I finally got my hands on some poker books. I've been reading Ray Zee's book on O8, and it got me thinking some more about pre-flop raising. I realize that he is writing about limit O8 and that he is also writing about a game that usually has skilled players, but some of the principles still apply at Party $25 PLO8.


Plays I like:

- Pot raise with A3 (even A4 in late position) and a high pocket pair and/or high cards -- hopefully with some kind of a decent flush combo in the hand somewhere (even K-high or Q-high is OK). The purpose of this raise is to get up against a hand that has only one-way potential (usually low). If only one low card comes on the flop, you can usually take down the pot right there. If three or more cards A-6 are on the board by the river, make sure you can beat a straight for the high (just got burned by this one when my set of kings with second nut low took a beating on the river to a wheel).

- Pot raise in late position with only broadway cards. Again, the goal is to get heads up with a low hand and take it down on the flop when one or no low cards hit, or make them pay to draw (and sometimes miss) to the low when two low cards hit.

- Min raise with AA2wheel or AA3wheel, esp. if one or both of the Aces is suited. This is primarily to prime the pot if the hand hits. People seem to be willing to pay off nut lows and nut flushes.

- Min raise with A234 or A235. Again, this is just to prime the pot, as people will pay your off big when the A or 2 gets counterfeited.


Plays I don't like (but have been suggested):

- Pot raising with A2wheel. I don't like this because it is too easy to get people to jam the pot with a naked A2 (very common at Party) and then choke when an A or 2 comes on the river. There is big money to be made when opponents get counterfeited.

- Pot raising with A3wheel. I think the idea here is to promote your A3, but it seems like most of the hands that will call at this level will have A2. Furthermore, I think people pay you off big when a deuce and/or wheel str8 hits.

- Pot raising with AA5 (and AA4 in early position). I think the idea is that you want to get heads up with a one direction hand. The problem is that the low is weak and the high is weak if it doesn't improve. This could theoretically be OK if you have one or two flush draws, but if that's the case, I want it to be a family pot -- people at Party are willing to play off the nut flush.


Plays I am still considering:

- Pot-raising with A3xx with two flush draws (one to the A and one to a broadway card). This might promote the low and give you nice high potential. That being said, I think that I will get paid off more if either a deuce hits or I make a flush. This might be a good play at higher limits, but at the $25 level, it may be a bit too slick.


NOTE: These are the "fundamental" plays that I make. I always mix up the limps, min raises, and pot raises jiust so that observant players don't figure me out.


The main point that I got from Zee's book (and adapted to PLO8) is to pot raise to knock people out of the hand when you have a decent 2-way holding (not necessarily the nuts either way), and min raise or small raise when you want to get more money in the pot. Any thoughts on this?

Please feel free to add any plays of your own or comment on the plays I described. Pre-flop raising is still a work-in-progress for me, so any and all comments are welcome. Just keep in mind that all of my comments are for $25 Party PLO8.

I would also love to hear what people have to say about pre-flop raising in PLO high (maybe in a different thread).

Interesting and useful post.

A couple of points -

I quite often raise "high only" hands in LP in fairly tight games as a semi-stealing, competition reduction exercise, or to "change up" my play. As time goes on, however, I am increasingly convinced that this is a marginal or even poor play, and I'm probably going to cut it out as much as possible. The main issue is that if the hand HITS, you want plenty of people in who might swell the pot or pay you off. However, if it missed youi're not likely to have much backup - this is why A2 hands are so strong, because if you miss the flop, you could still have caught a low draw which gives your bluff so much more equity if someone calls. With a hand like AKJT, if the flop misses, you'll have no hand, no equity if anyone calls (generally). I almost never raise these in limit games, and I think perhaps EITHER making a small pot-building raise (min raise?) or just limping might be better with these hands, though I too am making my mind up about this.

I like full raises with AA2 and AA3, to promote the AA feature for high. If the flop comes two low cards and I'm heads up or three-handed, I'm usually OK with betting or raising full pot, either buying a nice pot or getting in against a one-way hand. In order to get away with this aggressive play, I am increasingly raising full pot with other strong hands in LP like A23x suited and other A2+high pair holdings, and even fairly bare A2xx or A3wheel with tight players to act behind, to make my hand harder to read.

I agree to some extent about AA4 and AA5, I used to raise them anywhere too but now I generally limp in EP. On a loose table, out of position, AA5 is really nothing to get excited about. With one raise to you, in LP, against a poor player, it gets much better.

My min/small raise type plays are often with hands I deem better than average, but which I don't want to go crazy with preflop, ones like A2 with a suited ace, or wheel-heavy hands. As time goes on i'm less likely to do this because I don't want to give up too much about my hand. I'm really making an effort to more or less raise pot, or limp, in late position. As I make small raises with lots of hands in EP, i am happy to stick with that plan.

As time goes on I am more aware that having a hard-and-fast rule preflop for raising certain types of holdings by a certain amount is inviting people to get reads on you, and the small equity you may lose by raising more or less than you'd ideally want is well worth it in terms of achieving a more inscrutable table image.