Which game is harder: PLO or No Limit Hold 'Em?
Hi everyone,
This topic came up at my 5/T game a while ago and I've been thinking about it on and off - is hold 'em harder than PLO? You have more information in PLO since you have more cards, and less info in hold 'em, which makes me think hold 'em is harder. But then again there's more you can do with that information in PLO, thus making it more complex.
Probably many bluff opportunities in both games, being balanced is important in both, but with more cards, could ranges be wider in PLO, thus making it harder to put your opponents on a hand?
PLO is higher variance as equities run closer, so having a tough mental game is important to handle the swings. In hold 'em, you might go hours without playing a significant pot and if you lose that one, it can take a while to make it back. So patience and mental game seem important in hold 'em. These are just some preliminary thoughts, I am interested in what the community thinks as well. Is the best plo player more skilled than the best hold 'em player?
Thanks,
DT
14 Replies
I was thinking about this in the shower the other week and realized one thing that makes PLO easier is that you are able to visualize and estimate your equity more easily and precisely than in hold ‘em because you have more info with the extra cards in your hand. In hold ‘em figuring out your equity is much more of a rough approximation imho.
Yep in shower, PLO is what I think about…
in a skill game against others how hard it is only comes down to how hard the competition is? and competition to be the best is a product of how many that strives to be the best. it is harder to become the best 100m sprinter in the world than the best pentathlon athlete even due to one is real easy to pick up and the other is more complex just because it is more people to beat out to be at the furthest end of the distribution
I actually feel like NL is harder to be a mega end boss because it’s generally so boring.
In PLO you have 6 ongoing NL spots that may or may not also be interconnected. This gives you more Plan Bs than NL can ever offer. Thus the 'pressure' of making decisions when you could be drawing thin or dead are lessoned drastically. Just that alone allows a Player to make decisions more freely since if they 'ran into it', and thus have 1-3 of their options crushed, they can still hold out hope for the rest of their combos. In NL if you are wrong, you're basically dead or drawing extremely thin.
I guess we need to define 'hard' and 'easy' .. Winning comes down to where you stand against your opponents. You can have sessions that lean either way.
If we are strictly talking about decision making .. then yes, PLO would have to be 'easier' since an experienced PLO Player can evaluate those 6 combos and determine how many of them continue to have value on the way to Showdown. GL
Losing at NLHE will hurt your head.
Losing at PLO will crush your soul.
Winning at NLHE will make you think you are a genius.
Winning at PLO will make you think you are a god.
If you touch either of them.. you will suffer.
:P GL!
I feel like PLO naturally has a better social aspect to it because people have much less trouble getting their money in even if they think they could be behind or bad, so it's easier to not take it as seriously as NL which creates a better atmosphere where people want to gamble. Even though PLO has way more variables so in that sense it's tougher but it still attracts fish
No limit due to the players understanding more strategy, the problem with PLO is that people apply NL concepts to it and get crushed.
Percentages do run closer together in PLO which can give the illusion to a bad player their plays aren't THAT bad, but having played both extensively, people still have no idea what they're doing in PLO, yes horrible players do exist in NL,but they are much fewer and obviously making horrendous plays in NL is just gonna have you crushed much sooner.
PLO is great .. GII last night on Flop with top straight and redraw against bottom straight and 5-high flush draw .. RIT
.. of course the flush hits twice. Player insists they can't fold there with 'any' straight.
.. and yes, they were felted less than two orbits later. GL
PLO is great .. GII last night on Flop with top straight and redraw against bottom straight and 5-high flush draw .. RIT
.. of course the flush hits twice. Player insists they can't fold there with 'any' straight.
.. and yes, they were felted less than two orbits later. GL
trust the poker gods and run it once!
PLO is great .. GII last night on Flop with top straight and redraw against bottom straight and 5-high flush draw .. RIT
.. of course the flush hits twice. Player insists they can't fold there with 'any' straight.
.. and yes, they were felted less than two orbits later. GL
No joke, this scenario has crushed more souls than losing itself - losing to a guy you know is just gonna give it away in less than an orbit, and almost never back to you lolo
Special super tilt brownie points if the game insta breaks as soon he/she/they dump it all
PLO is much cooler
I think theres elements of both games that can help with the other. Like i think plo makes me more of a flexible thinker in nlhe
in PLO there are a lot of spots in SRP where hands might seem like clear bets/checks in NLH but are actually the inverse in PLO. The combo selection is not really intuitive to a beginner trying to learn the game unless they've looked at solver
