Well I decided to post this quickly as the tourney is still freshly on my mind. I made another solid run last night, this time in a pot limit omaha (PLO), $26 buy-in on Full Tilt. I also made a semi deep run in a small buy on Pstars in a omaha hi lo tourney, finishing 30th out of over 1200 people.
There were some significant hands along with significant runs during this tournament the propelled me from an average stack to chip leader. My first huge hand was in very much a cooler situation but I feel the other guy over played his hand hugely.
I held JJ85, the pot was not raised pre, the flop came down J74 rainbow. This was a heads up pot where I had position, the other player led out and we were both quite deep, double average-ish. I raised just more than a min raise, he immediately re raised me the minimum back. At this point, my thought process is this, he is going to have one of two hands, a lower set or a huge wrap draw, something like 5 6 8 9. I re raised him back, hoping it was the set and I was right, he had 44 but he also had 56 for the open ender, he bricked out and I won a huge pot.
there was also a point where I figured out the guy to my left was a very loose player with a ton of chips and I felt I could really benefit from playing him. He started with over 37K and I had about 16K when I started a run that took me to 40K and him down to 14K, I won 7 hands in a row, 5 of them against him with two showdowns where I had nuts!!
After that, I was close to the chip lead, 27 players paid and I held the chip lead for 90% of the time from 30 down to 10. I entered the final table 2nd in chips and ended up chopping 5 way for just under 2nd place money, I was sitting in 3rd place at the time, just behind the two chip leaders.
So, this is a great time for me to chat about two items, PLO strategy (in multi table tourneys) and deal making. Strategy in any multi table tourney is huge and if you can find something that works, success won’t be far behind. First off pot limit tournaments never have antes, this allows you to sit on stacks for a very long time. So, if you’re short stacked, you can play very tight and hang on, until you start flopping hands. On the short stack, I recommend attempting to see cheap flops with high return hands, ie, any pairs, double suited, connected hands, etc, etc. Obviously there is going to be some gamble in there, but with any short stack play, gamble is going to be involved.
Moving on to playing a big stack, in this position, I love to control the play with limps or min raises. At one point during that tourney last night, I was limping 80% of the pots and betting out on the flop to get folds about 80% of the time. If you raise I recommend to only call re raises against opponents that can’t hurt you. It is very easy to play just the short stacks in these tourneys, risking 15% of your stack or less to add very useful chips.
My biggest recommendation is, don’t get married or overplay high pocket pairs. Pocket pairs are the downfall for most players in this game, mainly aces. Did you know, if you have pocket aces and no draw post flop against a player that has just one pair and 3 other cards, the odds are almost even? Aces are good in situations where you can get most of your stack in, heads up, pre flop. In these situations you will most likely be up against KK or AKJT type hands, which is exactly what you want.
The next reccomendations is, don’t pay off river bets when draws get there, no matter how strong you were prior to that river hitting, the guy is going to have it 8 times out of 10 and the bets are usually big enough to never be profitable over time. Key to PLO, let your decent, big hands go.
On to deal making, man this is another long post, sorry, lol!! When it comes to deal making you have to factor in a lot of things. We made a deal 5 handed last night, first place would have paid, over $1500 and 5th place was under $500, that is a big spread. Not to mention first place was $1550 and 2nd place was $980. In this situation, if I can lock up close to 2nd place money, this deal should be made every time. I may have been the favorite to win last night but PLO comes down to a lot of flips and luck so it’s not as easy as saying I should get 2nd place everytime in these spots. I would have almost guaranteed that I would have come 3rd so taking almost $200 more than 3rd place money and $40 less than 2nd place money was value for me. Don’t let your ego get in the way here, poker is about variance and locking money down, vs taking chances, it’s the smart thing to do. Anytime you can get in to top 3 range in tournaments, that’s where you want to be!!
