Back from the Dead!!

Hey Folks,

I'm starting the blog back up again. I stopped posting for a while, and didn't want to throw random posts in until I was committed to updating it every few days and making it a worthwhile read again. The flavor of the blog is sure to change a bit, because I've changed my focus. When the blog first started, I was hammering out multitable tournaments and printing money, and it was sweet. Then the variance bug bit me and I switched to 9 way 1/2 NL, yawn most boring game eva.. So the boredom drove me to the occasional mtt, and I basically played break even poker for 6 months. I took some time off to get things settled in my new house (read: disaster), and started back up a couple weeks ago. My buddy Tim turned me on to 6 max Pot Limit Omaha (PLO), so that’s what I'm rolling with now. There were a couple reasons I decided to make the switch:

1. PLO is a harder game, therefor you can develop a bigger edge over weak players.
2. Eurodonks play tons of PLO, and everyone knows they donate with their aggrotard styles.
3. Because Eurodonks play, the games are going pretty strong from 7pm-midnight here on the East Coast, which is my preffered time to play. Theres nothing like finding some Russian rolling in from a 6 hour booz and coke bender sitting down to play some PLO Deep at 4am his time :)

The only drawbacks I see to playing PLO is that the variance can kick you much harder, because compared to NLH you are getting it in sooooo often. When a hand gets 3 bet preflop, 33% of the time there is going to be an all in on the flop. Just the way the game plays out- so many times you will see a 60/40 come down when dry top set shows down vs Wrap straight draw, or open ended straight flush draw, etc etc. You definetly need a strong stomach for PLO.

Right now I'm only 4 tabling, because I'm still developing my game, and it deffinetly takes more concentration and focus than NLH. Also, my desktop is busto due to a flood in my house, so I'm working off the laptop where any more than 4 screens is microscopic.

So with that in mind, my journey into PLO has begun. Last night I had a particularly good session, winning 10 buy ins at one of the tables I was sitting at. Here are two hands below from my session last night.

Hand 1

This hand was a huge pot, the one that really got my night going. With all the action in front of me, I felt like AA wasn't out there, so my KK was good if I was going to play it headsup. With the A and the J there as well, I'm looking at some good broadway potential, and the nut club draw throws a little more security into the mix. Also I've noticed tons of people smooth pre with hands like 4567 and 7889. These are the hands I'm hoping to smash off here.

Hand 2

This hand was good because I'd been playing a lot of pots with this guy. I burn him on the flop here by flopping the nuts, but here was my strategy. When I check and opponent 1 bets, I'm thinking small flush or set. When the guy behind pops him, its gotta be the nut flush, and he's not folding. The reason I pot is that I know nut flush isn't folding, and if the 2nd pos guy has a set, esp top set, he might decide to roll with us knowing we're flushed, and try to pair off to scoopp the pot with a boat. He folded and told me in the chat that he folded a smaller flush, so I wasn't getting any value out of him anyway.

Alright that’s all for the first installment of Omaha blog action- check out the new link I added to Tim's blog, he is one of the King's of the Internet.