PLO Pimpin'

What’s up guys?

Before I write my next topic, I want to address a couple of questions from the comments section from my previous entry.

Do you ever differ the amount you buy in for? Like if you have a bad seat in relation to fish/good reg? Sure, it’d be foolish not to adjust the buy-in amount based off of table dynamics. It’s one of the clear methods for gaining an edge, both online and live. Although, I will say that avoiding the “tough regs” and accounting for position in relation to the good players matters less live, simply because the player pool is softer on average. From my experience, the good players tend to stay out of each others way, and are content with taking turns hammering on the fish. Also, since the games are very loose and 7+ handed the majority of the time, you encounter far less HU situations (folding around to the button, and bvb situations are much rarer in live PLO than in online six-max).

Typically, I never buy in deep immediately, unless I already have strong reads on each player at the table. I used to make the mistake of always coming in for the maximum buy in regardless of my position, reads, or mood. Now, I typically buy in for 100bb’s, and reload gradually as the night progresses and my reads strengthen. Playing deep PLO successfully requires strong reads, and there’s nothing worse than feeling helpless in the middle of a big pot early on in the night without any reads. Put more simply, at the beginning of the night when you don’t have any reads, making a light stack off or a poor call against an unknown is less costly with a 100bb stack than it is with a 200 or 300bb stack. All of us have experienced a situation where we make a certain play early in the night, and then after playing with “x” opponent’ for a couple of hours, realize how terrible our line was given whom the player ended up being. This can lead to either a bad stack off, or a bad fold, which can obviously induce tilt too.

Of course, if the fish is on my right, I will always at least have a stack that covers him if possible.

Do you run it more than once? Certainly. It depends on the situation. A few years ago FWF wrote a very informative article (can’t find it now, seems like DC took it down for some reason?) about the advantages of running it twice. I don’t remember everything from the article, but I do remember that his advice was to pay attention to who was running it twice, and that you should be more inclined to semi-bluff these players lighter, since you’ll have two chances at winning the pot. Basically, it’s a low variance semi-bluff. I think that’s how the argument went? 

Anyhow, I typically run it twice when I know the equities are close and the pot is big. As I mentioned in the last blog, it’s difficult to see more than 150 hands in a night playing live FR PLO, so the variance can be huge at times, particularly with deep stacks in play. For pots 200bb’s or less I typically don’t run it twice, but once the pots get to be 300bb’s+ I’ll run it twice most of the time, unless I have a very strong hand and don’t want to give them the opportunity to chop a big pot. 

Additionally, I think running it only once is good for your image. It makes players reluctant to play a big pot against you without the nuts, because they know they only have one shot at scooping it. This of course makes them play more straightforwardly.

Something to consider: If you run it twice, the equities are not the same on the 2nd board due to card removal. If you have a FD (or a set) and you bink it on the first try, it decreases the odds of making the draw again.

Do you try to play more hands because you don’t get many of them per hour or fewer because it’s full ring? Not really. I tend to play quite tight in full-ring, and quite loose when it’s 5 handed or less. The number of hands/hour is somewhat irrelevant. Just try to play every hand goooood no matter how many of them you’re seeing imo.

Do you open limp? Sure. I typically don’t open limp from MP onward but from EP it’s definitely feasible in very loose and passive games where players will let you get away with it. In all forms of poker one of the primary goals is to avoid building up pots only to give up on them later, and in the loose full-ring games, raising preflop from EP often doesn’t change the # of players in the pot very much. So if the flop is going to be 4+ handed, and you’re probably going to need to flop some equity in one way or another to continue with the hand (in other words, unlikely you will be c-bet bluffing), then seeing cheap flops is a fine approach imo. Although most of my EP limp hands are the weaker polarized hands (weak KK/QQ/AA hands, AKJTr, A987ss), I’ll still raise my very strong hands. Since their limping range and peeling range preflop are essentially the same, I want to build a pot with my strong hands so they can stack off with dominated draws.

Do you ever shortstack? Almost never. Although I had success on FTP playing the shallow tables, 100bb effective stacks is where my comfort zone its. The only reason I would buy in shorter than this was if I was taking a shot in a bigger game. But even in that case I typically just buy in for 100bb’s and sell action as needed. As mentioned, many of the players in these games lack postflop skills. So if you think you have a considerable postflop edge, you’d be costing yourself a lot of money coming in short. If you’re coming in short because the game is too big, my advice is to come in for 100bb’s and sell some action off. Besides, if you choose to play in a bigger game in the first place.. It’s likely to be a soft game. So why cost yourself money by buying in short?

Hopefully this cleared up your questions. I have another blog already written, but I think this one is long enough already, so I'll just post it in a couple of days. Thanks for reading! 

GL,

John