Hey guys,

There's a soft live PLO 1/2/5 and some times 5/10 game in my city. The word is thousands and up to tens of thousands are passed. Atleast 2 tables are running 24/7. Just wondering what your thoughts on this strategy is:

-Play a million hands online and patch up my play
-Watch the live game from the rail and make notes on players and their tendencies and see how the game really plays
-Make a run at the table once I hit a million hands online and can beat micro/low stakes online

What I mean by making a run at the game is by going in with the sole purpose of getting as much money as I can than get out. Buy in for max which is anywhere from 500 to $2000 depending on the blinds and crush the game for as long as I can than cash out. I think this strategy requires an element of surprise as there seems to be a regular number of players that play the game. I suppose they will give me more action when I first play to figure out my tendencies and feel me out. I am hoping this is when I can exploit them and make a run at the game. My goal would be to bleed them until they develop a strategy/feel against my play. The time frame that I am looking to get in than get out is 1 to 2 months of play, but will extend if the game is still juicy.

One thing to note: live is full ring and online looks to be 6max

What bank roll do you guys think will be sufficient?
What software is good to track omaha?

Look forward to your thoughts.

Live PLO sinks its teeth into you and will confuse, frustrate and huniliate you more than your worst relationship.

Bear that in mind.

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OP, the key to your success is Jeff Hwang's first book, Pot Limit Omaha: The Big Play Strategy. That really is about it.

Almost everything on the market for learning PLO is about online 6 max. A million hands of online 6 max won't do you much good for learning 9/10 max live. Limping pre-flop is a great example of the huge difference between live and online. The difference between live and online are so different that they almost aren't the same game anymore.

Read Hwang's first book. Be the tightest nitty nit nit at the table while hitting on female dealers and waitresses and you will be a winner several ways.

Thanks for the suggestions ladybruin! Haha at hitting on dealers/ladies =).

That book is fantastic. The fundamentals have helped me with my online gameplay even though it was intended for full ring games.

Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing about being nitty. Play tight and have good card selection preflop should be adequate. Given this, I don't think it should be too tough to beat.

I've played Omaha before but not seriously. Playing online is helping build my foundational skills like card selection preflop.

What would you say the biggest differences are from online 6max vs full ring live?

Live requires playing tight and drawing to the nuts. Over time the live money flows to the tightest players.

More live casinos need to start running 1/2, 1/3, 1/2/5 type PLO they are awesome and highly profitable. The biggest thing is to protect it from getting too big with straddles and straddles to you end up with a 5/10 game or higher that the average person can't afford. Although it won't take you long to move up if you play tight. I did EXACTLY what you are hoping to do. A long time ago I paid my mortgage playing the 1/3 PLO game at the Aria in Vegas. Of course Nevada is cheap. But now I play a helluva lot higher with a paid off beach house in San Diego, California. Dream big, good luck.

P.S. A guy friend of mine would always sit in the first or last seat and hit on female dealers and waitress all day. He did well too in another way. And for all you guys out there, most of the original Wynn Casino waitresses ended up marrying poker players.

If you can beat micros on stars, and then play <30 VPIP you will be printing money. Just don't be a ****ing ****** post-flop and the math will do most of it for you. You have to mess up pretty majorly post flop to lose if your average equity preflop in three way pots is like 45%

@ladybruin thanks a lot for the info! I played over the weekend because I wanted to see what the dynamics were. And you were pretty spot on about the games online and live being different. Live was crazy. Pots were so inflated and so much money was being thrown around, it was insane. I can see how you paid off a mortgage =). I'm hoping to pay off some debt too. I was down $700 in my first hour and down to my last $100. Caught a run of good cards and ended up with over $2,000! Cashed out for a hefty profit and boost to the bankroll =)

@loctus thanks for the advice!

Live PLO players are really really bad. However, there simply isn't a way to play enough hands to smooth out the swongs. It's real. Run on the good side of variance and the games are super easy. Lose a handful of 60/40 "flips" and you could dig a very deep hole rather quickly.

I also think unless you have a good bit of online PLO experience it wouldn't be surprising for you to be one of those terrible live PLO players (by you I am not referring to OP directly)

How is the 1-3 at ARIA? I was temped to play when I was there during CES, but ended playing NL instead cause I'm fairly new to live PLO

This this this this.

Depending on what market you're in, even outrunning PLO variance online can be tough.

I have not played that game in years. But it is an excellent starting point into PLO. When Jeff Hwang wrote his first book and was writing articles online, he stressed the importance of having a low limit PLO game that doesn't get out of control size wise by restricting straddles and restricting extremely large buy-ins.

When I played the game years ago, the blinds were 1-3, straddling was not allowed and the max buy-in was $300. I don't know if any of those protections are still in place. Aria was able to keep the small game small because they also ran $2-5, $5-10, etc. without those restrictions so there weren't players complaining because there was something for everyone.

The trick to that particular game is value betting 35%-75% bet sizing over multiple streets. You value bet the flop and your opponent puts some of his chips in. You value bet the turn and your opponent puts some of his chips in. And then when you value bet the river, your opponent looks down at the few chips he has left in his stack compared to the size of the pot and he calls off loosely. My advice to any guy playing live PLO is don't bluff, play tighter than everyone else at the table, actually play 10 times tighter than everyone at the table and to past the time and boredom from playing so tight hit on chicks.


Give the game a try next time you get a chance.

The variance and playing so slow a game will turn any tiny tendency you have to tilt into the full blown bonkers monster. Which is in part why the play is so bad.

So when you sit there folding 18 of the 20 hands you get in an hour, fold one of those two when you miss a flop 6 handed and with the other get it in on the flop with the nut straight w/ straight and flush redraws and lose to a naked nut straight that runner-runners a goofball full house to beat the flush you turned and the guy accidentally slow-rolls you because he only flopped bottom pair with his straight and wasn't even thinking about making a boat until he spent 30 seconds mourning before folding as he thought your flush beat him...

... good luck keeping it together.

Thanks for the feedback.

Hoping to get out there sooner rather than later. Maybe pop in for a weekend and hopefully I don't land in a table of regs

This is prob the best advice on poker ever written !!!

the key to live plo is short stacking, and limp reraising. because of the variance of the game you usually end up full stacking pretty quickly, but this gives you way more buyins (in terms of number) for the same amount of bankroll, and being short can often be advantageous as it generates opportunities to take advantage of dead money. if you have a finite bankroll, as most of us do, this also keeps you in the game longer, since proper bankroll management dictates you leave the table if you have more than 10% of your bankroll on it.

mostly it takes a lot of patience and discipline. live plo is extremely slow, so you really need to take care to keep from playing too loose.

That is not necessary true. You can play a very aggro LAG-Style and crush the tables. You can run over the nits all day long because tight people suck very bad in adjusting to this aggro style..

Good luck with at full ring. I honestly believe you are projecting your own style choice into this conversation instead of hard facts. Here is a fact from my 20+ years of playing poker, every player I know making $100,000+ a year in southern California at PLO live plays insanely tight. The same was true when I lived in Las Vegas.

And everyone of those dudes that wasn't married or in a relationship, while playing tight spent the extra time hitting on female dealers and waitresses getting laid left and right. Making $100,000+ a year and constantly having a mound of chips in front of you for the gals to see makes it easy to get laid though.

I'm giving poker and life advice. Play tight poker, chase loose female dealers and waitresses.

In the US, there are very few NITs in PLO games. Not sure how it is in Europe but the games here are very soft. Extremely passive and easy to read.

Nut peddling and playing 25% of hands or less will net you 10-20 bb an hour in the typical 1/2/5 game.

As for short stacking, it can be effective as well. I don't advocate 20bb but 50bb is a good sweet spot. It gives you enough $ on the flop to protect your hand and push actions to get HU or 3 handed by the river.

I know this is an old post but I figured the info might help. The game at aria is 1/2 plo with an optional 10$ BTN/UTG straddle. It's 5$ to limp when the straddle isn't on so basically a 1/2/5 plo game. Buy-in is 100-500$ at aria and since the pandemic it's become a 6 handed game. Also bellagio has the same exact 1/2 plo game running now only difference is the max buy-in for that game is 1k. The games are extremely soft as most of the pros tend to flock to the 5/5 plo w a rock that runs at aria (HUGE game). It's not uncommon for those 1/2 games at aria and bellagio to get extremely deep, I've played at tables where multiple players are over 3k effective. Theres nothing better than being 1000BB+ deep with guys who are seeing the flop every hand no matter what.... and it's quite the adrenaline rush to smack such a flop.

+1 I always play this game when I'm in town. Strangely I almost never see anyone leave up. I know it happens but I'm always there during WSOP so I guess the game is harder.