Poker Strategy -- Pot-Limit Omaha -- Making The Transition To Live Play In Las Vegas

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So, you’ve got some experience playing pot-limit Omaha (PLO) online, and for one reason or another, you are looking to make the transition to live play. Strategic considerations aside, there are two basic adjustments that you need to make:

1. Find the right size game for you and your bankroll

2. Learn how to track pot sizes, for both betting purposes and reading opponents

Finding the Right Size Game

The first thing that you need to do is find the right size game for you and your bankroll. It’s important to realize that live PLO games play considerably deeper and bigger than online games with blinds of the same size. For one thing, whereas many online PLO games carry a 100-big-blind max buy-in (for example, a $1-$2 PLO game might have a $200 max buy-in), you won’t find any 100-big-blind max buy-in games in Las Vegas. While a $200 or 100-big-blind buy-in might be standard for a $1-$2 PLO game online, the small-stakes live games with comparably sized blinds in Las Vegas — the $1-$3 PLO game at Aria and the $1-$2 blinds with a $5 bring-in game at The Venetian — carry $200-minimum and $500-maximum buy-ins.

And as the games get bigger, the disparity becomes even greater. Where a typical buy-in for $2-$4 PLO online might be $400 (often the max buy-in), $400 is the minimum buy-in for the $2-$5 PLO games, while the max buy-in for the $2-$5 games at both Aria and The Venetian is $1,500, and the $2-$5 PLO games at the Rio and Wynn have uncapped buy-ins.

Moreover, the potential (and often expected) presence of a straddle in the $2-$5 and higher games (a straddle is not allowed in the $500-max buy-in games at Aria and The Venetian) means that these games often play at least twice as large as their online counterparts. For example, if the stacks are large enough (for example, the average stack in a $2-$5 game is $1,000 or greater), you can expect the straddle, effectively making a $2-$5 game a $2-$5-$10 game.

Consequently, for a $2-$5 game, you generally want to buy in for $1,000-$1,500 — if not more — to account for the presence of the straddle. Doing so will leave you 100 big blinds to 150 big blinds deep.

Indeed, it is stack size that generally dictates the size of the game, rather than the size of the blinds. The following is a sample bankroll schedule, given the size of the blinds and the size of the average stack, assuming max buy-ins for the $500-max buy-in games and 150-big-blind buy-ins for the $2-$5 games.

Calculating the Size of the Bet

Calculating the size of a full pot-sized bet is an important skill to have, so that it’s easier for you to bet without having to ask what’s in the pot, and so that you can read your opponents’ bet sizes for information. For example, when your opponent bets less than the pot size, he may be yielding important information about the strength or weakness of his hand, particularly if he is a novice player.

It is also important to note that the small blind counts as a big blind for betting purposes before the flop. So, in a $2-$5 blinds game, the small blind counts as $5 for betting purposes. Consequently, the first player into the pot can raise to $20 rather than $17.

Here are a few shortcuts for figuring out how much is in the pot and how much a pot-sized raise is:

Betting the pot on the flop: When trying to figure out how much is in the pot on the flop, you need to know three basic things: (1) the number of players who took the flop, (2) the size of the bet before the flop, and (3) the dead money (the blinds, or the limpers who folded to a raise). So, in a $5-$5 blinds game in which five players see the flop for $25 each but both blinds fold, the pot is 5 x $25, plus the $10 in blinds dead money, for a total of $135. If, instead, six players — including both blinds — see the flop for $30 each, there will be $180 in the pot.

Both examples assume that nobody else put money into the pot.

Raising the full pot against a pot-sized bet on the flop: When facing a pot-sized bet with no other action in front of you, figuring out the size of a full pot-sized raise is simple: You can raise to four times the amount of the bet. So, if there is $100 in the pot, you can raise to $400.

Now, if there is a pot-sized bet and one or more callers, add a multiple for every caller. So, if there is $100 in the pot and there is a pot-sized bet and a call, you can raise to five times the amount of the bet, or $500. If there is $100 in the pot and there is a pot-sized bet and two callers, you can raise to six times the size of the bet, or $600.

Raising the full pot against a less than pot-sized bet on the flop: Let’s say there is $100 in the pot and your opponent bets $50. How much can you raise?

This is simpler than it looks. When your opponent bets less than the size of the pot, you can raise to four times the size of the bet plus the difference between the size of the bet and the size of the pot. More simply, you can bet four times $50, or $200, plus the difference between the $100 pot and the $50 bet. Because $100 – $50 = $50, you can raise to $200 + $50, or $250 total.

But what if there is $100 in the pot, and the first player bets $50 and another player calls? How much can you raise then?

This is also simpler than it looks. As before, you add a multiple for every caller, and then add in the difference between the size of the bet and the size of the pot. So, in this case, you can raise to five times the bet — or $250 — plus the difference between the $100 pot and the $50 bet, for a total of $250 + $50, or $300. And if, instead, there is a $50 bet and two callers, you can raise to six times the $50 bet — or $300 — plus the $50 difference, for $350 total.

Jeff Hwang is a semiprofessional player and author of Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy and the three-volume Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha series. He is also a longtime contributor to the Motley Fool. You can check out his website at jeffhwang.com.

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