PLO for beginners – part 2

Now that we’ve taken a look at PLO from a NLH perspective, detailing the differences between the two poker variants, let’s take a look at the peculiarities presented by PLO, without looking through the Hold’em lens.

The betting structure. As I’ve pointed it out in my last piece, due to the nature of the game, the NL betting structure in not a reasonable fit for Omaha. The PL betting structure carries some peculiarities though that you’d do better to take a note on before you can hope to gain a reasonable grip on PLO action.
PL betting is really tricky business. While it does limit the amount of money a player can put into the pot at any one time, skilled players can pretty much get as many chips into the middle as they want on any hand. Pot control becomes a true art-form in PLO. Here’s an example of how PL betting works: with $100 in the pot, the player who’s first to act can bet up to a maximum of $100. The player who follows though, will be able to make a maximum bet of $400. That’s because the size of the pot is $200 when his turn comes, and he has the first guy’s $100 bet to call, to which he can add his $100 raise.

Sometimes, it can be a little difficult to make the calculus, but fortunately, at the online poker tables, the computer does all that calculus for the player.
As one can plainly see, the fact that the player who was first to act decided to bet instead of checking, led to an exponential increase in the size of the pot. If the guy who’s second to act decides to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the circumstances, the two players can end up all-in before they now it. The bottom line: a small opening bet can lead to some truly out-of-proportion consequences as far as bet sizes are concerned. Skilled players are adept at “opening the gate” and generally at controlling the eventual size of the pot through their actions.
The peculiarities of PL betting give different meaning to various actions at the table. Firing out a pot size bet for three quarters of one’s stack is way more threatening than an all-in in NL poker. The PL betting structure offers the check-raise different powers too. A player who wants to shove it all-in on a the river for instance, may not be able to do so by firing out the maximum bet he’s allowed to, but he may well be able to do so if he lets his opponent open the gate first.
Beginners need to be extra careful not to commit one of the common PLO beginner mistakes.

Stuck on the level of NLH mentality, beginners often evaluate their starting hands according to NL Holdem standards.
Beginners play too many starting hands and they call way too much on low-odds draws hoping to take down a big score.

They often miss the opportunity to open the gate with premium preflop holdings.
They give their opponents free cards, or fail to put them under pressure while holding reasonable, but not nut hands. Always remember: PLO is also known as the game of nuts.