OP: Make Penneywize Not Suck At Omaha

How best to erase an 11+ buy-in downswing, whereupon I ran approx 8 buy-ins under EV?

Simple. Move down one stake -- and win 30 buy-ins in ~4000 hands, running 10 buy-ins over EV.



Granted, I ran like baby jesus for short bursts during this stretch, specifically including an 800-hand godmode session where I racked up over 13 buy-ins.

Sadly, while I do feel like I'm approaching the game from a better perspective, putting in the hours studying, and doing my best to be mentally prepared for and stable during sessions, I feel my recent results have probably clouded a great deal of the leaks in my game.

In this spirit, I'll continue to post hands and read articles in attempting to find areas I can improve upon. I have a list of things I need to work on, which I'll post up here sometime in the near future.

Even though I've more than made up the money I lost during my poor stretch a few weeks back, I figure I'll remain at 5 PLO and try to win another 10 buy-ins or so (i.e. 50$; yes, I'm playing deep but I think it still makes sense to quantify things in terms of 100bb buy-ins) before giving 10 PLO another shot.

Also, when I do move back up to 10 PLO, I decided I'll be playing the deep / ante tables exclusively, as a means to sort of mitigate the effect of rake. I'm actually wondering if there is truth to this hypothesis or if it's largely a mental thing. Anyhow.

I'll put in another session tonight and then come back with some links to hands I'll post on 2p2. Go me.

TL;DR:

In this post I just discuss a few aspects of my game that I've thought need more attention / improvement. These largely deal with my positional stats and such. Let me know if any of you are interested in seeing my stats, and I'll post up a pic of them later.


Some notes on areas I need to look into / improve:

- I seem to be losing money in the SB. I feel as though this is related to my disproportionately loose play from this position (I'm 26.4 / 7.4 in the SB). I think the issue here is likely not all that different from that which plagues others who lose money in the SB: I enter pots due to the perceived "discount" from having paid the small blind - limping behind, calling small raises, and even limp / calling hands I otherwise would not have considered playing. Then, I stand to lose more money when my hand flops decently but either doesn't complete or doesn't hold up due to relatively poor hand structure. Also, I'm out of (absolute) position on all betting rounds, making it harder for me to steal reliably.

- I'm running something like 21/10 with a 2% 3-bet. This seems far too loose and not nearly aggressive enough to me, however I wonder if this is appropriate given my current stakes. As I've alluded to earlier in this thread, my main plan is to make hands and value bet, stealing the occasional pot via cbet or river bluff when appropriate. Given that players at 5 or 10 PLO are not all that savvy in terms of building opponent's ranges and such, I'm not all that certain the devalued steal-equity we gain from 3-betting pre is worth it in many instances. Regardless, I should start to acclimate myself to a more aggressive playstyle, since once I move up to a stake where players aren't quite so oblivious (say 50 PLO) I will definitely need to find new areas in order to have an edge.

- My c-bet percentage is 45%, which is probably a little low for PLO. I'm basing this off what I've read in articles and heard in videos like Vanessa Selbst's PLO series (suggesting a c-bet rate of around 60% is good). As for the situations I'm choosing to c-bet in, I feel like I'm doing a relatively good job i.e. I don't c-bet my marginal draws to second-best hands (against opponents who play straightforwardly postflop, anyway) for instance, because I'd prefer not to get c/r'd in these spots. Further, if I'm out of position, I tend to pass up c-bet opportunities with good cbetting hands if I feel my opponent is aggro enough, and certainly if they were the preflop aggressor. Of course, each situation is different, and I hate to generalize, so take what I've said with a grain of salt.

- While I feel as though I've gotten better at putting opponents on a range, I seem to call down too light in spots, especially on the river. I have a won $ at SD percentage of about 56%, which is fine but probably could be better.

- I've made an effort to find profitable bluffing situations - not strict bluffing, per se, but usually good semi-bluffs and sometimes even good river bluffs if I feel my opponent can fold given their stack size and tendencies, and only then if my line would make sense. A pretty standard spot to find a bluff is one wherein you chase down a draw, calling a few streets off and, when the river misses you, but completes some other relatively obvious draw, bet a decent size. This obviously works better if in position. So far, while this is probably a fairly basic concept, I've found it profitable.

More to come.