WSOP PLO last night on ESPN

[mshalen]

I was going to post on the WPT forum but thought here is more appropriate.

When I first saw that ESPN would be running PLO I thought "hey maybe this will expose the game to more people and bring in some holdem addicts". After watching the coverage I can't believe that anyone would play PLO.

The commentary was just plain stupid and I had a hard time following the action. Talk about blowing an opportunity. My wife turned to me and said "you play that game? I can't figure it out" I think the general public now feels the same.

[nuclear500]

I don't think the best telecast could ever convert or "bring over" Hold'Em addicts. They have to discover the game on their own.

The game's simplicity in comparison to Hold 'Em is outweighed by the complexity of draws and odds that Hold 'Em simply does not have due to 2 cards vs 4 cards. Even the players at the table in the telecast looked a tad unsure at times. Its not as simple to quickly identify draws and outs when you have to consider the 6 card combination of 4 hole card.

I've got the nuts now, but wait, this card or that card or a diamond could come now that I look at the hole cards and I'm dead..

[Spellmen]

Oh the commentary. I love their surprise and disgust when someone folds an AK94 3 to a suit to a raise.

[Cleveland Guy]

The best was their utter disgust at Max for folding A8xx - to a board of A87 - 2 clubs.

Max had no clubs, and no straight draws. They yelled at him for folding, but even the odds didn't have him listed as a favorite.

[Acesover8s]

I've played some PLO with Pescatore and thought his play was very weak-tight. I also don't think this fold is automatic.

[Cleveland Guy]

okay- maybe not automatic - but hardly depolorable.

I do ask though - do you raise this hoping to take it down right there?

cause I can't think of a card on the turn, other than an Ace or 8 that id want to see

[Acesover8s]

No, its certainly not an earth-shattering fold. Its tough to answer the question without being at the table, having the history of hands with these guys on that day, and most importantly knowing the stack sizes. I don't recall the positions either.

Generally I would raise right there in a tournament situation.

[FeliciaLee]

[ QUOTE ]
I've played some PLO with Pescatore and thought his play was very weak-tight. I also don't think this fold is automatic.

[/ QUOTE ]
I missed the first day of this tourney. I read the online reports all afternoon as Max got farther and farther.

Once, he got down to about 5k when the average was maybe 30k. I was worried he was going to bubble, but he doubled through a couple of times and was right back in the game.

On the second day, I drove up to watch him. He was pretty nervous. He told me he'd just started getting into PLO. Since he had a sponsor, now he was able to enter all of those events that he had little experience playing, and weren't before worth entering.

I watched as they went from deep into the money until they got a final table set. Max ranged in stack size, and had some tough opponents. He was glad to have someone cheering him on, I'm sure.

If I remember correctly, he had a rough table. Erik Seidel, Chris Ferguson, Dave Colclough.

He did make it to the final table, and went home to rest.

I watched him the next day until he busted out. He said he never really got anything going on at the final table, and that Josh really dominated play there. He finally took a chance with those queens, but Josh had so many chips that calling with the ace and low cards wasn't a risk for him.

If he did seem weak/tight, then I think that might bode well for his future, since this was his first cash in PLO, first big buy-in, and Mason has always asserted that weak/tight players have the best chance of becoming WCP.

If you noticed, Max seemed to do very well this year at the series. I knew it was going to be his year, and told everyone to watch for him this year.

Although he had some huge personal issues going on at the time (sister just died of cancer, I got diagnosed with cancer, Charlie died of cancer during the series, a nephew of his died during the series unexpectedly), Max still cashed in SIX events! He wasn't even able to play in all of them, due to some of the personal problems he had, events overlapping, and making so many 2nd and 3rd days.

Also, the 10k PLO event, on July 2nd, he managed another cash, 13th place! And this was during one of the bleakest weeks in his life. He was unable to fly home to Italy for his nephew's funeral.

Max may be new to PLO tournament play, but he is definitely no one-hit wonder, and you will be seeing more of him in the future, IMO.

Felicia [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Acesover8s]

I played with Max in the 1500$ PLO event (which was after the televised event). He seemed like a nice guy, and I was concentrating my play on the large loose stacks at the table.

I ended up busting him when he limped on the button, the SB called, I checked my option with ATxx. The flop came ten high, it checked around. The turn was a ten. SB checked, I checked, Max bet the pot, SB folded and I set him all in.

He had very few chips left, and with how reluctant he was I put him on some kind of draw, figuring he wasn't sure if his outs were good or not. When he finally called, I was amazed to see he held a ten with other live cards.

He didn't improve and my ace kicker won the pot.

[Big Dave D]

[ QUOTE ]
weak/tight players have the best chance of becoming WCP

[/ QUOTE ]

I know we're on 2+2 Holy Ground but I just can't see this being true for Tourneys at all. And even less true for PLO.

gl

dd