OP is a nit

FWIW folding in mp wouldnt be terrible esp if there are aggro tards behind you.

In plo you want cards that work together. That is the core principle of plo.

Alot of nl players come in and think AK99 is a great hand. Its not. Its a pos. The cards aren't working together.

A5J7 has cards that are trying to work together. But not as many nut draws and nut makers as you think. Its like a family that doesnt really get along.

A7J8 is a group of friends that get along well enough

A8JT is a group of friends that get along really well and hang out all the time

A9JT is an orgy

I don't know if live plo is worth it if you're good at nlhe. I mean 9 handed live plo is so slow, and you play so few hands. Short handed plo is good though.

I also think there's still a ton of room in nl. But it has less to do with flopping sets and stacking random fish and more to do with playing with the same player pool and knowing everyone's game inside and out and how to exploit it. People still play really bad out of position, out of position in 3bet pots, and of course from the blinds. But of course that takes time, patience, and good memory.

I think the underlining point is that being a poker player is not just about NLH but it is concerned with being able to play the best game in the room. That’s the direction OP and many others are heading imo. Personally, that plo hand I would have played aggresssively on the flop. Although, many times in PLO you execute your plan and then the turn comes and you’re like uhhhh what now was not expecting this... I think for myself it’s mainly lack of experience and not fully grasping ranges.

The point is live plo is very rarely the "best" game in the room if we are talking bankroll management and that is bc it has incredible variance and low hands/hr. These two things combined make it a ball-smashing rollercoaster and really shouldnt be played by anyone.

But I play it so...

I agree with upswinging that it is slow, boring, and nut mining. I disagree that it is less profitable. I'm fine folding until i hit the nuts, then pot pot potting, and getting paid 100% of the time.

That said, there are alot of times I wish I was playing nl. NL is so much easier.

This puts things in very visible perspective. Much appreciated haha

Thanks for your input here. Agreed for the most part. Agree with you that 2/5 NL level games people are still playing fairly terribly, however as most 5/T around the country is drying up, and live PLO games are going 7 way to the flop a lot of the time with hands that are easily dominated, seems like similar stakes games should yield a higher hourly than their NL counterparts. Obviously this is assuming our skill level is similar at PLO (it's not) but no other way to get better than to put in the hours.

Plus, I feel like it helps with game selection

Well said, agree about the boring part. I feel like it will be a long term positive (and somewhat of a hedge) should anything happen with NL (like what is happening with 5/T happens to 2/5 games)

Agree with Ava again, mostly.

I can generate as much fake action as I want in NL as easily as I can turn the volume up and down on my tv. And I still have all the tools left at my disposal, namely no limit and having considerable fold equity WHEN I WANT THERE TO BE. I don't need to have winning hands at showdown in order to win.


The thing with plo is action comes in the form of lots of all ins and needing winning hands at showdown. That is literally the only way to make money at live plo- have the best hand at showdown. Everyone thinks plo is a goldmine until they lose 20+ bi and start thinking logically.

A smart person would choose nl over plo every single time (if they were actually good at the game) even if it meant taking a 25-30% hit in winrate, because the the variance is so much lower. And lower variance formats are better for skilled players.

One other thing that people rarely understand in poker. It's that people move on to new games for the "action". They are always chasing the action. In other words they're nothing more than opportunistic vultures. They just try to capitalize off of what's already there - that's why they never win much for long and why they have to keep moving to the next game.

Whereas if you just were a nice guy, and got out of line with the fish and made them sweat/ get that rush they're trying to get... then you'll always get action. Forever. I occasionally sit online still, and I never have a shortage of action from weak regs and fish. It just confuses the hell out of me that regs don't open up their games when they play with recs.

If you're creating the opportunities instead of waiting for them to fall in your lap, you'll still be able to play nl with lots of action and with all your experience, skill etc that you wouldn't have had with plo.

I disagree with the bolded, if someone had a juggernaut perceived hourly and could handle the swings why would they take a 25% hit?

Agree with the other parts though. As I said I have no problem with the action in most games, but it would be naive tho think 5/T and above action is not drying up in most markets

Agree on all fronts here

There's a few misconceptions. Theoretically you're 100% right, but it's very different in application. I don't think anyone is rolled to handle the swings financially or emotionally. Just think about it, a game being played for much more money with at least 2.5x the swings, if not more (lol if you're unlucky).

I'm glad you brought up 5/T because this should cement it even further. The reason 5/T doesn't run anymore is because very few people could afford it, not because there's no action in the games. Almost nobody has that kind of cash or bankroll to play in a game that big. How can someone who can't afford 5/T NL think they can handle 5/5 or 5/T plo? They can't.

I've played in plenty of 2/5 games that would be considered bad from a bum hunter perspective but there's a list 6 people long waiting to play... because they can sort of afford it, not because they think the game is amazing.

If you're not capable of beating up on the regs and pros as much as you beat on the fish, then maybe it's best to say **** it and gamble on plo. I don't think anyone can make any money just from stacking the fish.

Good points, esp bolded. Just want you to know that I agree in the sense that my edge is much bigger in NL, and ofc there will be smaller swings as well which is awesome. I think we’re on the same side, other than the fact that I don’t really see a negative in branching out to learn a new game.

Agree with your point about needing to be able to exploit the regs nowadays, a lot of fish aren’t just spewing hundreds of BBs but all players are leaking in some (many) points in their game.

to quote Jnandez (from memory, so might not be perfectly accurate): "It is a common misconception that PLO is all about connectivity and cards working together. It is not, at the end of the day high pairs and high cards will be winning the most money."

so no, not really. The reason you hear platitudes about connectivity in PLO all the time is because those multiconnected hands are very easy to play - you will often flop very strong combo draws with them, that practicly play themselves. However, in order to actually win money, you need to learn how to play other types of hands.

Good stuff, in other words **** that can “cooler” or just make better nutted hands

You are either misquoting him or taking a generalization he was making out of context.

The fact is that JT98 > KK54 because their raw equities are a flip (every hand is a flip) but the Jhigh rundown benefits from equity realization.

This is especially true in live poker where your high pairs are under-realizing their equity.

In a 9 or (gasp) 10 handed game where people get four cards, you are going to have to nut mine and you are going to want to have street to street playability. That is why you want cards that work together. It’s not a platitude. It’s a fact.

Also “cards that work together” does not exclude high cards. Im not sure where that is coming from.

AA89 is working more together than AA49

AK89 is working more together than AK89

When you start looking at hands and realizing their compatability you get much better, at all variants of poker.

I will say that a very common leak of new plo players is looking at 3457 and getting a boner. But it’s a really speculative hand. Yes you want higher cards overall. No, people don’t overestimate how important connectivity is. They underestimate it.

agreed with almost all you wrote (yes, I also prefer double suited, connected aces to rainbow, disconnected ones, and perfect J high rundown is obv better than bad kings), except for last two sentences. There is a reason many fishes are limping/flatting most aces pre in plo.

btw the same sentiment works in holdem and is the reason you often hear recreational players say stuff like "I hate aces, Id rather play 87s" - the latter hands either misses completely or makes very strong hands, making it infinitely easier to play than aces, where you will usually end up with one pair.

anyway, this isnt really going anywhere, since we are discussing playerpool tendencies, which are obv different in different pools, for starters Ive never set foot outside of Europe and mostly play online

Didn't mean to be so combative with my first sentence, sorry, trying to bet better at that.

I think the real important part is equity realization.

AA** is a stack off in a 3 bet pot in online 6 max bb vs btn on 932. In live plo it is a check fold, lol.

People think it is as simple as "well if we are heads up we want to win >50% of the time, if we are 3 way 33%, 4 way 25%" and so on. So as our equity decreases with each additional player our pot odds increase, and they offset.

However, it isn't as simple as this because of equity realization. This is something greatly understudied and underappreciated with regard to live games. Its really remarkable when you start tinkering around with ranges and what I call the "combined equity of the field".

In nlh it isn't as important (but still should be studied), in live plo, it is all that matters.

As for player pool tendencies, I will say in live plo it is not uncommon to see 9 way all ins preflop. I probably see one once every few weeks.

It is very rare to see a pot go less than 5 ways to the flop. 3bet, 4bet, it doesn't matter. I'm not exaggerating.

The post above is exactly why it's a boring, ****ty game lol. The winning strategy is playing tight passive, defensive poker pre, and then playing even tighter post flop. You're basically playing on your belly the entire time, trying to avoid "coolers".

When many fun poker variants are all about being on the offensive and trying to squeeze bets out of people, and less about making big folds.

Games where you're constantly talking yourself into why you should bet again >>>> games where you're constantly talking yourself into why you should fold.

That said, some plo games can be incredibly fun. But that's only in short games or against novice players... where you're value betting the 5th nut flush on a non paired board because they aren't capable of folding AAxx.

Having the correct strategy maybe be a more boring one seems like a mental thing imo. Playing hundreds, sometimes thousands of straight hours playing NLH can get boring as well. Seems like a solid switch up plan every now and then.

It’s a bit like the online/live poker debate in a sense. Not sure why a lot of people always feel like they have to pick one, when they can do both depending on what they feel like at a given time.

Anyways, I see your point though. Just we probably feel differently about it

Yeah, obviously a huge difference in the live & online worlds. I almost wonder if I’m hurting my live game (which is much bigger, this more important to be better at) by playing 50PLO online for practice.

Expecting the worst

It seems like one of those streaks that will go on for a while. You know they happen. When you are running hot, and it seems like nothing can go wrong you tell yourself you’re ready for it to end, that you know things will turn sour at some point. You’ve been through it before and you know it will happen again. You tell yourself you’re ready for it. But you’re never really ready for it.

And so it’s here. The multi hundred hour breakeven period/downswing. You know it’s really nothing because you’ve really only played 5000 hands or so in that time frame. You recall the days when you played online and would play 5000 hands in a day or two. You never cared about breakeven stretches of 5000 hands because it was so short in real time.

Fast forward to live poker. 5000 hand samples are still nothing, but they feel like forever. You’re one tabling, and you’re playing for 10-20x the stakes. 5000 hands is forever. The hands mean so much more.

—

In our first interesting hand after the 5/T opens up we see an open to 35 from UTG +1. We look down at KK UTG +2 and bump it up to 130. Only the original raiser calls. We go to a flop of JJ4. And he checks it over to us. We check back and see the 7 on the turn. Our opponent bets 90 and we call. The river is the 4 and our opponent fires for 425. We snap it off and have our opponent announce ‘board’. Great, that’s a start we can get behind.

Shortly after we see a MP1 open to 40, and we look down at 55 in the CO and make the call. The SB comes along and we see a flop of T95 SB and raiser check to us and we bet 65. SB folds and raiser pops it to 200. We call and go to a Q on the turn. He doesn’t stop now, and wagers 400. We call again, and then see the A on the river. Villain wagers 800 and we tank fold. That seems more like it.

Next up, there’s an open from MP to 35, and one of the biggest donators alive calls in the CO. We call in the BB with K9. The flop comes K55 and we check. Raiser bets 80, and whale folds. We call and go to a 2 on the turn. We check, he wagers 190, and we call. The river is the T and we check again. He doesn’t stop, and wagers 1,010. We lay it down.

We pick up QQ OTB and see an open to 35, and two calls. We make it 205 to go. The raiser folds, and the donator backraises all in for 450. It folds to us and we call. The board runs out 4 diamonds, but we lose to KQhh on AKT65 with 4 diamonds. Not sure we’d beat any hand on that board.

Lastly we pick up T9 OTB and see an open from CO. We call, and the BB, the big whale calls. The flop comes T93 and the whale leads 75. Original raiser calls, and we bump it to 250. Whale folds and raiser calls. The turn is the 8 and he checks it over to us. We wager 375. He thinks for a bit, and makes it 980. We make the fold and he flashes the J. We don’t need to see the other card because we know his game.

Just one of those days(or weeks, months)

gl all


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H2: Against the check raise I think a flop 3bet is good.

H3: turn is a fold or a check raise. You're in the bb so I like a cr more.

H2: agree there, I think it's a mistake to not 3bet there based on a few things (board texture for sure)

H3: interesting. Didn't consider a raise there. hate calling even more if V is able to put up is a tough spot (like he did) on the river.

H2: I'm trying to get it in on the flop honestly

For 300bb? Seems like a bit of an overplay imo.