Hey,

I am a live PLO player, I have decent results in live 4 card PLO at my local casinos and a couple of private games.

I have recently started playing in a private dealers choice 4/5/6 card plo hi game.

The min buyin is £100 with no max.

The players are generally bad, rich business men who want to gamble and always choose 6 card if possible (this sometimes requires UTG to sit out)

They only invite me if they are short of players as i am considered tight as I buyin for the min, chose 4 card on my button and fold preflop more often than not I usually take 15 £100 buyins and look to get a stack in order that i can start playing postflop.

The average cost to see a flop is £25

My questions are how should I approach this type of game (maybe i shouldn't play)

And are there any charts or equity models for this many cards?

Any ideas?

Thanks

i dont know how deep you are playing but IMO you should always pick 6 card on the button, as it gives you a higher % of profitable button defending spots, and being able to play more hands on the button can only be a good thing.

without knowing what the blinds are (avg cost to a flop is kind of useless info) not much advice can be given about actual ingame stuff, but i know id definately prefer sitting deeper stacked to begin with and look to see a lot of cheap flops with hands that can hit the nuts and then crush them for big pots when you do

Thx deep.

blinds are 1/2 +unlimited straddles. I have been buying in short and spinning hand which are better than their range but I understand what you say about defending button with 6 card hands as ill win a decent % of hands without the nuts in this spot.

Seems like a pretty rare variant of the game and the problem grows geometrically so I doubt you'd find anything published.

I've never played it so obviously I'm only speculating.

It sounds like its more of a bankroll issue the way you pose the question.

If it's edges your wondering about, clearly they go way down if all players have limited experience. I think it's a lot about how good you are at adapting concepts.

Just out of curiosity, excluding flush boards, what's the typical hand strength on unpaired boards? on paired boards?

How often does a non-nut straight win? How often does a nut straight chop?
How often does a good non-nut hand fold? (blocker bluff value)

Also wondering things like when huge wraps start losing value for non-nutted outs or when pps lose value for hitting dominated sets.

Speculating:
Suited aces (2cards) go wayyy up in value and dbl suited aces are golden
OS aces depends on bluffing value ie non-nut flush fold percentage. Though, it would seem to follow that your FD equity must go wayyy down.
Suted ace w/2cards >> suited ace w/3cards as much for lost value with fewer flush over flush hands as lower percentage of hitting the NF.
Small suiteds seem to have blocker value only or possibly some minor redraw value
Wide connector/gapper types depends on knowing the above related question but re-draws seems like a huge factor so suited connectors >> os connectors
Small pps go wayyy down
Mid pp values it seems like mid sets still have some strength but almost seem a bit more important for blocker value vs possible straights.
Big pp are still fine for top sets but would benefit a lot from fl/str blockers and even redraws become significant for top sets soo maybe PPw/2gap>PPw/1gap?

Not sure how much I'm over thinking any of the above but starting hand equity seems to be a huge consideration pre-flop whereas post-flop seems like its almost easier to play since nut value/nut draw seems pretty much the overwhelming concern.

So while one may think it loosens up the game I'm more inclined to think that at 6 cards tighter is righter.

The more cards you add, the more the game becomes about nut potential, because people are going to connect more frequently, so you wanna connect the nuts and get paid. You're not getting folds.

Also buy in at least 100bb. You can't nutcamp profitably with 50bb because you will have to have a very low GII frequency and you will still not be that far ahead. To be perfectly honest unless the game is like, unraked, I would say 150bb should be your absolute minimum.

Thanks guys, interesting answers.

Although rare the games are available here if you want them. They tnd to be played by wealthy, low skill poker players who are impatient and want to gamble. They enjoy the variance. especially beating a player like me with what they deem to be poor hands.
Your right my question is partly bankroll related as its occured to me that i maybe should not be playing with my bankroll .
To comment on your questions.
The majority of players are poor but realise that if they "get it in" multiway preflop they are not that far behind. and they have deep pockets.
Before I discuss hand strength i should mention that there are two phases of the game which change winning hand stregths.
The first is the early stages where players have bought in shallow £100/200/300 and its what i call the spin up phase .The comprises of multiway all ins preflop. this will continue until around 5 players have grown their stacks to £1k + and the others have re bought deeper to £500 or £1k.
At this point the second phase begins where the typical flop is seen 4/5 ways. the play here is generaly as follows. one player has the current near nuts or a decent draw. if the early position playe ha a draw then its likely to go all in a the current nuts player will reraise and the weaker two pair/ backdoor draw type hands will fold
To comment on your questions.
non nut straights win often in the first phase (would you like some % answer to this?) less often in the second phase. it tends to win by accident in the second phase as other draws miss. Nut straights chop around 20% (my estimate) Good hands folding is player dependent, I fold non nutted draws and non nutted made hands to certain players. (i call in small pots to advertise occasionally)
Wraps do lose value but the players holding them don't realise this. the majority are not folding daws if there are nut outs in their make up regardless of non nut outs and blockers in their own hands.
Set over set is common and often is the cause of huge pts where the lower set believes the other player is on some kind of draw.

TBC.............

Suited aces are huge. in fact I dont play hands without nut potential and preferably in two ways. redraws are huge.
In some pots where stacks are deep players will see another card if its likely to be good for them eg They have 8, 10 J K A 5 suited to the ace on a 3, 6 , 9 board with one suit to their flush. In addition I dont think I've ever seen a nut flush draw floded on the flop and maybe 20% on the turn in response to big (monetary, if the pts "small" they are calling) bets
I play too many mid pairs, top set with a mid pair is very fragile.
wraps are a minimum hand strength really and I do play wrap type hands regardless of gaps as long as said gaps are not at the top end.
Big pairs alone are weak, although i do wrongly see too many flops with them. I'll be stopping that. they need wrap / flush back up, as you say for blocker value at least.

I think you guys have answered my questions.
buyin 150bb deep. how does the fact that 60% of the time the blind is straddled to £5 and 25% of the time to £10.buying in deeper and playing a little tighter is the main change thanks guys.
Nut value hands with minimum blockers to my own draws. 3 of a suit max to NFD. Big pairs must have wraps around them . i fail here sometimes
I dont see anything wrong with mid wraps with a gap near the bottom as part of a hand along with a 10@s + pair or NF Potential. low wraps are out.
This game can also be tilting, i'm currently reading the Chimp Paradox book, its great for knowing whats happening to you even if you still struggle to control it.

I hav been buying in 50bb deep and taking £1500 with me need to double this?

Would you guys be interested in me starting a thread in the Goals section on here. I'd write about live plo and this variant. i play 3 or 4 times a week.

Disagree.

Your hand is up against the highest number of cards - 30-36 cards (5-6 guys seeing every flop).
Position matters least and cards matter most in that type of situation.

Hi Vanman,

Is this private game in London by any chance? Because it sounds identical to a game I played thousands of hours in for 2 years solid in a private members club in London that then closed down.

I was in a live comp the other day and played on the same table as another reg that used to play in that Dealers Choice game and he told me that there was a private game being run in London by one of the ex dealers from that club. (the dealer is very tall with a bald head, is the clue I will give, but obv no mentioning of names in this thread)

Regarding strategy, well I could write a thousand pages on it across all the games, the Omaha ones and the lowball, draw, and stud games.

But there isn't time to do that, plus I don't want to volunteer all my strategy.

What I will say though is £100 is far too shallow in a raked game (as a previous poster has already pointed out), and it is too shallow even if it were rake free, particularly as the game gets straddled a lot.
(again, in the 1/2 DC game I used to play straddles were very common in the Omaha variants and even in Triple Flop Omaha High, which incidentally is my favourite game, along with Superstud (Stud8 where you are dealt 5 cards at the start and immediately discard two back to the dealer, thus strengthening starting hands)

In my opinion to play that game optimally, against the kind of line up you have described, the best strategy would be to play either an even number of 5 x £300 bullets or to possibly play progressively bigger bullets with a view to semi spinning the first smaller bullets.

E.g. buy in for £150, £150, £200, £200, £200, £300 and a final £300.

The other reason it is optimal to sit deeper is because you can kind of get away with short stacking in Omaha games but in a lot of the lowball and draw games you need to be deep enough to be able to play the streets as it's much more difficult to get your stack in pre or on early streets.

Having had the experience in that or a very similar game, I think you need a bankroll of £15000 to £20000 (money that is completely separate to living expenses) to play comfortably in the game.

Even then variance could still get you if you run really bad for a few sessions, although if you play close to optimal the weakness of the one or two value players that are usually in the game can offset a good amount of
any run bad.

However, rake is a big factor in this game.

I used to play 12 hour sessions where rake was 5% capped at £10 and it regularly cost me £150 per session in rake, plus some tips to the dealer, so probably £170 on average. Plus there can be traveling expenses and other little incidentals like food. So we are talking close to £200 to play a 12 hour session.

Having said all of this, I was still a regular winner in the game so this shows that the edges are huge against certain players in certain variants within the Dealers Choice selection of games.

In PLO I always choose 5 cards on the button. It is definitely wrong to choose 4 but it is quite close between whether 5 or 6 on the button is best. I choose 5 because I feel that against weaker players if I choose 6 that it gives them much more of a gamblers chance against me than if I choose 5 because I lose some of the ability
to create fold equity post flop and because the hand pre flop goes more multiway, more often with 6 cards than with 5 meaning equities are really close pre flop across the whole table.

I feel that for you to play optimally given the type of line up that you have described, that you should carry on playing tight (as in playing good hands strong and not getting involved much with weak starting hands) but that you do need to buy in a bit deeper to allow you to play streets in variants where this is necessary, so that rake becomes a smaller percentage of pots that you win, so that you are not getting pot equity committed as often in marginal spots, and so that you have more realistic chance of having the occasion session where you walk away a £1500 to £2500 winner.

Underlying the above paragraph is that you need a bankroll of £15K to £20K to do all of the above without you playing with scared money.

If you don't mind, it would be interesting if you want to pm me where the game is and who is running it.

If I do decide to play it occasionally I would be happy to share some strategy etc.

I tend to agree with this,

Having the hand is parmount which leads to preflop card selection being key.

PM'd you Sage,

The game only has 2/4/5/6/ cards plo and nl on the menu.

Interesting that you suggest 5 card I usually choose 4 card as I can steal pots more often but will mix it up in the future and keep the "spin monkey's" happy.

The key to this gam is having the nuts or draws to the nuts, i know this sounds obvious but my point is that its all about preflop hand selection. This mean I play tight and am therefore exploitable by observant players, of which there are one or two in the game. The other players also know i play tight and bluff me off the odd smaller pot. That being said I have had success playing this way and its difficult to be exploited when they have all the other players to consider.

So to summarise, thanks to all your advice I'm going to play as follows.

1. Buy in for progressive buyins 75bb, 150bb, 150bb, 150bb
2 Play tight preflop hands bottom of my range 6, 8,9,10,x,x rainbow and 10,10 xxxx + (not sure if this is too loose?
3. Choose 4/5 card on the button.

I might add that after taking advice on BR I'm likely going to quit this game for a while as I only have £8k separate from real life and have had a few scary nights. I do have a pro holdem player talking of backing me but nothing yet.

I definitely wouldn't choose 4 cards because the button is so powerful and even more so against players who will get their money in with non nut flushes, lower sets, bum end straight or bum end straight draws or with dirty outs draws.

I quite like your starting hand ranges as what you are guarding against is less often ending up with worse straights, flushes and houses.

Of course if you choose 5 card then you can afford to have one dangler (especially when you have position) but in 5 card I would try to avoid danglers that pair a low card and/or make three of your nut or King high suited cards, and also if you have 3 of a kind in your hand, unless it's Aces.

This is kind of obvious stuff but it's important stuff because your opponents will often break these "guidelines".

If you are going to play the game a bit under rolled then rather than take £1500 and play say once per week, why not take £500 (one £200 bullet and one £300 bullet and play once a fortnight) and build your bank roll elsewhere at the same time playing straight PLO. Just an idea. Better to be properly rolled for the game of course but it might be a half way house method of keeping your eye in the game and learning more about it and
more about your opponents.

As I said in my pm reply to you, the game I am thinking of is in a different location to your one.

Out of interest, the games they play at this other game and that I used to play in a private members club are:

PLO 4/5/6
PLO8 4/5/6
Triple Flop PLO 4/5/6
Courschevel 4/5/6 (Pot Limit)
Superstud (Pot Limit)
Irish 4/5/6 (Pot Limit)
Razz (Pot Limit)
London Lowball (Pot Limit)
2-7 Triple Draw (Pot Limit)
Padooki (Pot Limit)

Thats a ton of games Sage

I think my range is good for my style of play, It would be exploitable online but its well balanced for live play as I can aggressively bet draws and made hands often getting opponents to fold out their equity in weak made hands also the majority of my draws will be to the nuts.

I can also throw in some positional bluff bets and cr on the right boards. I only really throw these plays in in 4 card plo.

I'll just be playing 4 card from now until I get a roll big enough for the 4/5/6 game.

BR Management - I take half winnings out of BR after winning sessions.

Interestd to know what you guys do.