Live Play - Help needed + a cpl of interesting spots

[jipster]

I ventured to the Grosvenor Vic to play some omaha and found the game quite good.

Now my online play consists of LAG style value raising preflop and betting people off hands if i miss, or reperesenting hands etc etc; standard stuff.

Now in this live game (£1 ante; £3 min bring in) there wasn't much raising preflop from all but 3 of us on 8max table....

So i would raise with jj98ds to get some value in (almost always 4 or more to the flop played to one raise); miss and have to give up facing a bet or a horrific board etc.

I basically limped very little; about 16% of hands; with 1/2 of that me raising.

I initially bought in for 250 and lost it; then same again after doubling up; then 500

Now given the stacks weren't especially deep (£250 average) in what is essentailly a 5-5 game; i should have played a much more slotboom-aligned game; limp reraising with quality hands rather than put the first bet in with mediocre hands, etc....

Now my friend was also playing; and he was in 100% of hands; he came away a big winner, plus £2k. Now he is excellent at reading players and reading bets and didn't show down any silly hands (as in any big hands he had it).

We had a big discussion afterwards over whether my style of play is correct FOR THAT GAME; i tried to be LAGgy; ended up being TAGgy preflop and NIT tight thereafter!

So my question(s);

Should i be, like my friend, looking to play almost every flop and rely on my hand reading ability and odds knowledge postflop; or should i stick with a TAG/LAG style that I'm both used to and comfortable with?

How do i adapt?

So, a few situations occured where i felt i played less than optimally (easy in hindsight!):

They all occurred with the same guy; who effectively has me covered at all points;

Now he had been very active; had dropped 2 buyins of £200 and £300 and was on tilt... also he assumed every time i raised i had AA and was reraising me to isolate OFTEN...

I held AKJ7 DS and raised; a small stack pushed and villain and my friend cold call; at this stage its costing me 1/6th of my total stack but i can effectively move all in pre here.

Note: the short stack could and did have rags and i wasn't concerned about being up against AA or KK

I opted to call and folded on a ten high flop when my J high diamond draw was good (i just about had odds against his range)...

So that set me up; i felt i could and should have pushed preflop given my opponents ranges im likely good 90%+ of the time; I'm definitely not in terrible shape against the big stacks.... hindsight again!

2nd situation i had raised with AJ107 DS (not a powerhous by any means!) and got reraised by my target; Now he had been 3-betting me light often; again i felt my hand against his range was good so i pushed; only to come up against AA [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] Nice

The 3rd situation occurred when i held QJ 98 DS; (now that is a powerhouse!)

I raised; target reshipped; my friend cold calls the 85 quid; a short stack moves in for 40 of it; i re push for 300 or so and the target calls all in; my friend gets out of the way.

Turns out i'm up against AA77 from the small stack and KK53 DS by my target; I'm happy to race. Only it turned out his kk double suits matched my double suits and i was actually in trouble, only 35% equity in the big sidepot...


Now i felt i was 'outplayed' in the sense that my opponent got me to stick my money in when i had the worst of it.

I felt i was unlucky to have repushed in situations where im normally not behind by far (even in situation 2 if he has AA i still approach 40%); could have been ahead by a large margin; or am 50/50;


I mean by that i was unlucky to find myself in these spots; and i especially to find a real quality double suited hand and have both my flushes dominated by KK; who stated out loud 'you must have Aces' and called anyway!


Sorry for rambling guys; i hope you took it all in

Just to remind those of you that have read the whole post through; i'm more concerned with how my preflop strategy should change in accordance with the game; the examples are there for me to blow off steam; and for readers to understand the game and understand my decisions.

Thanks

[luckyjimm]

I hadn't realised the PLO game at the Vic played that small. Interesting! Does it run every night? Is 11pm onwards a good time? I'd like to go.

[SuperSnort]

just as we are talking about casinos, where exactly is vic ( i mean exactly, and are there more than one vic in london, also any casinos that have plo or NLHE near leeds? i tried searching but i = fail

[Big Dave D]

Just some general thoughts...

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I basically limped very little; about 16% of hands; with 1/2 of that me raising.

I initially bought in for 250 and lost it; then same again after doubling up; then 500

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The game as a whole seems to be playing too small stacked to be raising this much.

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We had a big discussion afterwards over whether my style of play is correct FOR THAT GAME; i tried to be LAGgy; ended up being TAGgy preflop and NIT tight thereafter!

[/ QUOTE ]

It actually looks more weak tight than nit tight. If you are going to raise a lot when the stacks are that short then you have to be prepared to stack a lot too. Was this a big game in terms of your experience/br or were you new to live play?

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They all occurred with the same guy; who effectively has me covered at all points

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If he has position on you this is not a good spot.

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Now he had been very active; had dropped 2 buyins of £200 and £300 and was on tilt... also he assumed every time i raised i had AA and was reraising me to isolate OFTEN...

[/ QUOTE ]

Without being rude, it looks like he was reraising you liberally because he thought he could push you around.

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The 3rd situation occurred when i held QJ 98 DS; (now that is a powerhouse!)

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I don't want to get into this in isolation. But this hand is not a powerhouse unless you define a hand that is unlikely to be dominated in an allin coup preflop as a powerhouse.

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I felt i was unlucky to have repushed in situations where im normally not behind by far (even in situation 2 if he has AA i still approach 40%); could have been ahead by a large margin; or am 50/50;

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the chance of you being ahead in the side pot if he calls is tiny. The value of double suited run downs is playing through the streets and picking up additional outs as you do so. Not smashing them in against AA or KK.

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Sorry for rambling guys; i hope you took it all in

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To be frank, it reads a little like you took an Internet style game, maybe a 6 max one, to a live situation and struggled to make the adjustment. There's no shame in this. Most PLO live players are going to be much weaker than their Internet counterparts from a maths perspective. But temperament and position can make up a lot. And they will have some gamble.

gl

bdd

[Big Dave D]

There is only one victoria casino in london, and has long been the home of poker in London, although i'm sure other places are now just as popular. For a while in the 90s, the biggest regular big bet action in the world was there. There used to be poker in casinos in leeds, and certainnly yorkshire...just call them up. If there are tournements there are likely to be side games.

gl

bdd

[jipster]

Thanks for the analysis Big Dave;

To give you some background; ive played in that size game before but am by no means experienced at live PLO.

I was being staked anyway so i had no concerns about losing the money ; i wouldn't have borrowed £1k to play as it would have been scared money; but the amount involved didn't phase me in the slightest; in fact i found i was relaxed from my first hand onwards.

I came away thinking that my tactics weren't suited to that game... ps nit = weak passive [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

It didn't help that literally 80% of all the hands i received were 'unplayable' trash so i was mucking often; Online my VPIP approaches 30; here it was half that.

Any tips on my gameplan; will i fare better sitting with 1k or 250 or even 100 rather than 500?

do i look to limp reraise big hands or just see flops with them?

thanks again

[CurryLover]

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also any casinos that have plo or NLHE near leeds?

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You will struggle to find NLHE anywhere in the area. There is a NLHE game in Sheffield on Wednesdays at Napoleons casino (the one next to the dog track), but it is very small (£1/£1 with very shallow stacks usually).

There are, however, plenty of PLHE games in Leeds and the surrounding area. The Napoleons casino in Leeds has a very good PLHE game running on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday nights (and Fridays too starting this Friday). It is privately run by a guy named Fazad, but you can just turn up and get in the game if you are polite etc. Manchester (only an hour from Leeds) also has decent PLHE games every night of the week, and very good ones on Fridays and Saturdays. Best place to go is the G casino on Bury New Road. The Hold'em scene in Manchester is huge right now, and the games are very good.

There is only one PLO game that I know of and that is also in Manchester. It runs at the G casino every Monday night. You need to get there for about 6pm to guarantee yourself a seat. It is almost always a good game, and sometimes sensational - depending on line-up and who's steaming etc. Apart from that, you'll have to travel to Birmingham to get regular PLO games.

[SuperSnort]

thx for the info people, currylover, what are the stakes in the plo game? would love to play plo live but really depends on stakes

[wazz]

£2-2, £50 minimum buyin. The game doesn't play that big, is the most nitty of all the live PLO games I've played, and is really [censored] boring, tbh.

[Big Dave D]

What happened to the £5 blind game that Dave G et al used to play?

cheers

Dave