Pot Limit Omaha, or PLO for short, has become increasingly popular recently. Action-seeking players turn to PLO as Hold’em games can no longer offer the level of excitement they’re after.
Whatever your motivation, making that move is easier said than done. The PLO strategy differs greatly from that for No Limit Hold’em, and going into it unprepared is a surefire way to quickly decimate your bankroll.
Catering primarily to serious players, Upswing Poker has come up with a solution in the Advanced PLO Mastery course.
Created by Chris Wehner and Dylan Weisman, two experienced coaches and PLO players, this course provides everything required to become a winning player and hold your own even in the toughest of games.
In this review, we bring all the details you need to know. Keep reading to find out if this is the next step you need to take in your poker career.
Advanced PLO Mastery Quick Overview
This one ticks all the boxes if you are in the market for a comprehensive and detailed PLO strategy course. It leaves no stone unturned and takes you on a sometimes difficult but eventually rewarding journey of discovering all the secrets of this popular poker variation.
The course is broken down into eight main sections, namely:
- Introduction
- Play by the streets (preflop, flop, turn, river)
- Centralized Spotlights
- Professional Fundamentals
- Examples (Play & Explains)
Wehner and Weisman take turns explaining different aspects of Pot Limit Omaha, with dozens of hours of video lessons at your disposal.
Like most Upswing Poker courses, this one is heavily GTO-oriented, which means that the bulk of explanations revolves around solutions provided by MonkerSolver.
There is a lot of “math talk” in there, and, as you could guess from the name, Advanced PLO Mastery isn’t targeting beginners.
If you’ve just taken up the game and want to learn fundamentals, I suggest a lighter course to get you going. This one is better suited for players who already have a solid experience in this game and are looking to compete at the highest level.
Keeping up with the lessons, especially as the course goes deeper into the game theory, can be quite difficult for a beginner, so you probably won’t be getting your money’s worth, despite the quality of information.
Breaking Down PLO Strategy One Street at the Time
After the introductory part, the Advanced PLO Strategy course moves straight to the meat and bones of it all. The next three sections break down the strategy for every individual street, i.e.:
- Preflop
- Flop
- Turn
- River
As you’d expect, the preflop section offers a lot of valuable information on poker hands selection, a very important part of any poker game, but especially in PLO, where having four cards to start with can be quite confusing for those transitioning from Hold’em.
However, this being an advanced PLO strategy course, not too much time is wasted on absolute basics. Instead, the next few lessons talk about crucial preflop scenarios, such as RFI, 3-bets and squeezes, 4-bets, and even 5-bets.
The preflop section is just a warm-up for what’s to come, though. Postflop play in PLO is very complicated as there are so many potential combinations across different boards. So, there is much more to worry about than in Hold’em, and Wiesman and Wehner do their best to cover every single aspect along the way.
Advanced PLO Strategy from Flop to River
The flop section of the course is split into two main and significantly distinct segments: single raised and 3-bet pots. Several major board textures organize strategic explanations for both sections, which is a very effective way of approaching things.
As complicated as the flop play may be in Pot Limit Omaha, the course creators have done an excellent job of breaking things down in the most understandable way.
After the first couple of lessons, you get a very good feel for it, and it helps you keep up with the content to come.
The turn section is less rigid in terms of structure. Some of the topics covered here are:
- Delayed c-bets & how to respond to them
- Turn probes
- Turn double barrels
By this point, Wehner and Weisman challenge the students to open their minds to new ideas and start thinking about hands from a broader perspective.
It’s not just about watching the materials presented but also about thinking about the ideas found inside and understanding them at a deeper level.
Finally, the river play section attempts to bring all these ideas together and give you a guide on how to make correct decisions on this final street.
It starts with general concepts about how to approach studying the river in PLO and then talks about specific spots such as checked-down pots and common lines like bet-check-bet.
Advanced PLO Mastery: Centralized Spotlights
The first few sections offer an extensive guide on PLO poker strategy that should help you thrive even in the toughest of games, but this Upswing course goes one step further with the Centralized Spotlights section.
In it, the coaches take a step back from a broad view and instead focus on some of the most important aspects and mistakes they’ve been able to single out from their extensive research and experience. The section discusses things such as:
- Usual preflop mistakes (with the focus on hand selection)
- Dispelling some outdated PLO strategy concepts and ideas
- MTT play – a few videos talking specifically about strategic adjustments required in PLO tournaments
After going through the main part of the Advanced PLO Strategy course, these videos make for a very nice addition. They help clarify some of the things from earlier lessons and reiterate some of the most important points.
Professional Fundamentals
The final theoretical section of the course is named “Professional Fundamentals,” and it’s not so much about Pot Limit Omaha strategy as it is about playing poker in general.
This section could be a mini-course for anyone playing or looking to play poker professionally.
The videos in this section talk about things like:
- Downswings
- Recency bias
- Tilt management
- Self-love and your connection to poker
All of these and other aspects of the game discussed by Weisman are crucial to your success. These lessons may be more important to some players than others, depending on your level of experience, but they are an excellent addition to the PLO Advanced Mastery course.
Hearing some thoughts and advice from professionals who have experienced all the different sides of pro-life can only help you on your journey.
On top of that, you will find great play & explain videos analyzing different situations and showing how to put your newly acquired knowledge to practice.
Summary: How Good Is PLO Advanced Mastery & Is It Worth Your Money?
So, is the PLO Advanced Strategy course the one you should buy, or should you keep looking for other options? It’s hard to give a definitive answer to this, but hopefully, this review will help you decide.
Upswings PLO Advanced Mastery is a high-level course requiring a lot of effort, so don’t expect to rush through the lessons and become the best PLO player overnight.
The concepts explained inside are often complicated and require a lot of focus and understanding. It won’t just happen on its own.
Given that the course comes with a pretty hefty price tag, you first need to decide if you’re ready for that kind of commitment.
If the answer is yes, then PLO Advanced Mastery is definitely worth it, so make sure to check it out.
It is one of the most extensive PLO strategy courses in the market and will teach you everything you need to know to succeed.
Once again, if you’re a beginner, don’t rush to buy this one. Start with a simpler PLO course to get your bearings and gain some experience first. This one will still be there for you when you’re ready for it.
All in all, this is a quality course, just like a majority of poker training courses from Upswing, and you can’t really go wrong with it.
The information contained inside is valuable, and the coaches presented it well. As long as you’re ready to set aside the required time and effort to get the most out of it, this will be one of the best investments you can make into your future as a PLO and a poker player in general!
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