How to Beat HU PLO Cash Games

When you play heads up PLO cash games you have to be two things. The first of those two things is completely nuts. You have to be crazy to play in these games because of the amount of action there is in them. You could win or lose fifteen to twenty buy-ins in a matter of a few hours. This is an extremely high variance game and is not for the faint of heart.  Also, since you can win or lose so much in a short period of time you need to have a sufficient bankroll. A sufficient bankroll for PLO games is over 100 buy-ins to the game. If you don’t have 100 buy-ins for heads up PLO games then you should move down in stakes. There are games at every limit and there is no reason to play too high if you cannot afford it. With the natural swings of the game you should be able to run a bankroll up very high in a short period of time if you are good enough. For an example, if you want to play in a $1/$2 blinds PLO game a standard buy-in is $200, you would want to have $200, 100 times which is $20,000. Some players will play with less buy-ins, but these are also the players who will ask you to loan them money when they play under rolled in games. To avoid risk, you need to have a sufficient bank account otherwise you are just wasting your time.

To beat heads up PLO cash games the main thing is patience, but also you need a ton of aggression. You need to be able to confidently put pot sized bets out every single hand. If you play every hand with nothing to lose, then you will have everything to gain. You cannot play with scared money in PLO games because you will get run over and knocked right off the table by your opponent. PLO games take just as much skill as no limit heads up cash games, but the difference is the variance in play. The variance in PLO games is much higher and you can go on super tilt very easily when jumping into these games. If you don’t have a stable mind, you most certainly will not be able to beat PLO heads up cash games.

In order to find a style that works for you in heads up PLO cash games, you need to identify what type of player is sitting across the table from you. Also, you need to think two steps ahead of your opponent at all times. First off, if you identify the player as an aggressive good player, you should not sit in any more hands against them. When you sit in against really tough aggressive opponents you could be in for a very long day of pot limit Omaha. The best opponents to sit in with are the loose aggressive real just over the top terrible players. These players are the ones you want to sit in against because you can easily amass all of their money in a short period of time. With the rapid swings of PLO and the detrimental nature of heads up games, you can find yourself in either a profitable spot or an unprofitable spot. It is up to you on which to choose. The last type of heads up player you will find not too often, but a decent amount of time in PLO heads up cash games is the passive and bad player. This player will fold tons of hands before the flop, and more or less wait you out. They will wait for you to make a mistake and once you do, they almost never capitalize on it. The passive player is terrible in all aspects of the word. You never want to play passive in heads up matches because you become predictable and will never get action when you have big hands. The only time to play passive is against a wildly aggressive player who will move all their chips in with any hand. Passive players are either small winners or big losers. The main difference is how they bet against opponents. The passive players almost never commit pot sized bets without monster and never continuation bet with nothing. Predictability defines passive players and to be successful in PLO heads up games you need to be unpredictable.