3 replies to this topic

[Abbaddabba]

Im watching the 50/100 PLO on FTP with several name pros, and one thing that strikes me as odd is how passive the play is preflop. I dont understand why.

It seems like any game where position is fixed for the hand and where there are blinds or antes, the default play for competent players will be frequent raises from late position (and consequently, tighter play in early).

But everyone seems to love limping... or at least it's far more frequent than it is at similar high stakes NL hold em games. And preflop raises are also a lot less common.

Is position somehow not as valuable in omaha as it is in hold em? That would explain it to an extent.

[greatwhite]

Im watching the 50/100 PLO on FTP with several name pros, and one thing that strikes me as odd is how passive the play is preflop. I dont understand why.

It seems like any game where position is fixed for the hand and where there are blinds or antes, the default play for competent players will be frequent raises from late position (and consequently, tighter play in early).

But everyone seems to love limping... or at least it's far more frequent than it is at similar high stakes NL hold em games. And preflop raises are also a lot less common.

Is position somehow not as valuable in omaha as it is in hold em? That would explain it to an extent.

First of all, in pot limit omaha you never want to raise upfront. You want to keep the pot small in early position as you'll be folding after the flop a lot. Position in pot limit omaha is actually more valuable than in no limit hold'em. However, the idea behind limping is to keep the pot small and try to outplay everybody later. Personally, I don't raise that much either unless I'm in the cutoff or button seats. Even then if I have a marginal hand like 8753 there's no point to raising. I'll just limp to see what developes.

[mrdannyg]

I'm not sure if the main factor is position, since I think in a PL game if anything, position takes on more importance.

My uninformed opinion would be that a lot of PL, especially PLO is about controlling the pot size. Since most people playing at that level consider themselves to have postflop advantages over their opponents, it would make sense for them to want to keep pots smallearly, and exploit their postflop advantages without all the money going in early, since preflop advantages in Omaha are so small.

[checkymcfold]

in plo, the edges are small enough preflop to justify limping nearly all playable hands preflop (in some games, not all) so that your opponents have no clue as to what you could have, from 6789 thru AAKK. there are other reasons for doing this, too (as danny said, controlling the pot size when you feel that you have a postflop advantage), but most of this is for deception. if most preflop hands are limped, then that is one street (at least) where your opponent cannot get even the slightest read off you.

you'll see play like this in most tricky cash plo games and it will look donkish. it's not.