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

[teddyFBI]

Alright, goin' back to n00b-town for this, but after seeing how insane the WSOP PLO games were, I really want to learn this game. I started playing LHE around 4 yrs ago, switched over to mostly NL around 2 years ago, and have climbed up to the highest stakes games for both LHE and NL. But I'm a complete PLO rookie. I'd like to ask this forum for their top 3 suggestions on what resources I should check out to learn the game. I don't care if you send me back to square-1, all I really want to know is how you think a winning hold'em player should go about learning/improving his PLO game. Books, websites, anything.

[Troll_Inc]

For firsters, I'd read all the basic texts on PLO (Berman, Ciaffone, Hellmuth) and this forum. Start playing a lot of hands (post here if you have questions) and look for similar hand situations to what you enounter during your own play.

[Double Straddle]

Troll is right about the material to start out reading. As far as when you start playing, you'll probably get the feel pretty quickly. A few things to consider:
- Position is even more important in Omaha. Try to put lots of money in when you are in position. I would say that, until you figure out what's going on, you probably shouldn't re-raise OOP (nothing wrong with completing / just calling with AAxx)
- Play hands that work well together.
- Be wary of K-hi combo/flush draws
- Don't overplay underfulls. I tend to play them much like you would bottom two pair in holdem.
- Play six max, b/c it's more fun.

[sc000t]

Just play. Get in as many hands as possible. If you've played that much poker and worked your way up the ranks then youre obv not an idiot when it comes to poker, I doubt many of the books are going help you out all that much. They obv wont hurt tho.

Get some hands in and get yourself into some trouble spots. Watch the game, put people on ranges and watch all the big hands. See what people are getting there money in with an why. When your done with a session go back over the big hands and run the numbers to see who played it well...and more importantly why they played it well. I think that, along with posting hands and talking strat, will speed up the learning processes much more than any book.

[teddyFBI]

Thanks -- re: books, what 3 books do you think I should start with and progress to? (e.g. if someone asked me that question about hold'em, I'd probably suggest to start with either Lee Jones' book or Miller's GSIH (for foundational purposes), then progress to Miller's SSHE, and maybe Sklansky's TOP somewhere in there.

What's the corresponding book progression for Omaha?

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
(Berman, Ciaffone, Hellmuth)

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Troll,

WTF man? Hellmuth? That isn't a basic text for PLO. It's only basic toilet paper.


Teddy,

Here's what to read in order:

Ciaffone: Omaha Holdem Poker
Ciaffone & Reuben: Pot-limit & No-limit Poker (and read *all* of it even the chapters on stuff like pl/nl lowball and stud)
SS2: Berman's chapter on PLO - but know that it's overly weak-tight

After that:

Rolf Slotboom's articles which can be found on the pokerpages website and in the CP archives

Ciaffone's big bet chapters in Improve Your Poker

Rolf's book if you want to be a short stack queer

Reuben's How Good is Your Pot-limit Omaha? - but note he plays slightly lagish and in very deep stack games and his advice will mostly get you [censored] in online capped buyin games


And like Troll said, dedicate some time to this forum's archives.

[CrushinFelt]

Reading is for nerds. Just play position, be agressive, and learn (best from experience) what you can get value from on the river from different people.

A lot of omaha is going to be "pot, repot, fold" or "pot, repot, REPOT OMG FLIP A COIN", but I think some of the more important subtleties are in pot control and value bets/calls which are super player-dependent.

[runnerunner]

A key thing to do is to get Poker Tracker Omaha and go back over your sessions to look at your equity in a hand versus your opponents equity. It is a lot more complicated to figure out than in Holdem, so using PTO is a huge help.

[grizy]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
(Berman, Ciaffone, Hellmuth)

[/ QUOTE ]

SS2: Berman's chapter on PLO - but know that it's overly weak-tight


[/ QUOTE ]

Berman isn't really weak tight if you read into it... he actually advocates a style very similar to Slotboom. THe problem is... Berman doesn't elaborate at all so the section is worthless if you don't already play the game with some competency.

That said, read SS2's PLO last and you'll probably get a lot more out of it. It's the only section of SS2 that I still read regularly (it's in my bathroom) and I a little bit of something out of it everytime.

Only reason I read the other sections is to prep for a rotation game.

[Troll_Inc]

For an absolute beginner to PLO, I think Hellmuth's book is fine. (But I wouldn't say buy Hellmuth or Super System..just read the chapters in the book store). Of course Ciaffone's book, order directly from the author - try and get a signed copy - and refer back to at regular intervals throughout your playing career.

"Ciaffone & Reuben: Pot-limit & No-limit Poker (and read *all* of it even the chapters on stuff like pl/nl lowball and stud)"

This is an excellent book, but I think will be lost on someone just starting out in the game. The exception would be the first chapter(s) on the difference between limit, pot limit, and no limit.

You are probably too far away from when you learned the game to remember the most difficult aspects of all the sudden getting 4 cards in your hand instead of 2.

Of your list, I dont think any will _hurt_ a new player except for Reuben's book. That'd be like having someone get their driver learner's permit in a Ferrari.