1) I'm playing mostly $50 PLO on UB now. Usually, the table consists of a few regulars who play more or less decently, and a couple of people who are less conventional. There is a player who often plays these games in a maniacal fashion and seems to be quite successful at it, although the times I played with him he had luck on his side, too.
As soon as he has a big stack he starts max. raising about 50% of hands preflop. Unless he completely misses, he will put in a potsized bet on the flop. If he has anything remotely decent, like a flush draw or two pair, then he plays for his stack. He wins a lot of pots because opponents are afraid to play a medium hand for their stack, and also busts a lot of people who assume he has nothing.

My question: what kind of adaptations should I make to my play and how do I keep the variance low? Do you still call with a good 6789ds hand preflop if that costs you 20% of your stack? Or do you fold everything and wait for a monster? I tried the latter, but the maniac is observant enough to back down when a rock awakens. Also, I find it hard to determine whether the other players are raising and reraising because they have a very strong hand or because they have an ok hand but want to get it heads up with the maniac.

2) What results (in $/hr) should I be satisfied with and what would be a good criterion to test whether I consistently beat this game? Especially the latter worries me, because I am sure I get most of my earnings because of the mistakes the weak players make. For me, beating the game includes playing at least as well as the average player on that level, and not just being able to take some idiot's stack every now and then.

3) A technical question. How important exactly is it in this game to have "blocking cards", meaning cards in your own hand that make it less likely for your opponent to complete his draw? It surely is more important than in holdem, but I'd like to see some examples where having some blocking cards actually changes the way you play a hand.

Thanks a lot,

Pieter

1. Well, if your goal is to keep variance low, then your best weapon is to not play at that table or simply place yourself to his left and avoid pots that he comes in for a big raise.

However, I'm not real fond of being pushed off a table like this. You say that he seems to pay attention when a rock awakens - use this to your advantage. For the first hour with him, play very few hands and only show down strong hands. Then in the second hour, you should be able to play back at him and get him under control. Still, anytime you go to showdown - make sure you've got the hand to beat him. I'm not saying you need to have a premium hand - but make sure you can beat a bluff.

2. Win rate is a very difficult thing to predict, especially in PL games. In terms of comparing with others, I would get into the habit of representing it in terms of $/100 or big blinds/100 or even %stack/100 hands. $/hr could be very difficult to interpret when presenting it to others, because you never know if it takes into account multiple tables.

In terms of what to strive for, I'll defer to Monk on this one for advice as I don't usually play PL, but make sure you've got in the order of 10,000 hands or realize that a smaller set could vary quite a bit in the short term.

3. Blocking cards can be very important - but not necessarily in your own hand. For instance in a recent hand, Monk talked about a short stack raising with what he guessed was AAxx - and he had KKxx. There were two other people in the hand whom Monk inferred would be blocking the remaining aces - so Monk would have a good chance to not only take the side pot unimproved, but also improve to a set without worrying getting beaten by another set.

Sometimes, blocking cards come in the form of a bare ace when two of the suit falls on the flop. Be aware that in this kind of situation, you need to represent having the flush draw and hit when it does (or hit a backup when it doesn't). This is a common bluff from my side of the pot - and it is not always successful.

That's some advice at the least.

/d

1) Stay away if you want to keep your variance low.

These sort of players are very good to play with simply because they create action; suddenly everyone is betting and raising and if you hit a big hand you may get paid off in 2 or 3 spots as everyone targets the maniac and forgets each other. The variance will inevitably be high, however. I like those wrap type hands (though perhaps not for 20% of my stack... if the raises are getting that high I think it's time to drop all but AA and medium wraps (8-K) with suits, and perhaps KKds) because you can often check-raise for most of your stack if the flop brings you something like two pair with an open ender. Hands containing big pairs can also be good. I agree however that these tables can be very frustrating. As a rule I like tables with weak players who play semi-passively on flops and often draw dead!

Playing this sort of game requires a good "feel" for your opponents, and a level head - you'll find it easy to go on tilt, and you need to pick your spot to make a big move very carefully. They will be good practice though, and you could do with learning to beat these sort of players, so persevere. There's no real "trick" to it, just play sesnsibly, check-raise your best hands when you are out of position (not a bad spot to be in against a LAG player) and don't play so many marginal draws because you know you will have to pay for them. Don't just play the maniac; it is a big and frequent mistake to ignore the other players, call or raise the maniac, and finding someone with position on you waking up with the nuts.

2) Taking some idiot's stack now and then is generally where most of your PLO profit comes from. And I'm talking up to the $1000 buyins here. I find that in more passive games where you can make some smart plays and push people around (such as I find at Stars, where I generally do very well) you still need the odd poor player to make errors, even though a lot of your pots come from aggression or outplaying your opponents.

In the 100/200 games it kinda depends which site I play, though I would estimate my winrate to be 25-30BB/100 in most cases. It is possible to win more in PLO than NL; I would say 35BB/100 would be sustainable in the smaller games. However, anything over 15BB/100 would be good, 20BB/100 excellent. Because PLO hands tend to take a bit longer than NL, I usually estimate somewhere in the 40 hands/hour region (give or take) so your real hourly rate (per table) would be probably something like 10 big blinds per hour, if you're very good. In the 50PLO you're looking at something like $5 per table per hour as being a good rate, so 3-tabling you could make $15 per hour, I'd say that'd be a good rate. More would be possible, but if you mutlitable and make 10 big blinds per hour or more you are being very successful.

As for knowing you're a winning player, well, chances are if you have much of a clue (which I suspect you do) you will win in the long term. I wouldn't worry overly about this. In terms of numbers of hands, I would like to be a winner after 5000, and certainly after 10,000.

3) Blocking cards play a part at times. A couple of examples:

You hold top set on the board K65 with KK77 in your hand. There is a flush draw on board. Turn brings an offsuit 8 or 9 and you are first to act. You may wish to bet here because the 7s in your hand make it less likely your opponent is drawing to a straight, and more likely he has a bare flush draw or something like 2 pair. This makes your turn bet less likely to be raised and it means you can charge the flush draw more, when if you didn't have the 77 you might be tempted to check and give a free card in case someone has hit a straight.

River brings a card that makes a possible straight but you miss your flush draw. An opponent who has bet all the way checks. Board is showing T825J and you have QQA7; with the queens and ace in your hand it seems unlikely your opponent had a straight draw and more likely he was betting a set or two pair, so you might consider betting out the full pot to try to take it away from him.

You have As but no other spade. The flop comes with three spades. A tight, solid player bets. You raise the full pot and he folds because your As blocks him from having the nut flush. Not a blocking card in the traditional sense (it's usually meant to mean a card you hold which is likely to prevent a draw hitting later on, rather than one which lets you know your opponent doesn't have the nuts). This is a very successful play if you have a set as well, even if he calls with something like a K-high flush, you can still boat up to win.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Monk
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