I think they are beatable more so than NL simply because the player pool's level of skill as a whole is quite a bit lower than that of the NL pools. I think it's possible at 25 and 50, but 100 is still probably a good benchmark overall. Just keep it a little tighter and more aggro than optimal preflop and that's a good starting point. As far as win rate...I mean I really don't think 15bb/100 is that ridiculous on ignition. The pools are just that fishy and you'll still deal with variance because it's PLO, but over the long term with the right strategy you should be able to net more than in the NL pools IMO.

Good question Manko and I think this hand is a good lesson for why we should try to avoid marginal spots post flop with ambitious pre flop play. I still think 3 betting wider and attacking weak continuing ranges makes sense, but I don't think we need to go so wide that we start to show with combos like this one. It's not a horrible spot, but these guys often cold call 3 bets from the everywhere and I'd rather have some more DS combos or more connectivity. It's also not my preference to attack shorter stacks as the have a tendency to 4 bet shove as a "whatever" play and the SPR will be somewhat shallow post flop to where we don't have as much room to maneuver, so I'm not in love with my play in this hand. The thoughts behind what I want to do on a more macro level make sense, but this spot isn't the best to see those out.

So, having picked apart my suspect play let's move on to as played. I think being at the bottom of my range on the river on some bricks I should be bluffing some for sure. Kings would be good cards as it gives me another over card of course to some PP's that he may now think beats him. My range looks possibly kind of weak at that point, so I think that makes me not want to bluff too often here, but I can see some bluffing making sense on some tens and 8's as those cards are somewhat neutral and don't complete possible straights. Might be able to get 77/66 and A4 to fold in those spots. He shouldn't in theory have a lot of low rundowns, but in this type of pool they will show up with them sometimes, so I would be reluctant to try and bluff too many 6's-2's as those cards hit a lot of his calling range if he does have some pair+draw combos. Not bluffing the queen here either.

I would say we should check back the jack and 9 on the river and probably the 7 most times as it might have enough SD value and I wouldn't fist pump bet trying to get TT or 88 to fold. With some better reads a rivered 7 could be turned into a necessary bluff I think. Betting the ace for some thin value makes sense to me as well.

Thank you and appreciate the feedback!

Hey MegaGrinder, yeah so I think there's possibly some merit to what you are saying. This video obviously is about 3 months old or so I believe, but I have been implementing more small bets MW with combos like this because like you said we need protection, the combo will be tougher to play possibly as a check back and I don't think 5 ways you are getting any of these guys to x/r bluff, so a raise is easy to play against. They tend to play pretty straight forward against that kind of bet/small sizing in those MW spots from what I have seen, so that could be something to explore a little more yourself.

Now, what I will say is that I usually like that small bet strat more from OOP. There are a couple of reasons for this. First one is that from OOP I like to bet to force the hand of the player IP. I want them to have to react to my bet and it ends up resulting in hero being able to realize/deny equity on his terms. This ends up with often a little bit more of a merged range. Second reason is that IP I like to avoid bet/folding too much equity IP as that often is a disaster and if I do decide to polarize my range quite a bit I think it doesn't make a ton of sense to bet smaller as I will have hands that want to get max value/protection and then my bluffs to balance those out.

However, against any population/player that won't balance his lines and/or play aggressively enough we can bet/fold more even IP to realize/deny equity in the most profitable and often easiest manner. Does that all make sense? Feel free to add any other thoughts or if you disagree with that thought process and I'm sure we can come to some good conclusions together! Thanks.

Your reply made much sense!

So the issue with betting IP small here is that it is too suspicious? However this is not that much the issue as you could have supernuts, like set and straight what you also would like to value smaller to get more calls.

Thanks a lot for the reply also!

You are welcome! I think the main issue with betting too frequently/merged IP is we have the option to check back to realize equity whereas OOP we aren't really the ones controlling the pot for the most part. We often can do better by betting hands that we would check back in position, so it's really more about whether we bet or don't bet as opposed to how much we bet. I agree though here (especially against a weaker population) you can likely get away with a small sizing like you would from OOP to essentially deny equity and clean up your own equity against players that aren't going to punish you enough for betting more merged than you should be. If you start to face x/r's though and/or are in a tougher population you have to be more mindful of betting too frequently IP in that spot. Let me know if there is anything else. Thanks!

I think you are for sure right. Awhile back I had reads that suggested I could get away with some very wide 3bets vs players within that population that really were THAT bad in those spots OOP post flop, but I reverted back to a more equity driven approach as of pretty much right after this video I think to punish them for continuing too wide with combos that I would like to be on top of essentially with higher cards, bigger FD's, etc. The frequency with which how straight forward they were playing in those spots started to progress back towards "better play". They still are often pretty straight forward, but they aren't folding to cbets in those spots like they were. I believe I just had a weird stretch of hands where I ran into a % of the population that was allowing me to get away with anything, but that's not quite the case anymore haha. Good points though and thanks for pointing the hand out!