One thing I find interesting about poker is that many of the famous high stakes players pick Pot Limit Omaha as their game of choice. This is especially the case in internet poker where you’ll see a lot of big names like Tom Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey and llari Sahamies playing for pots worth $500,000 or more. So I’ve always wondered why many top players like to play PLO instead of the more popular Texas Hold’em.

Well after doing a little research, I’ve come to the conclusion that most top Hold’em pros can’t get high stakes action because others are reluctant to play them. And PLO is more of an international game, so great players from around the world are meeting in high stakes Omaha games.

Of course, the underlying factor in all of this is that PLO is a game that offers huge edges to the best players. And even though players get far less Omaha hands in per hour, they stand to make a lot more profit in this game by exploiting the edges. This is in great contrast to the fast-paced Hold’em where players try to nickel and dime each other by exploiting small edges.

Furthermore, there is a lot less variance in PLO than in Hold’em, so the luck factor is cut down for the bad players. In short, the skilled Omaha players will win out time and time again, whereas in Hold’em, success is measured over months and months of play.

However, this isn’t to say that the top players don’t suffer plenty of swings in PLO since edges become a lot smaller when the best players are involved. For evidence of this, all you have to do is look at how players like Dwan and Sahamies have million-dollar swings in a matter of months.