With internet poker no longer available to U.S. citizens, us PLO8 players are at a bit of a crossroads- Outside of rare occasions, our game has been played almost exclusively online in the past, so the ban on internet poker affects us as much as anyone. Big O(5 card PLO8) caught on at last year's WSOP thanks to a bunch of live players introducing it, the online PLO8 community embracing it, and the clever marketing("Big O" sounds cool, getting 5 cards seems crazy and fun so randoms are more likely to sit down, etc.). I'd like to suggest that our group of online PLO8 players has made a big mistake by embracing this game. I think we are being severely shortsighted in doing this, and we run the risk of making PLO8 extinct. It is readily apparent to me that the growth of Big O has come at the expense of PLO8. There are Big O tournaments popping up all over town now, including many casinos having a Big O event but no PLO8 event in their series. How long before they replace the PLO8 WSOP events with Big O? Its already happening in the cash games at the Rio- I have yet to see a PLO8 game over $5/5, yet there seems to be no problem getting high stakes Big O games. Considering that many high stakes online PLO8 guys are in town all summer long, this worries me. Don't take my word for it, heres the latest post in this forum's Big O thread:





I propose 3 changes that we should make, each of which may hurt our immediate profits(due to decreased player pool) but will be much better for us in the long run.


#1: The combination of shallow buy ins and button straddles ruins the game and one(or both) need to be eliminated

Note: I've only played $5/10 so I'm referencing those stakes here

The minimum buy in is $500 and I've seen multiple dealers at the Rio not even enforce that. With a $25 button straddle, that means that with just one limper a shortstacker can then raise to $120 preflop. If the limper calls him that leaves the shortstacker with just slightly more than one pot sized bet(he'd have $380 left and the pot would be $280).

"But Assani, weren't there shortstackers online? Why is it so different here?"

1. Online and live poker are different animals. Online we gladly accept small win rates because we know that we can play an obscene number of hands over short periods of time and, therefore, make good money nevertheless. When playing 30 hands/hour live(and thats a NLHE estimation, its probably more like 20-25 for Big O), you're looking to push major edges. Those bigger edges simply don't exist against shortstackers. As someone who has made a living for 8+ years from both live and online poker, I would caution online-only players to make sure you understand this vital distinction before trying to make a living off of live poker.

2. Online had 20-50BB tables, 40-100BB tables, and 100-250 BB tables. With a possible $40 in blinds every hand($5 + $10 + $25), this essentially makes Big O have a min buy in of ~20 BB and no max buy in. Thats just way too wide of a buy-in range, and it favors shortstackers too much because deep players must worry more about playing optimally against other deep players.

3. The game is advertised as "$5/10", so most people buy in for a $5/10 game with around $1000. But when you add in a $25 straddle and when the $5 rounds up to $10 when calculating PF raise limits then it creates an entire table full of shortstackers who may not have even intended to be a shortstacker when they first sat down.




#2: As a game of skill, Big O pales in comparison to PLO8 and we should immediately switch back to PLO8

Four factors to consider:

-5 cards means there are more playable hands preflop.

-Many people don't adjust and continue to play hands that would be profitable in PLO8 but are no longer in Big O due to the average starting hand now being better.

-With every player having 5 cards, each player has a much greater chance of having the nuts on any particular board.

-Most often these games are full ring until late at night before they break(and often times live players want to quit as soon as we get close to being shorthanded)


This leads to a ton of multiway pots where the nuts or big combo draws to the nuts are out there. This leads to less HU pots postflop, less automatic c-betting, less bluffing, less maneuverability, less iso raising, less having to make tough light call downs, less orphaned pots to steal, less having to get used to playing marginal hands, and less ability to exploit having position. This leads to more straight forward play, more coolers, more spots where you're forced to get it in as a coinflip and experience huge variance, more automatic spots where critical thinking isn't needed, and more overall variance since hand values now run even closer. Hand reading becomes a lot tougher with 5 cards, which may at first appear to be a good thing, but I actually think it minimizes the edge that good hand readers have because it simply becomes more of a guessing game.

It essentially leads to a game where your sole advantage over the average opponent is that you'll play tighter and better use positional advantages. Sure there are some reckless idiots who will play so poor that you'll have other edges, but those players are rare and will go broke quickly. Against the average player you're simply winning his money by out-nitting him, and to me thats boring as f*ck. In PLO8 I feel like you can really force your opponents to make mistakes by being aggressive, whereas in Big O you're just waiting to get cards and hoping that your opponents are so bad that they make mistakes on their own. I do admit that its a possibility I just haven't fully grasped the strategy, but there are other good PLO8 players who have agreed with me on this. Moreover, with only ~25 hands/hour and all of those spots where you're forced to get it in on a coinflip, variance will play way too big of a role in determining the winners...thats fine for casual players, but for people trying to make a living off of poker its a scary thing.



#3: We should play at the Wynn instead of the Rio

With the future of online poker uncertain, we should be worried about the long term growth of our game. The Rio is dead outside of WSOP time. I live here in Vegas and would be willing to keep a Wynn PLO8 game running all year long(especially now that I can no longer play online). The reason Big O got popular is because those live players who brought it to the WSOP aggressively promoted it and were willing to start the games off shorthanded before it caught on. Can we do that with a regular PLO8 game at the Wynn? I have no clue, but I think we owe it to ourselves and to the game we love to at least give it a try.

I've lived in Vegas for nearly 4 years and imo the Wynn is the best room in town. A comparison between the Wynn and the Rio:

-Rio charges $8 every half hour for drop at $5/10; Wynn charges $6 and will almost always drop it to $3 if theres 5 or less players. Assuming one plays 40 hours a week for the 6 weeks of the series, thats $480+ directly in your pocket. And thats not counting the fact that your opponents are all deeper now so theres more money in the pots you win from them.

-Wynn dealers are the best in town; Rio dealers are brought in just to deal the series and often times are not full time dealers. In a game like PLO8, this matters a ton. Adding one or two more hands per hour is huge for one's winrate. Moreover, theres more room for dealer errors in a game like PLO8.

-Wynn will put our game in the high limit section and give our game their full attention; At Rio, we are just another game that gets lost in the crowd. This manifests itself in a number of areas ranging from how long we have to wait to fill empty seats to

-Wynn is very generous with food comps, their deli and room service rock. They will make sure we feel appreciated, and they would gladly help us promote the PLO8 game if we held it there.

-Wynn would most likely be willing to have 6 max tables if it meant keeping PLO8 a regular game at the Wynn. It'd be awesome if we could have one full ring and one 6 max table of $5/10 running all day long during the rest of the WSOP.




Like many of you, I've been trying to figure out what to do now that online poker is no more. Well I've decided that I'm going to at least give this thing a shot. If nobody cares and it doesn't work, then so be it- I can make a living off of NLHE, so I'll just do that. But from now on whenever I go play NLHE at Wynn I'm going to start a $5/10 PLO8 list of interest. I'll start the game HU against anyone and will play for as long as I can. I'd play $10/25 as well if anyone is interested. My hope is that we can get a regular game during the rest of the series and that momentum can be used to keep the game running at least somewhat regularly throughout the rest of the year. I'm feeling a bit sick today, but I should be all better by tomorrow(Friday) night and should be there then. If anyone wants to, PM or facebook me your cell # and I'll start up a list. I'll then text everyone before I go to the Wynn everytime. If you're just here for the WSOP, then make sure to let me know when you leave town so I can take you off the list and you don't still get the texts all year long. To be honest I'm not very optimistic about this, but I don't think Big O is a better alternative; I think we should at the very least try to make PLO8 work first. Anyone with me?

I don't agree. I've been crushed in the game so far this series, but I don't agree.

I'll write more when I have more time to post (getting ready to drive back to LV in a couple of hours), but here it is in a nutshell:

1. The gamblers like it better. If people are willing to get it in bad on the illusion that their hand is worth more than it is, that's good for the game. That's why 5-card is becoming more popular. I get that you want the game to be more skillful, but it's been my experience that mediocre mid- and high limit players know their limitations and play anyway ... and avoid playing deep against talent when possible.

2. Any new game is good for good players because the good players adjust faster. That's good for the regs. I'm tired of playing against the same 7 nits hoping that a bad player rolls in off the turnip truck. I'd prefer that we have a new poker game every week. NLHE is actually what's killing poker more than 5-card O8.

3. If you don't like the shallow game, don't straddle. Or play in a game that doesn't have one. Or hold out for a deeper game. (But you know that won't work. The gamblers you want in the game don't want to play deep for the most part.)

4. We've complained about how small the player pool is, and now you want to eliminate something that is pulling people to big bet, split pot poker - it's O8 with a sweetener. I don't think you're seeing the forest for the trees.

I've never seen O8 this popular - and pot limit! I'd say 1/4 of the cash games at the Rio most evenings are some form of not-holdem. I think it's great, and it's what we want.

You may not like it, but I think PL Big O is here to stay for awhile. It's slightly less skillful than 4 card, it's fun as ****, and it's drawing people to our game. I think you need to make a compromise and welcome all the new money to our game.

I can see sides to both arguments but ultimately agree that anything which increases the profile of 08 is a good thing. If it is attracting a crop of new players then the games ought to be more profitable (though I recognise what Assani is saying about the issue of games being too shallow in terms of stack sizes).

But I also think it's cool you are trying to get a daily game running at Wynn. I think it's an awesome card room. I was treated really well when I played there. They also serve awesome cocktails. So I'd definitely be interested in playing some 08 there (but your stakes are prolly too high unfortunately...)

Ok, I welcome your differing viewpoint. Its definitely possible that I'm simply misunderstanding the game on some level and that is affecting my opinions of the game.


I think this demonstrates a lack of understanding of the differences between live and online opponents. Online opponents, for the most part, are indeed aware of things like this. However, you are underestimating just how clueless live opponents can be- thats what I was referring to when I said that live play, getting ~30 hands per hours, is about pressing the big edges you can find.

Just one example to illustrate my point about the cluelessness of live gamblers: There are plenty of people who will play single deck blackjack, thus decreasing their payouts when they get blackjacks, without even counting cards. They willing pass up a clear edge that they could have simply by sitting at another table a few feet away from them! These are the types of players we are dealing with when we talk about pressing the big edges in live poker. They may not be in the games all the time, but when they finally do join it makes it worth having patiently waited while having to play in a tougher game for the past few hours/days/weeks/etc.

If you disagree with me then either buy into or rail the $5000 PLO8 WSOP event...you'll see a whole bunch of players playing who are relatively clueless about the game. This leads me to firmly believe that there is indeed a market for higher stakes PLO8. I've seen "name" pros like Raymer, Moneymaker, Hachem, and Matusow willing to play high stakes PLO8 online, which can only be good for the game. Why don't we try to get them to help us start a PLO8 game? Thats my major concern here- Why not at least try to get a PLO8 game going before conceding that Big O is the best option? The landscape of poker is forever changing and just because PLO8 has been unsuccessful in the past doesn't mean that we should assume theres no market for it today.

I'm sure you can list several individual factors which make up the advantage that skilled players will have over weaker players in Big O. The ability to adjust to a new game is indeed one of them, and I admit that I failed to list it in my OP. However, imo that doesn't change the fact that Big O, by far, gives less opportunities for better players to display their skill advantage- and this is a point that you didn't seem willing to dispute.

I wish to play $5/10 or higher. I don't think I can be that picky with game selection. My only hope to find better games is to do what I'm doing now. The current Big O games are horrible at $5/10 and higher. Usually when I say that a game is terrible I am implying that the players playing in it are very good, but that isn't the case here. Here, the reason for the games being terrible is the structure/rules of the game. My hope is that if only some of these terrible Big O players were willing to come on over to PLO8, it would create a more +EV game overall.

Not button straddling is passing up a large edge and will only hurt one's winrate.



I don't dispute that pulling people to split pot/big bet poker is a good thing, but I think that the next logical step is to try to transition those people into the more skilled game of PLO8.


These are different times than in the past. We now have quite a few online PLO8 pros who are suddenly out of work. What I'm suggesting is that we invest in the future of PLO8 rather than look for a quick fix. I fully believe in our game. I think its a fascinating game that has captured my attention over the past few years. I don't want to replace it with a half-assed substitute. I become especially bothered when the half-assed substitute begins to replace PLO8 in some card room's rotation of tournament games.


I very much disagree with your usage of "slightly". I think you are vastly underrating how much of a crapshoot adding a 5th card makes things.


except this isn't "our game" at all. The similarities are merely cosmetic. You earlier said that you think one edge winning players possess is that we are ahead of the curve when it comes to learning new games...well I think one edge winning players possess is that I can rather accurately evaluate the overall EV of a given game. I agree that its possible I'm wrong here, but as of now I firmly believe that we would be better off promoting PLO8 and ignoring Big O. I don't care which game is more fun or which game becomes more popular- long term EV is all that matters, and nowhere in your post did you mention long term EV.

I would fully support lower stakes games of $1/2 or $2/5, and I would try to play in them occasionally if they ran at the Wynn. I do care about the future of PLO8. I feel as if I've invested way too much time in it to sit back while it dies without online play to booster it.

I think I agree with Assani.

We have had PLO8 running about 4-5 nights a week in Detroit here and I've been contemplating trying out Big-O one night here. Assani, the only REAL argument I can see would be this:

In Big-O, due to the smaller amount of players at the table, you would see less gamblers per hand. However, as was insinuated in some respect earlier, those players won't be re-evaluating their hand strength on the flop and will more than likely playing the same draws exactly the same way, thinking they are JUST as good with 4 cards. Assani, there is a simple question that must be asked here, and that is:

Is the good player's edge with an extra card greater than the bad player's CHANCES getting an extra card. Hrrrrmmmm let me try to rephrase that so I actually sound like I graduated college...Do you think the bad players' poor evaluation of their hand strength is outweighed by their actual hand strength due to receiving an extra card? Do ya at least see what I'm trying to say lol?

I mean I guess I agree in theory. problem is that Big O is what all the non-PLO8 guys want to play here. I was just downstairs and there is a ton of PLO and Non-NLHE running. As Truth said i think the better players will adapt/adjust/etc and thrive.

I do agree that the Miss straddles really shallow out the stacks and it is annoying but not really sure what we can do. For better or worse the gamblers are attracted to this game and want to gamble it up playing Big O.

I played a pretty juicy standard 5/5 PLO8 game the other night but now it seems we cant get this game off the ground even though there are multiple tables of 5/10 and even 1/2 Big O.

I don't think running away to Wynn is the answer at least during the Series. If we can shed light on the game even if it is Big O that has to be a long term positive.

There's a reason omaha is played with 4 cards and not 5. It's a much more sound poker game and adding additional cards just makes it more of a gaff.

Next thing you know they will change the betting structure to NL.

Assani, just a thought here. 5 card game has a little less skill (not sure if it does or not but that's your thought) and attracts the gamblers. PLO8 has more skill. So basically you will gut the fish faster in PLO8 and the game will dry up faster. That's basically one of the reasons it has never flourished for a sustained amount of time in casinos.

I haven't played the big o game. Its just not in my bankroll range. That being said, if you thoroughly understand split pot poker, especially the pot limit version, then you should embrace a game that gives the fish a chance to keep their money a little longer if it draws more of them to the game. This would be especially relevant since it's drawing people with big money to the game. So for someone as talented and well rolled as you, maybe embracing a little more variance for the sake of a long term income should be considered.

I really think the best bet is taking off the button straddle. You could spread the game, at a manageable level, in a casino if you left the straddle off. That's one of the reasons most casinos don't allow button straddles. The button straddle raises the stakes of the game too high and gives too much advantage to the better players, thus killing the game in a short amount of time. The Rio doesn't care about this because playas gonna play while the series is in town.

I think your idea of starting a regular plo8 game is great. It will probably take a lot of promotion and some help but hopefully it will catch on. Also I suggest starting it at the $5 to go level. You will draw in more players to start and can raise the stakes as the player pool grows and begins to demand higher action. If a guy that likes PLO8 walks into the wynn he's not going to say "man, I would play but it's only $5 to go". On the other hand, not many players are going to play a game that's empty everyday because no locals can afford to play it and build a player base.

Just my opinion. Good luck getting the game started.

Assani, always a pleasure....

Interesting input.

On a side note, as some of you may or may not know..... I majored in conversational Latin in college.

I was recently thrilled to be offered a job at an all conversational Latin college (UCL) but unfortunately prior to accepting,
I found out that the bastards have banned the use of the entire fourth declension.

Needless to say, I promptly refused the offer and am currently petitioning the conversational Latin community to boycott UCL until they come to their f*cking senses.

Do you think this is the LC thread?

You know..... or what Truthiness said. Whichever you prefer.....

Some people would think my response harsh if I told you that I think the OP's post is blatantly self-serving in the form of some kind of altruistic appeal...... But I think it's actually way, way worse than that.

Cheers! Hope y'all have a profitable WSOP....

I kinda understand what you're saying, but my response would be the same as I gave to Truthiness:

In other words, yes I do think that the bad players' poor evaluation of their hand strength is outweighed by their actual hand strength due to receiving an extra card. I think the extra card allows them to correctly play more hands preflop, and even though they make the mistake of overvaluing those hands postflop(due to everyone now having 5 cards), that mistake isn't as big as the one they would make by playing too many hands(particularly OOP in HU pots against a good player) in regular PLO8.



I agree that most casual players seem to want to play Big O rather than PLO8. However, 2 years ago nobody had heard of Big O! So what happened? A group of live players started up the game shorthanded, promoted it well, and it caught on. Have we ever tried that with PLO8? Why are we just assuming that it wouldn't be successful? There are now a ton of out of work PLO8 players due to the internet ban....why not try to see if we can promote our game by taking advantage of the fact that right now for these next few weeks we actually will have a solid group of regs willing to play high stakes PLO8. If we play for 5+ sessions and its literally 100% regs at the table then maybe we should call it a failure, but I don't understand not giving it a try first.

But imo the only way we have a chance of being successful is if we try to promote PLO8 instead of Big O. I don't think we have enough of a player pool to try to continue to promote both. So I think we should try to get PLO8 games started as best as we can, and if they fail then use Big O as a fall back.

I think you guys are giving live fish too much credit in assuming that they would instantly figure out how small their EV is at PLO8 and run back to Big O. This is especially true in a live setting where, even in a lower variance game like PLO8, its still incredibly easy to run well over a few hundred hand sample size. I could be wrong about this....but lets give it a try and see!



Agreed, as I said in my OP:


Imagine for a second that the Rio announced "For whatever reason Big O is no longer allowed by the gaming commission"....do you not think we'd instantly see more PLO8 games the very next day?"

Or now imagine that instead of all of us playing Big O, we instead got a regular PLO8 game running at Wynn. Imagine I was able to keep the game running semi-regularly all year long. Maybe at next year's WSOP, PLO8 would then start making a comeback and we'd see it be as or more popular than Big O. Maybe I'm overly optimistic though.



You just said above that you were having trouble getting a PLO8 game started despite the fact that its WSOP time and theres tons of PLO8 regs in town....to me that doesn't sound like a long term positive; It sounds like us killing our game in favor of another game that at first glance appears more similar than it really is.




I understand your point, and it is a fair to say that we need to realize that somewhere on the spectrum there is an optimal level of variance that will keep the fish coming back yet allow the better players to win at the highest possible rate. However, I maintain that Big O does not achieve that optimal spot on the spectrum. I think the edge a good player has in Big O is smaller than the edge a good player has in any of the other games I've ever played(PLO8, NLHE, PLO, and MTTs), so if those other games can succeed in a casino setting then I don't see why we need to go that far.

Is PLO8 too far on the other side of the spectrum? None of us can say for certain, but I don't think so because we've seen it survive online where theres even less variance due to being able to play many more hands per hour. Regardless I don't want to spend a ton of time debating this issue; I want to give it a try and see how it turns out. Trust me, if all the fish go broke quickly and the games dry up, I"ll be the first to admit that my hypothesis that live PLO8 could succeed was wrong, and I will then be much more willing to embrace live Big O.


Btw, don't want to turn this into a personal thread about me, but I'm not all that "well rolled" these days...just a combination of run bad, no online poker, withheld online funds, and life expenses.


agree


I'll start a $2/5, $5/10, and $10/25 list every time I'm at Wynn from now on. 100 BB minimum buy in, no max(well I think $2/5 may be capped at $1500 due to Wynn rules, I'm not sure).




ok


No clue what you mean by "its actually way way worse than that", but feel free to clarify. As for this thread being self serving under the disguise of an altruistic appeal, if the two are correlated(which I believe they clearly are) then I don't need to disguise it at all. I'm perfectly fine admitting that my overall goals in promoting PLO8 are for me to make money in the long term. I would expect that others who agree with me(and those who disagree) are also doing so for self serving reasons. We are all trying to make money for ourselves, but the long term growth of our game is a common interest that we can all rally behind.










I do think Big O would be a lot better shorthanded, but I've yet to see a shorthanded game run for a very long time before new players arive.

ah assani, i live in vegas as well and I do think you need to do some more research on the Big "O" 5-10-25 game down at the rio. I've played in the game everyday and realize there are major edges in the game to exploit. QUARTERING!!!! I know you are use to the term SCOOP assani, but you need to get familiar with the term QUARTERING. The amount of reraises I've seen with one way hands on the flop is amazing. I've seen people get in over 500 BB's on a 456 (two heart board) with hands like qjj87 (no hearts) or a299j (no hearts).... And assani, if you put in some good 10 hour sessions through the middle of the night you will see many many hands like this. But i'm definately down to play up to 50/100 plo8 if you wish after the series is over. I'd prefer the aria to the wynn, but whereever a game is going is fine.

I don't doubt that incredibly fishy plays occur at both PLO8 and Big O(as well as at every game of poker). Those people will most likely lose their money quickly no matter what the game/rules are. However, the majority of the player pool is not completely clueless like that.

Perhaps I will give Big O a few more tries before I completely give up on it though. This is probably a long shot, but is there any way the Rio would be willing to start a 4 max or 6 max Big O game? During the daytime I'm sure theres no way, but maybe later at night when they have some free dealers?

And yeah, I'd love to get that PLO8 game going after the series with you. Would you be willing to start it shorthanded/HU?




Btw, I'm still sick, so I may not make it to the Wynn tonight to start the PLO8 list. Sorry guys, trying to get better ASAP.

Fisher I love that your fighting for this and i completely support what you are saying, I know that I try to promote plo8 where ever i play, I am not a regular anywhere anymore but when I make a trip to anywhere that they allow it I put it up on the board n try to convince 3 or 4 players to play n once it gets going it will stay full as long as the fishing is good

with this thread I will now go to the Wynn when I am in town just for the plo8 games, last time I was in town pre-WSOP i looked for a game and couldn't find one and was very disappointed

Hope u can get that game running and lasting and let plo8 thrive

Let's take a step back and get some perspective.

Some of you act like PLO8 is the holy grail of poker. I remember feeling that way once and fighting for PLO8 to be spread at all the tournament stops. And it is now: a month doesn't go by where you can't go somewhere in the US and play a PLO8 tournament. Great for our game.

But I also saw the player pool dwindle online and I decided to learn every other variant of poker out there so that I could play not-holdem. My decision (made 2+ years ago) is starting to pay off: on any given night at the Rio about 1/4 (!) of the tables are playing not-holdem, mostly PLO and its variants. I can play all those games, and that's really great. For me.

Other people are doing this too. 5card was spawned from the need for variation. If everyone learns optimal play, whether it's PLO8 or NLHE or whatever, then the games aren't worth playing if your objective is professional and not casual. So we continually change the games. You might not believe it - or you do - but it happens, and the reason why is subtle angle-shooting, plain and simple. Note that the Big Game was recently playing Omaha & Stud 9 or better ... and sometimes 10 or better. They didn't do this for any reason other than to throw off the non-regulars so that they might spew.

Assani:
My response is: so what? If your edge is too great, it kills the game. You lose broken customers. You've made money, and it's good for you, but it sucks for the rest of us that want to play.

Poker that is more skillful isn't inherently better poker. It's just better poker for the skillful players. And here is where the floormen see things differently from the sharps that keep their rake going: they recognize that they have to govern the rate at which you bleed the bad players. And the floormen are going to encourage the games that the fish like. (The floormen know that the sharps are going anywhere ... at least they aren't going far.

What I am saying is that there is nothing inherently special about PLO8. Four generations ago, 5 card stud was the game. Then draw had its day, and stud, and holdem. Poker is going to evolve. Maybe Big O is the way it goes, maybe not. But if we have chops, we have to adapt. We can't stand around and demand that everyone play our game so that we can crush them.

Linden:
This was my first reaction too, but I didn't want to say it out loud out of respect. But now I'm thinking that it needs to be called out. (Assani, will buy you drink of choice if you can find me at tables during WSOP.) I'm not trying to be mean here, I just think we need to look at the big picture.

Assani seems to want everyone to go to Wynn (not sure why ... he's tried to drive traffic to Wynn before, maybe he has an arrangement, maybe he just likes the chairs there), but the Wynn is a morgue. Rio is the place to have this game during WSOP because that's where the casual players are going.

Here's what I see going on. There are a few people who are experts at PLO8, a subspecialty of a subspecialty of poker, who want to promote this variant that they like best ... and crush everyone else. I'm not placing a value judgment on this - you seem to grind this game to pay your rent, and if you can make that work for you, then great - but I must call it what it is, and that's an attempt to drive the fish into your watering hole where you can drop dynamite in and pull out fish sticks.

Like the guy that made the LC comment about this post, I too thought it was a non-sequitur until I read it three times. nh sir.

PLO8 isn't THAT different from Big O. We should be happy to have it.

Assani:
Maybe. But it's undeniable that the mix of luck and skill in Big O is crushing PLO8 in popularity.

The problem is that PLO8 is TOO skillful.

PLO8 is a flawed game. The experts gut the fish so quickly that they give up. That's why there is no player pool. In NLHE, the fish win occasionally and come back to a greater extent. That, combined with how easy (idiot proof) NLHE is (you know, grab your junk, shove your chips to the middle, close your eyes, tell me if you won), explains why PLO8 hasn't taken off next to NL.

I don't see where this is inherently so. The 5th card introduces more variance and volatility, and if you liked things the way they were this isn't good for you.

And I've been in more than one place where we played NL Big O because everyone knew holdem and NL just made sense to them. (Ultimately, I think Big O is best played limit. It's an easy game to nut peddle, and even easier to exploit those who nut peddle.)

It seems like a no-brainer to me what to do.

Suggestion: ask for a 6max Big O table. High stakes - where you play - is like flying first class. You can get anything you ask for.

Let's be real here, people. Be happy that people are gravitating away from holdem toward our games. Big O isn't going away. Be patient and run well. Repeat until the hookers are paying you.

Big 0 is a variant of 08 just like PLO8, NLO8 and LO8. For forever now on this forum has the lack of growth been complained about. Now one of the variants is successful and we are complaining?? Variants of poker come and go as history has shown, just move with the times people.

I have no idea why I meandered to this thread. I guess I was looking for something different to read.

I'm a LHE player...have been for 15 years. LHE was king, and everybody I knew who was good at LHE despised NLHE, especially short stacked NLHE. But then WPT and ESPN and blah blah blah. The rest is history. Is NLHE a better poker game than LHE? Or maybe PLO, or PLO8, or Stud, or whatever? I'm not here to argue that. They all have merits.

But games don't survive based on their skill level. All that matters is where the fish go. They want a happy medium of gamble and skill, and they want something cool. The decline of LHE should make that obvious.

I went pro just a couple months before poker took off on TV. It was still all LHE all the time. When the change to NLHE occurred, all the other pros I know made a choice...stick with LHE or switch to NLHE. Most stayed with LHE, and most of them are no longer pros. The ones who went to NLHE made a ton of money in a short amount of time. That's the way sharks get fat...they follow the schools of fish. I stuck with LHE...had some good times. But I wish I had switched to NLHE from day 1. My advice, as a pre-TV poker pro, is to stop fighting for your favorite game and instead spend your time following the fish.

But believe me, I understand why many of you won't want to do that. Just my 2 cents.

I don't know what I think about the PLO8 versus Big O issues, but...

No PLO8 game has ever had a sustained run in Vegas anywhere. If you want to start PLO8 going you need to walk before you run and establish a player base at 1/2 and 2/5. Thinking you can get a sustainable bare 5/10 pot limit variety game like PLO8 going anywhere is just so LOL.

Thanks, at the very least I'll start PLO8 lists of interest whenever I'm there in the future.




You guys act as if the fish started these Big O games. The Big O games started because a bunch of Big O regs started up the game shorthanded and promoted it like crazy 2 years ago. Then the fish joined. If we were to do the same thing with PLO8 and the fish chose Big O instead, then you wouldn't hear me complaining. My sole complaint stems from the fact that we aren't willing to see if PLO8 can succeed; Rather we seem content to just promote Big O and ignore our game. Has there been one PLO8 game above $5/5 running all series long? If not, then how can you say that the fish don't like it? You're not giving them a chance to play it!

The fact that PLO8 couldn't succeed in the past doesn't matter- these are different times with different players pools. Moreover, internet poker going down has created a new poker landscape with a ton of PLO8 pros now out of work. This means more people willing to start shorthanded games even if its slightly -EV in the short term.





Variants 'come and go' because groups of people try to promote them. I'm not arguing your point- in fact, I agree 100%. What I'm trying to do is promote PLO8 in light of your point.





I'm not standing around and demanding that everyone play my game; I'm trying to do the same thing that the Big O crowd did 2 years ago- organize the PLO8 community to start up the game shorthanded on a regular basis and give it a shot to see if it'll catch on.



I already responded to his post, so I won't repeat myself.

edited to add: And don't worry about "respect" or anything like that; I appreciate honesty and I'm not going to get upset over you saying how you truly feel.


No arrangement at all. I've listed the reasons I prefer the Wynn and they are many, but I admit that perhaps I should've left the "Wynn vs Rio" debate out of this thread because the main issue is "Big O vs PLO8" and this is just sidetracking. So lets agree to save this debate for another time and just focus on Big O and PLO8 for now.


Again this just seems to be repeating Linden's point which I already replied to. Feel free to carry on the conversation by replying to my response to him.



This is probably at the center of our disagreement. However, I must question: If you call me an expert at PLO8(like you implied in your above paragraph) then wouldn't you consider me one of the few qualified to comment on just how different the two games are? It just seems strange to me that, on one hand, you say I'm an expert who is just trying to drive people to his game, but then on the other hand, you don't seem to give weight to my opinion on evaluating the nuances of the game you say I'm an expert in.


I will concede this if you will concede that its undeniable that the Big O regs have been many times more organized and willing to promote their game than the PLO8 regs have been. As such, I don't see it as a fair comparison. Again I will state that all I'm asking is that we try to promote our own game before dismissing it in the favor of something else.



Then how did PLO8 survive so long online where the fish get many more hands per hour? Especially with the slow Rio dealers and countless inexperienced players who take FOREVER to read their hands, you're only getting maybe 25 hands per hour. Figure the average person's session is maybe 4 hours and thats 100 hands....I refuse to believe that theres not enough variance in a 100 hand sample size to keep the fish coming back.


At the Wynn I can get nearly anything I ask for when it comes to setting up new games; At the Rio, I'm a random $5/10 player who they don't even know. Trust me, I don't get any special treatment whatsoever at the Rio, and $5/10 players are definitely not given "first class" treatment like you think.

Anyway, its early in the morning and the Wynn doesn't have any NLHE running above $2/5, so I'm gonna go to the Rio to give Big O another chance today. Who knows, maybe I'll change my mind.