A PLO Hand

Okay so I received a lot of negative feedback about my last blog. I do appreciate the emails and have responded to several and will try and be responsive about some of the suggestions. So, here is more poker content.

In the past few months it seems like a lot of no limit players are taking a stab at pot limit Omaha or PLO, which as most of you know is enjoying a growth in popularity both online and live. There is considerably more gamble and thought involved in a four card game where you must use two cards from your hand than in no limit holdem. I had a discussion a couple of days ago with a good friend, who is a winning no limit holdem player and very successful on the tournament circuit which I thought was interesting and I would share with you. It involves an online situation where he had AAK6, the K6 was suited in spades, and he was in the big blind. Someone raised the pot from early position and 3 players called in front of him. He then re-potted from the big blind. This was a 25-50 game on Full Tilt, which means it was 4 × 175 in front of him and he raised $875 after putting in his call of $175 for a total $1,050. He said he hoped to thin the field a little which of course didn't work and he wound up with a 5 way pot with $5,250 in pre-flop. He began the hand with $5,000.

The flop comes Q 10 4 with 2 spades and he asks what I would have done. Where do I begin? To start with I would pick a lower limit as a beginning PLO player and I would min buy. I think you can buy in for 20 big blinds or 1k. Unlike NLH in PLO you are going to be putting your whole stack at risk much more often, and without the nuts. You have to be prepared to put it all in sometimes pre-flop and often on the flop without being an 80% favorite like you can be in NLH. So one strategy, and one I like is to min buy and have reloads available instead of sitting deep. Deep stack PLO is a much riskier adventure than deep stack NLH. In fact we have been play much more PLO at the Commerce and it is interesting to see the migration of experienced NLH players who bring their whole stacks with them. Once you gain a certain familiarity with the game sitting 50 or 100 big blinds deep may work well, but to quote Layne Flack "with PLO dipping your toe rather than diving in is usually a better idea." That comes from a player I wouldn't describe as timid. So back to the hand in question, my play would have been to only call preflop, although you have aces, they are "dry" aces and not suited, and although you have a possible flush draw it is not to the nuts. In PLO you want to put yourself in position to make the nuts, and with a five way pot it is not unlikely that your flush draw is not live. So now you have a gutter-ball for the nut straight, 6 outs, an ace coming is probably no good because someone else will make a straight, unless you can get both the ace and the board to pair, and a flush draw that might get you a second place finish. By just calling the $175 preflop you can easily release the hand and wait for a better spot, it also camouflages the fact that you have aces. Alternatively, if he was all in or almost all in then you hope for the best, but with $5,000 in the pot and $4,000 still behind you're pretty much done. Who knows maybe you get lucky and jack comes and you most likely chop the pot with someone or you hit the magical ace and pair the board and feel like a hero. In any event I wouldn't re-pot preflop with dry aces. He moved all in on the flop and made someone's day.

For more information on Roy Winston, you can visit his website: www.oraclepoker.net or send him an email: [email protected] (Positive emails okay too)