Weighing the pros and the cons of transitioning to PLO

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Weighing the pros and the cons of transitioning to PLO

I'm really starting to think that a lot of the money in the pokersphere is gravitating towards PLO. I've been playing NL Omaha with my friends at house games and subsequently occasionally online for about 5 years now but its only been about 10-15% of my OL play. I'm contemplating making the leap over and putting my hours on the table and in the books / videos into PLO instead of NLHE but there are somethings that are making me a bit weary of such a change. To name a few daunting factors:

~ Higher variance (I have heard that the variance in PLO is double that of hold'em.
~ Obviously this leads to potentially bigger downswings
~ A lot of gray area when trying to put your opponents on ranges
~ Harder to multi-table
~ Less tournaments

The PROS however are,

~ Due to the doubled variance this also means that you can potentially win twice as much
~ It seems much softer than NLHE (maybe I'm wrong / would like to hear an argument against this point)
~ Given that its softer you can sharpen your edge at a much faster rate than you can playing NLHE
~ Its funner IMO
~ I think the biggest PRO is that most of Philg's videos are and will be concentrated on PLO

Please list some of either category that I've overlooked or just share some of your thoughts on what you think

13 Comments

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best27 10 years, 4 months ago

The rake is something u have to think about,plo is raked much worse than no limit!unless u got a bankroll to start at midstakes it's going to be tough going

mike 10 years, 4 months ago

I started in on more PLO action this month. I am doing this to add some variety and to "diversify" my poker skills. I don't see any reason not to play both PLO and NLH:)

Both a Pro and Con is lack of really good PLO software(i.e. flopzilla and CREV) and the inherent complexity of 4 cards makes range based/combo thinking more of a challenge.

deadgambino 10 years, 4 months ago

Very true, however I feel like its a good idea for me to put the bulk of my energy / concentration into one or the other at this point instead of flip flopping. I think my logic is that if I focus on both then my attention / energy and conscious / unconscious competence, etc. will be fragmented. Much like if someone were to try to become extremely talented at basketball while also trying to become extremely talented at hockey.. At the end of the day the player who puts in 50+ hours per week playing either solely basketball or solely hockey will excel far quicker than the former mentioned player hedging his time playing 25 hours for one and 25 hours for the other (just my take on it anyways)

Have you tried Omaha Equilab btw?:

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/poker-tools/equilab-omaha/

mike 10 years, 4 months ago

Yeah it makes sense to concentrate on one game if you are still learning but I have been grinding NLH and LHE before that for 10 years so adding some PLO seems like a reasonable idea for me.

Yes I have been using the Omaha Equilab but is still much harder to understand ranges/combos in PLO

BigFiszh 10 years, 4 months ago

http://lifewithfacecards.tumblr.com/post/87014955202/when-someone-transitions-to-plo-and-asks-for-advice

Sorry, couldn´t resist. :D

BotOnTilt 10 years, 4 months ago

I'm also trying to switch, just surprised how few games are running on the smaller sites. Trying to 6-table PLO10 in the euro morning is a bit difficult when I noticed there was only one game running on Ipoker and one on FTP - so I need to play on multiple sites and still have difficulties getting enough tables at these stakes. I'm used to playing multiple stakes though, but I wonder how that will be if I get back up to $2 BB games. Would rather not move all my playing to Stars.

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