Mad Man Poker

In my first strategy article, I’m going to talk a bit about starting hand ranges for a PLO ring-game. In PLO you want to get a big or even huge hand on the flop. This may be a made hand or a very big draw. There are certain hands that will get you in many more of these situations than others.

First of all, you should know that you can only use two out of the four cards that you are holding, to make your 5-card hand by the river. To get as many 2-card combinations as possible, all four cards in your hand should work together.

Big Pairs

When you play PLO for the first time, it is very tempting to think that holding a pair from Queens up, makes your hand very good. But you have to consider the possibilities here. When holding a pair, what are you trying to make? Yes, there is a very small chance of making quads on the flop, but this is not something that happens often and a lot of times you won’t get payed off. A set however occurs more often. This can take down the hand already and turning/rivering a full house is what keeps you from drawing dead against straights and flushes.

But these pairs need some help. For instance holding aces with two other cards, each in the suit of those aces. This gives you two chances of an ace-high flush, a hand that will almost always hold up until the river, unless the board is paired. Holding kings or queens with flush cards is a more dangerous. There may always be someone holding the ace-high flush.

Rundowns

These are  the hands that consist of four connected cards. These are very strong hands, because they have the biggest chance of hitting a straight. If you have the top end of a straight with your lowest cards, you can even outdraw the same hand on later streets, getting a lot of value. Combine this with a double suited hand and your hand is favourite against most others pre-flop.

With hands like these it is very easy to flop two pair. But let me tell you now, this is not what you’re looking for. If you’ve got two pair with a connected hand, someone is bound to have a straight draw or even a made straight, which could mean trouble for you if you can’t let go of your hand.

The best hands here are those that contain four broadway cards and are double suited. These give you nut straights and very strong flushes. Not to forget, two Royal Flush Draws!

General Guidelines

PLO is all about the nuts. Flopping this is hard, but at least make sure you can draw to it by the river! Here are some pointers to what hands stand a chance:

-          Only play the biggest pairs, and with help from other cards.

-          Double suited is the way to go.

-          Be careful with bottom-end straight (draws).

-          Two pair is weak, avoid big pots.

I’ll be writing some more about PLO later. I find it a very interesting game and there is a lot to say about it.

Hey,

I’m Niels and I’m the new addition to Team Madman. I’ve been playing poker casually since my 16^th, but only started playing regularly since last summer. The group of people around the Madman invited me to play with them on a regular basis and that’s when I started to take it more serious.

I mainly play No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha and feel pretty confident about my ability in both. Other variants I like to play are Omaha8 (or high/low) and Limit Hold’em. Even though I consider Stud-games to be my weakness, I also like to play H.O.R.S.E.

Since I think Stijn is doing a very good job writing about NLHE, I will indeed be filling the gap he left for PLO. I’ll start with some articles about basic PLO and move on from there.

I’ll also keep you updated on the poker-games I take part in, like TPC tomorrow. Tournaments aren’t my strong point, but I’m hoping for a good run.

Cheerz

Hi,

As you are reading this, you must have noticed the site underwent a serious face lift.

The old look just didn’t do it for me anymore and had always been a bit too heavy and “made” for my taste.
This new and sobre fresh look was especially designed for us by my dear friend Eddy, and I am most grateful for the effort he was willing to put in.
I hope you like this new “light” look as much as I do and that you enjoy the new feel of the site.

In other news, we have added a new face to our team as well.
When Michiel made the transition to MickeyCPoker (and we wish him all the best) he left a bit of an empty spot.
Luckily by that time I had already started behind the curtains to update the site and started planning on expanding team “MadMan”.

Niels Blommaert is probably the closest thing you can have to a prodigy in the very closed of group we have.
When you consider our team “as a whole” (MadManPoker, MickeyCPoker, The Social Geeks and all our “independents”) there has always been a few who dominate the group a little.
In a very short amount of time, Niels grew from a group member to a force that everybody should reckon with.
Especially in Omaha, I think he can put himself right next to any other player around us, and maybe in some aspects of the game, even above.

That does not mean Niels will only talk about Omaha, and I’m still not one to put a fixed topic on the people writing here, but I’m guessing it will he will fill the void where I humbly left it open.

In essence this means the look of the site will change once again.
I made the mistake with Michiel of granting him space to write his deepest thoughts on the game, but never put up a design that was to be compared with my own articles.
Niels will enjoy the luxury to have a “library” just like I do with the “Beyond the madness”-articles.

I will let Niels present his own “pseudonym” and the name under which his core writing will show on the site.

And I hope you will enjoy picking his mind as much as I do.

Nothing left for me to leave you to him, and untill next time, take care.

The Mad Man