one of the things i like to understand in poker games i play is exactly what is going on in the game that is making me win. it really annoyed the hell out of me for a long time that i was beating lhe pretty badly yet i felt like i really didnt understand exactly why i was winning. i figured that one out eventually.

i was watching the 2007 plo wsop final table, the one where devil fish gets third. and i get to thinking, where does the profit come from in this game. reasonable hands are very close to each other preflop, and on flops where the money goes in even if somebody is behind it was usually pretty reasonable for them to get it in there. in other words if you reverse the hands it would play out much the same way.

i know if you have a table full of people who will call off their stacks with jack high flushes on paired boards the money is coming from them. but lets say a table full of reasonably good players. where are their edges over each other coming from?

not sure i fully understand the question... you're asking why good players make more money than bad players?

Pretty simple: they make better decisions. Most decisions in poker are FAR from being 50/50. If you're actually interested and not just shooting the **** i suggest you read sklansky's Theory of Poker. It actually puts the idea i just crudely presented into the form of a theorem.

specifically what decisions?

its hard to make a really bad preflop mistake in this game.

and again, unless you are calling down with the jack high flush on a paired board most of the time the money goes in it would have went in had the hands been reversed. somebody has top set somebody has a huge draw things like that it doesn't matter if one is a dog when the situation comes up and they are on the opposite ends all the money is going in all the same.

Don't pay attention to what ESPN shows. They really only show the hands where those situations are present and someone ends up all in. How many hands were shown yesterday without someone all-in (maybe 5). That final table, if I remember correctly, took almost 7 hours. The 'profit' comes to the players who are able to pick up the many small pots where someone doesn't flop top set against an open ended straight flush wrap.

Oh and a TON of profit in that game comes from getting someone trapped when you are freerolling against them say on a board of like:

6c 8h 9s

Where one player has: AA7T and another has 7TJQ. They both flop the nuts but if player one pushes his hand strong, hes going to be over a 2/1 dog in the hand. Just like an other poker game, its about making players make mistakes and there are many many more mistakes possible in PLO than probably any other game.

Its easy to make preflop mistakes. Being the dog in a 2-1 situation is less than reasonable.

Edited: Saw this was in Omaha, had to remove things

i think i understand your question: you are asking how anyone can make more than a slight profit in PLO because the hands are always so even?

well, for one thing in a lot of those hands one player was, generally speaking, at least a 3-2 if not a 2-1 favorite, which is still a pretty decent advantage...and i think your question is one that is probably asked by a lot of people who watch a lot of hold'em on tv and see how all the great players can get it in as an 80% favorite or more so often, and then when a different game happens to be shown they see how no one seems to be more than a 2-1 favorite and wonder how people make money at it...just another result of too much hold'em on tv, but i digress

basically, hold'em is a unique game in that once the flop comes, in a heads-up pot, most of the time you will see one player have a 3-1 advantage or more...this is not true of basically any other poker game, except maybe stud hi, and even then these situations don't come up as often as they do in hold'em...in almost every other game, you will see that the equity numbers remain fairly close throughout most hands, and by getting yourself in those +EV situations consistently and maximizing your profit from them by pushing those small edges is how you make money

edit: also, what brandon has said is definitely true as well

Of course there are hands where both players are priced in or have the odds to call/push. But how often they happen?

When you push top set on flop , how many times a player with more than 8 outs call you?

Also reads and accordingly plays make a good difference. You don't try to bluff a station , you don't try to make marginal calls against a nutpeddler. While other may try these if they are not paying attention.

Good player raises from the CO , folded to you you call from MP with JT97ss.

Flop K62r.

You check , GP c-bets , you C/R knowing he can't call without Kings there. He folds aces.

In this example who played bad? You both played good.

Now reverse it ;

You raise from CO , he calls from MP.

K62r flop. You c-bet , he folds JT97. Did he play bad? No but in the exact same situations you made profits.

I am not sure if this makes sense but this is the best explanation i can give with my English

thanks for the responses

Simo , Navy , Ahosang and Actuary needs to post here too. I wonder there responses.

Two things here:

1. First of all, there are a lot of "small" mistakes people can make that cost a lot of money. Calling down with a naked flush draw against someone who won't pay them off is a major example. Also, there are a ton of hands that don't go in on the flop. A good player can figure out when bluffing at the paired board on the river has a good chance of succeeding or when they can value-bet a flush on a paired board in a lot of spots a weaker player would miss completely. Looking at the betting patterns throughout the hand to figure where someone is in the hand on the river can be much more beneficial in PLO than in a lot of games.

2. Also, the most common thing that otherwise-decent players tend to screw up is playing too passively. If you have a 60/40 edge against your range of hands on the turn and I bet the pot, but your opponent would check in the same situation, then you just won 1/5 of a pot by betting. Likewise, stealing a pot where you have such an edge (or are actually a little behind) is even more profitable. As a bonus, when you do this properly, you'll see more of those "ridiculous donkey call-downs from your opponents" that you don't seem to think happen very much.

Value-betting non-nut hands is definitely high on the list...

a few things:

in plo, a lot of what separates great players from ok players is the ability to valuebet properly and in seemingly thin situations. put your opponent on a type of hand, figure out how much he'll pay, and go from there.

second, and this also goes along with maximizing value, is being able to play from OOP by c/ring a bluff just often enough to make sure that you're getting paid when you actually have a hand.

third, a lot of really good players get stubborn, and even if their aggression is really leading their opponents to define their hands fairly precisely, they still like to call them down when they're beat or drawing overly thin.

fourth, a lot of otherwise good poker players don't understand that plo is all about making flop decisions rather than preflop, turn, and river. generally, you'll be making the decision as to whether you're going to get all your chips in on the flop, and if you're drawing, that decision has to be made then and there. along these lines, lots of plo players could make themselves a lot better by forcing themselves to play a lot more hands in spots that they haven't before.

fifth, good but not great players have no ****ing clue how to mix it up and not play predictably in plo. this will lead to other good players just not paying them off as often.

saving the best for last: taking down the pots where no one has anything. this includes c/ring people that try to do just this in position.

Not sure either, because i keep getting it in good and get callers with hands like Q 5 5 9 and the make top two against my set, and nut flush draw, then win on a backdoor flush. But i find solice in typing "idiot" or "moron" in the chat window as a i reload

I think it's pretty easy, especially in a pot with several players. The guy playing random garbage might have all of his draws dominated by someone else's hand.

But hand selection really pays off on the flop and later when the backdoor draws come in. Good hands get to freeroll on bad hands.

Just remember how many times you lost to a backdoor flush and you will see how important hand selection is.

this is a whole lot less of a problem once you develop a lot of postflop feel, esp at 6max games. in full ring, hand selection is very important since there are nearly twice as many players getting cards and 2/3 of the deck is in someone's hand. not so in 6max, where a lot of smaller type draws gain a ton of value since almost every pot is HU.