Okay, not literally. PLO didn’t carry me to safety from a burning building. But it DID, in a very big way, reinvigorate my interest in poker and thus, my poker career.
As those of you reading this may already know, the online and live NLHE MTT grind can be just that – a grind. I have been playing hold ‘em tournaments for a living since 2007, and thus far in 2012 my interest in the game has been at an all-time low. I had even begun entertaining thoughts of quitting playing poker full-time. Tournaments were getting monotonous, I wasn’t learning anything new, and other parts of my life became more interesting by comparison. Even moving to Canada to reactivate my PokerStars account only reinvigorated my passion for the game for a little over a month. In no time at all, I once again felt like I was riding a stationary bike for hours on end – repeating the same motions over and over again and seeing nothing new while doing so. All of this boredom and discontent was taking its toll on me, and my game was suffering as well.
And then I discovered Pot Limit Omaha. My friends and roommates in Windsor all play the game almost exclusively for a living. In fact, I may be sharing a room with one or two of the top 50 PLO players in the world. I started sitting in on some of their online sessions – taking at first what could be best described as a polite interest in their results. I’d ask some questions over “why this” or “why that,” but nothing really sunk in or stuck. Shortly thereafter, I started occasionally watching some PLO training videos and gave .25/.50 6max a try for fun. And I was hooked.
Between then and now I don’t even know how many thousands of hands of PLO I’ve played, but every day I approached a session with an interest and optimism I haven’t had since I started playing live $1/$2 in high school. I love playing it, I love learning, and above all else, I WANT to set aside time from other things to do so! Most importantly, playing a lot more PLO and immersing myself in PLO strategy has had a positive effect on my NLHE game. Those of you that already play PLO probably already know – it’s just more FUN. Four cards means 6 possible HE hands, which means flops, turns, and rivers become infinitely more complicated – and for those of you like me, the fun is in the complications. I see ranges and board textures in a different way and have made adjustments in my MTT game that undoubtedly contributed to my recent Sunday Second Chance final table.
The moral of the story: if you catch yourself slumping, or getting bored with poker, try a different variant! If you play NLHE MTTs like many of the pros and members of this site, immerse yourself in some cash strategy, learn PLO, or even try one of the dozen or so other variants of poker! Believe it or not, taking a couple days or even weeks away from 30-50 tournaments a day can do some very definitive long-term good for you as a player and a person. As I said at the beginning, PLO saved my (poker) life.
black666
Great article .. I’m curious though as to what stakes you are currently playing. PLO50 is hardly beatable due to the insane rake at microstakes. It’s probably only good enough to learn the game but not to build a bankroll.
MovesLikeDarvin
not familiar with rake structures at PLO50 but my winrate must have been high enough to beat it. i started 6 tabling at 50PLO till i made ~$1k, then began playing 100PLO on Stars and up to 200PLO on Carbon/Merge. I’m focusing mostly on how high I can get my winrate at these stakes, how competently I can use HEM, and when I’m confident enough in my win rate whilst 8-12 tabling, I’ll move up to 200PLO on Stars as well
Turbulence
Awesome stuff. When i get frustrated with NLH MTTs I switch to PLO H/L or mix games for the same reasons. Its different, fun and not alot of people can play it well.
cousteer
NL 2-7 single draw in the Nuts!