Play in an area with a local pool of about 30 players. The game is $5/5 PLO/8 and BigO (5 card PLO/8). Mandatory button straddles range from $10 to $50. Buyins range from $500 to $2,000, but $1,000 is pretty average. Stacks are often in the $500-$10,000 range as the night wears on.

The game is very loose, with a couple good/tight players but mostly looser gamblers. Raises virtually always get called in multiple places, and a high percentage of hands get raised (let's say 2/3).

Adjusting to the game has been difficult. Play is usually 9 handed (even in BigO, where they simply don't burn the turn.) Of course the nuts is the nuts, but it seems that leaves a lot of money on the table when some of the hands being shown down is relatively weak (offset by the fact that all the cards are in play, so someone usually has whatever's out there.) Waiting for nut starting hands doesn't seem right, since you're offered such good odds preflop on so many hands. I'm not saying you should show down ten high flushes, I'm saying if you play only A23K you're just leaving too much money on the table.

Also note that the play actually ends up being fairly shortstacked due to the high straddles and the raising, so some hands get all in preflop multiway occasionally, and those hands tend to be pretty weak. (Some of this occurs when a player with a weakish hand is trying to isolate a raise with a suspected weak hand).

Suggestions?

Pretty sure you can crush that game just by playing say top 20% starting hands. That variance though...

Yes, since you mentioned it.... one reason I like PLO/8 is that the variance is so much lower than PLO, due to the split pots. However, in this particular game the variance is just so sick(ening).

Optimal play in a game like this is going to take tolerance for variance that you might not be used to. Sounds like a lot of loose money but you're going to have to show up with 5 buyins and no fear of losing 3 of them to tap into it.

Understood, but what is optimal play?

I mix it up - play the player. Be aware when the nits are in the hand - they're actually easier to play against than the gamblers because you generally know what they have.

Don't be afraid to get it in against the wild players. They are your best shots to make money. If you stay on the sidelines against those guys because you're afraid of the variance then you're giving up a whole lot of the value in the game.

One rule of thumb, I think, it to play slightly tighter than the wild players (so you generally have better hands) and slightly looser than the nits. But it would take me 10k words to elaborate fully.

Hope this is helpful.

Yes that helps, but one problem is that the hands are so multiway, and nits and crazies are usually both in the hand.

Another example of mistakes that are tough to exploit. One player in particular plays absolutely awful starting hands (and then plays pretty well after that). Hands that look good to him like 99554, but just aren't good hi/lo hands. Normally I could exploit this by simply isolating him with better hands, but that's not possible in this game. So I only get a very small piece of his preflop mistake. In another kind of game I could raise to isolate with a mediocre hi/lo hand, but one that was better than his range. But multiway I have to fold those mediocre hands because they're dominated against the field so I can't even get in the pot with him very often when he makes those mistakes.

if you are going to play loose than you have to be real good at getting away on the flop.

still you have to play tight as the hands run so large.