thinklikevigo
Sitting Out
I hate the feeling of leaving money on the table. Last night I played a WSOP PA 5k guarantee PKO, $25 rebuy, and final tabled. 5th place out for $265 but with $1200 up top 
. My best game is Hold'em of course, but I play a decent amount of PLO cash, and have been getting into mixed games. I would say that at best, I am proficient at PLO. Also, I have the book, just haven't dug into it yet.
I've played quite a few PLO tournaments and I'm always surprised at how different they play from Hold'em tournaments. In my experiences, at least in the low stakes tourneys, the registration/re-buy period plays pretty loose with lots of limping as players try and build a huge stack- especially in PKOs. This is really enjoyable if you manage to double up early and keep adding to your stack, however, it can also be a re-buy pit due to the variance. The next phase is slow and painful as the tournament inches closer to the money bubble. PLO bubbles feel excessively long as short stacks will only play absolute nutted hands. Then the typical string of bust outs after everyone makes the money, followed by another excessively long grind through the final table bubble.
I'm good with all of that. The wheels come off when I reach the final 9/6.
I arrived at the FT with a mid-sized stack that I acquired making quad queens against a flopped full house. I ended up doubling twice with a flopped set of 9s improving to a full house by the river against a bunch of draws. I was second in chips at this point. Both hands just felt lucky however, calling a re-raise out of position and hitting gin. I couldn't help the feeling of really not knowing where good or bad spots were, when I should re-raise, when to call a re-raise, etc. etc. It seemed like I was folding the better hands in multiway pots where there was a 3-bet, only to realize at showdown that both players had something like
. I was obviously being exploited from players picking up that I overfold. Hand strength just became an absolute mystery to me as we got deeper when I would see all in re-raises with hands like 
. Was I just getting hard exploited, or were these inexperienced Hold'em players like me playing at the level you expect to see in low stakes online PLO tournaments? Was it a mix of both? In the end, I squandered my once glorious stack calling a bunch of raises, missing flops, overfolding, and eventually had to stick it all in with a terrible hand where I completely missed. Didn't pick up any bounties at this FT because I was not sure when to pull the trigger on an all-in when I felt like I was behind against a shorty. I only had my stack at risk in nutted spots against chip leaders where I would double. Roast my final table play!
Does anyone know any good resources for FT play in PLO tournaments? I feel like there isn't a lot out there, especially compared to Hold'em. Thanks!
. My best game is Hold'em of course, but I play a decent amount of PLO cash, and have been getting into mixed games. I would say that at best, I am proficient at PLO. Also, I have the book, just haven't dug into it yet.I've played quite a few PLO tournaments and I'm always surprised at how different they play from Hold'em tournaments. In my experiences, at least in the low stakes tourneys, the registration/re-buy period plays pretty loose with lots of limping as players try and build a huge stack- especially in PKOs. This is really enjoyable if you manage to double up early and keep adding to your stack, however, it can also be a re-buy pit due to the variance. The next phase is slow and painful as the tournament inches closer to the money bubble. PLO bubbles feel excessively long as short stacks will only play absolute nutted hands. Then the typical string of bust outs after everyone makes the money, followed by another excessively long grind through the final table bubble.
I'm good with all of that. The wheels come off when I reach the final 9/6.
I arrived at the FT with a mid-sized stack that I acquired making quad queens against a flopped full house. I ended up doubling twice with a flopped set of 9s improving to a full house by the river against a bunch of draws. I was second in chips at this point. Both hands just felt lucky however, calling a re-raise out of position and hitting gin. I couldn't help the feeling of really not knowing where good or bad spots were, when I should re-raise, when to call a re-raise, etc. etc. It seemed like I was folding the better hands in multiway pots where there was a 3-bet, only to realize at showdown that both players had something like
. I was obviously being exploited from players picking up that I overfold. Hand strength just became an absolute mystery to me as we got deeper when I would see all in re-raises with hands like . Was I just getting hard exploited, or were these inexperienced Hold'em players like me playing at the level you expect to see in low stakes online PLO tournaments? Was it a mix of both? In the end, I squandered my once glorious stack calling a bunch of raises, missing flops, overfolding, and eventually had to stick it all in with a terrible hand where I completely missed. Didn't pick up any bounties at this FT because I was not sure when to pull the trigger on an all-in when I felt like I was behind against a shorty. I only had my stack at risk in nutted spots against chip leaders where I would double. Roast my final table play! Does anyone know any good resources for FT play in PLO tournaments? I feel like there isn't a lot out there, especially compared to Hold'em. Thanks!
