The WCOOP is on the line this month and as there are PLO tournaments on the schedule I thought it would be nice to have a thread to share some knowledge and links about how to adjust to the tournament format.

First up is Event #3: $215 PLO 6max and Im sure alot of you are going to be playing this. Some of you might already know how to adjust to tournaments, but for those of us who dont, I think it would be great to get a general idea of how its done.

Would definately appreciate some help on this subject

Ill post a couple of general theory questions I have about adjusting to tournaments:

- Do we generally do as we do in holdem? Play tight to start with and loosen up as the SPR gets lower when we get deeper in the tournament?

- 3betting strategy? When the blinds go up, what types of hands will we be happy to 3bet/get it in with?

- Steals? Do we want to open every button when we have 30bb+? Do we tighten up
at ~20bbs like in holdem?

And I realize alot of this is situational and depending on gameflow, opponents, image, stacksize etc. But for me, who have played 4 PLO tournaments in my entire life I really just need to get some basic strategy under my belt.

Also, I guess playing some SNGs would help me get a feel for it.

Yeah i would like to see some input too as i have no clue how to play them.

I played a PLO trny once,and felt like it was a 20bb fullring lovefest for a majority of the times.

So I'd brush up on low variance and profitable short stacking ideas.

wow, these never run:/

I play somewhat loose passive early on, limping from early position, and flatting raises IP trying to play a lot of small pots. I tend to get a bit lost once the blinds get big and feel like I'm in a no-man's land, where a raise comes close to committing you, but I don't just want to be opening AA** because they can flat with a ton of hands and see the flop.

really good idea for a thread, thanks, looking forward to some good input for this!

Thanks for starting this thread. I'm hoping for answers quickly as I got a Step 4 ticket and am thinking of playing the WCOOP PLO. I'll start off with the main problem I have in PLO tournaments so far:

I'm happy with my deepstack play, but I am not quite sure what to do in the tournament when our stack is about 5-15BB. It seems if you wait for good hands then you will just blind down to 4BB or so, at which point you are really at the mercy of the cards.

I'm nervous about open raising with a hand like AT75s, because if anyone doesn't fold I'm basically pot-committed with a dodgy hand.

I play a lot of PLO8 SNGs but it is not really comparable. You can open and stack off extremely wide when the stacks are small relative to the blinds, because your risk of ruin is only around 30%.

Playing PLO tournaments is easier if you've shortstacked ring games before.

Hand values both pre and post change values rapidly according to effective stacks. At ultra-low stacks, you'll want to get it in with a bunch of bare AK** hands from late position, all the rundowns, all the double pairs, high pairs JJ+, and other good co-ordinated hands. When you're facing a pot reraise, and you're first to open, you'll have to scrub a few hands from that list, probably open-folding a bunch of JJ-QQ hands and the AK**. Deeper, and you can raise fold hands like AKK* and such, but raise-folding with less than 12bb sucks balls and you shouldn't really ever raise-fold with less than 15bb or so. Deeper than that and you can start to play pots, open-limping from many positions, doing stuff like minraising QJT9ss to give you stack depth after the flop if you get 3bet - so that you can fold bad flops, essentially.

I've got 3 cardrunners videos on PLO MTTs that were well-received. Check them out.

Some general concepts I have picked up, just searching around:

I think the most important thing is adjusting to your opponents. Both early on and later in the tournament. Be sure to follow the action even when you are not in a hand. Take notes, get a general feel for how your opponent look at the game.
And adjust to your table. If they play tight, you play loose. If they play loose, you play tight etc..
Attack the short/medium stacked weak/tight opponents when the blinds get bigger.
Punish limpers in position.

Early strategy should include playing alot of hands in position. This is when the amount of fishes are at its highest and you want to get their chips before someone else does.

I have also thought of a concept that might work very well also in PLO. The squeeze! And I think it should be used the most on the button because opponents will be less inclined to play the rest of the hand OOP than IP. Say MP is a loose player and raises and a random calls from the CO. You can probably squeeze a huge range from the button, expecting to get folds considerably more often than you would think.

Oh and rape the bubble if you are one of the bigger stacks at the table. Obv you would want the bigstacks on your right and the smaller stacks on your left.

An Introduction to PLO Tournament Strategy

Article on how to play shortstacked in all stages of the tournament

Thanks Wazz, that was helpful.

Ok I learned a new lesson about PLO tournaments: they suck. Don't play them.

+1