I would hope so. I haven’t been lucky enough to be in a game with 3 players going high vs my low up card.
Yea I get this for limit games. I don’t really get it for plo. Do you or have you played a lot of big o? Your style might do well in that game.
Why does the second paragraph read like gibberish?
I’ve never really done ICM calculations. I’m aware of some conclusions that some ICM experts have made about play. The ICM chops that I have participated in have been calculated by the TD and I choose to trust their numbers instead of verifying for myself.
So, here’s the deal with playing passively at times in PLO. Some people think the game is all about ramming and jamming and pushing small edges. That leaves you open to being exploited because you have such a weak range when you play passively. It means a lot of times you are just going to have to give up if you check. Now, you may be playing in a game where your opponents are so terri-bad that you can open yourself up to being exploited that way because they won’t take advantage often enough and I am possibly giving up EV by not participating in the craziness, but I’m not sure. If I am, my style is probably close enough that simply being easier to execute and having much less variance is worth the trade-off.
I’m not playing GTO ranges–I’ve never claimed to–but I am playing more balanced than my opponents. That means that I’m not as exploitable by raw aggression when I show weakness. I have an uncapped range even when I play passively, so I almost always have the nuts in my range. By playing this way, my bets are much scarier and I am more able to force opponents to fold and give up equity. If my opponent has 35% equity and I make a pot-sized bet in a head-up pot, do I want him to call? (The answer depends on what the implied odds look like.)
PLO, just like all forms of poker, isn’t really about winning big pots. PLO is about trying to realize your equity and trying to deny your opponents from realizing your own equity. These two goals can be at war with each other. By betting, you give your opponents a chance to fold and give up their equity in the pot, but by betting, you give them a chance to put in a bigger bet than if you checked, so that they might force you to give up your equity. Taking a pot-control line is an exercise in protecting your equity, while letting your opponent realize more of their equity than they would if you bet.
One way you can protect your equity is if you leave enough chips to bomb the turn on a safe card. If their draw is so strong that you can get it in on the flop and you actually do get it in on the flop, then you might have helped them realize their full equity when you could have put them in a difficult spot on the turn. I think this is related to why some of the solvers advocate lines in NL where you bet small on the flop and big on the turn.
I’ve generally done well at big bet omaha hi-lo. I’ve won a small Big O tournament on a regional poker tour and chopped a Venetian PLO/8 tournament heads up where my opponent had a chip lead but was happy to offer me an even-money chop. I’ve also usually done well at PLO/8 and Big O cash games (except for this recent trip to Vegas…grrrr). I won’t say I’m an expert, but I’m probably better than most.
What I think you are describing isn’t necessarily anything to do with ICM as we would use them in bubble situations but more just the way ceV differs from tEV.
From Mathematics of Poker:
The first of these principles results in strategic adjustments related to skill - that is, a concept of
passing up small edges that put one’s whole stack at risk because of presumed situations that will
occur later where larger edges will be available. Players who have an edge over the field should
be less willing to commit all their chips for a thin edge because if they lose, they cannot replace
those chips with additional cash as they could in a ring game.
This “skill adjustment,” however, has been far overdone by some players; there is a limit to the
type of situation that one can legitimately pass up and still actually have such an edge in the
future. After all, as the blinds escalate in a tournament, it becomes more and more difficult to
find hugely profitable situations. In addition, occasionally opponents will have big hands at the
same time as we do. But this skill adjustment is real, and we can seek to quantify it
approximately. We model this skill edge as a recursive effect and later in this chapter present a
model that attempts to quantify the effect of a skill edge and provide insight into actual
situations.
They then go into math about figuring out your equity if you think you are one of the better players in the game and come to the conclusion:
In order for it to be to correct to decline a 57-43
confrontation with no dead money in the pot, one has to have nearly three times the average
equity in the tournament. Our observations lead us to believe that having this win rate in a
typical tournament field would place such a player among the best players in the world.
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Said another way, nits don’t win tournaments. 
I win tournaments. Small ones, but I win tournaments.
Every statement of winning in poker assumes the brackets …
Nits don’t win tournaments (for long term profit over meaningful sample size).
So how much did Dan Harrington lose?
Nits don’t win tournaments is a more accurate statement than with the brackets though. There’s plenty of nits who show a small profit by mincashing a lot and occasionally having a deep run when they get nailed by the deck, but they are still unlikely to win outright.
Nits don’t win (large field) tournaments would be a more accurate qualifier
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Ya that’s a better statement of my point.
I’ve never mincashed (in a small sample size of 15 Hendon Mob results).
This thread really needs to be less nbz-focused.
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Here is question. How should I be accounting for combos in pot odds?
For example, let’s say I am getting 3 to 1 on a call and based on my outs I need 4:1. However, I think there are a number of combos in villains range that I could beat. Do I simply discount my pot odds based on assumed villain combos?
Do I discount ranges as it is less perfect info that my own outs which I know 100%?
I use equilab these days.
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You need to think in terms of equity instead of combos and figure out shortcuts for doing a Monte Carlo simulation in your head to estimate your equity.
play bad and win!
UTG opens to 1.25, I call with 55 in CO not realizing they only have 8 behind.
Flop AsKs8d
c/c
Turn Th
c/c
River 5s
Bets 2.71, I shove for 4.11 more
He calls with 33.
Nice.
Was not particularly thrilled when I clicked call:
utg opens 1.25 MP calls. I make it 5.25 on the BB with AsKc. Two calls
Flop Ac Jc 7s
Bet 4.75 to try to get a tilt call, get raised to 13 by UTG. I call
Turn 3h
UTG fires 24, I sigh call thinking I played myself with the inducing bet. Villain has 8s7c
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This is way more valuable to learning low stakes players though. You see players going wild with flopped straights and two pair hands that can’t improve, often on dynamic boards.
So, this is what my game is like at times.
Old man who thinks I am a super-nit opens UTG to 20 and gets 4 callers, including me in the BB with KQJ7ss.
Flop is KQ9r. Checked around.
Turn is a 2, putting two clubs on the board. Old man bets 40. BU calls. I call.
River is an offsuit 3. I bet 100 and everyone folds. Old man says he had a set and thanks me for saving him money by leading out. To be clear, I do have hands like JT and KK in my range with that betting.