Adjusting to weird blind structure and table size

[chinz]

Simple question:
Ongame's shorthanded games are 5-handed and blinds in PLO are even (eg. PLO100 is $1/$1).

Does anybody have any idea, how much this should affect our preflop ranges? Is playing something like 30 VPIP too tight for this structure?

Avarage VPIP on PLO1k games seem to be around 45-60, so it certainly looks like a lot of good regulars are playing very loose (or 1k games are a donkfest, that's also possible! ). I'm just wondering if it's as important at smaller stakes, or would you still be somewhat nutpeddling, with around 30/22 stats?

[Daverer]

Hey Chinz, I'm no where near as experienced as you, but here's what occurs to me anyway

If you think you can outplay your opponents postflop, you can enter masses of pots and just see what comes. I don't know about a lot of extra preflop raising - having the initiative is not as much of an advantage as it is in holdem, but getting involved cheaply, in position, with marginal preflop holdings is def valid - depends how deep you are I guess whether you need to build the pot preflop, main goal is that you can get their stack in with 3 (or 2.5) more bets when you hit. Having said that, I wouldn't change your normal play too dramatically all of a sudden, just start steadily opening up your ranges until you find the optimum for you.

It occurs to me that you can look at this $1/$1 structure as a $0.5/$1 game where you're forced to complete your SB. That and the 5 handedness is probably going to encourage your opponents to play more hands from out of position, and my guess is you can give yourself a built-in advantage by skewing your action to the later positions - don't get tempted to overplay your SB just because you have to pay it and you'll automatically play more hands in position than your opponents do, giving you an automatic edge.