PLO starting guide

There are 19 articles in Strategy section. Along with that we have bi-weekly coaching from Ribbo at Wednesdays.

What kind of learning path you would like to see?

Hi Riverdiver,

Thank you for your suggestion.

My own two cents worth is that PLO is a bad game for beginners. It is too heart breakingly swingy and newer players wouldn't understand the variance.

Oh and to help you out!

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To post images
1. save the image somewhere in you computer
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3. in that image hosting service, copy the link which says for posting in forums
4. paste in our message box
5. voila!

Best regards,
Gary

I was aiming at the learning path you can get just after you get the starting capital. You can either do the starting quiz in nl or in sit & go's, the two games which are recommended to beginners. Why isn't PLO one of them? it's one of the most profitable games you can play if you're a winning player

It's profitable if you know how to play it. If you don't know, it's very easy to lose a lot of money before you realize it.

It's true that the variance is way bigger than in nl, but the players are lolbad, which makes the possible winrate a lot bigger. A high winrate decreases the variance. The traffic is a minus though :(.

I started playing PLO with a $28 bankroll, (didn't rake enough for the next $10 because of college introduction), my bankroll is $99 now with a $10 bonus from the titan treasures.

But for someone who isn't familiar with poker PLO is tough to play profitably. If he doesn't have a clue about equities, outs, pot odds and such he will just lose money in PLO. That's why PLO isn't usually recommended for beginners. Those things are easier to learn in sitngos and holdem.

The thing with plo is that it is easy to run hot as the sun or cold as ice over 10k hands. Your eg line won't necessarily tell the story. Yes plo 2 is supersoft but the swings are brutal

Actually, if we talk about swings in PLO2 for good player, they are pretty smallish. Increasing winrate reduces variance. And you can have over +20bb/100 winrate at PLO2 if you know how to play PLO and most importantly you know how to adjust to PLO2. To get that winrate over a large sample you really need to know lots of things that beginners don't know.

For good player, the swings in PLO2 aren't brutal.

Yeah i agree with Kyyberi

Basically the fundamentals of poker are harder to learn in PLO than in NLHE there are so many different combinations of hands it can be really difficult for a beginner to know where he stands in a hand. At first glance it can seem you are way ahead when really you are a slight underdog.

I'm not saying that it's impossible for players to start learning with PLO and if you can do it then great because imo its potentially a lot more profitable and 100000000000003x more fun than holdem but from personal experience it's better to learn how to count outs and calculate equities etc in holdem so you have some kind of idea before you try it out in PLO

I believe that Pleno1 said in another thread though that there is some exciting new PLO material to look out for in the coming weeks so keep your eyes and ears peeled guys

Regards
Carl