PLO preflop strategy
 

Hello all... this is my first 2+2 post.. i have played poker for 6 years now but only recently began to play PLO.. i had played the game dating as far back as 3 years.. but only over the past 6 or 7 months have i played regularly.. I have had great success in plo sng's with a roi of 48%.. and a mtt roi that is even higher.. i am not trying to sound like a braggart but simply providing some evidence that my strategy is sound.. as it is diff from what i see anyone else do.. and far diff from the way i play NLHE..
I DO NO RAISE preflop.. with the only exception being if i have a strong AA (i.e. i would not raise AA79) and i can get greater than 50% of my chips in the pot.. even playing by this rule i won't always raise with the strong AA and likely won't during early stages.. my preflop range is otherwise normal.. love connected cards and suited A with connecters (i.e. As5s67).. and standard big hands : AKQT, KKQJ, AsJsJT, etc... I will also play almost any hand if stacks are deep relative to blinds and i can put someone on premium hand(AAxx or KKxx).. people overplay these hands and play the so bad in general i find it profitable to take flops with almost any reasonable hand..

The basis of this strategy is to control pot size allowing me to have a little more play after the flop.. and rather than bluffing or trying to make any kind of advanced play i simply put myself in position as often as possible to capitalize on others mistakes.. I really would like some input from other PLO players on this strategy bcs there are centainly points in mtt's where i know this strategy isn't optimal.. but as a whole i find this immensly profitable.. thanks all

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

i dont see how never raising preflop is ever optimal.

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

dont know specific of PLO tourneys but in cash games agression is everything (depends of limits, indeed)

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

Yeah you can make some profit with this strategy playing small stakes tournaments where you rarely see the same player everyday. Players play bad enough and know so little about the game that they will get into big pots with bad hands despite there being no preflop raise.

If you were to employ this strategy in a cash game format against better players you would be a breakeven player at best. Good players will not build up a big pot against when they hold a second best hand. Good aggressive players win a lot of big pots by raising a variety of hands and getting paid off when you hit big hands.

If you want to move up and make real money you need to get out of your comfort zone and learn to raise pre-flop.

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

your strategy sucks and i hope you employ it and play in my games.

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

You'd be better off raising most hands BESIDES AAxx than only raising good AAxx hands. I'm with Pete F. here, come on down to my table [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

I initially wrote a long post along the lines of Pete's, then I went back and reread that the OP was referring exclusively to PLO SNG's and MTT's. It's an ok strat for them especially when your opponents are mostly clueless because it reduces your variance dramatically and allows you to conserve your chips. In any kind of cash game though you would be very dead money playing this way.

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

Well, your tourney results are definitely better than mine, so what can I say? I do have some questions and comments, though.

I've been playing somewhat similarly in medium stack, although I suspect significantly tighter. I definitely play all the premium hands you mentioned as well as just about any wrap with full extension. QQ and KK I also like to see the flop with, but I can fold those, too, depending on quality of hand and table texture.

If I'm either deep or short, I do raise a lot more than AA, however. Short, I'll look for double-up opportunities with just decent ds (like AQ85ds to A and Q comes to mind as one in a recent tourney that I pushed PF from short-stack) or of course any AA or also strongish KK.

Deep, I'll do somewhat the same thing against shorties that don't hurt me much. I try to play very solid against other deep stacks, though.

I guess my main question is how you survive short-stack situations if you're only willing to push AA. I mean, that's certainly great for double-up attempts, but you often have to wait a good while for it.

Anyhow, short, I try to play Rolfishly to the extent that I've digested his book. Medium actually somewhat rolfishly, too. And deep is kind of a combo, but I don't think I play quite as loose as you do in deep stack.

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

This can be a very successful strategy for MTTs, simply because the standard of play is so poor. This is especially the case in freezeouts. It's not uncommon for over half the field to be knocked out in the first hour and limping into a lot of these pots cheaply let's you take advantage of this madness. You don't need to escalate the pot preflop simply because these guys will stack in the tiniest pots anyway. A little positional raising does help and once the blinds get big enough. then it turns more into a standard donkament.

As to whether this kind of style would work in a cash game...well it depends. nearly any kind of preflop style can be made to work depending on how you adjust through the rest of the streets. There is a strong undercurrent of playing a ram-jam style on this forum, and like all forums, you end up attracting sympathisers and not detractors. This doesn't mean that this is the only way to play or even the best way to play.

gl

bdd

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

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As to whether this kind of style would work in a cash game...well it depends. nearly any kind of preflop style can be made to work depending on how you adjust through the rest of the streets. There is a strong undercurrent of playing a ram-jam style on this forum, and like all forums, you end up attracting sympathisers and not detractors. This doesn't mean that this is the only way to play or even the best way to play.

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this is ridiculous. playing for higher stakes when you have better cards and/or position is fundamentally how you make money in poker. all else being equal, you will lose if your opponents raise when they have the advantage and you don't. and if you play so much better post-flop that you could make money in the game despite never raising pre-flop, all the more reason you should want to play for higher stakes in the pots you enter.

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

the tournament level of play is really poor in some cases, there dont seem to be a lot of good multitablers in them as they dont run frequently and a lot of holdem players seem to be in there by accident.
my experience:
first hand of 20$ donkament with 30 players, 10 limpers, flop comes 557, 3 people all in, 2 of them with bare overpairs.

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

Pete, I think part of the problem is that neither of us writes detailed enough posts or replies in the first place. I didn't say that it was the best way. I just said the "2+2 standard" may not be the best way and a very little raise strategy could be made to work. I know, because that was how I used to play. Now was that the best way? A good way to play when I got to higher stakes? Or even how I would play now? The answer to all these is no. But the practical truth is you can make a lot of preflop styles work, depending on how you connect them through the rest of the streets. I saw successful players with hugely different styles, from Raefel to CHUFTY and a lot of very tight grinders.

gl

bdd

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

All Pete is saying is that we make money by inflating the pot with an edge, be it our cards, position, our superior postflop play, or all of the above.

Not doing so = not playing optimally = leaving EV on the table.

Therefore, while never raising may make the OP money (or the sample size may be too small), it certainly cannot be optimal and he is leaving EV on the table.

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

I think OP probably has the right strategy for SnGs since playing them in a risk-averse fashion allows you to cash often, especially when other players are shoving trash and playing terrible postflop. I think it's probably less optimal in MTTs, especially as you move into the latter stages, but is still probably a money-making strategy there as well, especially with the soft fields.

However, in a cash game where you can comfortably shove a 51/49 edge and make money on the transaction, it becomes very important to push small edges like having a solid PF hand and playing in position. To OP, if you're looking to play cash games, you're going to want to change your strategy dramatically, and start raising close to half of your playable hands. This will probably have an adjustment period as you'll have to deal with C-bet situations in HU pots, and a general higher level of postflop aggression as well, but it's the only way to achieve a high winrate in PLO cash games. (Note that I said high winrate, there are a few nits out there that can grind out 2 BB/100 or so with suboptimal strategies, but they're definitely not maximizing their earn.)

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

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I think OP probably has the right strategy for SnGs since playing them in a risk-averse fashion allows you to cash often, especially when other players are shoving trash and playing terrible postflop.

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I could see this working early on at microstakes, but if OP is doing this at every stage of an SNG including the bubble, he's playing very bad for a variety of reasons.

Re: PLO preflop strategy
 

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However, in a cash game where you can comfortably shove a 51/49 edge and make money on the transaction, it becomes very important to push small edges

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Does it? Do you think this is where successful PLO players find their edge?

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and start raising close to half of your playable hands.

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Where do you get this from?

gl

bdd