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It's been a month since my last blog post. I ended up staying up in Austin for about 3 weeks. It was a great trip. My girlfriend was also there for the first week so I showed her around, we went shopping a couple of times and we went to a Ratatat concert. It was pretty amazing, it was an open space with lots of friendly people, awesome music and great visuals. Probably a close second to my favorite music event, which was The Doors (Ray and Robby) last year here in Mexico. I also went to the Alamo Drafthouse (a movie theater) a couple of times, first to a Shaun of the Dead 'quote-along' where we got plastic whiffle bats to hit people in the audience during fight scenes. I also went to see Twilight for the first time. Gladly, there were 3 guys holding mics and saying funny stuff about the movie while it played. It was pretty hilarious. Also, what the hell. Vampires playing baseball? Hahaha.

h, we also drove to the San Antonio Zoo. It was cool, I hadn't been to a zoo in a while. Biggest disappointment was probably the bear. Apparently their bear is so old it doesn't really come out when it's sunny because it heats up (that's what the sign said). Come on, zoo. Shade the area? Get a younger bear? Also, there were no penguins. On the positive side, I found these great miniature elephants you can pet.

I didn't really play that much poker while I was there, but it was a pretty good trip. Started typing up my handwritten PLO notes which was good. Poker-wise, it's been very swingy these last few weeks, had my worst day and my best day back-to-back. Somewhat standard for PLO. Seriously there's probably no week that passes by before I hear someone is either up or down a bunch in PLO. Not looking at my results is pretty hard but I'm totally convinced it would make the swings affect me less. A healthy bankroll definitely helps, so I'm glad about that. A few days ago I told my girlfriend I would make a PLO vid for her so she could learn a bit about the game. I made a mistake assuming I would just try to explain the reasons of every play I'm doing as if I was talking to one of my PLO students, most of which have played thousands of PLO hands already. When I asked her if she had liked the video, she had a ton of questions. So, yesterday we met and I started to teach her PLO from the ground up.

I basically talked about PLO for 3 hours. I found out that a lot of the PLO fundamentals (obviously) revolve around the fact that you are dealt four cards. The nature of every game depends on its rules, and for PLO these are just some of the basic effects having 4 cards (and there being four streets). First of all, pre-flop equities will naturally be closer between hands. This is simply because there is less domination and even weak PLO hands tend to have escape hatches, it's not as unlikely to hit a random two pair in this game. What's the effect of this? Well, there is not much sense for there being a 3bet/4bet/5bet game like in Hold'em where you can 5bet bluff. There is also less sense because you cannot bet or raise more than pot. This means most 3bet spots in PLO will end up being for value and most especially to set up a profitable situation post-flop, since that's where most of the money will be put in the pot. 

On the flop, equities will still run somewhat close between many hands, especially on non-static boards. What does this mean in terms of post-flop play? Aggression becomes very important, because there is a greater need to both protect your hand and make your opponent forfeit his (significant) equity in the pot. It also becomes important for you to be able to realize your own equity and not be forced to forfeit it. 

Since there will be a lot of multi-street aggression, leverage is created. Leverage is usually even more powerful in position, and so position becomes super important. Other reasons because it becomes important is because we can represent many more hands because, again, we have 4 cards. Bluffing, value-betting and pot controlling are easier in position in any game, but in PLO it becomes so powerful that playing OOP is probably the hardest thing to do in this game. Even weak players blindly use positional advantage in PLO. By just calling the turn, they freeze you up whenever a draw comes in, and it makes value-betting pretty difficult OOP. First because he might now have a better hand, and second because if we bet he might not call us with a weaker hand now that his hand's relative value has dropped.

Planning ahead also becomes an essential skill in PLO, simply because board texture and board texture shifts are more meaningful, due to being able to make and represent more hands. This is especially true when OOP and on dynamic/wet boards. Lastly, another simple effect of playing a 4-card game with a 5-card communal flop is the variance will be high. Probably more so if you get it in pre-flop and on the flop where equities are usually closer. I'm not saying you shouldn't get it in on the flop, this obviously is very standard in many many situations, especially against aggressive opponents. Furthermore, and more interestingly, sometimes there are spots where non-standard plays win more money.

A few days ago I played a hand where I was playing 5-handed 100plo at Ongame. I raised UTG with ATQ6 with a nut suit. CO called, and an aggressive BTN 3bet. I called, and the CO called, leaving a pot of $50 with the SPR almost 2 on the flop. Flop was AQ6r. I checked to check-raise, CO checked and BTN checked behind to my surprise. The turn was the 2s, bringing a back-door flush draw. Usually I would lead here, I think that's the standard play. We can get value and protect our hand. If I had led there, they would have probably folded to my strong at-least-top-pair-looking-bet and I would have probably never reviewed that hand. Instead, I checked. Now my hand looks like a rundown that totally missed the flop, or KKxx that's just giving up. This play would've been even better if the CO was also aggressive since he would be the only one left that could represent AQ+ on the turn. He wasn't, so he checked. I can't really blame the BTN for not being able to check back twice in a spot like this. We both look like we're check-folding and the pot is pretty big. I guess he could even have some AJxx hands in his range, although I doubt it. Anyway, he bet $35 on the turn, and I jammed. They both folded and I picked up an extra 35bbs most players just don't. PLO being a swingy game, I think you should be looking to find these spots where you're missing opportunities to make substantially more money without actually getting to SD. It might be a very good play to make with KTJ with a flush draw. Also, next time I might get a free card with a weak draw, which helps me realize my equity. Disclaimer: don't try versus passive opponents that will often check behind on the turn.

Anyway, these are just some of the PLO fundamentals you can really get to understand by thinking about the nature of the game in a broader sense. There's still a lot more left to think about, including ranges, board texture, the nature of multi-way, heads-up and 3-way pots, etc. But for now, just remember: position, aggression, equity realization, and planning ahead.