If you are good at PLO your BB/100 will be higher but because of the nature of the game your hands/hr is lower. I'd suggest playing 1/2 PLO because you find it entertaining and then when you get better just playing whatever is softer.

I don't play much PLO but I think from what little I've seen if you wanted to you could actually play a winning style with relatively low variance.

Most of the time there will be mostly limps preflop, so you can play tight, see relatively cheap flops and put money in when you flop strong. Given how much players overvalue TP or weak 2pr hands you could probably get money in a lot as a pretty strong favorite.

It will be higher variance than NLHE, but maybe not super high like high stakes PLO games we see are. That may be completely off-base, most of my PLO experience is spewing at 1/2 while waiting for 5/10 games at Foxwoods so I dunno.

But I guess if you are worried about losing with the best hand too often PLO probably isn't really for you.

I completely understand the PLO is a drawing game and big wraps, especially double suited wraps are great PLO hands.

At my casino, the 1/2 PLO game may as well be 8/15 lol cause there's always someone who will make it 15 preflop. You can basically wait for the nuts or even the second nuts and get paid off easily.

E.G. I have KQJT it's 15 and someone raises to 45, sure to be at least 6 callers, so I call, since there is always multiway action, wraps are especially valuable. Flop comes J8T, I'm gonna check to the raiser, when he raises I'll go all-in here as he likely has QQ or maybe even 2 pair. There are too many possibilities here for me not to go all-in.

Anyway, usually top two pair is good in these games, but it's best to wait for made hands and get paid off cause it really sucks when you're good on the flop only to lose every time for your whole stack cause that's how much the pot usually is by the flop and you're all-in cause you have to bet with the best hand.

I'd love to learn more about PLO though cause it's more fun than Holdem IMO. Any good references you could point me too?

On the other hand, I may switch to nights at my casino where all the gamblers are and just fit or fold. Value betting at these times can win some mega pots. Suckouts occur more often though too cause of all the callers.

Is it true that Axs and Suited connectors have more value because of 6+ callers, even when raised?

If its a game where people are making big PF raises then it is going to be an insanely high variance game. "waiting for the nuts" in PLO before the flop isn't ever going to give you as much equity multiway as you think. And the pots will be so bloated that you are going to have to get it in in spots that you have only decent equity.

The game you describe is so much higher variance than NLHE that if you are concerned about the variance in NLHE you shouldn't even consider playing the game.

And PLO plays way "bigger" than NLHE. I am a 5/10 reg in NLHE. I probably wouldn't play a 2/5 500 PLO game unless I felt it was a really good game. This is partially because I don't play PLO all that well. But also partially because PLO plays a lot bigger and 2/5 will probably play relatively similar or maybe even bigger than 5/10.

Ok I will add in my information.

2007 playing in Fort Lauderdale Florida. 10% rake $3 max. The tables are very very passive. Players had absolutely no clue of how to play. I was far worse than the typical online reg @ $50 NL in those days and I ran ~10bb/hr. I was a weak TAG. But this was under pretty much optimal conditions. They basically flipped their cards face up on their foreheads vs me with the knowledge I had and my ability to read tells.

2010 till now. Im playing in the Bay area. When we moved here I tried to play the local games and didnt realize the vig difference. Its $4-$6 drop here, not a rake, and the players are very aggressive. So initially I lost quite a bit not adjusting. But after I adjusted and formulated a decent strategy I am at 5bbs/hr. Its not optimal yet. I still have to make the adjustment from east coast passive to some of the crazy bad players here. I mostly play online $50 NL where I do well but a live 1/2 game is vastly different. Its not harder, its just different.

You have to realize many fish buy in short, discount the monsterous drop from the pot, and adjust accordingly. Some LLNL games are $4 limp 1/1/2 blinds, others are $2 limp 1/2 blinds. Some casinos even have a kill 1/2 the hands which adjusts the game.

So game selection matters and strategy adjustment.

There was one player in our discussion group who claimed over 250 hours to have generated $30 per hour at Lucky Chances 1/1/2 game $4 limp. Considering it plays like 2/4 Im not surprised.

Game selection, adjusting strategy, knowing your opponents all contribute to a vastly superior winrate primarily. Other things that do adjust it are reading body language, your mental game, time of play, expense considerations.

Hope this helps.

Hm, after reading your post I agree with the premise but don't remember feeling like my variance was high - I felt that my variance was pretty low because of how passive everyone else plays pre-flop so when I turn aggressive post flop people are still loose passive and pay off my big hands when I'm way ahead.

So I read through the past dozen or so pages on this thread and it seems most 1/2 players have a std that is slightly higher than mine (around $200).

I think its a function of me game selecting into soft games with that usually has a few loose/passive players that will stack off with TPTK almost always.



I agree, this was just a fun experiment for me - I've got a real job lined up

You made $38/hr at 1/2. That is largely luck. If not, I recommend you play 10/25+ because you will absolutely crush it.

Tom Dwan's son is such an awful poster. So keep that in mind.

Pretty sure I am the one who told you moving to PLO would be a horrible idea, so I guess I should expand on that.

You yourself have admitted that you have problems staying off tilt when you get sucked out on. If you have a problem with this in hold 'em, this will KILL you in PLO. PLO has far more suckouts than hold 'em does.

I believe you that PLO is far softer than hold 'em where you play. It's also true where I play. But in PLO you will very rarely build big pots with a huge equity edge the way you often can in hold 'em. That means it will make your bankroll more vulnerable to bad runs of cards, and perhaps more importantly for you, it will make you more vulnerable to tilt--even more so than you already are.

my standard deviation is 964.66/h with an hourly profit of 9.82 over 153 hours since i started using a new program.

what exactly does that standard deviation mean?

It means that you have some crazy variance and your win rate is probably very inaccurate.

What is your usual BI amount?

$200

my biggest winning session is $404. my biggest losing session is $500.

My STD is less than 1/3 of yours over last 1200 hours.

What programs do you guys use to keep track of winnings playing live? I always annotate whether it was a winnin or losing session but dont keep track of the amount of hours.

To the guy who posted this, my recommendation is you do not have any tilt control. It seems you overy discuss the suckouts that occur to you. Do you evaluate every hand you lose to see if you could have done anything different? Do you evaluate every winning hand and made sure you took as many chips as possible? Everyone has leaks, what are yours?

Stay away from PLO!

that is some crazy high standard deviation for 1/2 NL - are you sure you're tracking/calculating it correctly? Thats kinda similar to saying you tend to end an hour of play up or down 1.5BIs.

this is true in my experience as well

pretty big leak not to lead for pot here i think. how are you going to check raise when your stack is basically the pot. and if you're deep or something i'm pretty sure i hate a c/r.

yeah, i use poker session logger on my android. start the session when i get my chips at the cage and end it when i'm cashing out.

i've won or lost a buyin in two hours during this time.

my session breakdown since october
44 wins
26 loses
1 breakeven

so that's 62% wins
in march i'm 75% and on a heater

Std Dev is just a way of looking how swingy you are. Although it should be taken with a pack of salt until you get at least 1k hours. Think of buy-in at 0 anything above and below will add to your std dev, hence a $500 losing day followed by a $400 winning day is a $900 swing for 2 session, i.e. BIG std dev.

It also speaks volumes about your play style. People with low std dev tend to be a much more nitty and avoid large pots without big hands, people with large std dev are exploiting the slightest +ev advantage, 60/40 pre-flop etc... Either is fine, but if you are looking for a flatter winrate, you could tighten your game up a little and play mostly post flop, rather than getting a lot of money in pre.

Just my $0.02

I have an excel sheet with all my session info (session length and profit), how would i calculate my Standard Deviation?

excel has a standard deviation function, google it to figure out how to use it

I also use poker session logger on android

do you have a pretty aggressive playstyle? considering the high std

depends on the table to be honest. i'd rather be aggressive than passive, but some tables dictate not trying to be in every pot.

i like poker agent better than session logger.

I'm somewhat new to live play but feel I'm doing fairly well. I'm working on being more aggressive and less passive. Raise more pre-flop, 3-bet periodically, etc. But, also play pretty tight.

I've been buying in w/ $100 since I've been playing on a small roll (less than $1000) and taking 3 buyins when I play. I almost always use at least two buy-ins but have been a slight winning (2.43BB per hour) player in the 70+ hours I've played.

I now have a $2000 bankroll designated for poker and wonder if I should start buying in for $200 and only have 10 buy-ins, or continue buying in for $100 with 20 buyins?

I think I play better with the $200 stack. But, playing with only 10 buyins, I know I'll play somewhat nitty.

With the $100 buyin I'll feel more comfortable taking more risk, but will still have to play pretty nitty, and will lose a lot of play with f/e, etc.

So, I'd love to hear any advice on this.

BTW, last night I played and bought in for $200 and got stacked when my pocket Kings flopped the set and villain flopped an inside straight. This is what makes me nervous about only having 10 buyins.