Small Edges? What a Bunch of Crap.

March 5, 2009

The PLO cash games continue to go well for me. I’ve begun sticking to the full ring tables since that’s where I’ve enjoyed the most success, actually winning rather than just breaking even. The last two days have been my best back-to-back in two months of playing, taking 11 buy-ins off the tables thanks to players who continue to think that getting their money in as 4-to-1 dogs (or worse) is a winning strategy.

Of course, no matter how many times you get your money in way ahead of the mope chasing his fourth-nut-straight draw, there are always going to be times when those players get lucky. The good news for me is that I’m catching those unlucky breaks more in tournaments than cash games – good because a) I play them much more rarely than I do cash games, and b) they never cost me more than 2.5 cash game buy-ins. The last MTT I played, just this morning, saw me last all of seven hands, getting my entire stack in the middle as a 9-to-1 favorite with one card to come:

(If you’re wondering about my play here: in this spot on the first level of a low-buy-in, double-stacked tournament, I will limp in with this mostly one-dimensional hand the majority of the time, hoping to flop a set if the table plays as passively as I expect it will yet fully ready to toss my cards in the muck if I get raised.

When I flop the set on this draw-heavy board, I choose to bet instead of checking for several reasons: a) I do currently have the nuts, b) I’m guessing I’ll get a few callers and build the pot, c) I can’t count on the players behind me to do the betting for me and let me get in a check-raise, d) given the low skill level in these events, one of my opponents might be willing to lump it all-in right here and now with a bare flush or straight draw, and e) I still have outs to beat any straight or flush an all-in opponent might manage to hit on the turn.

I don’t think the 3h on the turn helps my opponents at all. If they’re chasing straight draws with a flush draw on the board, chances are it isn’t the complete sucker straight; I see T-8, 9-8, and 8-5 as the most likely straight draws these guys would be on. Besides, the turn card gave me the flush draw to go with my set, so I now have two ways to beat such an unlikely straight if indeed someone has made it. Again, I can’t count on the two players behind me to do the betting; also, betting anything less than the pot offers good enough odds for some of the possible combinations to call me profitably. So I bet pot, and lumping it all in the middle was the only real choice once Mr. Bottom-Set-and-Gutshot-Draw decided to get happy with two flush draws on the board.)

If that hand had come at a cash table at the wrong time (e.g. when my opponent and I are both particularly deep-stacked), it could’ve cost me more than the buy-in and a half that it did. Also, I busted on the seventh hand of the tournament, so I have the same result but more free time than if I’d made a run and then gotten unlucky later on. So, when looked at the right way, I guess I’m lucky to be unlucky – at least, to be unlucky in one particular situation instead of another. (A little perspective never hurt anyone.)

For a long time I shied away from PLO because I heard over and over that you have smaller edges in PLO than you do in NLHE. I wish I’d started playing earlier, because what I had heard all that time is a load of crap. The edges are, in fact, smaller preflop than they are in hold’em. But in PLO, you can’t get your stack in the middle before the flop without a lot of effort – the majority of the action comes after the flop. Once you get there, the expanded number of card combinations means that people’s tendency to chase draws only gets magnified; the difference is that most of those draws are mirages, because they’re not the nuts. If you give donkeys more chances to hit a draw that more often than not can’t win the pot, you’re going to make more money. If that’s not a beautiful game, I don’t know what is.

The post Small Edges? What a Bunch of Crap. by Jason Kirk, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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