PLO From Scratch Part 12

Theme: More theoretical based, allowing us to use various concepts to plan from pre-flop right through to the river. Initially the concepts may seem distant to their relation to PLO, but they all are fundamental to our understanding.

Strength Principle: Always bet/raise the nuts, check call your medium strength hands, fold your air...sometimes bluff with it. AKQ game, a half game (rules below)-> because Bob gets to decide what to do and Alice can play back with an optimal strategy but still loses in the long run because Bob has no incentive to deviate from his GTO strategy.

• There are two players, Alice (out of position) and Bob (in position)
• The game uses a deck with 3 cards: A, K and Q
• The games begins with both players putting a 1 bb ante into the pot
• Each player is then dealt a card from the deck
• Alice checks "in the dark" (a forced check)
• Bob can now bet 1 bb, or check behind and let the hand go to showdown
• Those times Bob bets, Alice can fold, or call and let the hand go to showdown
• Those times the hand goes to showdown, the highest card wins

Way Ahead/Was Behind: When we compare a similar PLO situation to a similar NLHE situation, we see that the EV’s of playing passively vs. aggressively are close, however it is more +EV to bet in PLO where as in NLHE it is more +EV to check it to SD. This is because even though we are ahead in both situations, the hands that we beat have a lot better equity against us in PLO compared to NLHE due to the fact we get dealt for cards. Therefore we often want players to fold their weaker hands in PLO to avoid more difficult situations later, meaning we bet/fold our medium strength hands more often in PLO.

Summary:
This concept will be the starting point for lots of aggressive post flop betting, especially when we are heads-up in position and we have the opportunity to value bet and bluff as we please against a player who has told us he has a weak range out of position.