This “guide” is not meant to be exhaustive or rigid. In fact “guide” may be the word, it will be more my approach to playing SHed PLO8. By sharing my approach I hope to accomplish two things
- Give new SHed PLO8 players a starting point so that they don’t get slaughtered
- Generate some discussion on SHed play in general and specifically the way that I play it.
My approach isn’t going to be revolutionary, and if you have played lots of SHed PLO8 it may even be trivial. However, I think it may help myself (who is newish playing SHed) and players who are totally fresh.
Note that I have only play SHed up to the $200 ($1 / $2) level, so this guide targets that level and below.
Starting Hands
Starting hand values change a lot going from FR to SHed. In general, the change can summed up in two thoughts:
- 1 way hands go slightly down in value and 2 way hands go way up.
- Hands that are infrequently made go down in value and “made” hands go up in value
Examples
- A2s actually goes down in showdown value but goes up in bluffing value. It goes down because it is unlikely that you will make the flush (around 5%)
- A23 goes down in value because it is unlikely you will make a wheel.
- Hands like KQ23 go up in value, because TPGK + low draw is a pretty big hand SHed.
- Big pair go up in value so JJ24 is actually a pretty good SHed hand. This hand is going up in value because of the pair itself not the possibility that it will make a set.
- A2KQ goes up in value because Q78 is a big flop for your hand.
How to make money
There are two main ways of making money playing SHed PLO8 and those are
- Stealing pots and generally creating fold equity.
- Big “home run” pots.
To be able to create the situations where you can make money there are 3 important concepts
- Position is paramount. My VP$IP IP is 40-60 and OOP is between 20-40.
- You need to figure out your opponent and get a very good read on him. See below.
- You can’t be a long term winner without aggression. You need to be able to steal pots; however, you need to be good / disciplined enough to fold when you are played back at.
FOLD EQUITY
Playing SHed the majority of the time the flop will miss everyone and these pots are up for grabs if you can realize when it happens. This is where the 3 concepts come into play.
- Position: You need to be IP to gain information before you act
- Reads: You need to know your opponents in order to know what checking means and how much fold equity you have.
- Aggression: You need to be aggressive enough to bet with nothing.
Even past the flop aggression becomes important. If you know your opponent well you can make a lot of money on river bluffs when you know their draws missed.
Another important aspect of aggression is that it will annoy your opponents. When your opponents are annoyed they will make more mistakes, and be willing to “make a stand” with a much weaker hand then they usually would. That segways quite well into “home run pots.”
HOME RUN POTS
The majority of money that I make playing SHed is through home run pots. Home run pots generally happen when both players like their hand enough to large amounts of money in. The most important think to remember about home run pots is that if you are playing well you should very rarely be on the wrong side of one of these.
That may sound obvious but it was one of the hardest things I learned about playing SHed. This means that you have to be incredibly disciplined and you have to be willing to fold marginal hands when the pot is getting large. This is where the 3 concepts come into play
- Position: I rarely play big pots OOP. IP you are going to be able to better figure out if your opponent sucked out on you and you will be able to limit the damage if they do. Furthermore, you are going to be able to able to better figure out how much your opponent likes their hand.
- Reads: How large a hand does your opponent need to go push it all in?
- Aggression: A raise is a stronger statement then a bet, so by playing aggressively you can get more information about your opponent’s hand.
I can’t stress this enough fold marginal (and even good) hands when your opponent plays back at you. As I said earlier this was one of the harder things I have had to learn. My guess is the difficulty came from my overall aggression. I would get into an aggressive mindset so I would want to raise, raise, raise, and I wouldn’t be disciplined enough to fold when I knew I was beat.
MIDDLE SIZED POTS
I didn’t mention middle sized pots as a way to make money because I generally break even with them. I tend to lose a lot of mid-sized pots when opponent snap off a bluff, but I tend to win a lot of mid-sized pots by value betting.
Figuring out your opponent
Trying to figure out your opponent is much easier playing SHed then it is playing FR because they play more hands in a shorter amount of time. This read is the reason that good players win playing SHed and bad players loose. The read is also the reason that you can make far more money playing SHed then you can playing at a FR.
When I first sit down I try to gain a general read to classify each players as loose passive, loose aggressive, tight passive, or tight aggressive. Then as I get more hand with them I try to gain more specific reads about betting patterns. Since I don’t know any way of gaining specific reads except experience I am only going to discuss the general reads. However, specific reads are vital because they play a large part in getting a “feel” for the game. They are what create the intuition which is necessary to win.
To facilitate getting a read I have found it useful, esp. when I first sit down, to force my opponent into some situation and see how they react. Here are a list of situations I like to put my opponent into. I don’t do everything on this list every time nor do I do these in any set order; I just use these as a guide to help gaining the general read. Also remember that how your opponents react is very dependant on what hand they have, so these “tests” aren’t definitive, they can just give you direction.
FIRING TWO BULLETS
In this “test” I will pot both the flop and the turn, and check down on the river. By doing this I want to know
- What type of hands my opponent will call two pot bets with?
- Will my opponent bet into me after I pot into him?
I almost always do this test IP, and most of the time I don’t raise pre-flop.
CHECKDOWN
In this “test” I literally just check until my opponent bets. By doing this I want to know
- Will my opponent bet if checked to?
- What hands does my opponent think are “betable”?
I usually do this test IP and OOP because it is very simple and won’t cost too much money. Also if my opponent finally bets the river I frequently call because it will be cheap and I want to know what he checked and bet.
CONTINUATION BET
In this “tests” I will raise pre-flop, then continuation bet on the flop, then see if I can check down to the river. By doing this I want to know
- What hands will my opponent call pre-flop and on the flop with?
- Will my opponent bet the river?
I almost always do this IP and this usually happens almost naturally anyways. I get A2 / A3 raise IP, flop is all high, I try to steal it and get caught, …
By doing some of these tests and by being generally observant you should have a rough classification of your opponent. It is important to know that opponent will change gears so this classification may change. I will now talk about playing against the different classifications of opponents. I going to start with the type of players that I think it is the easiest to play against and conclude with the hardest.
Playing against Tight Passive players
TPs are by far the easiest players to play SHed and I think that everyone and their mother knows how to beat TPs: bet. Every time you are checked to bet, and every time you are bet at fold. If you are played back at you need a big hand to continue (unless you are getting great odds).
Some more specific strategy:
- Don't win every pot. I know this sounds strange but HU I have killed the sheep instead of shearing it many times by winning every pot.
- Think of the pots that you are stealing as a free roll. If you steal ½ their stack then get all in with %10 PE you are going to win money in the long run (although I wouldn't recommend getting all in with %10 of the PE
)
- Your goal is to whittle down their stack until you are getting good odds to call and suck out on them. Actually it is better if you can take their final money by sucking out on them because then they are more likely to reload.
- Against most TP their willingness to push increase proportionally with their frustration, and inversely with their stack size. The more you steal from them the most likely they are to push with weaker hands, and the smaller their stack size the more likely they are to push with weaker hands.
Playing against Loose Passive players
True LPs (aka Calling Stations) are easy to play SHed though not as easy as the TPs. Like LAs, against LPs you have little fold equity, but unlike LAs, LPs don't raise enough to build a home run pot. These players are the one exception to the mid-sized pot rule, you will make most of your money against LPs with mid-sized pots.
Some more specific strategies against LPs
- Position becomes less important, although it is still important. Since LPs are unlikely to steal pots, you can be less concerned about being bet off draws.
- Don't bluff. They are calling stations, they will call.
- IP Build pots with draws, even if you don't have odds to do so because LPs offer great implied odds. A small example, the pot is $5, you have 33% PE, you are IP, and you bet pot. The pot is now $15, if you miss you check, if you hit you pot again and get called. That means 33% of the time you win $45 - $20 for an EV of $8. 60% of the time you loose the $5 bet for an EV of $+3.
- Value bet a lot on the river.
Playing against Loose Aggressive players
Before I go into how specifically to play against LAs it is very important to make a distinction between good LAs and bad LAs. A good LA is one that plays loose and aggressive but is willing to fold mediocre hands when you play back at him. A bad LA is one that will not fold when you play back at him.
Playing good LAs is very easy. Just don't. If you play against a good LA your variance will be through the roof, and in the long run the only person that will win is the house.
Playing bad LAs is all about the home run hand. Since you don't have a lot of fold equity almost all of the money you are going to make it through this homerun hand. To setup this hand you need to keep in mind the following things
1) Your stack need to be large enough that you can do damage when you double up through him. If you allow him to steal ½ your stack he is basically free-rolling to suck out on you on that big hand, so you can't allow him to seriously whittle down your stack.
2) If the only time you show aggression is on the big hand, even a bad LA may recognize this and fold.
3) The LA is going to be more likely to give you his stack if he is frustrated. If you allow him to run you over he will not be frustrated.
4) It is going to be high variance and you have to be willing to accept that and push your entire stack as a 60% favorite.
My general strategy for playing against bad LAs
- Position is paramount. There is nothing worse then playing a marginal hand OOP against LA.
- Call more on the river. This is one of the best ways to frustrate a LA but is also one of the scary parts of playing a LA. Sometimes you have to make river calls for ½ the pot, which I will not do against another type of player.
- Selective aggression. You aren't going bully them around, remember that you goal is only to break even until the home run hand. Don't get run over. Remember that even the loosest player only goes to showdown 50% of the time so 1:2 there is the opportunity to bluff.
- Beware them becoming passive. This is usually a sign of a big hand.
Playing against Tight Aggressive players
Like LAs it is very important to distinguish between a good TA and a bad TA. It is harder to distinguish between a good and bad TA, so here are some ways of telling
- A good TA is willing to loosen up as the game gets more SHed, and a bad one keeps there VP$IP around 20 even playing 4 handed.
- A good TA is willing to fire a second bullet and does so at appropriate times.
- A good TA is willing to raise your CB without a monster.
- A bad TA aggression decreases at the hand goes on.
- A bad TA plays straight forward and is therefore predictable.
Like a good LA there is no reason to play a good TA, but luckily many TAs can't make the transition to SHed.
The strategy against bad TAs is simple yet scary, you have to out aggression them by using more aggression at better times. My more specific strategy against TAs is
- They are going to be entering pots with good hands. This greatly narrows their hand range and gives you great bluffing possibilities. However, to be able to do this you have to be very good at reading the board.
- Raise a lot pre-flop, and bet lots of flops. A bad TA will surrender lots of small pots to you, a good TA will play back at you.
- IP don't be afraid to peel one off, even if you don't have odds. You can make a good deal of money by taking the pot away on later streets even if you miss your draw.
- IP don't fire both the flop and the turn. If you try to steal the flop and get called wait until the river to fire again. Since they called your flop bet they most likely have something, and since they didn't raise they don't like it too much. If they check the turn, you check behind, then they check the river, they will fold to a bet most of the time.
- Use 1/2 - 2/3 pot bets when you are bluffing. Most of the time if they are going to fold to a full pot bet they will fold to a ½ pot bet.
Hybrids and Switching Gears
One point I feel I have to make it that most player are not strictly one of the above categories. Most of the time players are mostly one type and part of another or half way between two categories. Also players can be different per different streets, I have run into many players that are tight pre-flop and loose post flop or visa versa. Finally players tends to switch gears while playing SHed. Even the tightest player will loosen up a little after you steal 20 pots from them.
This is why specific reads are important. They allow you to make plays that general reads don’t and they allow you to see when an opponent is switching gears. Like every other type of poker it is important for you to change your play as the game changes. This is especially true SHed, you need to be able to react to changes in your opponents game faster then they react to changes in your game.
General Plays that I have used successfully
Here is a list of plays that I have incorporated into my game and have been successful when employed at the right time:
- ½ pot River bluff
- Free card play
- Continue betting made 1 way hands
- Betting a high only flop after a raise.
Edit 10/29: Added a comment about 50% WtSD for LAGs
mvp