Starting a tournament with less than average stack in PLO

[miklcct]

I qualified for a PLO satellite tournament earlier today from a smaller satellite, but my starting stack was just 1/4 of the average (26 BB when the average is 100 BB). I didn't survive long in that tournament and soon there were only 2 people remaining well before the late-reg ended.

What I basically did was to wait for a premium and bet as much as I could, which held up but I still couldn't catch the average stack even after winning. Then the blinds increased again, I got only 15 BB left and I got a hand which I wanted to play after an opening, but my stack was so short that there was no room to play post-flop, and I went all-in pre-flop which didn't hold up, so I got busted.

How should I play PLO when my stack was just a fraction of the average?

 

[monkeytilter]

This is where PLO doesn't sit well in tournaments for me, when stacks get short it's a lot of luck (more so than hold'em as hand equities are so close preflop).

It sounds like you played ok, you just need to have hands hold up when you get it in.

At around 20BB you are looking for hands you can raise preflop and shove on the flop, ideally big pairs+, nothing too speculative as you aren't looking to "play the streets" and make a huge hand for a big pot, rather flopped top pair, over pair, high equity draw.

You don't have to be reckless and if a pot looks like it might go multiway you may be better off just waiting even with a decent pair, ideally you want a heads up pot - some tables are just not like that though, so you have to ride your luck!

"I got only 15 BB left and I got a hand which I wanted to play after an opening"
What hand did you end up going with? Hope it wasn't some thing like 9876ss, you are better off with KK32ns in these spots.