I've been flip-flopping between PLO and PLO8 lately and I think I've come to the conclusion that PLO isn't up my alley. Here's my problem with the game. PLO is essentially a game of draws - you either flop a made hand and you hope you don't get outdrawn, or you flop a good draw and hope it hits. Because the draws in PLO can run so large, made hands on the flop are very rarely a favorite to any significant degree. That means you're usually putting lots of money into the pot in what are essentially coinflip situations, e.g., made sets vs 13-card straight draws. I know I'm oversimplifying a bit but I hate the lack of control I feel when I play this game. I think I'll stick with PLO8 for now, where I feel I have a much bigger edge over weak competition.

agreed people are much more aggressive too as far as I've noticed especially at 6 max

Just shows you are a normal human being. PLO isn't for normal people

You are talking about the flop play only. On turn most of the time people draw without the right odds which makes you a lot of profit. Playing in position allows you to draw for the half price , too. Seriously it is a fun and profitable game. All you need to do is being mentally very strong.

You're right I'm talking about flop play because that is typically the make or break decision point where you end up either putting your stack into the pot or committing yourself to putting lots of money into the pot. I can see how it can be a profitable game over the long run, but a very high variance profitable game. That being said, since so many confrontations involve close races, isn't your edge over the long run much smaller than in NLHE or PLO8? For example, in PLO8 there seems to be more room for stealing pots by making moves like betting the nut low draw or leading out on flops with 2 high cards when it's checked around to you. That helps add to a good player's ev over the long run. But those same opportunities don't seem to exist to the same extent in PLO, at least not without the increased risk that comes along with them.

Against competent opponents, yes. The edge you have in PLO is lower than NLHE. But against people who don't understand the concepts of PLO, your edge is huge compared to that of NLHE.

There are opportunities to steal in PLO to. Lets say you are the button and have raised pf, and the flop comes uncoordinated, the rest check to you. Now is a great time to bet if you have as little as top pair (or less), since checking signifies weakness.

The fact that the opponents who don't know anything about the game will be putting in their stack drawing dead, or close to it much more often with the sucker straight draw, bottom set, and even the underfull gives the player who knows what they are doing a massive massive edge.
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Also, they realize that this game is stupid for variance and don't bother learning it cause they are normal.

EDIT: Also check out the PLO Book by Jeff Hwang. It's a good read.

I read Hwang's book recently and it's fantastic. But I've found that many of the postflop moves don't work well at micro stakes precisely because people overvalue mediocre hands and call down when they shouldn't. Makes stealing much less effective.

If you can't figure out how to exploit this fact, then maybe you're right, this game isn't for you.

No need to get fancy at the lower levels. You know people are calling down light and overvaluing hands, thus you throw out things like the lone-ace bluff from your arsenal and just play positional tight solid poker. It takes discipline. Most don't have it. I'm not even saying that I do - I'm taking a break from plo. It's mentally draining.

Chalk full of FYP win!! I really felt like you were talking to me with this post.

Only took ~45 pages of the low content thread for bud/simo/iggy to get that stuff through to me.

Wait - does this mean you're baaaaaack??

Actually, the discipline is one thing I do have - what's missing is the brute aggression and willingness to put my stack in the middle with draws or vulnerable hands.

Then it could also come down to bankroll. How many buyins are you playing with? Are you the scared money at the table?

I came in here to see what I have been missing and this was the first post I read. After reading your reply I wrote the FCP admin to take the PLO forum off of my login. Hopefully they can do something about that before I do something really silly like go back to playing PLO.

Funny, I dig PLO over holdem, especially shorthand NL, because I feel that i have more control over where I am in the hand. I feel better about my folds and better about my raises in PLO than holdem.

If I keep playing PLO too long I usually start playing way too many marginal hands and give back some of my winnings or more to losses.

The majority of responses in this thread have helped confirm that this game truly isn't for me...

We haven't even told you about the - 25 buyin downswings yet

Shhh....! If you keep talking like this, we may lose him to NLHE or Razz...

razz is a freak and a very weird game IMO

Am I strange in that the games I'm good at are Razz and PLO?

And by good, I mean not terrible.

I <3 the razz. If I didn't get retardedly bored playing it, I could probably make some money at it.

Your last sentence is the kicker. The competence level of your average (micro to mid stakes) razz and PLO is below the average competence level of your average NLHE player at the same level of stakes.

So long as you don't suck, you can kill the first few levels of PLO and razz with zero effort.

See, there you go. You are now on my official "can't converse with" list. My therapist told me not to hang with folks like you because you are the reason my self esteem can't get above the Mendoza line.

Let me rephrase it then...

I thought I was doing something wrong with the way bdc was treating me when I was having a BI swing every other hand while 5-tabling, but then I figured out he was 10/2/.1.

Then I would literally be up or down 2 BI's after 5 tabling for 3 hours and feel like I needed to tilt my money away by jumping 8 limits up. That is when I realized this game wasn't for me.

Sound about right bdc?

Sure, talk like a LAG all you like - you're still the only guy I know who folded KKxx on a KQQxx board

That's OK. That was on a level Hellmuth wouldn't even be able to fathom.

No no - he dodges bullets, you dodge ladies - does that mean you're teh ghey?

See, that's where I went wrong. I thought they were queens and everyone knows not to fack with the queens. They take their comeuppance extremely fervently.

This is why you fold to the queens

If I knew they were merely ladies I would have definitely went broke to see four of them laying side by side.

uh PLO is tilting me so bad today. I know what the OP means now.