The Galfond Challenge So Far

The Galfond Challenge has, of course, been the greatest advocate of Galfond’s skill in the four-card game. Some of the world’s best players have taken on Galfond, only for luminaries such as Chance Kornuth, VeniVidi1993, Bill Perkins, ActionFreak and Brandon Adams to come up short. Galfond’s current opponent is Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates.

“I love any action I can get,” said Galfond “and Jungleman is as fun of an opponent as I can hope for. The perfect combination of toughness and excitement.”

That’s for sure. Cates is not only known for his off-the-felt antics but also his propensity to crush in mixed games, including PLO. He is the back-to-back winner of the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, after all.

It’s time to see if the falcon can survive the jungle

My #GalfondChallenge vs. @junglemandan finally begins!

We’ll play this Thurs-Sat from (roughly) 8am-Noon PT.

You’ll be able to catch me streaming on: https://t.co/95rCI2yhQt

Sub so you get alerted when we go live! pic.twitter.com/lUGQN6RvSj

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) January 30, 2023

Welp, I started out down $115,000 to @junglemandan today, feeling good about my play the whole time! (Sorry, @Farah_Galfond )

Managed to turn it around to finish down “only” $35,000.

Totals:
-$77,500
~2,250 hands

~5,250 hands left to play in this #GalfondChallenge.

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) February 4, 2023

Play PLO Within Your Means

Galfond’s knowledge of PLO is so vast, and he’s been playing the game so long. A lot of the mistakes players make can be eradicated by Galfond’s course but the variance is bigger in PLO, so a huge part of how someone moves from profitable to professional is how they can cope with those swings.

“I think it’s extremely important to play within your means,” Galfond says. “People try to do this, but I think they often fail to realize just how small they need to be playing to maximize their EV while minimizing their risk of ruin.”

Part of the This is PLO course teaches players to think like a solver rather than act on the basis of solver answers. But what does that mean in real terms for an intermediate player who is looking to become a crusher in Pot Limit Omaha? Humans aren’t computers.

“It’s impossible to memorize solver strategies. The only way to truly succeed in learning from solvers is to figure out how to transpose the solver outputs into human logic that they can digest and then draw on in any situation they find themselves in at the table.”

READ MORE: Bracelet Winner Nathan Gamble Reviews Galfond’s This is PLO

Heads-Up and Multi-Way Pots

Heads-up PLO hands vary hugely from multi-way, of course. Some of the easiest lessons to learn about the changes to make between hands boil down to a simple formula that Galfond is happy to crystallise. He goes into it in a lot more detail in his Run It Once Training course.

“In short, multiway pots create more incentives for small betting, including to clear up equity for pretty good hands.” He says. “In heads up pots, it’s more about getting the amount of money into the pot that your hand wants.”

Making a consistent profit in PLO is tough and this course really gets to the heart of this exciting variant of the game of poker – the ‘four card’ game so named because you receive four hole cards rather than two. What makes it so fascinating for Galfond is how a poker variant develops.

An Event Horizon for PLO

Galfond can see that PLO is approaching a kind of event horizon, a place where it cannot be improved further. So, what’s next for PLO?

“I think we’re already close to our final point of understanding in PLO, much like we are with cash game No Limit Hold’em,” says Galfond. “Solvers can tell us so much already, but the most successful people will be the ones who can extrapolate from what the solvers are telling us.”

Remembering His WSOP Bracelet Victory

Galfond has enjoyed a stellar career at the felt, winning three WSOP bracelets to date, two of them in Pot Limit Omaha. The first time he won a WSOP bracelet was in 2008, when he took down the $5,000 PLO event for over $817,000 – still Galfond’s biggest tournament cash. It’s not surprise that this is still his fondest memory playing the game live.

“It has to be the 2008 WSOP $5k PLO rebuy bracelet event that I won,” he agrees. “The table was star-studded, and it was my first big live poker score. And obviously, the bracelet meant a lot to me.”

Galfond is dead right when he says the final table was packed with stars. Players who made the final nine include Brian Rast, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, Johnny Chan and David Benyamine. It’s a huge honor to have put the hard work he’s put into PLO over the years into practice, and is closing in on $3 million at the live felt, let alone the millions he’s won online playing PLO.

This summer, Galfond will be heading back to Las Vegas in effort to put the nuggets of gold he teaches via his This is PLO course back into practice at the felt at the World Series of Poker.

“I’m not sure what this summer has in store for me yet, but I think I’ll likely play quite a bit!”

We can’t wait to see Phil Galfond back at the felt, online battling in the Galfond Challenge, and at the WSOP competing for gold again.

• 2 Tables of Heads Up Pot Limit Omaha
• Established number of hands (between 10,000-35,000 hands)
• Galfond would lay odds

Phil is a perfect 5-for-5 against some of the top players in the world including Venividi, ActionFreak, Chance Kornuth, Brandon Adams, and Dan “Jungleman” Cates. Combined, he is up over $1,500,000 from his opponents between the poker and side bets.

What does this have to do with learning the great game of Pot Limit Omaha? Simple: Phil has turned his hundreds of thousands of hands into a course for his Run It Once Training site called This Is PLO. In it you’ll reap the rewards of his having broken down thousands of hands and running them through the solver, then sitting down to record his thoughts of how to play PLO.

For all intents and purposes, there are two ways to learn any type of poker: through intuition and through studying. Intuition lends itself to watching others play, feeling out the right time to bluff, watching what hands win at showdown, and figuring out how to manipulate situations to your advantage at the table in order to win the most with your best hand and win when you have the worst of it. Many modern players, however, lean towards studying and putting in work away from the table in order to understand the fundamental mathematical reason and the why behind every decision at the table.

Who Should (and Shouldn’t) Buy the Course?

This Is PLO is for the truly serious poker player who wants to dig into the depths of the game and uncover every nuanced reason for being in Omaha. Phil has put together a course that covers over 15 different segments of the game tree. Each segment of the game tree is broken down into four different branches, and each branch has 3-5 separate leaves. If the conversation of a game tree and the multiple facets of decision that fall off it leaves you scratching your head then it’s recommended to look elsewhere to learn the fundamentals of PLO. A wonderful spot to start this journey is through the more beginner level PLO course From The Ground Up on RIO. But if you’re serious about taking your game to the next level, this is the course for you!

As you can see illustrated in the screenshot below, each tab is broken out into Dynamic Boards, Straight Boards, Flush Boards, and Paired Boards.

The first few videos within the course are all about the fundamentals and delve into the math behind calling ranges and Minimum Defense Frequencies required to call down your opponent based off their bet sizing. It is very dry, it is very much like a professor walking his class through a problem on the chalk board. It is what’s required to win.

You will need to break it up in to multiple sessions and probably go back and rewatch it to make sure it sinks in. This section of the course is also inherently necessary to understanding the base level strategy in order to lay the foundation for your entire game so that you don’t have any fundamental flaws or leaks. You are going to need to understand terms like MDF, 1-A, and also want to learn from a mathematical perspective. In short, you need to be prepared to go back to school and unlearn all of what you thought you knew about PLO.

This being said, Galfond actively encourages the student to learn from a solver, understand the whys and hows of what it recommends, and then understand how to incorporate it into your game and deviate accordingly. It’s more than plugging situations into a computer; it’s also understanding the information that comes out. Naturally, it would also be sensible to have some working knowledge of the Run It Once Vision GTO Trainer tool in order to get the most out of this course.

READ MORE: Vision GTO Training Tool Review

In order to deviate from proper play, you must first know what proper play is. Once you make your way out of the fundamentals there are still plenty more lessons to dive into and Phil uses real life examples of hands he played in his heads up matches and explains his reasoning behind each of his decisions. This, coupled with some solver work to help provide clarity to the fundamental approach, enables Phil to provide a holistic answer on how and why decisions are made in PLO. Sometimes he follows what a solver would do, while other times he walks his own path, but there is always a what and a why for the play at hand.

To paraphrase one segment of Galfond’s videos: I’ll simplify my strategy slightly against what a solver would do and it may lose EV but it’s easier to implement in the long run, which means it’s a better strategy as I can stick to it and know what I’m doing across all situations.

The vast majority of This Is PLO material is based off of Galfond’s Heads-Up play from his challenge but don’t let that dissuade you; all of the fundamentals crossover and will strengthen your PLO game no matter how many players are at the table. If that doesn’t convince you then keep in mind there is also a 6-Max section.

Galfond pairs up with Richard Gryko for 20 different videos covering the nuanced differences between playing PLO Heads-Up vs. multiway. Gryko has multiple solo videos where he breaks down the theory of different spots and, to quote a friend, “Richard Gryko is an amazing player but isn’t the best teacher”. The theory videos are akin to going back to college and trying to stay awake during your 9am Physics class taught by your least favorite professor.

They are extremely dense in knowledge and, as such, if you want to truly ingest the information, you’ll need to watch it multiple times. With that said, they are important and are going to help you build an overall strategy if you give them their due. Thankfully the other 75% of the 6-max coursework is much more palpable.

Phil sits alongside Grkyo and they banter back and forth about situations: what Phil would do, why he would do it, what the theory dictates, and what his counterpart actually did in reality. It helps drive home the concepts and the differences between the two worlds; as much as some players may buy this course and think they can skip all the Heads-Up content and dive solely into the 6-max videos, I would challenge this idea and suggest that it would be detrimental to their overall learning. Spend the time on all sections and allow this section to sharpen your overall game.

Clearly This Is PLO is for professionals who look to make their living by knowing how their four cards interact with their opponents ranges and a variety of board textures. If you play PLO as more than a passing fancy online at stakes of $2-5 or higher or live at $5-10 and above, you are doing yourself a disservice by not buying this course and putting in the hours away from the table to become the best version on yourself at the table. It is a time commitment, as well as a monetary commitment, but it will reap huge rewards in a very short time. Plainly speaking, the $2,499 you invest will be a distant memory as your hourly increases and pays for the course in all but a handful of sessions.

Phil Galfond’s This is PLO: Pros vs. Cons

Pros:

• Most knowledgeable coach in the entire world
• Extremely extensive material, hundreds of videos broken down in a comprehensive manner
• More material being uploaded regularly

Cons:

• Expensive
• Helps to have a basis in solvers to learn faster, mathematically based

Let’s be clear: Phil Galfond’s This Is PLO isn’t for the faint of heart. If you buy it then you’re committing to hundreds of hours of video content, thought experiments, and familiarization with new terms and concepts. You truly have to want to get better at your Pot Limit Omaha game and that isn’t for everyone. There is a purity to the game that will be stripped away and the notion that it’s “just a game that you can gamble on and get large amounts of chips in willy-nilly” will vanish. But then again, everyone around you will still have that notion and you’ll be left picking up the free money that sits down on a daily basis.

READ MORE: Phil Galfond Discusses This is PLO, His First Ever Full-Length Course for Run It Once

That latter bit has always been celebrated and admired in the poker world, but only recently has Galfond gone all-in with his talents to have created his first ever full-length course for Run It Once Training entitled This Is PLO.

For many serious poker players, just hearing that one of the game’s greatest-ever players and instructors created the new course was enough to have insta-registered. Others have chosen to wait on the sidelines a bit for some testimonials before deciding whether or not to take the plunge and purchase the course, the priciest one in the company’s history.

In this exclusive interview, we sat with Galfond himself to get a better understanding of the process that went into his creating This Is PLO and gain insight as to what guided his preparation and content production. We’ll also hear his true thoughts with regard to whom he feels would benefit most from the course and why it’s a worthwhile investment for players who want to improve their Pot Limit Omaha game.

While you’ve run one of poker’s best training sites for years and have created tons of videos and training content as an instructor, you’ve never created a full-length course of your own up until This is PLO. What drove you to want to do that in the first place?

I had the idea a long time ago! When I began my challenges, I immediately had the goal of creating a course out of the process. As the challenges played out, I realized that I didn’t have the time and capacity to create a course while I was playing them, so I put the idea on the back burner, never sure if I’d ever get around to it.

Prior to beginning to produce the videos, how did you decide how to structure the course’s content in the first place? Did you make any tweaks to your original structure along the way?

What stood out to me in the way that I learned and improved was how segmented the different board textures were. When I studied my delay c-bet strategy on paired boards, it had absolutely nothing to do with my delay c-bet strategy on unpaired flush boards, for example. So, I wanted a way to address every significant part of the game tree with that separation between board textures.

I wouldn’t say that I changed the plan once I started, but I did keep adding more and more videos than I expected to because I realized that there was more and more to cover.

For the most part, each of the course’s videos is approximately 20-30 minutes in length. How did you decide on that particular timeframe? About how long did it take to produce each video?

I aimed for 30 minutes a video, but because I separated things into so many different specific scenarios, occasionally the strategy for one of the spots was quite simple, especially once I simplified it from the solver outputs (which is a theme of my course), so I stopped short when I felt I’d be wasting students’ time reiterating the same points.

Some videos essentially took me just the recording time to create, while others took as many as 12 hours to plan and record.

How long did it take from initial conception and deciding you wanted to create this course until you released it in January? Did you sort of have a daily/weekly routine re: how much you worked on it, or was it more of a side project?

It took about four months. I decided to finally create the course because we (Run It Once Poker) were so occupied with the process of selling the company that I was unable to play any poker in between my obligations relating to that.

Essentially, I worked six days a week, 10 hours a day, making videos whenever I wasn’t actively working on RIO Poker deal responsibilities.  There were a few days that I recorded over 10 videos!

What would you say were some of the biggest challenges you faced during the creation of your course content?

The sheer number of videos was the hardest part. That, and perfectionism. I would have never made a course if I didn’t force myself to get comfortable with just going for it, rather than waiting around and planning until it was perfect.

A big part of the reason we launched it in ‘early access’ was because it made me comfortable getting the course nearly finished, knowing that if I have some new ideas to round it out, I can continue to add to it.

Content creators often have an inner circle of people to bounce their raw work off, hoping to get constructive feedback in order to polish the final product. Undoubtedly, This Is PLO is your magnum opus. With that said, are there any shout-outs you’d like to give to some folks who helped you refine it along the way (and in what way did those individuals help)?

The entire RIO team was extremely helpful in facilitating my ambitious timeline of getting all of the videos edited, prettying up my PowerPoint presentations, etc. I actually didn’t bounce my work off of anyone from a strategy perspective. I had a very clear vision in my mind for how I wanted to teach what I’d learned.

This Is PLO’s landing page’s states that: “This course is for anyone who wants to improve their winrate at Pot Limit Omaha or who wants to think about the game at a higher level” and “You should purchase this course if you’re looking to improve your PLO game or if you’re interested in seeing how Phil Galfond, one of the best PLO players of all time, thinks about the game.” Realistically speaking, I wouldn’t expect a low-stakes PLO grinder to be shelling out $1,500 for any training course. So let’s ask sort of an inverse question: what “categories” of PLO players are not yet ready for a course like this?

I honestly think that players at every level above “I don’t know what a wrap is” can learn from this course, but the two major questions they need to ask themselves are:

• Is improving my game going to be worth this cost given my current level, my ambitions in poker, and my bankroll.
• If Heads Up PLO isn’t my focus, am I willing to learn key concepts in large part through examples of Heads Up PLO, and apply them to 6-max or 9-handed PLO, or will I find it unmotivating to see so many examples of a format I don’t play?

If you haven’t checked out This is PLO yet, here’s what you can expect from @PhilGalfond‘s course. pic.twitter.com/2BGfO7VexR

— Run It Once Training (@RunItOnce) March 4, 2022

One of your stated goals with this course is for it to act as kind of a shortcut for serious students, saving them hundreds of hours of solver study by training them to “think like a solver” in the first place. Similarly, you aim for players to “not have to rely on charts or solver outputs”. Is that to say that even players who’ve NEVER used charts or solvers to study would be able to make the most of this course, or is some basic familiarity with charts and solvers a prerequisite?

I don’t think any familiarity with charts or solvers is necessary, but realistically speaking, if someone has no familiarity at all with solvers whatsoever, they’re likely not at a stage in their poker journey where it makes sense to spend this much on a course.

Some of the course’s content includes you explaining how to use Run It Once’s Vision GTO Trainer. Please explain how this fits hand-in-hand with the methodology and approach to PLO that you’re advocating, rather than being in contrast to it.

I think that learning from solvers is integral to becoming an elite poker player, but I don’t think one needs to spend countless hours trying to memorize solver outputs. Instead, they need to turn solver outputs into heuristics that can be applied to whatever situation they might find themselves in. In this course, I walk them through doing just that, and I share my conclusions from my own solver study.

That said, I still believe that anyone looking to be great should study with solver tools, even after taking my course. I just believe that most people spend too much time and energy on it because they’re doing it the wrong way.

At $1,499, This Is PLO is by far the most expensive course that Run It Once Training has ever offered, and word on the street is that nonetheless sales have done really well since you launched it (congrats!). You’ve said that “when broken down by the number of hours, it’s very little per hour” and it’s quite clear that a serious student prepared to make an investment like this will undoubtedly recoup it swiftly at the tables. With all that said, $1,499 is still the “early access” price, featuring a $1,000 discount. Could you give our readers some sort of estimate as to when you expect the course to be offered at its full price of $2,499?

I’m working hard now with the goal of putting the finishing touches on the course before the World Series of Poker begins. That said, I decided to work with others to add some more 6-max focused content to the course, which could take some time and will be not fully within my control.

While This Is PLO is still available at the “early access” price, you’ve been gathering feedback and suggestions to decide what areas of the game tree to go even more in-depth on. What’s the nature of the feedback you’ve been getting thus far?

The feedback has been great, and I haven’t been asked for as many specific additions as I expected to be. The main thing I’ve been learning, not as much from those who’ve bought the course, but from those considering it, is that people want to see more 6-max focused content. So that’s my plan!

I’ll also be adding session reviews against multiple challengers and some 4-bet pot videos, which I haven’t yet covered in the course.

We’ve released the first video of @PhilGalfond‘s This is PLO on YouTube. Check it out to discover the structure of the course and how Phil will help you maximize your EV. https://t.co/PxcXpnAtAK

— Run It Once Training (@RunItOnce) January 28, 2022

You’re 4-for-4 in Galfond Challenges, and you’ve said that playing in those challenges was one of the key ingredients in you coming up with the material for This Is PLO. People used to ask Doyle Brunson back in the day if he was worried about giving away too many of his secrets in Super System. By the same token, is there any part of you that’s just a little bit concerned that some fellow online crusher is only too happy to pay for this course and use your own skills to their benefit in a future Galfond Challenge?

I was a little bit concerned about that, yes, but I have been struggling to find more challengers lately. Maybe this will make some people confident enough to step into the arena with me!

As far as paying for the course, I noticed that you currently offer three options: Skrill, PayPal, and credit card. In the future, will someone be able to purchase this – and other Run It Once Training materials – directly from an account balance in the eventually-relaunched Run It Once Poker client? Will any other payment options be added in the future?

At this time, we plan to stick with those payment methods, but we always welcome suggestions from users who can’t find an option that suits them!

Poker is constantly evolving, and players are constantly improving. Why do you feel that This Is PLO will “stand the test of time” and remain a top-tier poker training tool for years to come?

I think that the core concepts taught in This Is PLO won’t be invalidated by future advancements in the game. While study tools will continue to progress in the years to come, today’s solvers give the “real answers.”  The advancements in the future of solver tools will mostly be related to speed, ease of use, and ease of drawing conclusions.

So, while I’m not saying that I’ll never progress as a PLO player, I do believe that I had all of the info that I needed to teach concepts that will stand the test of time.

In your public video on the This is PLO landing page, you say that the course is “the culmination of nearly two decades playing and teaching.” Does that mean it’ll take another 20 years until we see the next course by Phil Galfond?

Haha! Honestly, maybe. This was hard work!

In all seriousness, the response to This Is PLO has been phenomenal. It seems like the poker world can never get enough Phil Galfond. In the event you DO someday decide to create another full-length course, what niche of poker do you think it would most likely cover?

The only other course that interests me right now would be a beginner course… teaching concepts that I believe all poker players need to know and that few are taught from the start. Let me finish this one and take a little break before considering it, though.

Of your 33 HendonMob live tournament results, 26 are from the WSOP, with your last non-WSOP result being almost a decade ago. Your last live WSOP result is from 2019. You’ve obviously got your hands full running the business, being an active father and husband, continuing to build out This Is PLO, etc, but with your fire to play poker newly lit once again, can we expect you to return to the WSOP this summer? If so, will you be playing a full schedule or just focusing on PLO events to try and claim bracelet #4?

Great question that I honestly don’t know the answer to! My passion right now is playing heads-up matches, so if I were to find one that excited me, I would probably even skip the WSOP entirely for it.  That said, I haven’t played WSOP (other than 2-3 small online events) since before the pandemic, so I miss that a little bit, too.

I go into every summer with a plan, and I leave every summer having done something different. We’ll see!

I’ll likely continue to skip non-Vegas-based events, just because I prefer being home with my family.

That said, whether you’re making a transition or Pot Limit Omaha is the first poker variant you’ve tackled, there is one problem that comes up immediately. How to learn to play the game correctly and adopt profitable strategies?

Phil Galfond’s training site Run It Once (or RIO, for short) offers a vast, excellent selection of coaching videos to help you become a better PLO player. However, if you prefer a more hands-on approach, the RIO Vision GTO Trainer, created by Matthias Pum, is just the tool you need.

RIO Vision GTO Trainer in a Nutshell

As you’re probably aware, PLO can be a very complicated game. With four hole cards instead of two, the decision-making process becomes increasingly complex. It’s hard to know what the best course of action is in different spots.

RIO Vision GTO Trainer is designed to help you address these concerns and find answers to all the questions you may have.

The tool allows you to easily set up different post-flop scenarios for heads-up and six-max PLO spots at 50bb and 100bb. The interface is quite intuitive, although it may take you a little while to get used to it and learn how to use all the available functionalities.

This is a good thing, though, as it means that RIO Vision GTO Trainer is a powerful piece of software that lets you break down all the different spots to the minute detail and get the answer you’re looking for. Plus, there are great video tutorials to help you understand how to use all these different options (scroll down to check them out).

RIO Vision GTO Trainer is a poker solver tool, which means it will supply you with mathematically optimal solutions for various spots. It will tell you how often you should check or bet in a certain spot and how to size your bets depending on the board texture.

However, unlike many solvers out there, this one is actually quite easy and intuitive to use, and you don’t have to wait long to get your results. It comes with preloaded GTO solutions for over 420 board textures and 11,000+ ready-made solver solutions, which eliminates the problem of long loading times.

UPDATE July 2022: 5-Card PLO simulations are now included in the RIO Vision GTO Trainer.

We’ve officially added 5-card PLO simulations to our GTO Trainer, Vision.

Now, you’re able to learn the basics of 5-card PLO, study tricky spots, or test yourself against others in Streak mode.

For more information, check out our website! https://t.co/kX8JrugQY9 pic.twitter.com/0BAaqlbMHi

— Run It Once Training (@RunItOnce) June 30, 2022

How to Make the Most Out of RIO Vision GTO Trainer?

This tool is probably not the best fit for absolute PLO beginners, as you still need to have a solid grasp and understanding of the game to make the most out of all the capabilities this software has to offer. That said, you don’t have to be an expert to use it, either.

The interface is very user-friendly, so setting up the scenarios you want to look at is easy. On the right-hand side, there is a panel where you can apply additional filters to further narrow things down and only focus on the boards you’re interested in, allowing you to save a lot of time.

Because the solutions have been computed ahead of time, you don’t need a powerful computer to use this tool. It even works on your mobile phone, which is quite revolutionary for poker solvers.

Once you figure things out, RIO Vision GTO Trainer allows you to set up everything exactly the way you want it. Whether it’s a button vs. big blind spot or you want to look into playing from the button against an early position raiser, you can easily create and study different scenarios.

If you want to make your learning experience more engaging, there is also the Vision Streak Mode. Here, you need to come up with correct answers for various spots, collecting leaderboard points along the way, and unlocking access to more streaks.

Value for Money: Is Vision Trainer a Good Investment?

The poker community is divided into two major camps. There are those who swear by the solvers and those who think that this type of software shouldn’t be around in the first place. But no one is denying these programs can be very helpful in shaping up your game.

When it comes to RIO Vision GTO Trainer, this tool has a lot going for it. Unlike many solvers out there, it’s really fast and doesn’t require you to have a supercomputer to make the most out of it. It is geared more towards an average PLO player looking to get better than someone already on a very high level.

As such, it is definitely a good buy for anyone looking for a tool they can use without much hassle. At under $100/month for the 6-max or the HU version (you can also get the package deal for under $150/month), it is great value for money even if you play at very low stakes.

Choosing an annual plan saves you 25% off the RIO Vision GTO Trainer monthly price

Of course, like all tools of this type, it won’t do the work for you. To get the highest value out of the software, you’ll need to spend the time analyzing hands, looking into GTO solutions, and understanding how these spots are solved. It’s impossible to memorize every single situation, but, with time, you can develop a very good feeling for “what a computer would do” in a certain spot.

All in all, if you’re serious about shaping up your PLO game, this tool will 100% help you on your journey. You’ll still need other resources to get there, but this is one that you can get for a very fair price and have handy whenever you feel like putting in some study time.

BONUS: Check out a the additional videos below, where Vision creator Matthias Pum guides you through the tool’s numerous various functionalities, including:

• Changing positions and flop texture
• Comparing our actions on different boards
• Introduction to practice mode
• Detailed practice mode overview
• Practicing with the frequency trainer
• Isolating specific hand categories
• Turn analysis in practice mode
• Exporting ranges with AutoHotkey
• River custom mode analysis
• Preflop custom mode analysis
• Analyzing rivers with MonkerSolver Free
• Saving and linking from custom preflop spots

In this section, we’ll be covering the following 10 games: Pot Limit Omaha, Omaha 8 or Better, Pot Limit Omaha 8 or Better, Big O, Limit Omaha, Double Board Omaha, Short Deck, Courchevel, Drawmaha, and S.H.O.P. (a.k.a., S.O.H.E.)

Also, be sure to check out our other Mixed Games Poker Guide articles on Stud Games and Draw Games.

THE OMAHA FAMILY

Omaha almost needs it’s own section among flop games since there are so many varieties. So, we’ll be treating it as such, with the two most popular versions, Pot Limit Omaha and Omaha 8 or Better getting the majority of the stroke, with all its variations following.

Pot Limit Omaha

After No Limit Hold ‘em, Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) is the most widespread game in poker rooms. If you ever feel like changing things up and taking a break from the 2-card game, PLO is a natural transition.

The rules are virtually identical to Hold ‘em, with the key difference of course being the four cards you are dealt instead of two. Players must use two (and only two) cards in their hand along with the five community cards to make their hand. That ace of spades in your hand along with the four spades on the board? Useless, except as a great bluff card! (More on that, below.)

The other key difference is that the maximum that can be bet on any street is the size of the pot (hence the name: Pot Limit Omaha), and that’s also the guideline for how to calculate pot odds, of course.

Other than that? Yup, same as Hold ‘em. That’s why there’s no need to be afraid of playing PLO. While strategies and hand strengths are impacted, the differences in the actual gameplay are quite minimal, and the added action and excitement provide a lot of appeal.

PLO Tip: Blockers, blockers, blockers!

Remember that ace of spades I just mentioned? Well, the concept of blockers really first gained steam from PLO before it became a part of No Limit Hold ‘em vernacular.

With wider ranges, and so many more possibilities to make hands based on your two extra hole cards, there is an added importance on making a truly premium hand. Small sets, low straights and weak flushes are all very vulnerable to being crushed by a player holding the nuts.

As such, if you hold the one key card that prevents your opponent from holding the nuts, who’s to say you don’t have the nuts?! If you have that nut card to the suit on a flush-y board, you can credibly represent holding that nut flush.

Bonus tip: Follow Joey Ingram on social media. There’s no bigger advocate for the “GREAT GAME OF POT LIMIT OMAHA”!

READ MORE: Interview with Joey Ingram

Limit Omaha 8 or Better

The next-most popular game in the Omaha family, Limit Omaha 8 or Better (O8) is a split pot game where players are also dealt four cards instead of two. At the conclusion of a hand, half the pot is awarded to the highest five-card hand, just like in Hold ‘em or Pot Limit Omaha, while half is also given to the lowest qualifying five card hand (the five cards must each be 8 or lower *better*). The goal, however, is to win both halves of the pot, known as “scooping”. If, however, there is no qualifying low hand, the best high hand is awarded the entire pot.

As in PLO, players must use two and only two of their cards at showdown for either side of the pot. For example, a player Holding A2KK on a board of 346KQ can use their two kings for the high, making three-of-a-kind, and then use their A2 to make 6432A for the nut low.

A player with A38K on a board of 2459K will use their A3 for both high and low, as along with the 245, they make a 5-high straight which is the nut high as well as the best possible low hand, a.k.a. the “wheel”.

“I have what’s known as the wheel. It’s got earthy tones a smooth draw and enough kick to win me the high and the low” Mike D #Rounders

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) September 22, 2013

O8 Tip: A2 is your best friend but…

As mentioned, the goal of split pot games is to win both halves of the pot. Well, there are many ways to do it, but a lot of them can also potentially get you in trouble. Not all low hands are created equal. However, A2 is essentially the low version of pocket aces in O8. Pretty much any starting hand containing A2 is playable. If connected with two other low cards like A235, or if the ace is suited, or paired with a high pair like A2KK, A2 has huge potential to scoop a pot for you.

Once the flop falls, however, things can change drastically. If you hold a relatively naked A2 like Ah2s7c9s and the flop comes with no cards 8 or lower, your hand is essentially useless, since a qualifying low hand won’t be possible.

Your A2 can also be counterfeited if an ace or deuce hits the board, and you don’t have other low cards as backup. A2QQ on a K32 flop has a big problem. Unless two more low cards fall, you won’t have a low, and even then, you could be beaten by a better low. If the board does run out K3247, you now lose to A5 and A6, since you only have 7432A. As for the queens, they lose to any king, so they’re in danger, too.

Love your A2 but know that sometimes you have to let that love go.

So, if PLO and Limit O8 are the Mama and Papa of Omaha games, lets check out some of their wacky kids…

Pot Limit Omaha 8 or Better

The least wacky variant, it’s exactly what it says. A merger of PLO and Omaha 8 or Better.

PLO8 is likely the next most well-known version of Omaha, but it is tough to find a regular game anywhere live. However, it is widely available online.

Hands that play well in Limit O8 also play well in Pot Limit O8, but the importance of having a good 2-way hand is magnified by the fact that the pots can get much larger with pot limit betting as opposed to limit.

As such, strong high hands and low hands with backup (A2 with another good low card) rise further in value. The ability to put more pressure on your opponents with larger bet sizing can put marginal and drawing hands in precarious situations.

Of note, there is also a No Limit version of O8 online (NLO8), that is quite popular. The game structure is the same as limit or pot limit, but the betting is No Limit.

PLO8 Tip: Don’t splash around with marginal low holdings

If you’re playing hands with low possibilities, make sure they’re good low possibilities. Starting hands that aren’t particularly great either high or low are absolute death in PLO8. In low stakes mixed games, players will be splashing around with all kinds of hands, even in the big bet games. It’s crucial to be able to make the nuts or very close to the nuts against very wide ranges.

Starting hands like 4578 or 2489 can make both high and low hands, but neither are going to be particularly good, and will be susceptible to being beaten by players with better highs and lows. Plus, even if you do make a strong hand one way, it’s unlikely to be the best hand the other way. You’ll be putting in a bunch of money drawing live to only half the pot. In big bet variations of Omaha it’s critical that you play to scoop the whole pot.

Big O / Really Big O (5- and 6-Card Omaha)

Even more cards, even more fun!

5-card Omaha games are growing in popularity, basically because as much action as regular 4-card Omaha games provide, the action grows exponentially if you add an extra hole card (or two with 6-card Omaha).

I’ll put these variants together because they can be played high only or hi/lo (8 or Better), and either Limit or Pot Limit (or even No Limit, but it’s very rare).

The 5-card versions are available online as well as in more and more live venues. By contrast, 6-card games can be found sporadically online, and very sporadically live, but can be called in a mixed game.

Big O Tip: Make the nuts

This may sound obvious, but the more cards you are dealt the more possibilities you have to make some sort of hand. As such, players are more incentivized to play. And if that’s the case, and many pots will be multi-way as a result, It’s on you to not be caught with a marginal hand while one of those opponents is likely making the nuts.

For the same reasons that in PLO8 it’s critical to start with a hand that can scoop, It’s even truer in 5- or 6-card versions. Starting hands with plenty of cards working together will set you up nicely for winning big.

Limit Omaha (High only)

Now we’re getting rare. Regular 4-card Omaha in limit form is really tough to find because frankly, there’s just not as much skill in it, compared to other poker variants (although if you ask the folks playing the $4/8 game at Boulder Station in Las Vegas, they’ll tell you otherwise).

Much like Limit Hold ‘em, Limit Omaha is very much a math-based game, as the combination of four cards with a limit betting structure really limits creativity and offers great pot odds throughout a hand. There is virtually no bluffing, as pots will go multi-way, many until the river, in which case without holding the super nuts, someone will almost always have something that could draw out on you.

Limit Omaha Tip: Know when the odds aren’t in your favor

If you insist on playing this crapshoot of a game, you have to know when that draw of yours is in trouble. There will be many instances when you’ll be getting ridiculous pot odds to draw to… well, a lot of things. The key to this game is knowing when despite those odds, you’re drawing dead to a better version of your hand. A higher flush, a better full house, etc. Reverse implied odds are a danger of limit games with multiway pots going to the river.

When you do have the best hand, you need to bet and raise to at least make an attempt to thin the field and protect your hand from these draws. But, yah, good luck with that.

Double Board Omaha (High only)

If you’ve gotten this far in our guide, you may have detected that we’re not necessarily the biggest fans of Limit Omaha. However, throw an extra board out there, and you have arguably the most splashy, fun and ridiculous version of poker available in a mixed game!

The issues that hamper regular Limit Omaha are precisely what make Double Board Omaha great.

It’s almost as if the first person who created this game decided while playing Limit Omaha, “welp, since we’re going to play a high variance game that people aren’t going to fold much in, the hell with it; let’s spread a second board, and crank that variance up to 11!”

Somehow it worked, and it’s amazing.

Following the preflop betting, the dealer will spread two flops (followed by a round of betting), two turns (followed by a round of betting), and finally two rivers (followed by a final round of betting).

We’re not going to lie to you and give you any tips or poker strategy for playing this game. We’re sure they exist, but we don’t know it, and we’re just fine with that.

Generally speaking, this game is primarily played in low-stakes mixed games where the priority is having fun.

There will be plenty of other games in the mix that you may know better and can invoke strategy in.

Take the opportunity to go crazy and have some fun when this game gets called. Use your best poker instincts, and if that fails, make sure you have a beverage in front of you.

OTHER FLOP GAMES

Short Deck (a.k.a., 6+ Hold ‘em)

Short Deck was basically born from action players who got tired of folding trash hands and wanted a higher percentage of playable holdings. How to do that? Tighten the deck by removing all the 2s through 5s! So instead of a standard 52-card deck, there are now only 36 cards in play!

Like regular No Limit Hold ‘em, aces also play high and low, so in short deck they can act as a 5 to form a straight with 6789.

The differences don’t stop there. Though the game can be played with standard small and big blinds, Short Deck is mostly played with antes from all players, with an extra ante posted by the button that rotates clockwise around the table. Preflop action starts to the left of the button, with players having the option to fold, call, or raise, just as in other flop games.

Other differences come in the actual rank of hands. With four fewer cards of each suit available, flushes are now mathematically more difficult to make than full houses, so they are ranked higher. Three-of-a-kind is also more difficult to make than a straight. Most rooms still rank straights higher though, but it can vary from room to room.

Short Deck Tip: Know your preflop odds and bet sizing

If you watch the Triton Series Short Deck cash games and tournaments featuring some of the best players in the world, you’ll see that their preflop betting strategy is different from that of standard No Limit Hold ‘em. You’ll see a lot of limping as well as raise sizes that appear huge compared to the ante.

The caveat though is that with the shorter deck flops will almost always be ‘wet’, with your hand likely to connect with the board in some way. Games are also generally played 6-handed, so an initial limper will be getting 7:1 on the pot. Raises will appear on the larger side, usually starting at the size of the pot and often much larger.

A common mistake made by Short Deck newbies is raising in 2.5-3x increments of the button ante, and not factoring in the full amount of antes in the pot.

With a 1,000 chip ante in a 6-handed game, there will be 7,000 chips in the pot before any betting has taken place. A standard raise to the size of the pot would then be to 7,000. However, many new players will “raise” 3x the ante to 3,000 (roughly 43% of 7,000), merely building the pot size to 10,000 and still providing opponents excellent odds to continue with virtually any playable hand.

In a 6-handed No Limit Hold ‘em tournament with 500/1000 blinds and a 100 ante, with 2,100 in the pot prior to preflop betting, this would be like putting in 900 (roughly 43% of 2,100) to continue if that was possible.

Bottom line: if your intention is to raise, make sure you’re raising the correct amount.

Courchevel

Courchevel is a rarely-played but interesting and fun game, with elements of 5-card PLO (or Big O), with one key difference. Before any preflop betting, a community card known as a ‘spit’ card is dealt. Standard betting with a small and big blind then continues in a normal fashion preflop before the now 2-card flop is dealt and further betting commences. From there, the turn and river are also played as in a normal flop game.

Courchevel can be played as a high only or hi/lo split pot game.

Courchevel Tip: The spit card has a huge impact

As you might expect, with a community card revealed before any betting commences, that spit card will have a huge impact on your hand strength immediately.

Combined with the contents of your five hole cards (you can only use two of your hole cards to make your final five-card hand), you could be dealt trips, three to a nut flush, or three to a straight (and/or a key card to a wrap), all of which are very playable and can be bet aggressively.

However, when you don’t connect with the spit card, you must have a very strong hand outside of it to continue. Something along the lines of a strong starting hand in 5-card PLO. If you’re playing the game hi/lo, this is especially important. You’ll need a strong Big O starting hand, and if the spit card is 8 or lower and you don’t have the possibility to make a low hand, your hand is vulnerable. That’s because other players will already have 60% of a low, and you’ll very likely only be playing for half the pot.

Dra(w)maha

As the name suggests, Dra(w)maha (a consensus on the proper spelling of the game is tough to find) is a split pot game merging Draw (in several forms) with Omaha.

Blinds are posted as in Omaha, then players are dealt five cards, followed by a round of limit or pot limit betting. A flop is dealt, followed by another round of betting.

Following the flop betting, players will have the opportunity to discard any of their hole cards and draw new ones.

From there a turn card is dealt, followed by a round of betting, then a river card is dealt with a final round of betting.

In all variations of Dra(w)maha, half the pot goes to the player with the best Omaha hand, using two of their hole cards. The other half goes to the player with the best Draw hand in their hole cards.

Note that the Draw side can be played in a variety of ways, as 5-Card Draw high, as a 2-7 low hand, or as a 4-card Badugi hand, whichever is determined before the hands are dealt.

Dra(w)maha Tip: straights, two-pairs are good starting hands in standard Dra(w)maha

Straights and two-pair combos in the hole will give you a great chance at winning the Draw half of the pot. From there, you just have to hope for a board of community cards that will help you win the entire pot.

As with all split pot games, you should be playing to scoop, but if you have a virtual lock on half the pot with your draw hand, don’t jeopardize it by breaking (and drawing) in hopes of improving your Omaha hand. If you have a huge Omaha hand on the flop, keep the two cards you need for that and discard as many of the other three as you need to improve your draw hand.

S.H.O.P.

An acronym for “Simultaneous Hold’em and Omaha Play”, S.H.O.P. (also known as S.O.H.E.; simultaneous Omaha and Hold’em) combines elements of both. You’re dealt six cards and need to split your hand into a (2-card) Hold’em hand and a (4-card) Omaha High hand.

It’s a split pot game, with half the pot going to the best Hold’em hand and the other half of the pot going to the best Omaha High hand. The game can be played either Limit or Pot Limit, those some wacky home games also play it No Limit.

Other than that, the game proceeds exactly like either Hold’em or Omaha, as far as the betting and community cards dealt.

S.H.O.P. Tip: The split is key

While you can’t control the cards you’re dealt, you CAN control how strong your two hands are in this game.

As in all split pot games, you want to give yourself the best chance of scooping. Thus, knowing what you know about both Hold’em and Omaha, you ought to try and coordinate your two hands as best as possible such that if the right board comes you’ll be in prime position to take advantage.

If you only have a strong Hold’em or Omaha hand, it’s often still worth at least seeing the flop, but if you don’t connect you ought to muck. If you’re dealt a random collection of six cards that won’t give you much of a chance to with either half of the pot, your best move is folding preflop.

When it comes to poker, that’s no different. Along with studying and dedicating yourself more to your game of choice (for most, No Limit Hold ‘em), It’s also a great time to take up a new game… or 8, or 10.

Anyone who knows me knows I love the mixed games, and it thrilled me to see over 16,000 players kicking off the year in a small stakes 8-game tourney on PokerStars recently.

Mixed games are alive, well, and growing, and I would love to see them grow even more this year with new players.

As such, I wanted to put together a quick guide of beginners’ tips for the games in a standard 8- to 10-game mix.

This will consist of some very fundamental advice for the newest of players (and like any strategy advice in poker, there are always exceptions), but at the end of this guide I’ll also point you towards some excellent resources that will go far more in depth than I will.

First, a general rule for all games: know the basic rules of whatever you’re playing before you jump in. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen beginners playing 2-7 draw games like they’re Five Card Draw or Ace to Five. Know the fundamentals and give yourself a fighting chance.

And since No Limit Hold ‘em is in an 8-game mix, I’ll just leave this here: Enough with the open limping!

I’m not going to get into it all, but where we’re at in 2021 when it comes to No Limit Hold ‘em theory, it’s universal (outside of the highest levels) that open limping is just not a good play.

Okay, mini-rant over. I’ve gone and calmed down a bit (read: dusted off some bankroll money, lol) by playing some live dealer casino 2021. Now, let’s get to the good stuff!

Pot Limit Omaha: No danglers!

One of the appeals for new players to the great game of Pot Limit Omaha (said with Joey Ingram emphasis) is the action provided by having four hole cards instead of two. Twice the cards = twice the fun, right?

Well, if you’re playing with 3 cards while everyone else is playing with 4, you’re instantly at a huge disadvantage.

Got a random low card along with those 3 sweet broadway cards? That dangling low card instantly kills a good chunk of your equity. Barring a crazy rare runout giving you trips or better with that random dangler, your starting hand is seriously hampered.

Plain and simple, you’re given 4 cards. Make sure they all work together in some fashion.

Limit Hold ‘em: Bet and raise small pairs, don’t limp and call

The structure of the game may be the same, but the differences between Limit and No Limit Hold ‘em are huge.

One of the major ways in which the games diverge in strategic approach is how to play hands that in No Limit you’d be happy seeing flops with, and cashing in on implied odds. Well in Limit, that’s just not a thing. You do not want to go multiway with small pairs, especially out of position. You want to play pots heads up as much as possible, and not give the big blind incentive to see the flop. As such, you need to be raising and 3-betting small pairs preflop.

Postflop, having position is huge because just like in No Limit Hold ‘em, way more often than not, you won’t flop a set. Pairs are great, but they can still be vulnerable to whatever your opponent had preflop, given that despite your 3-bet, they’ll still be getting tremendous odds on a call.

Be ready to keep up the aggression, but with great odds both preflop and on the flop, your opponent will rarely fold, so have an idea of how they play, and whether or not you’ll be able to get them off their hand with sustained aggression, (especially on the turn, where the bigger bet sizes begin) if the board doesn’t run out in your favour.

Many times that small pair may end up the winner at showdown vs. missed draws or overcards that missed.

Omaha 8 or Better: No middle card garbage

Split pot games cause new players a lot more problems than they should.

Although there are plenty of ways to have chips pushed to you with high and low possibilities, the goal is to scoop the entire pot. Along with generally playing WAAAAAAY too many hands, far too often new players start with hands that look enticing but give them no shot at scooping.

Hands like 679J or JT65 may look promising, with plenty of straight-y possibilities (and flush potential if suited), they have huge potential for disaster.

In small stakes games, you’re very likely to find yourself in multiway situations postflop. If you make a straight, and a 3-flush hits the board, someone likely has you beat with a flush. Even if you have a flush, its vulnerable to better flushes, and above all, if a low comes on board it’s VERY likely your weak low won’t be good.

Hands like these leave you praying to win half the pot at best with marginal made hands. These are situations you want to avoid. Start with hands that have good potential to win you both halves of the pot. Will it mean you have to fold a lot? Yup, but I’m sure you’d rather keep your chips than give ’em away to strangers, right?

Hands with aces in them are off to a great start. Add a low card like a 2 or a 3, sprinkle in some high hand potential with big pairs, suitedness to the ace, or another wheel card (2,3,4,5), and you’ve got a recipe for success more often than not in Omaha 8 or Better.

Razz: You need 5 cards to make a winning hand

Ok, this may seem obvious as a basic rule of most poker games, including Razz, but the point I want to make here is that on 3rd (and 4th) street in Razz, you have an incomplete hand. As such, piling in multiple bets on these streets is generally not a good play.

Equities run much closer than you might expect in the early streets of Razz. Sure, you may have A23 vs. your opponent’s door card 8, or even a defended bring in, but only 60% of your hand is made. Piling in bets based on the “strength” of your hand this early is dangerous. Here come the broadway cards and a paired 3 the rest of the way (seriously… why does that always seem to happen?!). Now how does that A23 look?

If you catch good on 4th and your opponent(s) catch bad, then you can start applying pressure, but unless you have a notable advantage in the hand, piling in bets on early streets is a pitfall that beginners should avoid.

7 Card Stud: Do not double bet on 4th street

The Tournament Director’s Association (TDA) actually removed this archaic rule (when an open pair is shown on 4th street, that player has the option to make a double bet; e.g., In a 5-10 game, you can bet 10 instead of 5) recently for TDA-approved tournament play, but you may still find this option available in cash games and online.

Don’t do it!

In a game with no exposed cards, a big bet could still represent a bluff, but in stud, where your cards are right there for everyone to see, why in the world would you want to scare away your opponents with a big bet holding an open pair?! The minimum you’re representing is two pair, and only a comparable hand or huge draw can reasonably continue. As always, there could be rare exceptions, but in general it’s a terrible play.

Stud 8 or better: 9s, 10s, and high cards kill your starting hand

Okay, straight up: If you have a 9 or a 10 as your door card, unless you’re rolled up (3-of-a-kind on 3rd street), maybe have buried aces, or maybe, MAYBE have a 3-card straight flush, FOLD!

Again, there can be exceptions based on who your opponents are and your position in the hand, but in general 9s and 10s are the very worst cards you can have in your hand in Stud 8. Picture cards usually pose the same problem if they’re unpaired to start the hand.

Essentially if you have two babies and a high card banana to start, your hand is trash. Forget about thinking about “well I have two low cards, I could maybe make a low.” Great, but unless you also pair that high card, or run out a low straight or flush, you’re very unlikely to win both sides of the pot.

Just like in Omaha 8, scooping the pot is your goal. And like in many small stakes games, there are likely to be more multiway pots with opponents making these mistakes. As such, you need to be the player starting strong and giving yourself the best chance to win the entire pot with stronger starting hands.

Bonus tip: Razz hands pose equal danger. Not all 3-low-card starting hands are created equal. Hands like 863 and 752 that are unconnected and unsuited may win you the low, but are very unlikely to win you the high as well.

Always be playing to scoop the pot in split pot games.

2-7 Triple Draw: Don’t leave home without a deuce

This is an easy one. The game is deuce to seven triple draw. Not three to eight, not four to nine. Deuce to Seven.

Therefore, if your starting hand does not have a deuce in it, you begin at a huge disadvantage. Simply because without a deuce, the best hand you can make is 86543, the ninth-best hand possible. Furthermore, if you don’t have a deuce, and your opponents are competent, they are likely to have one, limiting your ability to catch one.

As always, there are some rare exceptions. If you are dealt a pat 8 without a deuce for example, you do not want to break this hand, as it is quite strong, and you should be playing it aggressively before the first draw. However, if you are drawing, you should have that deuce in your hand.

Imagine if you have 7543x. Sure you have a draw to #1, the best hand you can make, but you can only draw that deuce. If you draw an 8, you have a good hand (87543), but it’s only the 13th best hand possible and can easily be outdrawn, especially against multiple opponents.

If you have 7432x, you’re in much better shape because you can draw one of four 5s or one of four 6s to make #1 (75432), or #2 (76432), or an 8 to at least make the 10th best hand (87432).

Of any game, it can safely be argued that a deuce in 2-7 Triple Draw is the most powerful card relative to the game. Even more so than an ace in Omaha 8 or Stud 8.

No Limit 2-7 Single Draw: A pat jack is a favourite against any 1 card draw

While the goal of making as low a hand as possible is the same as in the limit triple draw version, the methods and criteria for a quality hand is significantly different in the no limit single draw version.

With only one draw, and no limit betting, hand strengths differ greatly versus in triple draw. With only one crack at improving your hand, your initial hand strength is hugely significant.

There is a lot more to the game than one might think, and the more you study and play, you’ll quickly discover this. But when it comes to that initial hand strength, any pat Jack, (even JT986) is a favorite over any drawing hand (even 7432x).

Think of it like a coin flip preflop in Hold ‘em. A pair is a slight favorite against two overcards. This is also the case with pat Jacks in 2-7 Single Draw. Therefore, if you are dealt a made hand Jack low or better, and you think your opponent will be drawing, you should be patting it (not drawing) and playing it aggressively before the draw.

Badugi: Build up! (start with lower cards)

Badugi plays identically to triple draw in structure and drawing rounds, but building your hand from your lowest cards up is even more important because the best 3-card hand will be the winner if no one has made a badugi.

Equities run far wider than in triple draw. Unsuited A23 and A34 may look very close, but the A23 is actually a near 4-to-1 favorite because the A34 must improve, while the A23 does not need to, yet still could.

The smoother (lower) you start, the better chance of winning you’ll have even if you don’t improve. If you have a 359 for example, the best hand you can make is a 9 badugi. If you don’t improve, any 3-card hand lower than a 9 beats you. Even if you do improve to a 9 badugi, there’s no guarantee it’ll be the best hand by the final draw if your opponent is drawing smoother than you.

Bottom line, start and go low! Not only is ace-deuce is a great start in Omaha 8, but also in Badugi!

Mixed game resources

Poker Books

Mastering Mixed Games – Dylan Linde

If I could only recommend one resource for both beginners to mixed games, and existing players looking to improve, it is Dylan Linde’s outstanding book. Linde provides both basic and advanced strategies for all games, including some of the more obscure ones you may only find in a live setting (Badeucy, Badacey). For under $40, The amount of information provided is invaluable.

A Poker Player’s Guide to Mixed Games – Ken Lo

This 2014 book may have flown under the radar, but it’s still available and an outstanding resource for both beginners and experienced players alike. It is incredibly thorough, going through the basics of each game before diving into deeper strategy. It’s actually the biggest book I have in my poker library at almost 700 pages, but not a page is wasted. Don’t let the size scare you. It’s well worth the read, and a great value also at under $40.

Super System 2 – multiple authors

This was the first book I read that really had multiple great chapters on mixed games. The original Super System does as well, but the information is now quite dated, while SS2 was written by more contemporary players (in 2005), such as Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Harman and Todd Brunson, and still holds up quite well. Their sections (Negreanu, 2-7 Triple Draw; Harman, Limit Hold ‘em; Brunson, Stud 8 or better) I can still highly recommend.

Finding a physical copy of SS2 can be a bit difficult, but the Kindle version is available for under $10.

Run it Once Elite membership

This is on the pricier end of the spectrum at just under $1000/yr, but with coaches like Chris George, George Danzer and online mixed game wizard Iteopepe88, along with the huge amount of training RIO provides on No Limit Hold ‘em and PLO, a RIO membership will truly get you elite level training for all games.

Run It Up WCOOP review with Jason Somerville and Daniel Negreanu

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. This is THE BEST free piece of content available on HORSE. In 2016, JCarver and DNegs sat down for a 4-hour video breakdown of Daniel’s WCOOP HORSE win. It’s awesome to hear Daniel go through his thoughts on the final table, and honestly, aside from the aforementioned Run It Once Elite content, its really the only place you can find a mixed game hand history review with an elite poker player. Oh, and have I mentioned that it’s FREE?!?!?

Twitch streams

Twitch has become a hugely popular source of poker entertainment, and learning. While the biggest streamers are generally No Limit Hold ‘em players, there are some streamers on the platform whose main focus is playing and growing mixed games. At the top of the list are PokerStars’ streamers Mason Pye (pyefacepoker), and Georgina James (GJReggie), along with Scott Kenyon (Pokerbrahs), who has crushed me both online and live, and is incredibly good at winning flips for table massages (but that’s another story).

Rec Poker PokerStars Home Games

The crew at Rec Poker are a great bunch of people, dedicated to growing poker for recreational players. Along with nightly No Limit Hold ‘em tournaments, a monthly series, and an international series, they run a monthly mixed game tournament series with a leaderboard and player of the year award. To prepare for the monthly mixed game, each Saturday they’ll run a warmup game of whichever the game of the month is.

It’s a great way to play and learn with a group of friendly folks, and as it’s a free home game, can be played from anywhere in the world, even the United States!

So be sure to check them out and jump on into the mixed games. You’ll find me there defending my Player of the Year title.

Good luck, and have fun in the ‘banana game’ streets!

via GIPHY

Omaha is an exciting game that offers much more action, and players aren’t as well-versed in PLO strategies as of yet. This opens up a world of new possibilities for those looking to keep making money playing poker.

At the same time, the game attracts many casual players looking to have some fun as many NLHE games lack action and are just not enough to keep their interest.

Whatever your reasons might be for considering Pot Limit Omaha, these three quick tips should help you make a smoother transition as a PLO beginner and protect you from making some costly mistakes during your initial attempts to crack the game.

1. Pre-flop hand selection is crucial in PLO

You may think that this goes without saying as the same principle applies to Hold’em. However, PLO poker games can make you feel like almost all hands are good enough to play as they all can flop big. The reality is, you should be much more careful about choosing which hands to get involved with before the flop.

Many PLO starting hands that may appear quite playable are, in fact, borderline or straight-up trash! You should stick to only strong hands when you’re just starting out. Otherwise, you’ll end up in many tough spots after the flop, and this will cost you a lot of money in the long run.

Generally speaking, the best starting hands in Omaha are the ones that can make the nuts, have all four cards working together (connected), and also have the potential to make flushes (suited).

Big pocket pairs like Aces and Kings with additional cards that can help you make straights and flushes are thus your best bet. Middle connectors and small pairs aren’t nearly as good as they will often make second-best hands, such as smaller straights, lower sets, etc. So if you’re a Pot Limit Omaha beginner you need to adhere to strict guidelines for your starting hand selection.

2. Avoid playing out of position as much possible

In poker, it is impossible to only play in position. You’ll have to play some PLO hands out of position when defending a big blind or when you’re dealt premium starting holdings under the gun.

Even so, you should do as much as you can to play more hands in position and expand your starting range on the button in PLO games.

Due to the nature of the game, in Omaha, being in position and having control over the betting can be even more important than holding good cards! You’ll have a much harder time realizing your equity out of position, and you’ll also lose more when you’re uncertain about the strength of your hand.

Always think about your relative position when deciding whether to play a particular hand or not. If you have a hand that you think is borderline, let position be the determining factor. If you want to expand your starting hand range, starting with your selection on the button is probably the best option.

3. Avoid drawing to non-nut hands

One of the biggest mistakes inexperienced PLO players make is paying draw to hands that don’t constitute the nuts. You don’t want to be calling big bets or pushing the action while trying to make a hand that is likely to be the second-best even if you do hit your best card out of the deck.

When it comes to drawing, try to stick to only the strongest of hands. Of course, it’s still fine to try and make a hand that’s not the absolute nuts if you can get there cheaply. But don’t get heavily involved in pots where your best option is to make a hand that can easily be behind. This once again draws importance to how selective you need to be with what PLO hands to play in the first place.

This scenario is most common with flushes. Players will draw to a King- or Queen-high flush, and when they finally make their hand, they’ll commit their entire stack, only to see another player was actually drawing to the nut flush.

It happens much more often than you think, especially if you are transitioning from NLHE, as flush-over-flush scenarios aren’t nearly as common in that game. So, in a nutshell, be careful!

The aforementioned three tips won’t make you an expert Pot Limit Omaha player, but they give you some solid fundamentals to get you started in the game at whatever casino you play poker at. As you play more, gather more experience, and learn other strategies, you’ll improve. Just don’t give up, and don’t let mistakes you make along the way frustrate you too much. There’s a LOT more variance in PLO than NLHE, after all. Just look at any missteps you might make as a part of the learning process and keep on grinding!

After close to 25,000 hands of intense €100/€200 heads-up Pot Limit Omaha action, the seesaw online poker battle between Phil Galfond and VeniVidi1993 came to a thrilling conclusion yesterday when Galfond clinched victory with just 75 hands left to be played in the first match of the Galfond Challenge.

In the two-and-a-half months it took to complete the match (January 22-April 12), the constantly evolving story has been chronicled extensively within poker media as well as by more mainstream media sites including Deadspin and Barstool Sports. In retrospect, especially with the heroic comeback story elements now fully realized, the highly competitive encounter presented a bright spot of positive coverage for our game so sorely in need of it.

Much like a studious poker player ought to reflect upon past sessions to learn and improve, now would seem the opportune moment to contemplate everything that’s gone down over the 25,000-hand-long saga and see what sort of long-term takeaways we can emerge with. After having a good long think on the matter, I came up with a list of 10 things poker fans and players can learn from the Galfond Challenge about poker, from Phil himself, about ourselves, and even about life in general.

As we all bask in the afterglow of what proved to be a riveting clash at the virtual felt, there are numerous lessons that will stick with us for a long time to come.

10. Non-Hold’em poker games have a great deal of unrealized marketing potential

The culmination of the heads-up match saw upwards of 22,000 people tuning in simultaneously via Twitch to witness the final hands. Unlike the vast majority of poker broadcasts we’ve seen in the last few years (both live and pre-recorded), however, this was a Pot Limit Omaha match, and many folks – even longtime poker lovers – were getting their first exposure to “the great game” of PLO. That’s a great thing!

Congrats to @PhilGalfond on his legendary comeback!!! Incredible last match – we had over 22,000+ people watching live on Twitch!!! Great to see the community get so hyped up over something positive taking place.

Full recap video tomorrow on my YT channel !!!

— Joey Ingram #passion (@Joeingram1) April 12, 2020

Now the caveats:

• 22,000 is not a “gigantic” number by any means. Contrary to the feeling one might get by scrolling through Poker Twitter, it’s not as though everyone and their grandmother was watching.
• Not having tuned in doesn’t mean that you don’t care about poker; it just means that something else (e.g., Netflix, family, exercise, sleep, etc.) won out in the battle for your attention. Perhaps poker will win next time.
• It having been Easter Sunday, with much of the worldwide poker-loving audience quarantined or at home, are certainly two X factors that need to be taken into account as far as viewing numbers.
• It’s not as though thousands upon thousands of poker fans were watching every single one of the 25,000 hands being played for 39 days. We’re reflecting on peak viewership, with the last couple hours of the final Day accounting for a massive swell versus average numbers.

All of those caveats notwithstanding, however, the fact that the match did get as large of an audience as it got points to something far greater than the game of Pot Limit Omaha. Sure, perhaps a no-limit Hold’em challenge may have gotten more viewers, but when a great story is being played out it almost doesn’t matter what poker variant is being played.

Switch out PLO for 2-7 Triple Draw, 7 Card Stud Hi-Low, or even Bagudi as the game of choice and you still have an amazing story. The upshot of all that is that while the story is being told, fans can get exposed to (and perhaps eventually begin playing) plenty of other non-Hold’em variants of poker.

9. Winners attract lots of fans

With respect and sincere apologies to VeniVidi1993, it’s quite something to see the level of excitement among poker fans that Phil Galfond was able to generate. As the first installment of the Galfond Challenge wore on, social media reaction gave the sense that poker fans were watching something akin to Tiger Woods approaching the 18th hole after mounting a late charge or Roger Federer holding match point after having warded off half a dozen of them from across the net.

It’s no stretch to make comparisons to those all-time greats in their sports when speaking of someone who has been at or near the top of the online poker game for more than a decade. A surefire future Poker Hall of Famer, Galfond attracted legions of fans (both old and new) to watch him ply his trade. It was frankly just a spectacle to behold.

#GalfondChallenge railbirds everywhere be like… pic.twitter.com/kke4E2K8Zt

— PocketFives (@PocketFives) April 1, 2020

8. People love great poker commentary

As enthralling as the matches have been, they were arguably only as enchanting as the broadcast commentators made them out to be. Go ahead, try watching a couple of the highlight clips below on mute. The experience is entirely different. Let’s never forget the power that great commentators have to make poker so incredibly engaging and craft a scintillating narrative. As much credit as they get, they need to get even more.

The monumental hand… @PhilGalfond has comeback from his €900k deficit and is now in the GREEN! #GalfondChallenge #BigPots pic.twitter.com/tVOpnXLZfd

— Run It Once Poker (@RunItOncePoker) April 2, 2020

I guess I’ll try, but I can’t list everyone.

Thank you @Stapes, @TuckonSports, and to SO many others who commentated and made the #GalfondChallenge streams awesome!

Thank you @Joeingram1 and everyone else who created content about the challenge for keeping people engaged.

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) April 12, 2020

7. Phil Galfond is as humble and down-to-earth as he is a great poker player

Considering the high stakes being played for and how wildly the pendulum swung throughout the match, any sort of emotional swings and changes in tone would be entirely understandable, even of the most cool, calm, and collected professional poker players. Maintaining impeccable composure, a sense of humor, an acute self-awareness, and incredible candor throughout; THAT — far more than any well-played hand of poker — is what makes Galfond so damn heroic and inspiring. I don’t ordinarily embed so many Tweets consecutively in my articles, but the chronology of Phil’s statements below simply demands it.

Got him right where I want him https://t.co/TFQUBDmIBZ

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) January 29, 2020

Another losing day for me in the first #GalfondChallenge.

A lot of you seem worried about me.
Please, don’t be. pic.twitter.com/OQc0OwRfkd

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) January 31, 2020

Unfortunately, my downswing in the first #GalfondChallenge has very much continued.

I’m taking a step back to do some thinking. Here’s an update, along with some more of my thoughts: pic.twitter.com/jIcN4Bc1Jz

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) February 11, 2020

Some random responses to things I’ve seen on Twitter relating to the #GalfondChallenge:

1. I appreciate those coming to my defense, but people saying I suck at poker doesn’t hurt my feelings whatsoever. Don’t worry about them.

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) February 13, 2020

I knew people were rooting for me but man, you all seem more excited than I am!

As @TuckonSports mentioned on the #GalfondChallenge broadcast, it’s ez to have a big winning day & envision it continuing.

My task is to temper my expectations, play my best, & see what happens.

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) March 5, 2020

It has been a little while and circumstances have changed. Here are some more of my thoughts on the first #GalfondChallenge match.

Back to the tables on Thursday! pic.twitter.com/FhIrzCdV19

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) March 17, 2020

It feels like everyone is fully expecting me to complete the comeback and win this challenge, so I’d just like to remind everyone that this isn’t a movie

I’ll give it my best shot.

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) March 29, 2020

I really, truly appreciate all the congratulations on the #GalfondChallenge comeback, but there won’t be any celebrating over here – I’ve got work to do.

3k hands left to play, and my job is to play them better than the last 22k.

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) April 7, 2020

Thank you to VeniVidi1993 for being a fierce competitor, honorable, super easy to schedule and work with, a great sport, and an awesome dude. We’ve already talked about this privately but you have all of my respect and I’m rooting for you vs. the rest of the world.

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) April 12, 2020

Honorable mention here also must go to VeniVidi1993. While preferring to remain anonymous, one can only imagine what things were like from his perspective. In an age where everyone has a social media platform at their fingertips, to remain publicly silent for months amidst a cacophony of noise is practically astonishing.

6. Don’t underestimate the power of a supportive partner

As much as it takes a special kind of brain wiring to be a professional poker player and view money in an entirely different and unconventional way, it takes a similar – if not greater – level of intestinal fortitude to be the life partner of said professional poker player. It would reason logically that the higher the stakes and the more dependents in question, the truer the aforementioned statement.

Making the first match of the Galfond Challenge that much more compelling to watch was the very public presence of Farah Galfond throughout the proceedings. While she undoubtedly understands an immense amount about the game of poker, it’s completely understandable that she’d have the entire array of emotions on display watching Phil’s (and by extension her own) fortunes fluctuate at the felt.

Resoluteness under that kind of pressure is very impressive, to say the least, and ought to be lauded no less. If all else were even in this epic match, we could perhaps point to Farah as what tipped the balance in Phil’s favor.

When I play 20NL and ask him would he 3bet T8s here he says “I’ll tell you after the hand.” I haven’t been able to get him to have a drink with me all year bc of his discipline for this challenge. He won’t say the f word (fuck, fucker, or fucking) …

— Farah Galfond (@Farah_Galfond) April 7, 2020

Is it weird I’m happier for @Farah_Galfond than @PhilGalfond? No disrespect to Phil. He’s a damn beast but fuckkkk….that was tough for ME to sweat. Can’t imagine being wifey, in the next room, watching alone. Pop a bottle Farrah. You earned it too. #SpousalSupport

— Danielle Andersen (@dmoongirl) April 12, 2020

May you all find your own version of @Farah_Galfond I’ve never been jealous of Phil until today. Not because he’s won, but because he’s found someone who has his back so fiercely.

— brentharrington (@BrentHarrington) April 13, 2020

5. Surround yourself with a great team of people

Phil is unquestionably the heart and soul of his Run It Once Poker and Run It Once Training brands, and serves as the frontman and main spokesperson for both of those businesses. To embark on the Galfond Challenge, while obviously a marketing initiative, meant that Phil would to a large degree be unavailable to fulfill his regular responsibilities and role with the companies.

Of course, competitive juices notwithstanding, this is a move Galfond would never have made if he didn’t feel that he had a highly competent, professional team in place to hold the reigns and keep things running smoothly while he focused on his match.

Thank you so much to the @RunItOncePoker team.

The poker community has no idea how hard you already worked and how much harder I made your lives with this challenge. I’m sorry! I hope everyone can get a little bit of rest before the next one starts!

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) April 12, 2020

There’s been a LOT going on at Run It Once over the last quarter, and having worked hand in hand with a few key members of the RIO Poker and RIO Training teams, I can personally vouch for their incredible professionalism as well. More power to them.

4. Online poker still has room to grow as a spectator sport

For years now there’s been a good deal of effort invested by the greater poker industry in marketing online poker via Twitch streams. There will always be plenty of folks building their own personal audiences through online poker play, but for every bunch of base hits the medium can still hit a home run once in a while.

When a company gets it all right — the right people, stakes, conditions, commentators, timing, etc. — the stage is set for fans to swarm and spectators to surge. In a world of content-hungry poker fans, the Galfond Challenge is a perfect marketing vehicle for online poker.

Thanks to everyone who watched the streams, whether you were rooting for me or not! (But especially those of you who were pulling for me )

I’m glad I could turn things around and put on a good show for you after that start!

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) April 12, 2020

The precedent has been set. Now it’s up to the industry to replicate and enhance what’s been proven to work. With the proliferation of esports and sports betting, it would seem that a trail has already been blazed towards the natural progression of what online poker could eventually become.

3. Taking breaks from poker is important

The first match of the Galfond Challenge featured 39 days of actual gameplay, taking place over two-and-a-half months. The individual sessions ranged in duration from 393-940 hands. Both players took breaks, with perhaps the most notable one being Galfond’s nearly month-long hiatus between Days 15 and 16.

With so much money at stake and facing a world-class opponent across the virtual felt, staying on one’s A-game is nothing absolutely critical. Surely both players also studied in between sessions and did their utmost to change up their game, adapt to each other’s playing styles, and gain an edge, however slight.

Staying sharp and making the right moves at the right times is only possible if you’re properly conditioned. Humans need breaks. If for whatever reason you feel you’re not on your A-game, a break is in order (even if it costs you a penalty, as stipulated in  the Challenge’s rules).

Reminder: I took time off after a rough stretch & had your support & respect for it.

Veni seems to be taking this run at least as well & he’s like a decade younger than me.

Feel free to root for me but win or lose, I hope Veni comes away from this w/ the respect he deserves. https://t.co/fe8fQXeml3

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) March 22, 2020

When a couple of the best online poker players take breaks to regroup, get their heads straight, and try to remain (or regain) laser-focus, the lessons are clear to every single other poker player out there. Plus, Phil giving a huge endorsement to Elliot Roe for his mental game assistance obviously means it’s something you might want to try as well if you’re aiming to climb to the highest levels the game has to offer.

Thank you to @ElliotRoe1 for keeping my mental game as on point as it possibly could have been during such a crazy ride. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Elliot was extremely generous with his time and support during this challenge.

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) April 12, 2020

2. Variance is real

While Galfond emerged victorious, his margin of victory after close to 25,000 hands of play was relatively small, indeed. Moreover, individual sessions hundreds of hands long ended with a player winning anywhere from €13.31-€267,949.70; quite the astonishing range!

At the highest levels of poker play, the difference in skill level among players is minuscule, and of course there’s a luck factor at play as well. Tomes have been written about the concept of variance, but a 25,000-hand sample can certainly help us visualize it.

As requested, graph of the #GalfondChallenge to date with red & blue lines added.

To call it an ugly start would be an understatement. Even if I were a 15bb/100 loser, a run this bad or worse (in AIEV) is ~5% likely.

It’s the perfect setup for an amazing comeback story! pic.twitter.com/d7Fww0bCgg

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) January 29, 2020

First day of positive AIEV in the #GalfondChallenge! Popping champagne at the Galfond house. pic.twitter.com/jpc8e9AVay

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) February 5, 2020

With a bit more demonstrative appreciation for variance, then, it behooves serious and studious poker players not to focus solely (or even at all!) on the results of the Galfond Challenge, but rather on the play and the process. If you’re able to do similar by examining your own play (and keep the concept of variance in mind), you’ll undoubtedly emerge the better player for it.

Focusing on the @PhilGalfond win is IMO missing the point. The #GalfondChallenge was a teaching in not being results oriented and to keep improving your game. One hand or even 25k is just but a sample.

Had Phil missed that last card draw out, he is still the same. How about you?

— Jesse May (@ScurrilousMay) April 13, 2020

1. There are plenty of great stories still to be told in poker

From a storytelling perspective, the first match of Galfond Challenge had it all: a hero, a villain (again, with sincere apologies to VeniVidi1993 for the depiction; there’s nothing “villainous” about you, of course) and hundreds of thousands of euros hanging in the balance. The ostensible obstacles of “ring rust” for Galfond to overcome and a mountain (of losses) to climb was reminiscent of a Rocky movie; heck we even had the proverbial Adrian sitting steadfastly on the sidelines!

While I’m trying not to get caught up in the narrative & the dream of a massive comeback, I can still see that win or lose, a cool story is unfolding with the #GalfondChallenge: Ex top player challenges world, loses $1m promptly, clearly washed up & beaten down… etc (1/3) https://t.co/oEP80cWZaC

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) March 18, 2020

To top it all off, the audience got treated to an epic Hollywood ending, as Lancelot finally slayed the dragon in the climactic scene.

How about that Galfond Challenge – epic finale. Had that Rail Heaven, WSOP Main FT feel to it. Incredible event for the community. Brought back that high stakes glory feel of the past for me – used to inspire me so much.

What did you guys think?

— Joey Ingram #passion (@Joeingram1) April 13, 2020

Engaged poker fans will always look back upon the first match in the Galfond Challenge with joy and wonderment. It was a brief moment in poker’s history where one of the game’s true champions captured lightning in a bottle to mount an impossible comeback towards a victory that would further cement his already stellar legacy.

Stories are what drives us. Stories are what made poker boom. Stories are what will continue to keep pushing poker forward long into the future.

Thus, the greatest takeaway for us poker fans is that the Galfond Challenge is yet another chapter in the vast book of poker stories yet to be told.

How utterly satisfying.

pic.twitter.com/16594nhEIu

— Farah Galfond (@Farah_Galfond) April 12, 2020