New to PLO

joesize

I’ve been playing NLHE for a long time, but have never tried any other game. PLO is almost always being offered where I play. I know nothing about it, but have heard that the 1/2 game plays a lot bigger than NLHE. If that is the case, I’m wondering if PLO would be a better game to short stack than NLHE (which is what I would want to do, just starting out).
I’m very familiar with Ed Miller’s short stack game from his early book. Would the same approach apply to PLO, and if so, is there any book on the market that would lay it out, with starting hands recommended for the various positions?
The PLO game offered at my local casino is 1/2, Mandatory Straddle, which would be a 1/2/5 game. The buy-in minimum is $200, so that would be 40BB stack- close enough to play it like a true short stack.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this, or know of any books that deal with it?

TheGameKat

I've moved your post to the Omaha board where this topic has been discussed before.

Cliff's: yes, short-stacking PLO is possible. Slotboom wrote two mediocre books on it that require an editor more than the walls of text at a certain poker forum where people are rude. Other resources may have been given in other posts on this board.

joesize

Thanks- I ordered the book. If what he says about short stacking the game is positive and convincing I'll get a book on the basics and try to get started.

TheGameKat

joesize wrote: »

Thanks- I ordered the book. If what he says about short stacking the game is positive and convincing I'll get a book on the basics and try to get started.

If you understand well why the strategy works for NLHE, it's a fairly simple transition to PLO.

jeffnc

Slotboom's first book is basically about that, I'm just not sure you'll find it "positive". I find him kind of an annoying writer. He sounds a bit arrogant. His basic strategy is to sit around and wait for aces, then try to get all in. It sounds like he's telling you how smart he is for "inventing" this strategy, and how badly he crushed the game, and how much they hated having him in the game.

The problem with Omaha and shortstacking, in contrast to NLH, is.... well there are 2 problems actually. First problem is of course that you can't just shove in PLO. Not normally, unless "shortstack" means to you 4BB. And you can't always trap dead money in there because you can't raise enough to get people to fold. So you can't just shove it in and get people to gamble with you heads up like you can in NLH. Not saying you can't get an equity edge with a "good" hand all in 4 ways, but of course if you've just quadrupled up you're no longer playing shortstacked.

Second problem is that the preflop equities run much closer together in Omaha than Holdem (this is related to part of the problem above). But AAxx is always a preflop favorite still in Omaha. Shortstacked in NLH of course you'd be thrilled to have KK, but not so much in Omaha since AAxx is out there much more often, and KKxx is not even necessarily a favorite in the hand even if your opponent doesn't have AAxx.