PLOrly?

What with having to play an impromptu round of my club's tennis tournament, attending a family get-together in honor of Father's Day and the rare occasion (since Nick Faldo's peak) of an English golfer being in a genuine position to win a Major going into the final round, I didn't get to play much poker yesterday. But once Lee Westwood's final putt on the 18th faded agonisingly across the green at around 2am my time, I fired up the .10/.25 PLO tables again and had another winning session of around 1/2 a buy-in. Most of the profit came courtesy of the ironically named "Shipithere"; firstly he banged all his chips in on the flop with what he thought was a massive draw (two small clubs for a flush draw and KQ for an open-ended straight), but the 15 outs he thought he had were actually only 5 outs because along with my overpair I had a better flush draw and was holding two of the aces that made outs for his straight. Pwned. He left the table and returned 30 minutes later in a different seat, and promptly slowplayed a flopped set allowing me to hit a gutshot draw on the turn for the nut broadway straight. I think I love him.

Session ended when I got check/minraise on the river making a very thin value bet that may have been a bad idea (I had flopped the nut flush but the board paired on the turn, and he ultimately showed down a boat). I'm still undecided whether my value bet was spewy or ok, I think I get paid off by smaller flushes... but maybe checking behind would have been better. And his min-raise was so little relative to the pot that I felt it was worth calling (people had been going broke with weak flushes at this table with regularity), but again, maybe it was wrong. After this hand I looked at the clock and realised it was just beginning to get light again and perhaps this was a sign to get to bed.

So, that makes 3 PLO sessions and 3 winning sessions. Which is utterly, utterly irrelevant, I know, because a $50 win followed by a $25 loss is better than two $10 wins. But when you are feeling your way in the game like I am, it is nice to have some sort of consistency to your success; it breeds more confidence that I am actually doing a few things right.