Being a NLHE player, I will admit that I might not be the best PLO player.
Yesterday at my local casino, I was playing NLHE when I realized that an extremely extremely good PLO game had opened up. The stakes were 1/2/5 and basically every player played every hand. The issue was, the average person bought into the game for around 2500 and my bankroll couldn't afford it. As a result, I bought into the game for 200 and realized that if I shoved or got over 50% of my stack in pre, I was going to get action from most of the other players. Pretty soon, I picked up AsAdQdJs and potted it pre. At the table of 8 other players, one of them re potted it and I happily got my stack in. However, in a 6 way pot, some guy with J966 with one suit flopped a set and scooped the pot.
My question is, for such an insane game where players are playing any 4 cards pre and my "shoves" are going to get action from most other players. Should I stay away from the game until I have a "40 buy in" bankroll for the average buy in of 2500 or should it be eventually beatable in the long run if I only get it in pre with my premiums?
If you want to short stack these extremely loose live games the best you can do is GII with premium hands, but don't expect to print money considering the amount of variance you will encounter, even double suited AAxx isn't doing fantastic in a 6+ way pot.
Get loose (full ring preferably) online experience at the lowest micro limit. I have that experiece from full ring and shorthanded online. 40 bb is pretty much the minimum for such games or the rake will eat the profits.
Rarely put all-in preflop if you don't have to (in so multiway pots that figure to stay so or become so) but with the very very strongest hands (an exception might be if you can move like 100 bb there and get many folds, isolating), as you actually do not have an edge most of the time because the other players are usually holding the cards you need! You can check with a tracking software or so.
Take many CHEAP flops (to hit strongly, not e.g. with potential 2nd nut flush draw or medium pair), and generally just see the flop with better hands also (just maybe make a small raise preflop in a passive game if like 80+ bb deep), and then deside on the flop/turn, and your medium (40-70 or so) stack makes that more easy, and you should get more folds on the flop, and if not, likely even better, depending on your hand, that puts consideration in how strongly you better play the flop (and with some hands you might prefer to see a safe turn 1st, in some cases, when the turn is bad so often and nothing much achieved by playing the flop strongly -- that is the balancing factor here to consider).
If you want to short stack these extremely loose live games the best you can do is GII with premium hands, but don't expect to print money considering the amount of variance you will encounter, even double suited AAxx isn't doing fantastic in a 6+ way pot.
These are the worst live games around. Casinos spread 1/2/5 and limit the buy-in to $200-$300. PLO is a deep stack game after all. I avoid these games if possible. That being said a few years ago I did play with Steve Zolotow at a 1/2/5 game that had a buy in of $200-$500.
He bought in for minimum and ran it up to $1k in about an hour and then left for 2/5 NLH.
I'd call this fantastic, it's +$130 sklansky bucks if hero is $200 deep.
Oh for sure that GII in a 6 way all in is +EV considering your price & equity share in the pot, but as I mentioned it's going to seem like a tough going when you will be getting stacked ~75% of the time anyway, especially with the small sample sizes you will encounter over even weeks of playing this type of live game.
Thats true @Loctus
I've stopped playing online but I am still playing live PLO 5-5€. (couldn't give up poker forever).
I have a nice winrate atm without playing really good. Just limping a lot behind even with very strong hands. If you are going to raise you hands, you will get at least 5 callers, no matter what.its hard to play postflop, if you don't hit the flop really hard..So my approch is plying really tight overall and playing good in position to find some spots postflop, where I have a edge..The most people don't really care about position and make a lot of mistakes postflop..I try to avoid also high variance play, calling a lot even, if I should raise..The key to winning live (at least for me atm) is to take advantage of the mistakes people are making postflop, rather than try pushing the people around.
