Poker Video: Omaha/Omaha 8 by danzasmack (Micro/Small Stakes)

I have a bunch of boring questions. Haven't played or watched enough to be able to ask good strategy questions.

What are the largest stakes that regularly run in PLO8?
What are the largest stakes that semi-regularly run in PLO8 (say, ~once a week) ?
Do you play any other sites than FTP/Stars?
Can you play exclusively 6max or do you need to mix in some FR?
How many hands do you get an hour?
How brutal is the rake?

Thanks in advance.

I have a bunch of boring questions. Haven't played or watched enough to be able to ask good strategy questions.

What are the largest stakes that regularly run in PLO8?
What are the largest stakes that semi-regularly run in PLO8 (say, ~once a week) ?
Do you play any other sites than FTP/Stars?
Can you play exclusively 6max or do you need to mix in some FR?
How many hands do you get an hour?
How brutal is the rake?

Thanks in advance.

All questions are meaningful because a lot of people don't know much about the game.

Stakes that run regularly- Between Stars & FT, up to $400PL and sometimes $600PL.

Semi-regularly(although lately it's been regularly) 1000PL & 2000PL. Recently a few 5000PL games have run on stars and some 5000NL on FT.

Other sites than Stars/FT- I don't personally. From what I understand, games on other sites are running, but usually smaller stakes, although when the bigger games run they are juicy.

You can pretty much play 1/2 6max, but I'd be aware of FR as there are typically more fish in FR.

Hands an hour- say 6 tabling 6max you're looking about ~400 hands an hour.

Rake is tough at small stakes like everything else, think at 50pl its like 15bbs/100 or so. It gets better as you go up.

Remember though, your winrate is usually going to be higher in PLO8 than say NLHE, so this helps offset rake and hands per hour.

Good luck and if you have any hand questions, post 'em!

All questions are...post 'em!

Thanks, I didn't think it ran that high. I'm probably gonna start playing this a bit as a second game, mostly for fun but it helps that it appears to be very profitable.

I have one other general question;
What's a standard SD/100 figure? What is your SD/100 (and to put that in perspective what's your VPIP/PFR)?

Once again, thanks!

I'm not on my computer with my HEM, so I won't be able to check the SD until probably this evening. As far as my vpip/pfr at 6max, I'd say it's around 23/15 or so. I'll know for sure later.

22.4/11.5 with a SD 46.79/100BB

Not a huge numbers guy, tbh, although, except when playing there are a ton of numbers I do focus on.

interesting video for me as a PLO8 specialist (and freerolling deucescracked lurker). i don't know though, despite getting one uber-cooler early on (and a nasty river card on one big pot to get scooped) you finished down for the session. whilst you were aggressive and took down a lot of uncontested small pots, homosapiens in particular rather owned you in the bigger ones. this is something i see a lot, and whilst i appreciate you're talking between you throughout, i think it would be better if you paid a little more attention to getting a quicker more accurate grasp on opponents rather than typical ranges and tracker stats. you do talk about how discretion is often the better part of valour in PLO8 and avoiding high variance plays, but it seemed to me these thoughts were not practised on too many occasions. thanks for the video though.

Hope you enjoy the free flash week and thanks for taking the time to comment.

I agree with the points you make in principle, although I somewhat disagree with their application here when the contexts of the situation are completely considered.
Danza and I have no PL experience on Stars pretty much at all, so we were attempting to feel out the player pool as we went along. Initially, all we had to work with were stats until some hands were shown down where more could be worked with. Formulating a range from stats is great, but how a player plays that range simply takes time which is hard to achieve without more history and only ~60min to develop. By the end discussion, specifically the KKxx hand in the sb, what we learned about the player(homosapians-who's likely a solid winner) beyond stats became a critical point. I believe there were a couple of other players that eventually became easier to discuss as the vid went on because more information became available, again beyond stats.


Often for me, as I'm starting with a newer player pool, I'm going to find myself in more high variance situations as I'm learning to define what lines are possible against specific people in a variety of spots. Just because something didn't work out as desired in a specific spot yet, doesn't mean as a whole it's a poor play or it certainly may be a poor play once more info is known. There are times where you will catch the best part of someones range given their specific line. Hopefully with time, between proper adjustements, these times can be minimized and variance reduced, but unfortunately never avoided.

As far as it being a losing 1 hour period of play, that's really not unique in any way. You can take snapshots of any session and they'll rarely be static. I think DS ended up down 1/2 buyin in this session, in EP6 I ended up 3buyins or so, as well as in EP2&4. AS Chuck would say, poker is just one big session.

If there are any specific hands that you wanted to discuss, just click the time stamp and we'd be glad to discuss them.

Time Link to 00:16:20

I'm still trying to get my brain around this river bet with the AsKs99 hand on K45J5.

[EDIT: I snipped out a discussion of whether it's a bluff because I just caught that one of you -- danzasmack? -- says it's a value bet to get a worse king to call. The other one's -- yeahitsme's? -- discussion of trying to get him to fold a busted low draw is what confused me.] This seems like the classic "turning a decent hand into a bluff" situation. I guess it's hard for me to see worse kings making up enough of his range there to give us much value. Now that we know that he'll call down with any non-nut flush, I think the value in this bet is even less than before we had that read.

Also, by accident he's played his hand near optimally against our precise hand (which is obviously a lot different than saying he played it optimally against our range). If he somehow knew both our hole cards and tendencies, he'd be correct to call the turn "knowing" that we'll bet the river.

Obviously, if he's a thinking player and considering our range, he should know that it's very possible for us to have a better low draw. (His is 84!) He'd probably want to protect half the pot with the 2nd nuts. But that's just my point, he's not a thinking player, and yet we've made calling down correct by betting down. As a general rule, any time we make bad players luck into optimizing against us, I like to at least think about whether we might have done better to play differently. I suppose he was near the top of his range and that we shouldn't think flushes make up that much of his range since he's probably chasing any decent low draw.

Eager to hear others' thoughts. I'm just getting caught up on the videos again.

We're essentially turning our hand into a bluff, with some showdown equity when called. I find players like the villain will have a ton of bare low draws in their range, although some will include a K and some will include a 5. Most of the K's will be chopping with us, so getting them to fold out would be ideal, as well as a bare 5.

Obv in hindsight it was a bad bet, but what we can take from it is a more defined value bet range, which we can take advantage of at a later time. I much prefer to find this out in spots like this where we're playing smaller pots and aren't valuetowning ourselves too much. It also creates an image for the overall table, where if we were to continue playing for an extended session(and future sessions, we'd often end up getting a lot more value out of our made hands.

What's good and bad about PL is the player pool is small enough where player tendencies, as well as your personal image, can be either determined or created in a relatively short period, thus adjusted to fairly quickly.

Time Link to 00:40:33

The slowplay of the quad jacks with only a weak low draw doesn't surprise me nearly as much as it surprises you guys. Obviously it's terrible, but small-stakes opponents love their slowplays. Apparently they forget they're in a split-pot game or something.

No dispute that you have to call this though. "I'm pretty much calling here because of the low potential," is a little confusing but I take it to mean because of the potential that your opponent is betting a naked low, right?

No dispute that you have to call this though. "I'm pretty much calling here because of the low potential," is a little confusing but I take it to mean because of the potential that your opponent is betting a naked low, right?

Exactly. It's a common line with w/nut low.

Time Link to 00:41:48

seems to me that a lot of the hands that you are playing you wind up getting scooped yourself. It appears to me that you are over playing your equity on one side of the hand a little much (hi/lo). If the pot is $22 and you have a nut flush on a paired board and you have no low and a low is possible, do you really think it is profitable to be calling a $22 bet? The best case scenario for you (imo) is that you call $22 to rake $33 meaning you are risking double than the amount you stand to win when you get half. Seems like a pretty bad play to me.

It also seems like you went way out of your way to get it in vs a 40bb stack just for the value of squeezing the original raiser out of the pot. You are still jamming over a re raiser post flop w/ trash imo. You have a hand that is in pretty bad shape against a set or a straight + a better low than yours, which is what a post flop re raise reps. I believe joe tall says that "you are playing good poker if your opponents have to get lucky just to take half the pot", and it doesn't appear you guys are playing w/ that mentality. Your opponents seem like they are putting you in the position to get lucky for half the pot.......meaning.......you are not playing good poker.

Time Link to 00:44:46

Just to get the theory clear in my mind, why is minraising with a short stack bad? Because he should be wanting to pot commit himself with anything worth raising? Because he should maximize fold equity here?

(By comparison, in NLHE tourneys they say it's generally good to raise smaller, down to a minraise, as effective stacks get shorter. However, even then this concept may not apply when one stack is much larger than the effective stack, not sure.)

===
joethrock: Interesting points. I'd kind of felt the same way about some of these hands, but deferred to the authors since they know PLO8 well and I don't.

Just to get the theory clear in my mind, why is minraising with a short stack bad? Because he should be wanting to pot commit himself with anything worth raising? Because he should maximize fold equity here?

(By comparison, in NLHE tourneys they say it's generally good to raise smaller, down to a minraise, as effective stacks get shorter. However, even then this concept may not apply when one stack is much larger than the effective stack, not sure.)

===
joethrock: Interesting points. I'd kind of felt the same way about some of these hands, but deferred to the authors since they know PLO8 well and I don't.

When that short, it's a little maximizing fold equity, but more maximizing value. If he pots it PF and has a hand strong enough to see past the flop, the value is in building the pot early to get commitment from other stacks OTF as he'll only have 2 streets to really work with(if he pots it PF, he'll pretty much have a PSBAI OTT . Basically you don't want to give a villain an opportunity to fold at that point.

More importantly with that hand though and I'm not sure I emphasized it enough, was the stack depth. it's just not worth set mining A99x here, even double suited, because of lack of implied odds.

And I agree with some of the comments from Joetherock. I believe I mentioned after the A6xx hand(flush vs quads) that I didn't like A6 hands and this hand was a prime reason why. It will end up playing 1way more often than not and suck you into some bad situations. There are a few other hands that I'd probably not be playing, but I'm actually fine with the hands as they hopefully either lead to some interesting discussion or will lead to some.

Not sure which hand is referred to in the 2nd paragragh though.

Time Link to 00:33:46

yeahthatsme, this is the hand i referred to in the second paragraph. Yes you have a nut flush draw and the 4th best low draw, but i think that w/ $1.75 invested im not really all that into sticking in 100+ bbs. If you get called and it is 3 way i think you have to admit that you are pretty much praying for a 2 of spade or any 2 and a spade w/ no board pair. I think that after the guy pot commit shipped over the first bet he is repping made high ie....set, straight or 2 pair w/ a low draw (he could also have a pair and sd, a pair and a fd or both). If the original raiser sticks it in after your shove, you are crushed for the low for sure and behind on the high. Seemed like a easy spot to get away from for a $1.75.....but i dont hate the fact that you wanted to gamble.

I think the point i am trying to make is that at this stake you will find better spots than a double draw to stick in 100bbs. Like nut high w/ a nut low or a back door nut or second nut low draw. You know stuff like that, where you are exploiting your opp. that are chasing for a low w/ no shot at a high.

It is a marginal spot, definitely a raise or fold, but one where if we can isolate for 50bbs effective instead of 100bbs, we usually have close to 50% equity vs. the villains range making it +EV because of the dead money in the pot. Of course this is reliant on folding out the deeper stack, which will most often be the case given his tendencies to this point and a likely range we can assign, unless he specifically has A267 or maybe A255. It's much more about playing the players than the hands.

I don't hate getting into flipping or marginal situations with smaller stacks as a way to create a loose image. People will fail to associate the reasoning that it was realistically 50bbs effective, so when I am jamming 100bbs+ with the nuts, I'll get less credit.

Again, it's a very player dependent play that I definitely wouldn't try on some occasions and against a good number of players. My approach to the game is very player exploitative and a good number of actions I take are specific to this. I did use the word typically in the video, which may have been incorrect.

Fair enough, thanks for the response also.

gl at the tables,
joe

Time Link to 00:55:40

Hand on the right.

Easy to dissect these things once they have happened, and I don't mean to be critical. However, do you think there is a lost bet here, specifically on the river when the action pretty much says there is no other low. 34xx, 35xx are pretty unlikely given there was no bet on the flop. Again, I may be missing something, possibly that we are first to act. However, the likelihood of a bluff raise must be pretty low with such a scary board, potentially doubling the use of the bet to fold other players out?

Also, as a beginner with can you please explain why chuck would have AFQ in his HUD and not AF? The best explanation I found here was the following, is it accurate for PL08 too?

If you see some guy with high AP then you should be careful about calling his preflop raise with something marginal and getting barreled off your hand. With your strong hands you can trap them with check-calls and check-raises. You can also put out a blocking bet or a donk bet and 3bet over their raise. I read an argument in the new SSNLHE book about calling with QQ+ and AK preflop sometimes as well. If you see somebody with a very low AP and they are getting pretty aggressive you can fold TPTK. Good luck, Yojimgari

Loving this series. Have I mentioned that? Looking forward to that short in a couple of weeks.

Hand on the right.

Easy to dissect these things once they have happened, and I don't mean to be critical. However, do you think there is a lost bet here, specifically on the river when the action pretty much says there is no other low. 34xx, 35xx are pretty unlikely given there was no bet on the flop. Again, I may be missing something, possibly that we are first to act. However, the likelihood of a bluff raise must be pretty low with such a scary board, potentially doubling the use of the bet to fold other players out?

Also, as a beginner with can you please explain why chuck would have AFQ in his HUD and not AF? The best explanation I found here was the following, is it accurate for PL08 too?



Loving this series. Have I mentioned that? Looking forward to that short in a couple of weeks.

I wouldn't typically bet this OOP in a mulitway pot for a couple of reasons. I'd hate to bet/fold as all high hands can push us off, we have no idea whether 34,35,45 are out as in PL/NL people are rarely betting these on this flop &/or turn unless it's specifically A34-A45. We have little fold equity as most ABxx are calling and there's so little money in the pot. Betting here really wouldn't ever be for value, we'd be turning our hand into a bluff. If I were second to act, I'd consider it. Last to act would be fine.

Chuck's HUD isn't really geared towards PLO8, his primary game was LHE, then PLO, then LO8, then PL/NLO8.

Glad you're enjoying the series!

Great insight, thank you.

Time Link to 00:49:32

Seems to me that you are playing in general in not very juicy tables because the most actives players are at your left while the tight players are on your right. Do you table select in general?

Seems to me that you are playing in general in not very juicy tables because the most actives players are at your left while the tight players are on your right. Do you table select in general?

When I can table select I do, but usually it depends on how many tables are running. On FT I used to start a lot of tables to get games going so I couldnt be as choosy , where as Stars volume was usually high enough to table select.