Thanks for all the great responses.

Feels weird to not know what is the best play at so many spots when trying out PLO now. You help me clear a lot of thing out, I guess I need to study general things at first so I can later apply them to specific spots myself.

trust me, it's only gonna get worse. it's like an onion, the more you peel, the more it smells and the more it makes you cry

nom

Haha, don't scare the noobs

For me, the layers represent skill levels, gradually finding out how complex the game is is comforting.

There are two good ways to avoid crying when peeling onions: 1) drink water, 2) have someone else do it for you. Both apply to PLO too (The third is putting spectacles on, in the poker context it might be interpreted as studying very hard.)

After some good success at 0.01/0.02 PLO 6max at Pokerstars, I've now started playing 0.02/0.05 and game seems quite different.

Players seem to fold a lot more preflop and also on later streets. It's almost as these guys graduated from 0.01/0.02 by playing the nuts only, so they do it here as well.

However, I haven't played many hands yet, so I'd appreciate any comments on the differences between the 2 levels and any adjustments I should make.

Elrazor is just in the process of moving back up the stakes, starting from PLO2. Try PMing him if he doesn't notice ur post.

About 8bb/100 hands



Aside from that, yes the standard is slightly better but nothing to really worry about. I'm just about to move to PLO25, and the only major adjustments i'm making are altering my pre flop criteria slightly (so playing less AKxxds hands, and more mid DS rundowns) 3 betting more and bluffing rivers more.

3 betting is hardly required at PLO2 as you don't mind hands going multi way, especially hands like AKQJds. As you get better players at PLO5, you can work a little harder to isolate the bad players with hands that are not so good multi way, 8765ds for example.

But in all honesty we are talking tiny adjustments here as there is not a significant difference between PLO2 and PLO5. You should generally be playing nutty hands, keeping bluffs to a minimum and value betting as thin as possible.

@Elrazor

Thanks.
I notice a lot of players that are super agressive preflop.
They have ridiculous PFR and 3bet % and play almost every pot.

It's hard when you have one of these at your left.
Did yo notice this as well and have any tips about facing this sort of players?

When you have a super-lag to your left, just tighten up slightly and be prepared to 4 bet/gii with hands that have good nut potential that are likely to dominate. So, AKds, KQJds, good KKxx and QQxxds hands, etc. You can still play rundowns, as if you are 4 betting light it will discourage players behind the lag from entering the pot.

Basically, just open hands you can play comfortably to a 3 bet.

Why doesn't waiting for a blank turn help on that board's texture?

I phrased it a bit weird, sorry

jamming works much better vs his range, you get action from all sorts of TP+NFD/gutter+NFD type combos that get scared by some str8 cards OTT.

top 2 is a better candidate for calling for a blank turn, as it doesn't do as well equity-wise as sets vs a flop raising range

I have a question regarding pot control when you have the best possible hand on the flop/turn.
Say you have top set or the nut straight and you feel like villain is drawing to a flush. Is there any situation where you don't want to put as many chips as possible into the pot, because by doing so you may be making it more expensive for you if he hits his hand?

Sure.

7822 on a 69TA board. If villain pots it, you might want to flat if the SPR is high enough. Your hand is basically drawing to a blank river.

Say there's $10 in the pot and you have $130 effective stacks, it might be better to flat if he pots it. If you raise, you can only make it $40, and he can call with a pot-sized bet left for the river. Most cards change the nuts, and you won't know what to do when he leads into you. You've created a situation where he'll be able to apply the most pressure onto you and leave you guessing.

If you flat the bet instead, you reduce his implied odds and the amount of pressure he can apply to you on the river. If a blank does hit, he might follow through with a semi-bluff, thinking you wouldn't flat the nuts there.

A contrived example, obviously, but it illustrates the point. It also shows why position is so important. It provides more options, such as controlling the pot. If you're OOP and pot the turn here and get raised the pot, it probably wouldn't be terrible to pitch it.

The point is valid, but generally flatting the turn there is bad. The board is so draw-heavy that sets will be stacking off on either the flop or the turn happily. This requires too competent players, obv, where they can put each other on semibluffs/thin valuebets. Raising is only bad if villain puts u on nuts and nuts alone.

With no redraw, river is gonna be ubertough especially OOP, but given ur range, villain can't just blatantly shove every non-blank. Sometimes there are difficult spots in poker. If you're afraid of them and play passively with most of ur range, ur leaving a ton of money on the table.

In this example, a player with a set may also call and try to pair the board.
The point is, any hand going to the river (sets and flush draws) has many outs to beat us, so implied odds favor them.

Say you are the guy on the draw. Have you never sweetened the pot on the turn so that you can make a 3/4 pot all-in on the river when you make your nuts?

If I have a strong draw OTT, I'm jamming if I think I have fold equity. Otherwise, can't be justified by math.

Implied odds come into play if we make mistakes OTR

Is this the right assumption to make in SSPLO?

I guess I'm figuring it'll be hard to determine the correct play on the river, so I'd try to minimize the cost of the mistakes I will be making. Their draw probably doesn't need to make up much with implied odds, either, and I'd rather risk my money when they're more likely to make the mistakes. Calling should open them up to making more river mistakes, too (albeit, less expensive ones).

I could be wrong here, but it makes sense to me that flatting can't be that bad in a SSPLO vacuum.

River difficulty is always hypothetical and villain-dependent. As far as "SSPLO-vacuum" is concerned, the field is unlikely to put u to a tough decision, so I have no probs pushing my equity

vs tough opponents, I'd make sure my turn jamming range is wide enough to discourage villain from bluffing river and shoving turn over me with stuff like top 2 + NFD.

While this debate is somewhat "advanced" for this thread, it's still a good idea to think about ur range and perceived range this way. It helps you size up ur opponent and the level of poker he's playing.

What I can conclude from this discussion is: if you are confident that you can read your opponent, you should raise the pot as much as possible on the turn.

This is true in theory if you can avoid mistakes on the R altogether, like, if you have a perfect read that villain will never bluff the river if he misses his draw. In this case, it's clear to me that you should push your equity as much as possible on the T and fold on the R with a peace of mind if he bets.

However, if you are facing an unpredictable opponent, maybe it makes more sense to slow down on the turn.

Question is: in SSPLO, what type of player is more common? I think very few players are capable of bluffing rivers after you have shown strength on F and T. So I'd be more inclined to play like GoGetaRealJob suggests.

Good analysis. I'll need to play closer attention to each situation/player.

Is folding this hand correct?

PokerStars - $0.05 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

BTN: $1.68
Hero (SB): $5.00
BB: $5.00
UTG: $13.26
MP: $9.52
CO: $2.90

Hero posts SB $0.02, BB posts BB $0.05

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.07) Hero has A A 8 7

fold, MP raises to $0.17, fold, BTN calls $0.17, Hero calls $0.15, BB raises to $0.85, MP calls $0.68, BTN raises to $1.68 and is all-in
Hero?

Folding aces is almost never correct in an all-in preflop scenario, and these aces are especially good. They have a suit to the ace and good connectedness with the side cards, so you're doing well even if you're up against the other aces.

If the BTN didn't come over the top there, the correct play would have been to shove yourself.

The question is, hero can still do that because the BTN is short stacked and the two remaining guys have 100BB as well.
Can hero still make anyone fold?
Because I ran this against AAxx + 2 randoms and things look ugly in that case (24% equity). If you replace those randoms with decent wraps, our equity is much lower.
This is a likely scenario imo, because the guy who is most likely to have AA is the BB, so I expect he would call our all-in, giving MP good odds to call as well with a drawing hand.

If one villain folds and the other one calls with a hand like QJT9, we are 32%.

So I'm still unsure what to do here. Seems like a neutral EV decision to fold or go all-in, therefore only adding variance.

lol, immediately thought off the discussion above after this: