1st week of Pure PLO

Following on my last blog, I apologise it's been a while since the last update but having recently moved to Isle of Man and all the drama that goes with it took me a while to find the motivation (nevermind 'the time') to play.

I recently managed to get myself fixed up on Full Tilt Poker with a rakeback deal at 27% and the 100% match up bounus, which I plummed in £200 worth so around $325 in USDeeee's. Also FTP have just recently launched a new client which adds some much need game filters amongst other things to the lobby, as such they are offering a free $100 bonus which is released in one go and seems to be accumulating much faster than the normal bouns so that's cool.

Anyways onto the games. Needless to say this has been one of the most fustrating experiences in my days playing Internet Pokers. As followers of my blog will know, I like to employ the Slotboom short stack style in Full Ring PLO games, however this strategy is dependent on being able to trick aggressive players into creating big pots pre-flop versus your premium rundown hands (10,J,Q,K for example) or your strong AAxx combo's. Sadly it seems no one on FTP is willing to play ball. I've never played against such passive opponents before, it's really very confusing as to what they are thinking, never mind what they are holding!

My experience so far has been making small or pot sized raises preflop in order to build a pot, from experience this will result in getting usually 1 maybe 2 callers, however on FTP when someone raises they auto suspect you have AA or KK and you'll get lots and lots of callers. So you'll see the flop and miss with your AA/KK as you often will and they check around to you, you bet like you're supposed to and you'll very often get called and they drop the hammer on you on the turn.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm familiar with floating and do it often, but floating multiway is extremely advanced (if not stupid), so either I'm getting completely gamed or these guys are smoking something exotic. Not to mention I'm getting unlucky, the amount of times I'm getting fucked by gutshots and similarly tiny draws even makes this sensible mind question the integrity of the game on FTP..... well no, not really but I've done some major facepalms this week lol.

So, having played 2100 hands this week I'm $136 down (+$60 in accumulated bonuses) which is really depressing if i'm honest. I'm stuck with FTP at least for the time being whilst I at the very least attempt to nail this free $100 bouns, I'm hoping variance evens out a little or I start to figure out these guys, otherwise maybe I have to admit that I can't beat this game and look elsewhere.

Ciao darlings.