Hi,

I would say that in PLO8, most of the skill is postflop. But i have some questions regarding to the preflop play which still has his importance.

BET SIZING

I have read the following advice in a " known" PLO8 book that i will keep secret ( there are not a lot in the market )

For a 6 max ring game the advice is the following IF no one opened before you act :

SB,BB : 3 BB
UTG : 2BB
UTG+1,MP,CO : 3,5 BB
BTN : 3 BB

I like the concept because we do not bet according to the hand, but according to the " position", which is a very important factor in PLO8. So the opponent's wont know if we change the betsizing according to the hand strength or according to the opponent's.

Now for the "betsizing" preflop, i would like to know :

1: What do you think of betsizing according to the position, and what do you think about the given betsizes for 6 max ring games ?

2: What about 3betting preflop in 6 max ring games ? when do you do it and why (position ?, type of hand ? stack sizes ? opponent's profiles ? other factors ? )

3: Since this advice is done for a "6 max ring game " , is the same betsizing adviced in full ring tournaments ? ( I personnaly like to have a small ball approach in tourneys, with a 2.5 BB preflop raise from any position with any holding at any level, and fold to a reraise if the hand and/or position are too poor, call if its ok or even repot if the hand and position are ideal to do so.. )

RANGE

I created my own list of " playable" hands. I would play the first part of the list in and out of position ( IP and OOP ) , and would play the second part of the list in position only. Note that i did not took into account if the cards are suited or not, I know it makes a difference, but here, it is more a general list of hands i would play suited or not.

The abreviations are the following :

w= wheel cards ( 2345 )
m= middle cards ( 6789 )
h= high cards ( 10JQK )

IP and OOP

AA2w > very strong multiway
AA2m > very strong multiway
AA2h > very strong hu

A2wm > strong multiway
A2wh > strong hu
A2ww > strong multiway
A2mm > stay careful ok multiway
A2mh > stay careful ok hu
A2hh > stay careful ok hu

Awww > strong multiway
Awwm > stay careful ok multiway
Awwh > strong hu
Awmh > stay careful ok hu
Awhh > stay careful ok hu

AAwm > stay careful ok multiway
AAwh > strong hu
AAmh > stay careful ok hu
AAhh > stay careful ok hu

IP only

(ww)(ww) > strong multiway
wwww > stay careful ok multiway
wwwm > stay careful ok multiway

hhhh > stay careful ok hu

The question for the ranges are :

1: Would you play the same hands the same way or would you make adjustments ?

2: Do you make a difference between tourneys and ring games when choosing which hands to play or not ? If so, why , which are the factors who determine the decision ?

-For the stay careful hands, it means, i would go to see the flop , would eventually raise pre in position, call a raise , not necessarely call a reraise with this hands.

-For the strong hands I would raise in position if no one opened anytime

-For the very strong hands, I would repot preflop.

Feel free to give your point of view, advice,critisize, every comment is welcome.

Ok I think you are on the right track. Many holdem books talk about sizing bets with position. I think in general you should limp more often in Plo/8 since the flop is so crucial.
But I see little in your post that is wrong. Best of luck.

Hi mr roy,

Thank you, best of luck to you too ( are you god like roy ? )

No I am just plain Roy. I know who you are talking about. I have read his articles.

I'll answer to my own question since there are not a lot of reactions here ( maybe because winning tourney players want to keep the secret ? )

Found this very interesting article about PLO8 tourney strategy, wont post the link, but i will copy/paste the whole article. The author is Kevin FOx and i verified his stats he has a huge win rate in PLO8 online mtt's.

To make it short, it is advised to play very tight in early stages, and aggressive in later stages.

Pot size control part in blue

Here's the article :

PLO8 Tournament Strategy
09/07/2011

[Article deleted. Please contact Counterfeiter if you want link. - Buzz]

Hey counterfeiter I did not initially reply to your post as I mistakenly thought you were talking about cash games.You raise some interesting points and I applaud your attitude to learning through research.

The first thing I will say is be careful about adapting anyone's strategy in its entirety as you need to carve out your own style to truly achieve.

Also I believe that both strategys you have outlined were based on games from 4 years ago where you could get along way with a very tight or very aggressive style which worked very well against both nits and loose passive players which made up the majority of the fields at that time. This is no longer the case in my opinion or at lest not to the same degree.

You only need to look at the results of some of the tighter o8 players to see their results have slipped over recent years.

The secret of beating today's games comes down to being able to switch gears to exploit the strategys of the players at your table and your chip stack.

In terms of the first article you posted I have some points I would like to make:

*I think betting by position is an interesting concept however some of the suggestions seem counter intuitive.

*In fact when I just reread the advice I think it is pretty bad.

* I think a standard open of 3 bb is way too exploitable and we need to think of a system (if we want to use a system) that accounts for our stack size relative to the blinds. My openings vary from 2 * bb to pot and depending on situation.

*Opening 2* the bb UTG is strange advice. I guess the only logic I can see in it is that it means we will be playing smaller pots OOP. However in reality what it means is we are inviting more people into the pot so we may well end up playing bigger pots against wider ranges in the worst position on the table.....meh

* Whilst I do not hate your openings I think you are giving up value with such an inflexible approach. If we do start to experiment with openings remember to keep some kind of balance with our ranges.

The second article you posted seem way out of date to me. Never raising in early stages of mtt seems like a bad strategy to me. Although I do agree with some of his thoughts about controlling the size of the pot.

If you take this guys advice and fold until you make the nuts you will get eaten alive in today's games with the exception of the micros.

Out of interest how did you verify Kevin Foxes results as none of his screen names seem to come up with any stats apart from his hendon mob which shows his live earnings from live poker and he has only cashed in a few small buy in live mtts recently.

Hello Omahaha,

Thank you for your post, I have to say, the switching gears advice is a good one. And it is true, both lines , cash games in the first post and mtt in the second one, they are both 4 years old and not that exploitable anymore.

Today, i tried foxes strategy in 3 mtt's ( micro stake between 1 and 3 $ buy in ) with a field of 200/300 players. cashed in the first one, busted just before bubble on the second one, and cashed in the 3rd one (11th), just followed the line very tight early and aggressive later. To me it is a good result, in any case better then the usual ones for my part . Maybe this is still working on low limit mtt's, and that you have to adapt yourself to the opponent's on higher buy in mtt's, where i guess, you know 1/3 of the field, which are regulars ?

By the way, billigstar, if your reading this congrats !!, he was playing 2 ft's simultaneously ( plo8), and finished runner up in 1 of them.

For foxes stats, you can find them on officilapokerrankings for the screen name ChiCubbies07 ( on FT ), you have to manually change the year under " statistics period " on the main screen, there you can select the stats for 2008,2009,2010

Yeah I think for someone new to the game tight is the right strategy and will show a profit especially at the micros but it is extremely limited and is an extremely exploitable strategy amongst thinking players.

Also as someone who has dabbled at coaching trying to teach someone who is tight passive to increase aggression can be very difficult although Im guessing probably easier than teaching a bad lag to calm down

funny lmao

Hi.

I would too.

Agreed.

You should tell us what the book is.

How I play a hand I decide to play depends on many factors. It doesn't really matter, but I vaguely wonder how the author derived those numbers.

I agree that position is very important.

I see. Interesting idea. I'm not going to adopt that mode of play, but it's an interesting idea.

No comment.

All of those. I play somewhat differently in cash games, where survival is not a factor, than in tournaments, where it is.

I think that's what you're asking. (I revised your wording to try to make sense of what you're asking... no offense intended).

I don't know. You'll have to ask the author who gave the advice. I don't have any general advice to give regarding bet sizing. It's something I'm still thinking about. I'm very interested in the different opinions given in this forum regarding bet sizing.

I did that when I started playing this game too. I think probably many of us did.

I think how a hand is suited makes a big difference.

I'd make adjustments.

Yes.

In a tournament, my first consideration is survival. Survival is not a consideration for me in a cash game.

It should be noted, if not already obvious, that I'm not a professional. I'm a recreational player. I'm never going to lose the family farm playing poker. (That's a figure of speech. For me there is no family farm). I take no more money to the game or casino than I don't mind losing. If I lose that amount, I go home. Of course I'd rather win than lose, but whether I win or lose in a poker session will never affect the life style of my family.

I have put a lot of thought into why I play poker. I think it's mainly a mixture of two factors. (1) I like to compete. I can't explain why. It seems to be part of my nature. (2) I enjoy the camaraderie. I can't explain why. That seems to be part of my nature too.

I see.

I see.

I see.

I think what you're doing is part of studying the game in preparation for competition. I think it's good.

Buzz

Your questions were kind of overwhelming.

I don't know who owns the rights to the article. But I think you should get permission from whomever owns the rights to the article before you post the article here. Basically by posting Kevin's article here, you're stealing.

The 2+2 forum terms and conditions, state,
AND
I'm not an attorney but I think by copying what you have copied, you may have infringed on someone's proprietary rights. So far as I know, you have permission to copy what you have copied. (But if you don't, I can delete it for you, if you ask me).

I'm not an attorney, but my understanding is it's legit for you to write a short synopsis.

Buzz

Hello buzz. Thank you for your always appreciated analysis . the book of the first post is plo8 revealed (expanded editon ).

For the post with the article on tourney strategy , I agree with you , did not thought about the eventual copyright. I prefer to play this one tight and delete the article who has been copy pasted if possible.

If someone wants the source by reading this thread he can PM me son that i give the link to the article.

Counterfeiter

I'll try and respond to your questions in sequential order.

The sizing and frequency of my preflop-open depends on:
1. How aggressive are the players? What's their VPIP?
Do you expect them to call your open? If so, how will you play the flop and the turn? Do these players fold to a lot of flop C-bets?
Do they call a lot of flop C-bets but fold to Turn C-bets?
Do they call a lot of flop AND turn C-bets?
Then you are probably dealing with a calling station and all your actions should reflect this. That is, you have to play tight, be patient and wait for spots where you can destroy his wide range.

To each of these three potential scenarios, you need to set up a gameplan based on stats from your HUD. You need to exploit their tendencies.

With regard to specific opens I use my HUD to determine a gameplan but I will not be more specific because it may reveal my own range too much.

1. I am a big fan of applying pressure, so I love 3X BTN but sometimes the blinds will not allow this. This is when they defend very wide and give up infrequently OTF, or when they 3-bet often. When this is the case I will tighten my range and steal less often.

The most important thing however, is knowing how you are going to play the rest of hand. What do you intend to do if SB or BB 3-bets? What if one or both call. How will you play the flop? And so on for the rest of the hand naturally.

This goes for all positions. You need to know how villains range to respond to your open, and how you will play the hand based on all the stats you have on them.

2. I <3 3-betting. Because doing this often tilts opponents, and when you have tyhe top of your range they might just steam off their stack because they're tired of your 3-bets. This is dangerous though, because it might tilt YOU if you don't know what to do if 4-bet or called. This is where I love the FCB stat, and F Turn bet stat, in addition to stats showing how likely they are to fold to preflop 3-bets.

Plenty of villains love applying pressure on the CO or BTN pos. so when you 3.bet them you are exploiting their wide opening range in LP. Say they open 45 from BTN, but only fold 20 to PF 3-bets IP. That means they're taking a lot of marginal hands to the flop which means that your a1045 is all the more strong than it "should" be. If this villain also fold to plenty of flop C-bets (say in excess of 45) then you can fire on a ton of flops and usually get away with it.

I think opponents' profiles is the most important factor in determing when to 3-bet.

3. I rarely play tournaments and 9-max my HUD creates a cluster**** which makes it very hard to read.

Lastly, I realize I may have rambled a bit so please ask if you wonder about anything.

Here's the answer of " Garou" to the question " why are you/we/they playing" :

You have those who play to forget (Loser)
Those who play for souvenir (Ah!)
Some only play to win (Winner)
And others for distraction
I play
Oh, just to play

Chorus:
Gambler
I'm a gambler
Neither a winner nor a loser
I'm a gambler
I'm a gambler
Not a winner not a loser
Just a gambler

thats an extract of his song "gambler " for the record, garou is a known singer in canada/belgium/france

ok, so basicaly, if you have a player with a vpip of +60/70 %, a c bet of 75+% with a fold to C bet of 0% on flop , same on turn ( caricatural but happen's), you value bet him to death oop and call him on flop to raise his c bet on turn when IP ?

And how do you play tag's, i guess you play larger in position against them and bluff more ( in dry flops f.e. ? )

I get it more or less for the playing the player part, thats the next step.( already have omaha indicator HUD , but dont turn it on all the time, )

Thank you for your helpful answer.

Tried it out its working, you advice to at least have a kind of a hand or a good draw to semi bluff lmao ?

Do you mean his turn c-bet is 75 %, and turn fold to C-bet is 0?

Against this insane fish I would certainly make plays to his flop or turn c-bets. You kinda have to because of this spewy aggressiveness.

As the aggressor I would pretty much only value bet him. If I miss I probably just check it down.

TAG= Tight Aggresive? I am much more aggresive against these players, yes.

I really dislike this play.

Your starting hand is poor, and you 3-bet so small so the flop is destined to be 3-way.

The flop hits their ranges pretty well. What was your reason for making this play. What is villains' Fold to flop C-bet stat?

EDIT: Stats you need to consider in this hand:

CO: PF raise from CO-position (more relevant than VPIP)
BTN: VPIP.

You decided to 3-bet (which is a mistake you have to learn). So now you need to look at this:

CO: Fold to PF 3-bet after raise IP.
BTN: Fold to PF 3-bet after raise IP. I'm aware he did not raise but this could help define his range. For instance. He folds 70. Now, if CO calls, he will have pretty decent pot odds to call but you can still assume that he's folding away his trash. Which means that he probably has plenty of low cards in his range. If CO folds this stat is pretty accurate I think because the scenario is basically the same as it would be if CO wasn't even in the hand top begin with.

So the flop. In addition to determing your own hand strength you need to consider:

CO and BTN: Fold to Flop C-bet.

Good luck in learning the game!

^^ Excellent post rbk.

Hi, if you are a beginner PLO8 player and you want to improve your plo8 tourney game, AND you clicked on this thread, it means already you are a thinking player.

As a reward ill post the links below which CAN be usefull for you in PLO8 tourneys, this can save you time and researches,I found them after 105 posts only ( for the strategy part, ), and believe me , I'm looking for info on PLO8 tourney's heavily

Under this link you can look for the post with the links on the thread from Daniel J Wolcott about PLO8 tourneys with parts1 to 5. ( 4&5& not available anymore unf. but it still covers early to late stage )

Enjoy !

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/42...series-552106/

If your not much of a reader, and prefer visual content, you can get the 4 first levels here :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/42...rt-1-a-376771/

THis may also help you in regards of selecting your preflop hands ( for my part I will use it for this matter in any case ), from our great poster and friend Buzz :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/44...012-a-1340406/

other series can be found by looking after Buzze's started threads

Thank you for this usefull information's Daniel and Buzz.

Counterfeiter