Micro stakes PLO, is it even worth it? (1 Viewer)

ThinkingFold

ThinkingFold

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Trying to gain some skill at PLO by playing .25/.50 on PA pokerstars. Understand the aggressive nature of PLO, but at this micro level it seems nothing more than a battle of wills. Hit my tipping point as I watched someone pot to all-in pre flop ( Is that how you say it? ) with quad Ks and take it down?!?!!!? :rolleyes:

PLO folks, do you think micro stakes PLO is pointless? Do I need to just accept my beatings at higher stakes or is there some merits to sticking it out at the micro level for awhile?
 
Not a comment on PLO specifically, but any micro stakes games are highly prone to hyper aggressive and chasing behaviors. You jus have to play your own solid game strategy and accept that you are going to have very high variance.
 
I think there is merit in staying at your current stakes, I don't think you'll see very much change in play jumping to 1/2......2/5 maybe players play slightly tighter ranges, but theres always the guys who like to splash around. If your roll can sustain a few stabs higher it never hurts, but you have to be ready for the swings.
 
What is your goal? PLO is a very high variance game and draws the gamblers. If your goal is to gain experience while protecting yourself from downswings, then it's worth it.
 
Ideally with PLO you want to be able to see flops where equities change significantly. This results in your opponents making larger mistakes against you when they get their money in.

If you're getting it in preflop, the equities run closer together, so you don't have as much of an edge. Not that it can't still be profitable, but it will be more swingy.

No matter how well you play, the droolers will hit miracles on you. In a live 1/2 PLO game with a mandatory $5 button straddle and unlimited restraddles had a guy get his money in with 4% equity on the flop and he runner-runnered to escape the trap. Same guy got me last year in the 2/5 with a rock game when he got it in on the turn with 2.5% equity and found his one-outer.

Some days the fish gotta be fed. But it's these outrageous hits they make that keep them playing like the fish they are. And while in the short-term they can put the pain on you, in the long-term they're going to pay your mortgage.
 
grebe said:
What is your goal? PLO is a very high variance game and draws the gamblers. If your goal is to gain experience while protecting yourself from downswings, then it's worth it.
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Honestly, just to feel competent. Trying to get over the "scared money is dead money" bit. Can sit at a 2/5 nlhe table and not feel out of place one bit but even 1/2 PLO has me shaking in my boots.

Looking back at the hand mentioned. Details are slightly foggy but Mr. quad kings is the original raiser then gets re-potted then a third calls and it is off to the races. Smallest stack is $30ish. Hands end up being KKKK, AQJ9 ( there is some double suit in there but can't remember ), then pure crap who apparently is in it just for laughs ( literally 274J rainbow or something like that ). So six handed table and 50% of players are all in pre. Board is a complete blank and KK takes it down.

Can't tell if this is micro stakes lunacy or if I am too incompetent to handle PLO nutcases who pot any 4 cards while yelling "YOLO".
 
That definitely sounds like people that just want to see run outs and since the stakes are so low they don’t care. Still play the game, it is profitable with a tight preflop range, but very swingy, and not much fun.

25/50c should play better than that. Are the players buying in for the min to shove preflop?
 
if 25/50 usd for plo is microstakes I can only congratulate
in my opinion it's decent enough game to learn
 
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Anthony Martino said:
And while in the short-term they can put the pain on you, in the long-term they're going to pay your mortgage.
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Rhodeman77 said:
That definitely sounds like people that just want to see run outs and since the stakes are so low they don’t care.
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This does seem to be the case. With the low stakes, it seems that once someone is in the pot the general thought process is "Eh, what's a couple extras bucks at this point.".

Rhodeman77 said:
25/50c should play better than that. Are the players buying in for the min to shove preflop?
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Not necessarily, but starting to think this is a common strategy in PLO? Min buy in then shove with any half decent hand to see where it gets ya. So beware the PLO nutcase that sits down with only the min?
 
ThinkingFold said:
This does seem to be the case. With the low stakes, it seems that once someone is in the pot the general thought process is "Eh, what's a couple extras bucks at this point.".



Not necessarily, but starting to think this is a common strategy in PLO? Min buy in then shove with any half decent hand to see where it gets ya. So beware the PLO nutcase that sits down with only the min?
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short buy and jam preflop is a common practice at the the local $1/2 PLO game. It got so bad that a lot of the players pushed for the casino to raise the minimum buy in from $100 to $300. The casino settled on $200.

The players that do this usually still go broke. They may spend $1k before they finally hit a big multi-way win to get back to even. But now they have to try to figure out how to play with a $1k stack. Most of them have no idea how to do it and lose it all.
 
Remember Doyle's room. I remember watching a friend of mine playing 0.01-0.02 PLO on Doyle's Room and seeing more than a few pots go over $100.

PLO is swingy.

The saying about no limit holden being "hours of bordem followed by two minutes of terror" applies several times as well to PLO.
 

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