PLO preflop strategy

[ClayRaiken]

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

[tvta]

i dont see how never raising preflop is ever optimal.

[alavet]

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

[slowhand5]

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.

[pete fabrizio]

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

[Burdzthewurd]

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]

[TheRempel]

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.

[Aisthesis]

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.

[Big Dave D]

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

[pete fabrizio]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.