I'll just say, if you're just starting out in PLO and want to read some good books then I recommend the following:
1) Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy by Jeff Hwang
- The best book on PLO in my opinion. If you want to play PLO for real money then you have to read this book.
2) Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha 1: Small Ball & Short Handed Play by Jeff Hwang
3) Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha 2: LAG Play by Jeff Hwang
4) Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha 3: The Workbook by Jeff Hwang
- These are considered the Harrington On Hold'em of PLO books. Although don't try some of the stuff in these books as microstakes players would tend to call you down lightly on your most sophisticated of bluffs.
5) Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha: How to Win Big, Both Live and Online by Rolf Slotboom
- This book is the complete opposite to what Jeff Hwang teaches. Rolf Slotboom's strategy involves short stacking and waiting for premium hands to get most of the money in Pre-flop. Its not a bad book by any means but its not really how I like to play. It is good however to understand the underlying concept and to try and exploit this 'unexploitable' play and those who choose to employ it.
6) Pot Limit Omaha 8 Revealed by Dan Deppen
- This book in my opinion is the best PLO8 book out there.
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Since my last post I've had to re-learn a few things such as... When you're running bad and when you feel yourself tilting then STOP playing. Don't move up stakes, don't up your aggression to the point where you want to get it all in on every hand, don't chase loses, don't assume every player is a donk and most of all, stop bluffing so often.
So, why did I need to re-learn this lesson you might ask? To answer this question, I need to go back to the beginning of August. I went out with some friends to the beach and I may have had a few too many drinks. I'm not going to go into too many details but.....I almost drowned. After this near-death experience I felt I was freerolling life.
This had a profound effect on my PLO game as I wasn't afraid to make big bluffs or big call downs when I needed to and felt myself thinking much more clearly through certain situations. I know most people reading this are thinking.. "This is the microstakes, it doesn't matter, anybody can beat the microstakes" Sure they can but most don't and if you can't beat that then what chance do you have at any other game?
Anyway, back to my story. Eventually, I felt that I was better than everybody at my level and soon became bored with it. I took to playing the 8-game ring games on PokerStars, I've played all of these games and I feel that I had an edge over most of the other players, especially at 2-7 triple draw and Razz. For those who do not know what 8-game is, heres a breakdown with the limits I played at (It rotates through each game every 6 hands):
Limit Razz - $0.20/$0.40
Limit Stud - $0.20/$0.40
Limit Stud H/L - $0.20/$0.40
No Limit Hold'em - $0.05/$0.10
Pot Limit Omaha - $0.05/$0.10
Limit Triple Draw 2-7 Lowball - $0.20/$0.40
Limit Hold'em - $0.20/$0.40
Limit Omaha H/L - $0.20/$0.40
So there I was, sitting with $10 at each of the 2-4 tables I chose to sit at. For a while, I was doing well winning a couple of buy-ins each session. There was this pretty sick Razz hand that I played. My opponent was betting and raising me on each street and by 5th, I knew I had the best hand with my smooth 8 low and when he bricks on 6th, I knew I almost had him board-locked but he still didn't stop betting and raising! We got lots of bets in and on 7th, the same thing. I hit my 6 which meant that I now had a 6-5 low and with his board of X-X-2-3-9-T-X you have to think you have the best hand but NO he hit his 3-outer on 7th to make the wheel. ~91% to win and then lose on 7th for a big pot.... no wonder they say Razz is for people who enjoy pain.
The most interesting thing about these sessions was that I would win at 7 of the 8 games but there was one which would completely destroy my profits and that game was PLO. Here are some examples:
8 Game PLO Hand 1:
8 Game Hand PLO 2:
8 Game PLO 3:
8 Game PLO 4:
Around the time I played this hand, I had just watched a training video by Daleroxxu where he picked up AAXX and made a small reraise to open the action and when his opponent reraised him back, he went all in preflop. This is pretty much the same concept. I think if I raised any bigger then my opponent would just flat and I'll have to play a bigger pot out of position. Luckily, my opponent clicks it back and I then get to come over the top of everybody with a monster reraise. I raised to over 60% of his stack preflop why didn't he just shove and get it all in preflop? was he seriously going to fold postflop for his remaining 40% when he doesn't hit a nice flop??
PLO Hand 1:
PLO Hand 2:
PLO Hand 3:
Lets see... Ah yes, I love playing on the button which is why I called, although I could do with the ace being suited. Anyhoo~ I flop the nuts, with my 8T with a re-draw to a higher straight if the Q hit + a backdoor flush draw. I was really hoping to be freerolling this guy but no.. He has a set and obviously he hits on the turn and I'm drawing dead. 60% ---> 0% no waiting.
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Session after session it seemed like I couldn't win no matter what I did, granted I did tilt off quite abit but in the end, I ended up something like 20 buy ins below EV, which is something like $100.
I'm not too proud of it but here is a graph of September/October results. I feel a little bit sick of looking at it. I guess you could call it the unholy love-child of impatience and tilt mixed with a splash of run bad.
With my losses in hand I decided to venture into a different field of poker with what remained of my bankroll. I started staking other players in poker tournaments on the site ChipMeUp.com so far I've invested about $400 and have made a small loss but everybody there is really friendly and I'm enjoying my time as a member. Some of the guys on that website are absolute beasts when it comes to NLH MTTs and I'm learning a lot just by railing them, if you enjoy poker and making money without playing then I highly recommend it.
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I am getting really sleepy now. I'll talk about Full Tilt Poker and then I'll finish this post there. I'm sure everybody knows that FTP is open again, one thing I love about it, is that you can transfer between Pokerstars and FTP so if you bust your roll on PS, don't worry, you can instantly transfer some funds over for DOUBLE the bad beats!!! Awesome~~ Yeah, I've gotten my funds back but I'd transferred most of it over to Pokerstars to supplement my badbeats and run bad and now.. Theres not much left except a few tournament tickets and about $50 worth of points.
I'm not sure when I'll make a new post so if I don't write one before the beginning of 2013 then I wish everybody a happy new year and all that good stuff~
