big fish Generally speaking the vast majority of PLO players at the $25 level will not be very good at the game. There is far less awareness about PLO in the poker universe and among casual players than there is about no-limit hold’em.

Lots of myths about the game still prevail and players make huge mistakes regularly. As a result of this the fish are fishier. Often you’ll come across two types of bad players – and they’re total polar opposites. You’ll face some extremely loose, spewy players, and you’ll also face super-nits. If you have a heads-up display (HUD) running on your games, as you should (we’d recommend ), you’ll routinely see players with a VPIP in excess of 70% and others with a VPIP below 10% – at the same six-max table!

To beat the $25 level and above, you must learn to adjust to the weaker players and exploit them correctly, not just play your hands the same way regardless of your opponent. There’s a ton of free money in these games and your mission is to pick out the weak players and get it.

Positional sense If you’ve got even a rudimentary understanding of no-limit hold’em you’ll know how important position is; for PLO you can take that and double it. Position is more important in PLO than in hold’em because players take less tricky, trappy lines with their hands. And this is usually the correct thing to do because if you think you have the best hand and give a free card you’re just asking for trouble. With two extra cards in each player’s hand it’s so much easier for the nuts to change on each street. For instance, if you hold A♠-A♣-x-x on an amazing flop like A ♦-3♠-9 ♥ you should still usually bet. Let’s say you check and a four rolls off. Suddenly the player behind you who checked along for a free card hits his straight and your monster is crushed.

This doesn’t mean you can never slow-play in PLO, it just means that you should rarely do it. Given all of this, having the extra information of acting last gives you a huge edge in the hand.

This means you should be playing in position more than you can possibly imagine. To give you some idea of numbers, at a six-max table you should probably only be playing about 15% of your hands under the gun but 45%+ on the button. Be extremely careful about playing hands from the blinds as you’ll be out of position against everyone.

However, if you do play a hand in the blinds, make sure you’re the aggressor. Hand selection You can go a long way to beating $25 PLO just by having superior preflop hand selection. When you first start playing PLO every hand will look playable, but in the long run this simply isn’t true. A general rule is that high-card strength and coordinated strength is what you are looking for, ideally with all four cards working together. The classic mistake is for hold’em players to overrate the strength of high pairs, especially Queens and Jacks, which are particularly weak.

There’s a huge difference between Q♠-Q♣-J♠-T♣ and a hand like Q ♦-Q♣-8♠-4 ♥. With the first you can raise from any position, while the second should probably be mucked unless you’re on the button. Don’t overvalue two good hold’em hands like A ♥-K ♥-8♣-7♣, and similarly don’t undervalue hands that look like junk but have some connectivity and are double-suited like J♣-9♠-7♣-6♠. The first hand you should usually fold to a raise, the second hand you can usually play and sometimes even reraise with! It’s hard to give an exact figure for the number of hands you should be playing preflop as game conditions vary so much at this level, but it’s definitely possible to have a VPIP of anything from 18% up to about 40% and still be profitable. As a rule of thumb aim for about VPIP 25%/PFR 20% in a six-max game and obviously play tighter in a full ring game. As you become comfortable with PLO you can increase this, but the extra hands you play won’t add hugely to your bottom line.

Aggression PLO is big-bet poker and a game of aggression. Conceptually the most important thing to get your head around is that hand equities run much closer together than they do in hold’em. Even if you hold a monster like A-A-K-K and manage to get all-in preflop against another player holding four random cards you will only be a 2-to-1 favourite. This means that even when players are behind in a hand they will often have the right price to continue. So by playing with aggression and forcing opponents to fold you are often causing them to make a mistake. Having the betting lead is as vital as it is in no-limit hold’em – you should try to be the aggressor in hands and be the one who wins the pots when neither of you has much. One thing you can do to give yourself a big advantage in $25 PLO is three-bet more preflop.

You’ll find there’s very little reraising preflop in these games, except from the odd maniac. If you start doing it you can give yourself an edge as it puts the pressure on your opponents and forces them to play big pots. Often your opponents will make folds they shouldn’t make both preflop and postflop. Try to three-bet for value with the best hand in position, especially against players who are loose and opening many hands, or against weak-tight players who will fold and not fight back. Flop And beyond Obviously there’s an infinite number of situations in postflop play, but here are some general guidelines. The best way to become better postflop is to not only play a massive amount of hands but also get used to the recurring situations. For example, top two pair versus a wrap straight draw, and so on.

You can check out hand match-ups using an equity calculator ( is particularly good), playing around with different hands and spots to increase your understanding of the game. Learn how and when you should be firing continuation bets on the flop. You can’t do this as much as in no-limit hold’em because your opponents will connect with the flop more often, so rein in your c-bets a bit and especially against more than one opponent. However, you should still be c-betting often enough to keep the lead and pick up free pots when you both miss – this approach also enables you to value-bet your good hands in the same way. As your opponents will often (correctly) call your flop bets with a lot of hands, you should continue to be aggressive on the turn.

You should double-barrel a lot, especially against weak-passive players when the board changes. So, let’s say the flop comes A♣-T♣-8♠ and you c-bet and get called by a weak player. Now let’s say the turn is the 8 ♥ and you still don’t have too much. You should often fire again as it’s very difficult for your opponent to continue with his draws, or a hand like A♠-Q♠-4 ♦-5 ♦. Of course, against total calling stations you should virtually never bluff after the flop. If there is any prospect of your opponent folding you should play your draws aggressively.

In $25 PLO games the more competent players’ main weakness will be that they play weak-tight postflop. That means they make folds they shouldn’t with hands like pairs and a flush draw or top two pair when they face aggression.

Get to know the equity you have in pots and understand things like how powerful the nut flush draw can be. If you’re facing a decision over whether to put your money in or not a good rule of thumb is if it takes more than about ten seconds to count your outs your money should be in! Be aware that with a pot of any significant size, it’s often a much worse error to fold after the flop than call with an underdog hand in PLO. Best hand wins Finally, you have to recognise that in these games most of your money will come from having the best hand. You will have a better hand than loose-aggressive players who bluff and semi-bluff too much, but mainly you’ll have a better hand than the loose-passive players that make up most of the player pool. So, for instance, let’s say you hold A-Q-T-J and the final board is 7-Q-A-9-6 with no flush. When your opponent checks the river you should bet for value if he is a loose-passive station.

Of course he may have rivered a straight, but he’ll rarely check that and you’re never getting check-raise bluffed. Don’t miss the opportunity to get paid by a worse two pair. Most players’ key weakness is calling too much and it’s vital that you exploit this wherever possible. Bankroll management PLO and bankroll management are not happy bedfellows! The variance in the game is huge. As I’ve explained, the equities between hands preflop and postflop run extremely close together, so you’ll end up in 55/45 or 60/40 spots very often. Of course, if you get it in as a 60/40 favourite over and over again you’ll be a rich man, but it means solid winning players can go on a 20 buy-in downswing very often.

Of course, the opposite is also true and you can go on huge heaters, which is the big upside of the game. The key therefore is to err on the side of extreme conservatism. At the minimum you need twice the number of buy-ins you would for hold’em. As a working bankroll, 40 buy-ins should be seen as the minimum. So that would mean you need $1,000 to play $25 PLO. But more is obviously better and you should have whatever the number is that you need to be comfortable and fearless when playing. There is naturally less variance at this limit as you’ll play fewer big pots than at higher stakes, but as you move up you should allow for more buy-ins.

A figure of around 50 to 75 buy-ins will allow you to be comfortable at $100 PLO and above. PokerPlayer magazine is now free on your phone or tablet! Download the latest version of PokerPlayer or Living in the US?

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