Omaha winrates vs Holdem winrates

[iggymcfly]

PLO games are definitely softer than NLHE. I'd say the average 1/2 PLO player has been playing for maybe 3 months while the average 1/2 NLHE player has been playing for 3 or 4 years. It's just that as the popular game, most people have gotten a fairly decent idea of how to play NLHE whereas PLO has more that are completely clueless.

And as far as winrates go, I remember there were NL threads a while back where people were talking about 10 PTBB/100 as about the absolute best winrate you could average at low stakes, even down to the 0.10/0.25 level.

Well, the last 2 months playing PLO (close to 20K hands), I've been averaging 17.17 PTBB/100 and that's with far from perfect play. I've gone on tilt at least 2 or 3 times over that time period and given away probably 5 or 6 buy-ins. Plus, when I wasn't on tilt, there was probably another 30 hours when I was playing completely on auto-pilot, not paying any attention to reads, and putting 90% of my energy into reading 2+2 while playing. Oh, and I haven't been playing with a HUD either so there's more reads I could have been taking advantage of. I think a great player, playing optimally could easily average 20 PTBB/100 at low stakes PLO.

[Nitilism]

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Well, the last 2 months playing PLO (close to 20K hands), I've been averaging 17.17 PTBB/100 and that's with far from perfect play.

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20K hands is nothing, while it might be a bare rudiments of a sample in hold'em it's not even close in Omaha. You have so many more combinations it's pretty sick. I just looked over my results from my last 9,000 hands, and I think I had like 15 or so high wrap hands, and I think I would need at least 100 wraps to determine if I am playing them optimally. I think your running hot here, Iggy, but who knows.

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I think a great player, playing optimally could easily average 20 PTBB/100 at low stakes PLO.

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I don't think this is close to possible with an extended sample. When I started the $25's, I was paying 10PTBB/100 in rake. Now that I have adjusted by game, I am still paying ~6.7PTBB/100 in rake. I simply don't believe that it's possible to beat the $25 stake players for 27 or more PTBB/100 on a long-term consistent basis, which is what you would have to do to get 20 after rake. That's just too much money leaving too fast.

[iggymcfly]

Since you're playing more pots in PLO (and therefore more rake) than you would be in NLHE, I think the optimal level where you can make the most profit in PLO is probably 0.50/1. At that level, I think it's absolutely possible to make 20 PTBB/100. Also, I wasn't saying that 17 PTBB/100 was exactly my winrate. (Just running hot for 600 hands last night moved it up to 19.6.) I was just saying that even if my real winrate's only 13 or 14 PTBB/100 (which I think it is at least), there are so many places I could improve if I was playing perfect poker that I think a great player could still improve on my play by about 6 PTBB/100, especially if they used better game selection. All I do for game selection is usually just look at the average pot and players to the flop on Stars and try to get on the tables with the high ones when I sit down.

Also, if you're paying <7 PTBB/100 of rake, of course you can't make 20 PTBB/100. You're not playing aggressively enough and getting in enough pots. The way to make a really high winrate is to play a LAGgy style, try to take down a lot of pots and then tilt your opponents. Nut-peddling doesn't do it. For example, with my style, I paid an average of 11.3 PTBB/100 in rake at 0.25/0.50.

[ApeAttack]

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I'm not entirely sure why so many people play PLO badly... I think a big part of it is that the close hand values and high variance of PLO lead people to think that they should play looser than is actually correct.


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Most people are used to holdem hand values (AA = AWSOME!!!, King-high flush = AWSOME!!!, etc.) and cannot adjust to the PLO hand values. I've had a ton of people raise the pot on the river with a poor full house when I'm holding the nut full house.

People are much looser preflop in PLO and bad cards lead to bad decisions later on in the hand.

[Micturition Man]

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I'm not entirely sure why so many people play PLO badly... I think a big part of it is that the close hand values and high variance of PLO lead people to think that they should play looser than is actually correct.


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Most people are used to holdem hand values (AA = AWSOME!!!, King-high flush = AWSOME!!!, etc.) and cannot adjust to the PLO hand values. I've had a ton of people raise the pot on the river with a poor full house when I'm holding the nut full house.

People are much looser preflop in PLO and bad cards lead to bad decisions later on in the hand.

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I think this is why low stakes PLO games are so good. (People using HE hand values, basically.)

But even at higher stakes where people have gotten over this disability, the games are still softer than comparable NL games. So I think there is more to it than that.