PLO tournament fields offer some of poker's softest competition and fattest prize pools, yet Hold'em specialists consistently leave money on the table by treating the game as merely Hold'em with two extra cards. Two-time bracelet winner Dylan Weisman recently partnered with Brad Owen to identify and fix the biggest leaks Hold'em players bring into PLO tournaments.
The fundamental error stems from underestimating hand complexity. Four cards create exponentially more combinations than two cards, which means hand strength readings that work in Hold'em fail in PLO. Players misvalue drawing hands and overestimate the strength of top pairs. Positional awareness matters even more in PLO, yet many migrants play too wide from early position and fold too tight from late position.
Bet sizing represents another major mistake. Hold'em players often transplant their sizing strategies directly into PLO, where pot-sized betting carries different implications given the increased hand equity distribution. PLO demands tighter ranges in early position and demands recognizing that premium starting hands like double-suited broadway cards have far less advantage over weaker holdings than premium Hold'em hands do.
Weisman and Owen stress that studying PLO fundamentals separately, rather than assuming carryover from Hold'em, accelerates the learning curve. The soft fields reward players who make this adjustment quickly.