I’m starting to dabble in PLO and we have a weekend game that gets big. It’s 5/5 but you can match stacks and there is always a maniac or two feeding the game. When I play I usually buy in for $600 and it’s always on a must move table or the smaller (normal) Sunday game.

I play tight in Holdem and nitty in PLO. Is there any reason to play in the bigger game with a short stack? Stacks can be $3k+ and it’s not unheard of to have multiple players to have a few hundred in preflop. SO! Keep playing at the kiddy table? Or take 2 bullets and try and get it in mostly preflop and look for a double up or more?

The whales absolutely come along light, but I’ve seen many a man get snapped off on a dumb, loose call by them.

Marsh

Really a question of bankroll. If you can fade multiple 600 buyins going south, might be worth the gamble. Also important to note that, if you're starting that short you're likely going to be in a lot of low spr spots on the flop and need to adjust accordingly.

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What is your game plan for the different possible scenarios? As a few examples, if you double up in big game, do you stay and nit it up, or do you move to small game? If you lose 2 bullets at big game are you truly disciplined enough to move to small game? If you get it in heads up against whales you will probably do fine. But when you start talking about 3-5 handed all ins, sure you will win in the long run, but it will be swingy. Two bullets is not much. Some of the biggest monkey tilt I've ever seen was from short stackers after they get bad beat for a couple of buy ins.

Being a nit in a juicy PLO game is the nut low. Change your strategy or sacrifice considerable EV. Your call.

It’s an interesting point. I think I mean I’ll play ABC PLO. So a tight preflop range and made hands or nut draws only post flop. For my game, this is nitty.

You get a lot of maniacs who (correctly, I think) push some weird hands and really have a polarized game so they end up with some good fold equity. I’m not good enough to read specific hands/draws yet so it’s still level 1 thinking for the most part.

Buying in for 600 for a 5/5 game is totally fine. The game playing deep doesnt mean you need to buy in deeper than normal.

There is a ton of posts on short stacks ruining the game and forcing big stacks to play tight back in the day.

My feeling is if nothing else, you often (more often than in NLHE) get free protection and get to run a 3 way main pot against one opponent and that alone adds a lot of equity.

Shortstacking is a perfectly viable strategy, but it still requires work, albeit a lot less than it does to become a winner at deeper stacks. I would recommend starting with this strategy.

There are two drawbacks.

1. It's boring (very low VPIP)
2. Once you double up you are no longer short stacked and your strategy no longer applies.

fwiw I wouldn't call 110bb shortstacking.

Yeah it’s hard to explain my game. There was $40k+ on the table this past weekend in the main game. So 110bb isn’t short stacking but you certainly aren’t applying any pressure to 50% or the table. And throw in a maniac and your $600 is getting called in a few spots preflop with people trying to run him down.