WPBT Circuit Event #9

Played in the WPBT PLO8 event at Full Tilt last night. Not much of a turnout. Only 18 showed up. Who knows if that was due to the game, the venue, or the schedule.

I did a bit of practicing with PLO8 in preparation, playing a couple cheap tournaments and some ring. Not that it did me much good. You'd think in a game where you get four cards you'd see a lot of decent starting hands. I sure didn't. Of course, I'm not positive I'd know a really good PLO8 starting hand if it slapped me upside the head. But I'm guessing two-suited hands like AK23 or AA23 would qualify.

I think I had A2 ONCE the entire tournament and the flop came all high on that hand. The one time I flopped the nut low I ended up all-in and lost chips because I had to split the split. From what I've read since, that's a rookie mistake, tossing lots of chips into a pot you have little chance of scooping and are likely to have to split your portion.

PLO8 is apparently about scooping and 3/4-ing, and playing only hands that have a good chance of doing one or the other. That might work in ring PLO8 when you can wait forever for such a hand, but in tournament play you don't have that luxury. So it would seem tournament PLO8 is mostly about getting lucky and somewhat about taking advantage of those who haven't a clue what they're doing.

Anyway, I finished 10th, just out of the points. I never had any delusions of winning money.

The next WPBT event is Razz, another game that seems to fall into the same category of getting lucky with the cards and taking advantage of the misguided. I suppose to some extent the same could be said for all forms of poker, though it seems that Hold'em allows for greater application of skill. Maybe that's just because I have a vague clue what I'm doing with Hold'em. With Razz and PLO8 I'm a fish in a very shallow, rapidly evaporating pond. Glub, glub.

Tonight is Mondays At The Hoy, PokerStars at 22:00 EDT. Password is hammer.