Caterina

Can't give you rules of thumb. Outside of the std opens (all ABBX type hands), upswings free preflop charts list (AT)(63) and (AT)83 as worst opens (using a 2000plo monker solution).
Personally open a lot tighter than that, especially if the BTN is either loose or 3bet happy. Maybe something like suited ABxx, where xx is not 2,3 or 4 and xx provides at least some connectivity.

I'm working on the same topic. I can't afford monker and don't have odds oracle. I'm using upswings free preflop charts to get an idea of solver ranges. I also think, it's stupid that the videos tell you to play a GTO range discarding some opens, but doesn't really tell you, what that baseline GTO range looks like.

Anyways: One hand that came up for me, was (A5)(84) UTG. Extrapolating from the charts this should be a GTO open.
I play 5PLO and in this particular game had 2 VIP recs behind me, aswell as another passive rec. I normally fold these, because of the topgap.
Playing around with PPT, this hand doesn't push equity against even very wide ranges headsup and only has a tiny equity edge in multiway pots. However, when I changed the hand to (A4)(87) it did actually perform worse in the same sims. No idea why.

Long story short: Is this an open, when the chance that everybody folds is approximately 5,6%?

Day 2
Dear Diary, today I went on Monkey Tilt so overly tilting that even tilted Tiltmonkeys would tilt.
This is my result for the day

and even though it has been a weird up and down ride, I'm somewhat happy. All hands were played at 2PLOz.
Since my focus is on preflop, I had the idea of quickly assessing every hand before playing. Something like KKT8r is a KKxx rainbow hand, it is a GTO 1$/2$ RFI from UTG, so it's a snapopen on the BTN, where I'm currently or
A(QJ)7: his is an ABBXss type of hand and a GTO 1$/2$ RFI from UTG. The worst open from this type would be A(JT)7. However, I will fold it pre being UTG, because I have way too many loose players behind me and also more rake to pay.
I kept this up for the full 45 minutes and was happy with the results. (Made only 4 "mistakes" in 286 hands).

Second session quickly went downhill. First I made a couple of bad calls, completly in line with my already mentioned leak. Calling, even though I know I'm most of the time beat and don't have enough equity vs their range. I always get angry about my own mistakes instead of looking forward.
Whilst already being somewhat fragile, I encountered a new player in the pool, who was either a very good LAG that didn't belong there or a maniac on a heater, I don't know. I just know he tilted me off the records. It's something about this guy betting pot in every situation on every flop and me not hitting anything for the life of it. It's so hard to make a hand, that can call down 3 PSBs. It makes me feel helpless and run over.
Being on tilt didn't improve my play at all, I converted quickly into the Maniac version of myself and spewed off 5 BIs to random people, before taking a shower.
The good thing is: While showering I calmed myself and I managed to get back into playing somewhat decent.

I have watched Flop Strategy 1 and Flop Strategy 2 and try to implement the mentioned ideas into my game. I like these type of videos much better than all the "solver does this, solver does that" type of strategies. The video was about cbetting, but I took the liberty to use it for check/raising aswell. Well only in situations, where I strongly suspect, that V. is overcbetting. So far this has worked 4/4 times.

Hand Review
Calling too much:
V. is superloose super passive (75/0.8/0) over 245 hands. Aside from that, J(J4)3 should not be opened UTG. Pretty sure, against a player this passive, I should simply fold river, even if every draw possible missed. I'm probably also supposed to check my straight for pot control, but I think that's just missing out on value.

Fancy play syndrome:
Honestly, I don't even know what was going though my head other than "this guy is weak". First I'm floating with little to no equity and then raising (with a cute sizing to boot) with little to no equity. facepalm...
V. is Laggy (33/22/17) over 98 hands with a 100%cbet stat (13 out of 13 times), that might have been it...

And many more obvious bad plays.

But also some hands, where I'm not so sure, for example this one:
Both UTG and BTN are extremly passive players, so I think my hand plays best as a bet/fold. On the river I intended to fold, but then decided that V. might sometimes be valuebetting worse. Maybe that's too optimistic.

And also a hand that I think, I played well. Don't want to be all negative here all the time. :)
V. has (36/19/12) over 127 hands.
I like my flopcheck (intention to call at this depth). Not sure about my turn bet, maybe I should check this too and I love my river check, expecting him to bet really often.

You make a very compelling case. Thanks!

Is there a reason you don't just specialize in one thing?

Hey, thanks for your interest! Yes, albeit not a good one.
I have trouble deciding for a particular game and am torn between several factors.

• My favourite game (as in fun to play) is O8, I would actually love to play NLO8, but there simply isn't enough games. There are quite some MTTs on stars, but I dislike having to make room for potentially 6+hours of constant play. (I'm also too nitty to succeed in turbo or hyperturbos)
• PLO is the next best thing, but to be honest, PLO is also pretty hard. I find it to be way easier to range myself and opponents, when there is only 2 cards instead of 4.
  I think, I haven't done enough theory to really know my absolute and relative handstrength in PLO in many situations and therefore am probably calling too much/light in certain situations, where I just believe to have the right equity, whereas folding or not betting in others, where I fail to realize that I'm ahead.
• NL. Originally I found it to be pretty boring and to be "unfair" in comparison to O8 for example, because everyone seemed to be playing since 2004, only I was the fish who joined late to the party. I don't think that anymore. Despites what everyone is saying, NL has more funplayers, simply because it has more players. It also has a lot less variance and constant all-ins and I think, in that regard it's kind of relaxing.
• Switching between the two game modes seems to be working quite nicely for now, because it keeps me from going on tilt or autopilot. But yeah, in the end, it's quite sad. My edge in PLO is simply not that great. It seems I make a lot of basic mistakes, that I don't do in NL. :(

So, played my 3 hours, this is the result (2 hours PLO, 1 hour NL-HE):

All in all I'm very displeased with the 2PLO results, Reviewing the session always makes me question the significance of all-in ev. For example in this hand:

V (64/18/24 over 321 hands). is somewhat shortstacked. I think KK is well ahead of his 24% 3bet range (and nobody ever folds to 4bets), so that I don't think, I made a mistake preflop. On the flop, I'm not so sure, as I didn't flop well and V. should have As he's never folding. Really, kinda lost, don't wanna give free cards and check/calling or check/folding seem ridiculous, too.

More important, I think, is the following hand. It's a prime example of stuff that I do wrong on a regular basis. I don't really have many stats on V. (only 42 hands) seems to be a little bit loose and judging from his showdowns, he likes to play pocketpairs - no matter the sidecards, inlcuding dealt trips.

Getting check/raised full pot at this limit is ~ 90% sets, 2% Two Pair,6% Big Draw and 2% random spazz. Knowing this, I have things going through my head, like:
I don't have odds to call with just my flushdraw and setouts, but simply folding otf is so weak, I'll go see a turn. If I hit, V. is NEVER folding a set or a draw, so at least I do have good implied odds. If I don't hit, I can fold to a PSB OTT (actually, maybe I should still call, unless turn pairs, because of IP, because V. has a hard time folding a set or flush). Anyways, instead of folding turn now, I call again, which is possibly not as terrible as I thought it was, due to implied odds and due to V. only betting 3/4 pot.I should have 10+ outs. Let's see the river.
And you know what, just off the 2+2= 4% off chance, that V. has a counterfit two pair or random spazz, I call, thinking something like "I should not be calling, I'm not good often enough, but ... how weak do I look, if I just fold my AA here?"
Who cares, how I look. I spend way too much time with my self esteem and ego issues. Besides nobody even knows my cards (I hope ^^)
sigh Maybe showing this here will help me overcome it.

My current shortterm goals:
a) Work on a "default" preflop range, both for NL, aswell as PLO. I use the free RFI preflop chart from upswing for PLO and the suggested ranges from the Grinder's Manual for NL. Adjusting to the circumstances as necessary. It's a little bit emberassing that I judged this from a case to case basis up until now, instead of having well defined ranges. But then again, comparing to the suggested charts, I'm not that far off. In general I think, preflop is my stronger suit. However, it's virtually impossible to analyse my own range in any gven spot, if I don't know which hands I'm actually playing.
b) Simply do less of the known issues.

The two NL sessions were quite easy, as in there were gigantic whales at the table and I got lucky in finding a hand, before they had lost all their money (eg. One player open shove 100BB with A5s).
The only thing, I'm sort of proud of is: In the first session I had a very active 3better behind me, it was super annoying and I realized the tilt coming up. Even though it hurt my ego a ton, I simply looked for a better table, since there wasn't even funplayers there.

Cheers :)