Isn't this the greatest feature, in the history of internet discussion sites!! Cardplayer has their cardcalculator, and WE have Ask ATE. I'm kinda just a LITTLE more useful.

Anyway, the most critical issue here, is INTERNET PLO, and REAL PLO. The games are just two entirely different beasties. With a max buy in, you can be fairly loose for two reasons:


The other players (especially on Party) are hopeless, and you want to have as many chances as possible, to beat them.

With only a small stack, many of the possible terrors are eliminated, thus freeing you up to play more hands. With a stack of only 50x bb ($100) the necessity of having a good redraw, is not there anymore. This is additionally true, because of the fact that with the party players, THE %&$@#%&$%^ERS often don't have the nuts, or even a LIVE DRAW.
Y'all only need a REdraw, when playing against sensible players. (and have a BIG STACK)

These people very often will put in there whole stack, with AA and a flop of say:

10 8 3

Without even a FLUSH DRAW. They just can't grasp that sets and two pair, are ALL OVER THE PLACE. They think that it's just HOLD EM, with double the cards!!


Man, are they BAAAADDDDDDD


But, EVERY hand . . . . . . I DON'T THINK SOOOOOO!!

Y'all are STILL going to want to give yourself potential, to make a two way hand/draw combo.


And YES, there is more to be made in PLO, than no limit hold em. The players are much more willing to gamble, when they know that if it's only one raise back to them, the won't have to put in their whole stack to see the flop, as is possible in NL hold em.

Usually, when I look at the 100 games on party, there is someone holding a stack of 800-1000, so you KNOW the action was good.

IF you don't have some JINX against you, the PLO games on party are the closest thing to free money, as has been possible, since the old days of LOWBALL in California, when it was 7 or 8 bets before the draw, with 5 players and EVERYONE drawing.

Well, I think Adam got this right, PLO high games online are an absolute fish shoot!

One additional thing I'd add is that, due to the insanely hopeless stack size/blind ratio on Party, there's basically no money to go in on the river/turn streets and nearly all the major betting (say 70-75% of the money that'll be bet in the game) will be on the flop. This means that you should, in games that are FAST and loose, with aggressive bettors/chasers all around, look at hands that can be moved in a dominating position with the right flop, rather than marginal hands that COULD be nice but that require good implied odds to play - this means that high-end holdings that can make MADE nut hands early in the streets should be valued higher (i.e. mega-wrapped draws, high pairs which can make a nut set and get all the money in against drawing hands) and hands which will need implied odds (i.e. plenty of money to bet after making a draw on the LATER streets), such as disparate drawing hands (i.e. hands with a small-ish drawing feature to straights, lower flush draws that need the backdoor to have their outs countable, ace-high flush draws with no pairs or major straight features) can be devalued.

As a general rule, I like to get in with a high pair (JJ or above, even with minimal side features) in limped pots OR in spots where a raise comes in EARLY (i.e. out of position and only to 3-4x BB) with a couple of intermediate calls. The reasons for this are, in the first instance, the pot is small enough to be manageable, and if you miss your set you can muck without too much damage, and in the second instance, because the odds of making a big score are valuable here - on Party, initial raisers often hit up the flop, and with a pre-flop raise and a couple of callers the pot will already be 30% or so of your stack by the time it comes to you on the flop round - by this point you've paid maybe 5% or so of your stack to be involved, and if you've hit your big set, whaddya know - you can move the rest in with nuts. Johnny FlushDraw in seat number 1 has zero implied odds and is going to be shovelling dollars into your stack if he makes the call.

One of the biggest negatives of the Party structure is that, unlike in online games where the buy in is 100BBs, or live games (where, in Europe, you'll often see people sat with 2000+ BBs), you don't have such great implied odds to chase draws and get a big pay off from the horrible players who infest these games. If you had a few chips left to play with on the turn, you could often draw out your straight wrap or flush, and then move in a big raise to really charge the goon with 2 pair or a set. As it is, you're often all in on the early rounds to opportunities to take advantage of the loose calling players on this website have to be taken on these early rounds; this involves playing hands that can catch big holdings early on. As Adam rightly says, you need to look for TWO-WAY drawing hands (i.e. hands that can catch something like a straight AND a high flush draw off the flop, or hands that can make BIG straight draws that have a lot of pot equity if the chips go all in on the flop) and also big pocket pairs that can drop high sets into the equation.

My biggest problem on the party tables is that I like to make moves and semi-bluff strong draws post-flop; when I play a hand I seldom play it for anything other than a maximum raise, and though that works well in most games, on Party you'll frequently get called and end up all-in in a marginal situation, leading to massive variance. You really don't need to play like that and can simply afford to wait for the nuts (or a major nut draw) and then make a large bet; chances are you can get your chips in with great +ve value without having to rely on actually playing any poker.

And about Reuben/Ciaffone - Stewart Reuben plays in the larger games at the Vic in London, where the stacks are generally huge and the players (relatively) sophisticated, so he will make aggressive plays to narrow fields in order to outplay opponents postflop, or raise hands containing low wrap-type features etc for deception, as well as calling apparently very poor hands because of the huge implied odds and the fact that he will have accurate reads on a good proportion of his regular opponents, allowing him to put plays on them down the road. This style is obviously not applicable in any way to the Party tables, which could be a different game altogether. Ciaffone's game plays much closer to "ABC" omaha, which is probably closer to the required style at Party. Just take the best bits from each style, and think about the hands that play best in a game which is very "top heavy" - with the VAST majority of the money pouring in on the first two streets. Note that Reuben (and presumably also Ciaffone) play in games where 75% of the money is going in on the last two streets - "bottom heavy". Party is all about the flop; picking the hands which have the most value there will give you an advantage.

Monk
xxxx

I'm starting to develop a complex, this Monk person, writes better than I do.


Maybe I'll have to abdicate my section.


Well, thanks for the help