Help a career hold'em player get his PLO feet wet...

[Heisenb3rg]

Am a professional SH limit holdem player and also looking to get my feet wet in PLO.

A lot of the answers to this thread helped me, but a couple questions to the forum regulars.

1) How fishy are the medium stakes games (2$/4$ - 5$/10)? Is there often a good game, or are the games pretty dry?
Limit hold em is starting to die off at the high stakes and im trying to diversy my talents to go where the money is, if limit hold em maintains this trend.
NL online kind of bores me...

2) Why are a lot of pros choosing PLO as their game to play(other than farha playing it)? When you have high stakes pros does the strategy get very deep relative to the other games?

3) What skills/abiltiies seperate the best from the good? *hopefully more specific than just hand reading*

thanks...

[beset]

[ QUOTE ]
Am a professional SH limit holdem player and also looking to get my feet wet in PLO.

A lot of the answers to this thread helped me, but a couple questions to the forum regulars.

1) How fishy are the medium stakes games (2$/4$ - 5$/10)? Is there often a good game, or are the games pretty dry?
Limit hold em is starting to die off at the high stakes and im trying to diversy my talents to go where the money is, if limit hold em maintains this trend.
NL online kind of bores me...

2) Why are a lot of pros choosing PLO as their game to play(other than farha playing it)? When you have high stakes pros does the strategy get very deep relative to the other games?

3) What skills/abiltiies seperate the best from the good? *hopefully more specific than just hand reading*

thanks...

[/ QUOTE ]

1. The games are still very good though you will have to practice game, seat and session selection similar to the way you must these days in SHLHE because there are not a million games at each site. When I say session selection I mean the time of day. But yes, the games are very good from 2/4 to 5/10. I will caution you, however, that these are much bigger games then the same limits at NL. The variance according to PT databases I have from NL and PLO is nearly double in PLO for most players. Be a bankroll nit or you will have some frustrating days ahead of you.

Omaha is still more popular in Europe so the games have been less affected by the legal climate changes. If you have access to non-US sites this can be a nice bonus but between PS and FTP you will still be OK.

2. Omaha's positive attributes are actually very similar to SHLHE in my opinion. It is an action game with lots of big pots. Also, it has built in tilt-protection for when the fish or normally solid players go off. Much like in LHE, the fish are kept alive by the fact that when they lose it after a string of draw-outs they are likely to end up shoving a bunch of 30/70s and 40/60s instead of in NL where they will get absolutely obliterated as soon as they start to tilt.

Also, the game is enticing to fish and pro alike because it has the appearance of engaging complexity which is somewhat of a mirage but makes people feel sophisticated and entertained while playing a real gambling game, not some battle of wits for serious people with ipods.

High-variance games give skilled players an edge because they have the experience, bankroll and emotional control to ride the waves. Remember that built in tilt-protection I mentioned? PLO facilitates bad habits in people. They lose--they tilt, they get even. It happens over and over. Until it doesn't and they set fire to their entire bankroll. We sit there and wait for this.

3. The best from the solid IMO are seperated by subtle factors. First, the best have balance to their aggression. Yeah its fun to reraise low-runs and so forth with position, but relentlessly pressing people in this game with no balance is a losing strategy. The players in the mid/high games who really give me trouble are like manic/depressive irish drunks. You never know when things will get hairy and dangerous and its uncomfortable because of the dissonance. SHLHE players should understand this. Its the difference between good-LAG and LAG-monkey.

PLO is a game of value. Though I disagree with lots of stuff in the thread I think this point was made in a fairly convincing and easy to understand way in the recent thread on implied odds.

Moreover, the best players practice good table and seat selection, tilt control and the basic but not-widespread ability to actually know what sort of equity you are likely to have with your holding on the flop/turn versus your opponent. I know that's poker drasticly simplified. In Omaha, however, you have relatively decent players who probably couldn't tell you what kind of equity they have if all the cards were turned face up.

Lastly, as you move up in stakes, stealing small pots from weak/tight regulars is an important pursuit. I wouldn't worry about this at first and just focus on understanding position, preflop play, out-counting/basic equity calcs and value betting.

[fringsrache]

troll with reuben's book u mean "how good is ur PLO",right?

[Heisenb3rg]

wow beset literally a perfect response, exactly what I was looking for.. Thanks...

I hate variance , but at the same time am an action junky (contradiction?)

[Troll_Inc]

[ QUOTE ]
troll with reuben's book u mean "how good is ur PLO",right?

[/ QUOTE ]

yes.

[JoeDimaggio]

The Cardplayer Rolf Slotbloom articles are a good read for beginners or intermediate players looking to refresh their strategy. Playing the Omaha tournaments on Pokerstars is also a great way to practice.