Congratulations to Steve Billirakis for winning the World Series of Poker Europe €5.3k Pot Limit Omaha Event, cashing €238,140.

Steve came into the final table second in chips, and although he was one of the favourites, the only American at the final table was still facing some steap competition from the likes of Eoghan O’Dea, Ramzi Jelassi and ofcourse chipleader Sam Trickett.

He started out the final table pretty slowly, but when five-handed he stepped it up. Eliminating Jerome Bradpiece shortly after a key hand were Billikaris’ A-A-10-7 held up against Bradpiece’s 6-6-2-2. When he took a 400k pot of Jelassi, he was the first player to cross the 1 million chipmark. Although Jelassi proved a tough opponent and was slowly gaining on Billikaris. A key hand settled the matter however: Billikaris insta-called Jelassi’s shove with Td-9d-8d-6s on a Ad-3c-2d flop, with Ah-As-9s-5c. Fading the diamond, he was heads-up with Michele Di Lauro, which ended quickly when Billikaris A-K-T-7 flopped two pair against Di Lauro’s Q-Q-7-6.

Congratulations Steve!

PAD PLO Cashgame ep. 2

This episode isn’t quite a amusing as the first one, but here are the highlights:

5:00 Brandom Adams overplays an overpair (again).
21:00 “Wut about me?”
23:00 Ivey plays a wrap very agressivily.
32:00 Great valuebet by Hastings.
35:00 Ever confused about what blockers are in PLO? Analyze this hand.

PAD PLO Cashgame ep. 3

This episode is all about Phil Ivey. Let’s some it up:

04:00 Ivey shows us how to play a small flush in a 3-way pot.
13:00 Ivey shows us how to play a hand with blockers.
15:00 Ivey shows us how to play a wrap, hit a miracle river and we see Dwan make a great fold.
18:00 Ivey shows us how NOT to play air.
24:00 Ivey shows us not even him can call with A-high in PLO.
37:00 Ivey shows us how to win a huge 3-way pot.

Awesome poker!

If you don’t want any spoilers, just watch the movie and don’t scroll down any further.

PAD PLO Cashgame ep. 1

The line-up is pretty sick: Brandom Adams, Patrick Antonius, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Brain Hastings and Phil Galfond. Andy Bloch is the guest commentator for these special episodes, and although I was pretty sceptical about this at first he really does a great job.

Here are some of the key hands of the first episode:
03:00 A classic example of why history between players plays such a huge role in any form of poker: Dwan calls a big bet on the river with a marginal holding.
04:00 Antonius wants a round of double stradles, sicko.
07:00 Brandon Adams makes a nice laydown.
12:00 Phil Galfond teaches us the art of the valuebet-bluff.
17:00 We already have our first all-in.
24:00 Ivey says he “really wants to gamble” and induces a pretty loose call by Antonius.
30:00 As we all know, aces can get you in some though spots in PLO.
34:00 Some great pot-control by Ivey with the second nuts.
40:00 Dwan makes a great valuebet, with quite a weak holding.

All in all very amusing first episode. But, don’t you think Brandon Adams looks really uncomfortable between these guys?

- How to get your money in good (by showing a bad example of it, lol).
- What hands to 3-bet pre-flop in position.
- Why you can play almost any hand on the button.
- What draws to play heads-up and why to fold them in a multi-way pot.

(Make sure to view this in HD- and fullscreen-mode, if you want to have an easier time making out the hole cards.)

Position is even more important then it is in a full ring game. In PLO position is ALWAYS very important, but the value of it goes way up when playing HU. Having the advantage of being last to act when playing HU gives you a lot of opportunities to take away pots when your opponent has shown weakness (although be cautious of him trapping you) and allows you to apply full pressure when you have a big draw.

The second thing you should be aware of when playing Heads-Up PLO is that hand ranking changes a bit: big pair hands go up in value and small-connection hands loose some equity. This is because you’re only playing versus one potential opponent, which makes it more likely that a big pair will be the best hand on the river.

And maybe most importantly, you have to able to cope with even more variance then in a full ring or shorthanded game. HU PLO is the most swingy game out there, so if you’re not tilt-prove this game might just not be for you.

This post will focus on the videos from a Pokerstars player named Theillegit.

Just like in the previous post, he might not be the best PLO player out there, but he does offer some great advice in this hour long sweat at a 1/2$ PLO table.

The rest of the movies can be find in the sidebar on Youtube itself. Enjoy!

This post will focus on the videos that are currently featured at Pokertube.com by a user called DaBeear.

Although he might not be the best PLO player out there, I do feel his guides have their merits. His way of thinking about hands is something every PLO player can learn from. His conclusions might sometimes be a bit off or his thinking might sometimes be a bit to much result orientated, I do think everybody will find his videos both useful and enjoyable to watch.

A collection of his best Pot Limit Omaha strategy videos:

PLO Strategy No.1 1/2
PLO Strategy No.1 2/2
PLO Strategy No.2 1/2
PLO Strategy No.2 2/2
PLO Strategy No.3 1/2
PLO Strategy No.3 2/2

At just before 9:30 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday night, Antonius and Isildur1 were in the middle of a three-table, $500/1,000 pot-limit Omaha match on Full Tilt Poker. On the “Royal Guard” table, Antonius had built up his stack to nearly $1.26 million from his initial $200,000 buy-in, while Isildur1 was sitting on $678,000. These two high-stakes rivals had already tangled in an $815,000 pot earlier in the evening (then the second-largest online pot ever), and many railbirds believed it was only a matter of time before they saw seven figures at stake on a single hand.

The pot was five-bet before the flop, Isildur1 opening for $3,000, Antonius three-betting to $9,000, Isildur1 repotting to $27,000, and Antonius coming back over the top for $81,000. Isildur1 called and they saw a {5-Clubs}{4-Spades}{2-Hearts}flop.

Antonius bet $91,000 into the $162,000 pot. After a little thought, Isildur1 repotted to $435,000, leaving himself only $162,473 behind. Antonius reraised to $773,000 and Isildur1 called off the rest of his stack, creating a $1,356,946 pot.

Antonius turned up {A-Hearts}{K-Hearts}{K-Spades}{3-Spades}, having flopped a wheel, while Isildur1 revealed {9-Spades}{8-Hearts}{7-Diamonds}{6-Diamonds} for a higher straight draw.

Although Antonius was a 55 percent favorite on the flop, the {5-Hearts} on the turn made him a more than 3-1 favorite over Isildur1. The river was the {9-Clubs} and Antonius raked in more than $1.35 million.

Source: Pokernews.com

Sick!

This is what happened:

After Dwan made the compulsory opening raise to $3,000 and Sahamies put in his required reraise to $9,000, Dwan pushed the action with a four-bet to $27,000. Sahamies called and they saw a flop of {J-Spades}{10-Hearts}{2-Spades}. Both players checked and the {7-Diamonds} landed on the turn. Sahamies led out for $54,000, Dwan raised to $216,000, and Sahamies moved in for his entire $324,463 stack. Dwan called, having him covered, and showed {Q-Spades}{10-Diamonds}{8-Spades}{5-Diamonds} for a queen-high flush draw, a gutshot straight draw, and a pair of tens. Sahamies was a 3-to-1 favorite, however, with {J-Diamonds}{9-Diamonds}{8-Clubs}{7-Spades} for a jack-high straight and two pair. The river improved Sahamies’ hand further, falling the {J-Clubs} to make him jacks full of sevens, good for the nearly $703,000 pot.

Source: Pokernews.com

And something’s telling me that this isn’t the end of the high stakes madness.

Calculating your equity is harder than in Hold’em. This is because your opponents can have blockers against your hand or re-draws. Blockers are cards that your opponent might be holding that you need to complete your hand. For example, if your drawing to the nut-flush but your opponent is holding two cards of that suit too, that’ll cost you two outs. Re-draws on the other hand mean that although you might hit your hand, your opponent still has a chance to improve and beat your made hand. For example, if your opponent flopped top-set, you made the nut-flush on the turn, he can still make a full-house on the river. Such a re-draw to a full house cuts your equity by 20%.

On the other hand, your hand can sometimes be stronger than you might expect at first, this is because back-door outs. On a rainbow flop, for example Ah Kd 3s, a hand like Jh Th 9d 8d has two back-door flush draws. A back-door flush draw usually improves your hand by 5%, and like in the case of this example your hand even improves by 10%.

This all might sound complicated, but actually there is an easy and quick way to calculate your equity when holding a drawing hand. You take your total number of outs and multiply them by 4 on the flop and 2 on the turn. However, we’ve just seen that because of re-draws and blocking cards that number can signigicantly drop. Because of this a nut-flush draw can drop from 45% to 25%. But, if you have some backdoor-outs that number can again increase to 30%.

So, determining your equity in PLO isn’t all that easy. It’s important to consider what your opponent might be holding and how that affects your outs and chance of winning the pot.