PLO-Challenge

Welcome to my blog for Pot-Limit Omaha!

My name is David, born 1991 and I come from Austria. I'll document my career here in the format of a bankroll challenge to find out if the gods are in my favour. I play 6-max tables Cash-Game almost daily. I've been at the tables for over 10 years now and I pursued a professional PLO-career since 2017. Making entries here helps me to control my progress and hold myself accountable for longterm success.

You can follow my progress in the Bankroll Challenge 2024 (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=523980&page=158)

The first milestone is to have a bankroll of € 10.000,- by the end of 2024.

The second milestone is to have a bankroll of € 100.000,- by the end of 2026.

The final goal is to have a bankroll of € 1.000.000,- by the end of 2030.

Enjoy!

Outdated content since 2017:

Spoiler With the last money I got from my parents, I will stick to the BR-scheme above. At this time I have to cash out € 400 a month for the cost of living here in Hungary starting at the bottom PLO5. If I don't manage this, I'll go back to Vienna and work as a warehouse worker. As you can see, my prerequisites are very difficult, but since I have made the decision that I am going to never give up, I always know what to do in order to realize the dream of financial freedom.

Unfortunately, I never managed to achieve win rates well above break-even on Pokerstars Zoom. My All-Time Graph on Stars (2018 & 2019) is a frustrating downfall:

Things have been going much better since I switched poker sites, but I still haven't managed to maintain my bankroll. That´s why I can warn you, it is important to have a solid rhythm about your monthly cashouts, otherwise you will struggle as a fulltime profession al over longterm. Here you can see my all-time PLO graph (2020) that includes all hands ever played on Win2Day:

(https://ibb.co/nBVzfdj)

You can follow the status of my bankroll according to the weekly entry here: Get Rich or Die Tryin' BR-Challenge (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3164872#post3164872)

With multiple interruptions from 2021 to 2022 working either part time or suffering from inconsistent results now in 2023 after quitting another part-time job once more it looks like I make enough money on PLO50 to pay the bills and manage to save enough money (more about my saving plans later) in order to move up within a reasonable amount of time. At the moment, things are on wobbly legs but it looks like I can make a living by grinding low-stakes tables even in this high cost of living environment. The ultimate goal is one million US$ aka financial independence.

Every now and then I will post hands to discuss them in the forum, update my poker progress here in the blog, let you guys have insights into my private life, improvements of my poker knowledge and -understanding, work and studies, career process, planning, organization etc... feel free to post your thoughts.

Gl, have fun!

Best of luck -- I'll be following your progress in https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3164872#post3164872 as well.

Best of luck :gl:,

VS

Good luck with your project!

About these monthly cashouts: will the first one already cover September, or is there a grace period extending until October?

in, gl

Subbed, GL Sir

GL mate, sounds like a very stress full start. Get that mega heater going

I understand that it is a challenge, but given your cashgame graph (I don't know which limit)...

Don't you think it is a waste of time to start almost at the bottom?

Thank you all very much, I appreciate you support. It means a lot to me.

Originally posted by Rhodriguez

... Will the first already be for September or do you a grace period till October?

I´ll have a period of grace till October. Gladly.

Originally posted by najtreg12

I understand that it is a challenge, but given your cashgame graph (I don't know which limit)...

Don't you think it is a waste of time to start almost at the bottom?

The limits are mixed from PLO5, PLO10, PLO20 up to PLO50. The thing is, there is lack of traffic especially on PLO10 so I have to mix tables to get more volume. My winrate on PLO5 is awesome, but I spent way too much time there due to the cashouts:

(https://ibb.co/hHQXcdH)

But I tried to get up to PLO50 too hastily and crushed it. But my impression was that competition there is still incredible soft, so I am pretty confident, that I might be up again quickly by starting again from the bottom.

(https://ibb.co/y8RGW9m)

Nice upswing Week 1 so far. Managed it to climb up over € 100,- to grind PLO10 this week with relatively few hands (4 x 40min sessions per day), gonna have to mix it with PLO5 tables now though. I hope I can reach the € 200,- mark in like 5-10 days. Time pressure is really high. If I don´t get it to the 500,- by the end of the month, I will need some luck in September.

Now let´s come to my first theoretical case-study: Preflop-Play

Since I am studying the Jnandez preflop starting hand-charts for a long time now without making considerable progress, I once more started to make my own hand-charts. They are sorted by rank and are marked by their type of suitedness. In the left column I have a notation to memorize and at the right side I wrote in the syntax I can use for the ppt4-macros. I finished the first template. I will make them available to you guys if you are interested, those ranges are tighter and not congruent to GTO but they have a systematic approach in the way how hand components have been chosen.

(https://ibb.co/xqKBcwF)

(https://ibb.co/hVqZGLS)

It´s important to remind yourself to be aware what´s going on at the tables and avoid falling into an auto-pilot mode. Probably well known, I´d like to repeat some steps of my preflop thought-process, that improved my game:

Any limpers before us?

They might force us to tighten up our raising-range. Contrary to NLHE, where we usually brainlessly just iso-raise to steal the pot now or later on, in PLO it is more likely that multiple players will come along with close preflop Equities involved. Here we don´t want to build too many big pots with marginal starting hands and over-limping hands can be an option.

Who raised or reraised?

Loose open-raises are a source of considerable profit since they often call oop vs 3-bets and continue a weak playing style postflop. Villains´3-bets could be loose too and we might alter our 4-betting range. It is important to have an eye on those dynamics that might go on and which players fall out of line.

What stack-sizes are involved?

When there is no more or not much money left behind to play postflop raw -equity becomes more important and Short-stackers often force the money in which increases variance. We have to take care that in general big cards have better raw-equity so we prefer to play high pairs and abstain from low- to middling rundown-type of hands unless they are well connected and suited. If there are deep-stacked players around, we will have to take care even more of what our position on the flop will be and be more selective with our (re-)reraising ranges.

What is our position?

Different starting positions will define players´opening ranges. This basic fact will accompany us from begin to the showdown. Be aware in which position we will end up on the flop and which is our relative position in multiway pots that can be different from our absolute position. Position is a key information advantage on every street.

What might be the outcome of my preflop decision?

There might be blinds, that come along often, or weak players, that might come along in a flatted pot that´d otherwise fold against a 3-bet. Also be careful how aggressive players are 3-betting behind you, often there are opportunities you can trap-4bet or make some unconventional plays with the information you have about preflop tendencies.

CO is an insanely loose-aggressive player (95/75) that is basically openraising every hand. Furthermore we have an insanely loose-passive button (70/5) that is going to call many hands until there is a flop. Bare KKxx´s are actually not a 4-bet probably not even a 3-bet but here I decided to push as it turned out a 40% Equity Edge. The ranges involved could be loose enough that I still stacked off on a dangerous flop.

iPoker - €0.05 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

BTN: 53.2 BB

SB: 308.2 BB

BB: 167.2 BB

Hero (UTG): 100 BB

CO: 184.2 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has K♣ 9♣ K♠ 4♣

Hero raises to 3.4 BB, CO raises to 11.6 BB, BTN calls 11.6 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 47.8 BB, CO calls 36.2 BB, BTN calls 36.2 BB

Spoiler Flop: (144.8 BB, 3 players) A♣ 4♥ 5♠

Hero bets 52.2 BB, CO calls 52.2 BB, BTN calls 5.4 BB

Turn: (254.6 BB, 3 players) Q♠

River: (254.6 BB, 3 players) A♠

Hero shows K♣ 9♣ K♠ 4♣ (Two Pair, Aces and Kings)

Main Pot [161 BB]: (Pre 43%, Flop 54%, Turn 78%)

Side Pot#1 [93.6 BB]: (Pre 57%, Flop 73%, Turn 92%)

CO shows 2♣ T♣ 9♥ 6♥ (One Pair, Aces)

Main Pot [161 BB]: (Pre 34%, Flop 22%, Turn 8%)

Side Pot#1 [93.6 BB]: (Pre 43%, Flop 27%, Turn 8%)

BTN shows 3♠ J♣ 7♦ J♥ (Two Pair, Aces and Jacks)

Main Pot [161 BB]: (Pre 24%, Flop 24%, Turn 14%)

Hero wins 247 BB

With plenty of action preflop I was able to leverage nearly my whole stack into the pot preflop by 4-betting crap AAxx against 2 shortstackers. 50% Equity this time. Lucky runout postflop btw. ♦

iPoker - €0.05 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

Hero (BB): 100 BB

UTG: 310.8 BB

CO: 102.2 BB

BTN: 38.6 BB

SB: 37.8 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♣ A♥ 8♠ A♦

UTG raises to 3.4 BB, CO calls 3.4 BB, BTN raises to 15 BB, SB calls 14.6 BB, Hero raises to 66.8 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 23.6 BB, SB calls 22.8 BB

Spoiler Flop: (121.8 BB, 3 players) 3♥ 2♥ 6♥

Turn: (121.8 BB, 3 players) A♣

River: (121.8 BB, 3 players) 3♦

BTN shows J♠ J♦ K♦ 5♠ (Two Pair, Jacks and Threes)

Main Pot [120.2 BB]: (Pre 27%, Flop 1%, Turn 0%)

Side Pot#1 [1.6 BB]: (Pre 32%, Flop 6%, Turn 0%)

SB shows 5♣ 5♥ 9♥ A♠ (Flush, Nine High)

Main Pot [120.2 BB]: (Pre 23%, Flop 96%, Turn 75%)

Hero shows J♣ A♥ 8♠ A♦ (Full House, Aces full of Threes)

Main Pot [120.2 BB]: (Pre 49%, Flop 3%, Turn 25%)

Side Pot#1 [1.6 BB]: (Pre 68%, Flop 94%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 118.2 BB

In this hand, villain is making first a mistake by taking a crippled 3-bet sizing. His stats (50/5 0% 3bet) furthermore indicates, he is an AAxx-only 3-bettor. With this information, I have an easy play over several flop textures. The juicy odds he gave me turn a marginal fold into a profitable set-mining opportunity.

iPoker - €0.05 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

CO: 43.4 BB

BTN: 526.6 BB

SB: 152.4 BB

BB: 93 BB

Hero (UTG): 64 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♦ 9♦ J♠ 8♣

Hero raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB raises to 5.8 BB, Hero calls 2.4 BB

Spoiler Flop: (12 BB, 2 players) 9♠ 7♣ 9♣

BB bets 8.4 BB, Hero raises to 26 BB, BB raises to 61 BB, Hero calls 32.2 BB

Turn: (128.4 BB, 2 players) 8♦

River: (128.4 BB, 2 players) 9♥

Hero shows J♦ 9♦ J♠ 8♣ (Four of a Kind, Nines)

(Pre 32%, Flop 81%, Turn 90%)

BB shows A♠ A♦ K♥ K♦ (Full House, Nines full of Aces)

(Pre 68%, Flop 19%, Turn 10%)

Hero wins 124.6 BB

Double-suited Broadways are really strong hands. They hit quite the top of made-hands and also hit quite well on a lot of flops. Preflop it´s almost a coinflip against non-premium AAxx and KKxx equitywise but some flop provide nice domination match-ups against the single-pairs. This time it´s one more coinflip vs KKxx but I am still happy to get it in first.

iPoker - €0.05 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

BTN: 57 BB

SB: 560.4 BB

Hero (BB): 132.2 BB

UTG: 65.4 BB

CO: 112.2 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♦ Q♥ K♥ A♦

UTG raises to 3.4 BB, CO calls 3.4 BB, fold, SB calls 3 BB, Hero raises to 17 BB, UTG calls 13.6 BB, CO calls 13.6 BB, fold

Spoiler Flop: (54.4 BB, 3 players) 6♠ 7♣ A♠

Hero bets 54.4 BB, UTG calls 48.4 BB, fold

Turn: (151.2 BB, 2 players) 9♦

River: (151.2 BB, 2 players) 2♠

UTG shows K♣ K♠ 9♠ 7♠ (Flush, Ace High)

(Pre 53%, Flop 54%, Turn 78%)

Hero mucks J♦ Q♥ K♥ A♦ (One Pair, Aces)

(Pre 47%, Flop 46%, Turn 23%)

UTG wins 146.8 BB

When 3betting KK 3ways, Axx is not the flop you want to see

You mean 4betting;)

I always find these hot/cold equity spots frustrating when I know it's going to move my way.

What would you do with BT cold-call and SB completing? Just check-fold when BT stabs?

Great challenge, by the way. Any thoughts on skipping the micro challenge like JNandez recommends

and building your bankroll with a regular job before attempting PLO50-100? glgl

Originally posted by Mascherano95

Now let's move on to my initial theoretical case study: Preflop Play

I'll need to carve out some time to read that carefully

Congratulations on the upswing...

VS

Originally posted by Kyyberi

When 3betting KK 3ways, Axx is not the flop you want to see

But I´m committed no? I have pot odds of about 4:1. The likelyhood nobody has an Ace or better is still around 40% that makes 10-20% FE + 12% from K♦:, K♥: and bd :club:-:club:.

(https://ibb.co/rxhhx23)

Originally posted by nidorino

Great challenge btw. Any thoughts about skipping the micro challenge like JNandez advocate

and building your br w a regular job and then going for plo50-100? glgl

Thx. Yes that would be plan B. If I mess up, I have to go to work anyways. Well let´s see, maybe I can skip that part.

I think, one benefit of going to work is that you appreciate money more and you wouldn´t splash around with it like a student that gets everything paid. You become more careful when it comes to BRM. But as soon as your hourly leaves the working hourly far behind you´ll lose that emotional grounding once more anyways and you´ll have to find new ways handling money responsibly. For this purpose it may be clever to set a (monetary) goal and then committ to it until u made it.

I have the impression, Jnandez gives that advise to sell his Mastermind sub which doesn´t make sense for the vast hordes of amateurs and micro-stakes players out there. So he subliminally conveys the message, after u subbed his vids you´d turn into a crusher by night, which ain´t true. It takes a lot of time to study and internalize his material, it´s tons of theory confusions and GTO-numbers rashly packed together. Don´t get me wrong his content is high quality stuff and ofc a job is a reasonable way to set up a solid bankroll which is the required working tool in poker but it´s no replacement for experience and longterm acquired skill.

(https://ibb.co/QcS7Bbk)

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

I'm going to have to set aside some time to read that thoroughly

Congrats on the upswing...

VS

Yep, I found some theory quite useful for my game. It´s a little bit of a challenge too, to sum up all those concepts into something understandable and applicable at the tables.

Thank you!

Rake at PLO100 is lower, but the level of competition is tougher. If someone thinks that it's easy to just jump to PLO100 and start printing, it doesn't work that way.

That being said, to beat the rake at PLO25/PLO50 is not a walk in the park either, as the rake is high. Versus decent regs it's really hard, so you need to understand game and table selection.

Thing ia, if you want to jump to PLO100 with 100bin bankroll, it would require 10K in money. And to test and practise at PLO100 it could be costly.

My advice is to play at stakes your bankroll supports, and then take shots aggressively once you feel that you beat the field. Or once you reach the stakes you are happy to grind.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

My advice is to play at stakes your bankroll supports, and then take shots aggressively once you feel that you beat the field. Or once you reach the stakes you are happy to grind.

Agreed. I have no idea what competition looks like on PLO100. So I should get a decent sample on PLO50 first, cant say anything about my WR with a 2k hands sample. But it should not be too bad neither: I can remember when I was shotting, the tables still were incredibly soft. So I am hoping for sth around 15bb/100. And I hope I won´t have to stay at PLO50 longer than 80k hands. If I fail at this challenge, those ideas become obsolete, obviously doesnt make sense to kill the margins at PLO20.

Btw I might have the option to work part-time and grind in some hours on comfortable stakes on evenings and weekends. Problem here would be that it´d be hard to find time for studies.

As suggested, I decided I'm going to work now. After 2 shots in vain on PLO20, I lost too many buy-ins afterward so there's no way to finish in time. Yesterday I took the train and I'm back in Austria now and looking for a job.

However, I'm going to continue this blog to keep you updated on how my poker efforts are going.

Wishing you the best of luck with your job hunt!

Hi everyone.

I wanted to follow up my Bankroll-Challenge but there did not happen anything since I left. Is this still up to date? Anyways

I am back on the tables with the same Bankroll I left with after week 1. I have a little income now where I can fuel my Bankroll. Especially for the Micros now again this will be very helpful. So there is not such a urge to rush moving up anymore.

Then again good luck and a lot, A LOT of staminia from me!

with a job i suggest a more loose brm from post 5 of this thread: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/38/small-stakes-pl-omaha/realistic-aggressive-brm-plo-1375009/

at least up to plo50 so you can move up fast, then stick to your tighter brm ideas

Originally posted by Mascherano95

I am back on the tables with the same Bankroll I left with after week 1. I have a little income now where I can fuel my Bankroll. Especially for the Micros now again this will be very helpful. So there is not such a urge to rush moving up anymore. For this reason I set the BRM-Table to be more conservative:

Looks good -- it is always good to have reasonably achievable goals

Best of luck :gl:,

VS

Best of Luck, go give them Hell

Best of luck. I'm trying to learn PLO as well. Preflop is so hard

Thanks all for your support. It makes me feel less lonely on my journey.

After my arrival I lost 5 stacks (100,-$) on a shottinng trial at PLO20 in October. I made a second deposit and started from scratch at PLO5 with the BR required. So I am back to serious Grind this month where I am running with an incredible winrate of 75bb/100 so far:

(https://ibb.co/g62zQFP)

I am playing both on Natural8 (GG-Network) and Win2day (Local Austrian-Finnish Site). The Graph only shows the results from Win2day cause I cant track hands at GG. I play 2x45min sessions in the afternoon due to low traffic and anonther 2x45min in the evening at Win2day. GG I am also up sth like 5-10 stacks.

Originally posted by efkay

with a job i suggest a more loose brm from post 5 of this thread: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/38/small-stakes-pl-omaha/realistic-aggressive-brm-plo-1375009/

at least up to plo50 so you can move up fast, then stick to your tighter brm ideas

Well, I dont think you should ever go below 30 Buyin no matter which stakes. In the commentaries there are lots of doubts aswell, now I try to have at least 40 buyin for the stake I play and go shotting as soon as i have additional 10 stacks available. I am also not in a hurry at all with moving up. If the shot fails, I won´t be able to grind it in within a few days anyways, so I am shotting at the begin of the month only and after failure I can tick it off and return to the stake I know I beat. This way I can finish a month without having thoughts about shotting all the time and if the shot at the start of the month fails, I am not tempted to fall back into a "win it back for the shot" mentality. Finally 10 stacks for a shot allows me to open 3-4 tables and rebuy without moving up and down during the session. It kinda destroys my gameflow what I have experienced from the Tankroll challenge that failed in August.

Originally posted by kenthmp

Best of luck. I'm trying to learn PLO as well. Preflop is so hard

Yes Indeed, Preflop is so important though. It is good start with some ideas of your raise first in ranges and work through step by step for every situation like facing RFI, facing 3bet oop, 4bets etc.. The critical factor is floppable Equity-Distribution and find the right frequencies and which sort of hands to fill em. For this purpose I cann recommend Jnandez´s new book "Mastering Small-Stakes Pot-Limit Omaha", you have 9 hand categories which do fine for beginners. I am workinng regularly on my Preflop gameplan and finished my personal 16,7% a little tighter but derived from GTO-Range for EP (for the 100th time.. ).

Spoiler

If you are wondering what orange means, it is double-suited with both suits being Broadways

November is over:

(https://ibb.co/yp7Lwd0)

There are also like 1,5k hands PLO10 shots mixed in it which I ran break-even alltogether. I finished the RFI ranges from EP, MP, CO and BU from my gameplan. Now I started to work with Jnandez new book:

(https://ibb.co/1M2BNwF)

I already finished the chapters about preflop play and work now on the starting hand categories and compare them with thosein my gameplan. Overall didactics is a mess (as I know it from Jnandez), so I gotta write out the stuff and rearrange it (and ofc study the content of it). My study goal is to memorize my RFI gameplan and to finish his preflop section (chapter 2-4).

As planned for Dezember while doing this I´ll grind PLO10 and also mix in some € 3 R+A and $5 Tourneys. 64 buyins should be more than sufficient, my motto is to make deposits but no withdrawals. The goal here is to have the bankroll required in my shedule for PLO20 by the next year and the secondary goal is to achieve a 2-digit bb/100 winrate in Dezember.

I also own the book — I skimmed it, but like most works of this type, you must spend time studying the examples and playing some hands to recognize the relevant situations.

Maybe once my Real Life returns to normal [1]

From what I observed, however, the book is quite reliable.

I had a one-month Mastermind membership last year — I won it in a raffle.

I also watch his stream regularly. He definitely knows his material.

[1] I really no longer have any sense of what normal is

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Maybe when my Real Life gets back to normal [1]

What do you mean with this, what´s going on?

From what I saw though, the book is pretty solid. I had a month membership in Mastermind last year -- I won it in a draw.

I also watch his stream frequently. He knows his stuff for sure.

Absolutely solid! Yea, he is a master brain with a master team. It is good scientific work in the area to lift the fog of war in pot-limit omaha. He also has good a good intention what is crucial and what concepts the information needs to be broken down into.

But his pedagogical skills are ... ugh ... non-existent? After watching a video, I have to watch it like 3 times and pause it after every sentence to get structure into the phrase-muddle.

Originally posted by Mascherano95

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Maybe when my Real Life gets back to normal [1]

What do you mean with this, what´s going on?

There has just been so much to do over the past month that I haven't had time for more than a few quick poker sessions, and no time for study at all.

I haven't streamed in over a month.

But tasks are slowly getting done -- one of them was to sort out a large bin of paper documents.

I have that one half done.

When it is all done, I'll post before and after pics in my blog...

Last week I lost my discipline concerning BRM.

Since there was no traffic once more at PLO10 instead of heading back down and grind PLO5 I kept playing PLO20 although I was already down more than 5 stacks. This is definitely a mindset leak. Not capable of moving down the stakes although my Bankroll requires me to do so. It ended up blowing nearly 2/3 of my roll. Well. I did not blow it up completely and had some hands at PLO5. The environment there is more passiv but once variance is coming, I have to admit, I still have a mental leak here.

I am feel depleted as a result of what happened so I decided I am going to take a little Christmas break and reload once more next year. Also I will switch to full-time job. This will give me another burst of income but also cut down the time available for grind and studies to a minimum.

Well. I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all guys!

I am really wondering why my Winrate on the Button is so low and how I could improve it..

(https://ibb.co/wpHCp4t)

The BU´s cbet & f2cbet stats ip, oop both in srp´s and 3bp´s are completely similar to those in other positions.

First good luck at your new working place! And then after expressing my sympathy I hope you learned at least something about aggression.

You sit way more often in the BU (43.6k) compared to CO (34.8k) => 20% of the hands are 3-handed.

Maybe check how well you did in 6-handed settings bb-per-100-wise and you might come to the conclusion you just need to improve your 3-handed game.

Originally posted by Rhodriguez

First good luck at your new working place! And then after expressing my sympathy I hope you learned at least something about aggression.

You sit way more often in the BU (43.6k) compared to CO (34.8k) => 20% of the hands are 3-handed.

Maybe check how well you did in 6-handed settings bb-per-100-wise and you might come to the conclusion you just need to improve your 3-handed game.

Thx!. I like you too. Thahaha. Well, I need just a couple of months to have the 40 buyins for PLO100. I can save a lot of the money. But if I like my job I will continue work unless I feel somehow safe with my sample and winrate so I´d quit.

Yes, I just checked it out. Well it is actually the other way round the I perform much better short-handed

(3&4-handed):

(https://ibb.co/Y840Skm)

(vs 5&6-handed):

(https://ibb.co/8xTfSzn)

Without blinds and rake my winnings would be huuuge lol.

I already spotted the my flop cbet is probably much too low (around 35% innstead of the 60%) since I am betting so merged and very value-heavy. Other freq´s seem to be fine though. From this shortcut I also got the impression I might be playing a lots of hands not aggressive or consequently enough. And that I would be in pretty bad shape if the environment would not be so soft. I prob have tons of leaks vs better regs (there are none at plo5, some abc tags at best) and barely time for deep work to actually get better.

I would use all in adj bb/100 instead of bb/100 or bb/hand.

And just start filtering a bit. How much do you win/lose with your coldcalls/3bets in that position compared to other positions. If you win more 3handed than 6handed you might play too loose vs early and middle position f.e.

Other than that it would be good to compare yourself with good regs. In which spots are they doing a lot better than you. That's usually the spots that are most worth looking at ;-)

Best wishes for a very Merry Christmas,

VS

Dezember wtf:

(https://ibb.co/YhZQgTY)

All stakes are shown in that PLO chart 5, PLO10 and PLO20. I can’t really explain what occurred that month; only that I attempted several shots at PLO20 which failed. It looks tilted since the EV-graph is falling so steeply too, but I’m not entirely certain about that. I have to confess I did not rigidly follow my own BRM and continued taking shots with under 35 buyin for PLO20.

I lost 15 stacks on PLO20, which doesn’t feel like much given the much greater aggression before dropping down to PLO10 where I lost another 13 stacks; poor decisions may have contributed there. Perhaps I should review the Dezember sessions to assess the quality of my play. Anyway, after my Christmas break I returned to my daily routine at PLO5 (my baseline), alternating it with PLO10 and preparing to take 5-bullet shots at PLO20 once I reach 40 stacks, which I’d expect around mid-February.)

Sorry to read that it does not go well.

And sorry for the following in advance. It all really is meant to help and only for that.

Basically you do not really need to look into how you played technically and review sessions. It won't help you.

You urgently need to find out what makes you leave your BRM and fix that. The question is not if you tilt. You do. Everybody does to some extent. But you do it in one of the worst possible ways for pokerplayers. You already showed that by not being able to handle your BRM multiple times. And if you tilt enough to leave BRM at times you definitely tilt while playing too.

You understand that what you are doing hurts your mid-/longterm goals with poker but you need to understand that it is the most important thing to work on and needs to be top priority if you want to be able to win at poker for more than a week or two. There probably will be sth telling yourself otherwise and you could do it with working on your technical game and then just don't leave BRM again. But you will leave it. You already have enough proof for that. You actually know. You "only" need to accept it (emotionally). And then you will know, what to do...

fully agree with trance. truth hurts but we had several discussions where the result was a) Masch slightly over estimates his edge on short upswings which might lead to those shots but also b) under estimates the effect of variance and runs into short therm downswings that are inevitable.

I would say Mascherano doesnt realize that even on his AAA+ game anything can happen on 10k hands and on his december 10k hands samplesize he might have played with 10bb/100h winrate but was just unlucky. prepare your mindset for another 5 months with 10k hands each and a breakeven result as a winner.

I told you before and I will tell you again: set yourself samplesize and study goals, its the only thing you have control of.

If you wonder what happend in december, it was a normal swong. If you shotted with preparation to move down in stakes when runbad and keep discipline on that, your shot taking is not a huge problem, you want to move up to better stakes in terms of rake asap. but not moving down is a heavy risk when you go for aggro brm.

if you cant make up to those aggro brm plans, start getting more conservative, like next upmove +5 stacks more than the last try.

PLO is a very hard test to your discipline and mindset, unlike trance I wont suggest to stop reviewing sessions but I would say stay disciplined and try not to tilt even a little bit is even more important than theory.

And from personal experience if you climb to plo20, switch to more conservative brm and start improving your GTO game, you will face tougher pools on plo50/100 as far as i can tell for gg

last point for gg: you might want to stop aggro brm here since moving up in stakes doesnt bring you to lower rake anyways

Originally posted by tranceactor

You urgently need to find out what makes you leave your BRM and fix that. The question is not if you tilt. You do. Everybody does to some extent. But you do it in one of the worst possible ways for pokerplayers. You already showed that by not being able to handle your BRM multiple times. And if you tilt enough to leave BRM at times you definitely tilt while playing too.

I digged deep down into my brain and found those reasons:

First, the reason is I would say that I feel pressure to "win fast" beause I spent so much time on poker now still dabbling around the same stakes like years ago. The final trigger I´d say is that if I have no traffic on PLO10 so I fell into a gray BR-area where I´d be overrolled for PLO5 but still somewhat underrolled for PLO20 or at least dont have the discipline to move 2 stakes down once shots go wrong. So I try to play higher if I win "faster" since the plus EV would be higher.

Second, the thinking is also, if I lose a significant part of my BR it does not matter cause I would be able to replenish it with my job income at the end of the month. Obviously a mindset leak, "confused thinking" as described in literature, my brain made an excuse to not move down and I was not aware enough how important it is to obey BRM.

And if you tilt enough to leave BRM at times you definitely tilt while playing too.

This is not true. I checked all the hands I played in this time. As I said, the hands I played at PLO20 were not misplayed technically, they look completely tilt-free to me and I would have played them the same way as always, if they are misplayed it is because of lack of skill. And I was able to move down before bad play started, and was capable to make a break instantly after a couple of tilt hands at PLO10. This was likely a good loss cut, so I did not lose more than I would have lost much more than due to variance, I mean 10k is not a big sample. But I was mentally prepared to pull the rip cord so there might be a root to another mindset leak that I would be capable to act so so it does not matter if I leave BR for a few amount of "stacks".

Originally posted by efkay

a) Masch slightly over estimates his edge on short upswings which might lead to those shots but also b) under estimates the effect of variance and runs into short therm downswings that are inevitable.

Well, the question is how many hands count as "upswing"? You´ve hit my ego now lol so I have to brag with my All-Time PLO5 Graph where I have 27bb/100 but over 84k hands. That´s a pretty good sample with comparable low variance (high winrate and low aggression).

(https://ibb.co/0ywwxZ0)

if you cant make up to those aggro brm plans, start getting more conservative, like next upmove +5 stacks more than the last try.

PLO is a very hard test to your discipline and mindset, unlike trance I wont suggest to stop reviewing sessions but I would say stay disciplined and try not to tilt even a little bit is even more important than theory.

And from personal experience if you climb to plo20, switch to more conservative brm and start improving your GTO game, you will face tougher pools on plo50/100 as far as i can tell for gg

last point for gg: you might want to stop aggro brm here since moving up in stakes doesnt bring you to lower rake anyways

Agree with this one. I stick to my 35+5 so I Play PLO10 this month to get my BR up around 500€ and no matter how it goes, I will fuel it up to 800€ at the end of month to make a shot on PLO20 and move down if I am below 700€. At the end I also have the pressure and the feeling that I am not making enough studies but I also dont find enough time/energy to do so beside my fulltime job. BrB.

At first, probs for facing those questions👍

That takes some courage and is not necessarily easy to do. Good start and well done!

The question now is why do you feel that way about needing to win fast even though you know that thought is in your way and conflicting with BRM? So basically going a layer deeper.

Btw it might help to play on another site as well and split your roll. So, you will always have enough PLO10 games. So, that excuse for moving to PLO20 disappears. Make sure not to play too many tables though and give yourself some time to get used to the new site before playing them mixed.

Trying other sites can be very beneficial btw. Leaving pokerstrategy member invested partypoker in 2008 to IPoker made me an instant winner while I was grinding breakeven on Party. And even in 2020 changing from the site I played my most volume on (and destroyed 1/2 there but could not beat higher stakes before rakeback) to another site made me a winner up to 5/T.

So, what I want to say is that working on the technical game is good and should be done but working on the bigger things like mindset and gameselection is what can make a way bigger difference than studying hands for a year. Similar things apply for database analysis ("where do I win/lose more than the good regs on my limit?" "What are the good players on PLO20 doing different than on PLO5" aso) and putting more thoughts in how to use a HUD.

I remember doubling the winrate of me and my flatmate just by doing one thing more often that I found in our databases. And some non-standard HUD-stats and understanding them improved the game quite drastically as well (and it still does today).

So, if you only have a limited time for studying and if you play the same stakes for years you might need to change your approach to learning. There is a quote in German that goes "Ein Dummkopf ist, wer immer das Gleiche tut, aber unterschiedliche Ergebnisse erwartet" what basically means "a fool is someone who always does the same but expects different results". I don't know you enough to know if that applies. But a lot of people (absolutely including myself) tend to make little changes and think they are way bigger than they actually are. So, if your approach always has been to study only the technical game in the last years (what I don't know but most players tend to as it is convenient) and messed up, it might be time for a new approach. And a good one to start is "how/what do I need to change in order to be successful?" and on a smaller scale "how can I keep my BRM?"

Regarding the tilt thing. With all respect to variance I can't see how someone with a >20ev-bb/100 winrate on PLO5 can play with <-20ev-bb/100 over 10k hands on PLO10 and a bit of PLO20. without tilt/bad play playing a huge role tbh. How does your tableselection look like btw?

Good luck at the tables

Originally posted by tranceactor

At first, probs for facing those questions👍

That takes some courage and is not necessarily easy to do. Good start and well done!

The question now is why do you feel that way about needing to win fast even though you know that thought is in your way and conflicting with BRM? So basically going a layer deeper.

Following your cascade I would say it´s a mix of 2 basic fears (out of 7 accoridng to Napoleon Hill) which in my case are:

1. Fear of Old Age

2. Fear of Poverty

First one I am aware how fast youth goes by and I feel like I nearly wasted 10 years of my most precious time and now despite putting so much effort now into becoming professional everything is moving so slowly. As I said grinding PLO5 for over a year is surely not the trademark of a talented poker genious. Now I have the skill and actually the money aswell but it is still hard work.

Second one is kinda not that strong but still I think about how I want to live if I am old and I am aware that I cannot spoil my money since I will be dependant on it once I retire and it is hard to imagine for me how my life would look like if I woud fail, but well don´t be afraid to fail.

...

Regarding the tilt thing. With all respect to variance I can't see how someone with a >20ev-bb/100 winrate on PLO5 can play with <-20ev-bb/100 over 10k hands on PLO10 and a bit of PLO20. without tilt/bad play playing a huge role tbh. How does your tableselection look like btw?

Thanks. Well no the site is super-soft, I wont change. No traffic on PLO10 is not such a deal now since I earn enough to fuel it up for shots at PLO20 once a month (worst case if I dont make it in January). I have some money back but I after having a tilt streak in December I prefer to "grind it back".

I dont think I lack skill to beat PLO20 (and PLO50 probably too). I already altered my preflop studies a little and got PLO-Matrix as a helpful tool now. Postflop I feel like Jnandez books helps me but I still did not finish. I will get back to read and learn it on weekends. And I still have tons of video material I did not even watch yet.

Tableselection: I take the best tables once at the beginning of the session (they are soft but the only ones so I am not switching around a lot once the session started unless there are primarily regs left or if the table dissolves.

Originally posted by Mascherano95

1. Fear of Old Age

2. Fear of Poverty

Old age isn't great but it isn't anything to be afraid of. (ask me how I know).

Besides it beats all known alternatives.

Poverty on the other hand...

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Originally posted by Mascherano95

1. Anxiety about Getting Old

2. Fear of Being Poor

Growing old isn't wonderful, but it's not something to dread. (ask me how I know).

Besides, it beats every other option known.

Poverty, however...

There is also Fear of Dying.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff in your post.

• If you have those fears and feel you wasted your time, why not cut your losses and pick a different side hustle? Why keep playing poker?

• Why take the slow route and grind PLO5/10/20 at all? If you make 10bb/100 and play, say, 300 hands an hour on PLO10, you make 3 dollars per hour. So, to increase your roll by 120$ you grind about 40 hours. If instead you worked an extra day IRL — let’s say 8 hours — and earned 15$/h, you’d add 120$ to your bankroll and could study 32 hours without even playing poker. Or, to stay “sharp,” you play maybe 8 hours and study 24. That would speed up building your roll and skill level drastically. Micros don’t. This idea isn’t mine but comes from JNandez, who explains why it’s not sensible to start at micros if you aim for something in poker (he mentioned it in some of his YouTube content). It takes too long and is EV-negative compared with other options. I agree with him on that. As long as your hourly is better spent doing something else — mainly do that to build your roll. That’s very likely true until at least PLO50. Consider doing the other work to grow your poker bankroll and give yourself more study time.

Basically, you need a roll to play relevant stakes and the skill to beat them. The sooner you reach that, the better. And as you said it feels too slow. Well, here’s a way to speed it up: you can achieve the same by working one extra day that you’d otherwise grind poker for a month.

• When you say you have the skill, remember that making it in poker requires different abilities. It really isn’t only the technical game. And, unfortunately, I have to assume you don’t yet possess all the skills needed to beat PLO20. Your December graph was horrible and that typically indicates one or both of the following: you lack the technical skills, or the mental skills, or both.

Good luck

From what I remember in last Primetime (when I went through hands in forum), there is a room for improvement in the hands you have posted. Which makes it easy to assume that there are also room to improve in the hands you haven't posted.

One way to find out is to have session reviewed in next Primetime, more information at https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=403175&goto=firstnew

Originally posted by tranceactor

• why taking the slow approach and grinding PLO5/10/20 at all? If you make 10bb/100 and play lets say 300 hands an hour on PLO10 you make 3 dollars per hour. So, to increase your roll by 120$ you grind ~40 hours. If you would instead work irl lets say one extra day for 8 hours and earn lets say 15$/h you would boost your bankroll by 120$ and can study 32 hours without even playing poker. Or, to stay "sharp" you play maybe 8 hours and study 24. This would amplify the speed of building your roll and your skilllevel drastically. Playing micros doesn't. This is btw not an idea from me but from JNandez when he explains why it doesn't make sense to start at micros when you aspire sth in poker (mentioned in some of his youtubestuff). It takes too long and is minus ev compared to other things you could do. I agree with him on this. As long as your hourly is better on doing sth else do mainly that to build your roll. That is very likely the case until at least PLO50. Consider doing the other thing to build your poker roll and give yourself more time to study and get better.

Because basically you need a roll to play relevant stakes and you need the skill to beat them. The sooner you achieve that the better. And as you said you have the feeling it goes to slow. Well, here you saw how to speed it up. You can basically achieve the same with working one extra day that you would grind poker a month for

• when you say you have the skill. Be aware that it is different skills that are needed to make it in poker. It really is not just the technical game. And on top I unfortunately have to assume that you don't have all the skills yet to beat PLO20. You just showed a horrible graph for December that unfortunately leads to one or both of the following. You either don't have the technical skills or the mental skills yet (or both)

Good luck

I've heard JNandez say that, and wondered what he meant by it.

In general, though I take it to mean -- play the stakes you're rolled for.

There is a problem -- several times we've had players in these forums who "got lucky" and won a big MTT -- say a couple of grand, then figured they were rolled for NL 100 and lost it pretty fast.

The roll is half the battle, the skill is the other half.

Do you agree that you can't get the skillz for NL 50 by playing NL 10?

The solution is to take shots.

Small steps lead to big ones.

very thought provoking post -- thanks.

The thought that it is provoking is that I should stop messing about in the micros...

Originally posted by tranceactor

And on top I unfortunately have to assume that you don't have all the skills yet to beat PLO20. You just showed a horrible graph for December that unfortunately leads to one or both of the following. You either don't have the technical skills or the mental skills yet (or both)

Don't be so harsh. It was only 10K hands or so. +30BI or -30BI in that many hands doesn't mean much at all. Literally anything can happen. I'd much rather trust Mascherano95's impression over that sample: does he feel he has has been unlucky or outplayed?

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

The roll is half the battle, the skill is the other half.

Do you agree that you can't get the skillz for NL 50 by playing NL 10?

The solution is to take shots.

Small steps lead to big ones.

Very much agree with VorpalF2F on this and I believe Kyyberi gave a similar advice earlier on in this thread.

And by the way, I advise to short stack PLO10 rather than play PLO5. Even I, a player new to PLO, find PLO5 not challenging enough to learn new things. If it is too easy, it leads to boredom and an intellectual lethargy that is not conductive to improvement. Better play where you feel challenged as long as you can afford it.

Anyway, interesting thread. I will follow it.

I would say "play the stakes that suits your goals".

@donkey111 (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/participant/donkey111/)

Yes, you are right. It sounds a bit harsh. And my apologies if it was too harsh! I really don't want to put Mascherano down but show alternatives as I really think he needs to approach it differently.

From my experience (playing PLO professionally mid to lower highstakes for about 9 years and NL SSS highstakes before) over 10k hands you just don't lose that many big blinds in EV if you are a decent winner at the stakes, play well and don't tilt. I had terrible runs under EV in my career as well as quite lucky ones over EV but there never has been a stretch that long where I produced so negative EV-bb/100 over such a long stretch in PLO (I am pretty sure not even with NL SSS, even though my winrate was "only" 3-4bb). And my winrate in ev-bb/100 is way less than the 20+ ev-bb that mascherano has on PLO5. So, sth does not match at least in my heaf. Just my 2cents

@vorpalF2F (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/participant/vorpalf2f/)

Yes, you are definitely right. Only play what you are rolled for. 100% agree. I'd even add "don't take shots". But why not roll yourself otherwise?

Lets assume we start at PLO5 and you need at least 50 stacks to play a limit above which is double your actual limit (here PLO10). That means you need to win 2500bb as you already have 2500 (as you otherwise would not be able to play your actual limit) before moving up in stakes. And lets also assume that you need 50 hours of working on you(r game) to beat the next limit with the same winrate that you beat your current limit with but the amount of hours you need to do so always doubles to beat the next limit.

So, you need 50 hours of work outside playing to beat PLO5, 100 for PLO10, 200 for PLO20 aso on average. Then even with a 20bb winrate (which I doubt will be sustainable tbh) and 300 hands/h which I think is too high in the learning stage it takes 2500:20*100=12500 hands which equates to 42 hours. Add the needed 50 hours in theory and you have 90 hours. And those need to be focussed hours. Playing or studying not focussed doesn't really work. If someone works full time that easily takes 2 months on the side for winning 250$. And don't forget that is calculated for an extreme crusher. Who would want to work for ~2.70$/h? If calculated still on the optimistic side for most players with 5bb/100, it takes 168 hours of grinding and 50 hours of theory which is 218 hours alltogether and probably 4 to 5 months work on the side for ~1.10$/h.

OK, we reached PLO10 with a roll of $500. For the 20bb/100 crusher it is then 42 hours of grinding + 100 hours of working on skills to be rdy for PLO20. So, 142h which done on the side takes 3 to 4 months work and still only an hourly of 500$/142h~3.5$/h. So, basically for an insane crusher with 20bb/100 winrate half a year is gone now in which he made 750$ and only started playing PLO20 and he is still far from making a relevant hourly rate at poker. The more realistic 5bb/100 player needs 268 hours. That's 6 to 7 months if done on the side. So, he needs almost a year to make it from PLO5 to PLO20 where he still does not make a decent hourly rate. For a 5bb/100 player (and lets not forget that this still is a pretty decent winrate) it basically takes almost 2 years to win more than 10$/h. And even the crusher needs about a year. So, not the right thing for someone who feels as if it takes too long and that he is wasting time. What to do? - Take available shortcuts. Remember, you need the roll and the skills to play relevant stakes and grinding micros does not help any of those a lot. Some of the shortcuts are:

• build your roll off the poker tables

• study way more, play way less

• study efficiently and effectively

For the ladder (despite JNandez obv. also wanting to sell his stuff which isn't really affordable for microstakes grinders) you need good materials/coaches/tools but that usually comes at a price too.

"Don't you learn the skills for NL50 by playing NL10?" I'd say a tiny bit but you definitely gain most skill OFF the tables by working on all aspects of your game. What keeps people from learning enough to beat a certain stake at poker? Well, either they don't like studying the game and don't feel strong enough about getting better. If that is the case there is basically no chance to become a pro as other people simply put more work in and then beat the lazy one. Or, they are lacking time to study. If that is the case, they get better very slowly as playing doesn't improve skill much.

So, where to get the time for studying from? Well, throw away the smartphone. But as that isn't enough, just play less poker and study more instead. And maybe "buy" the time for studying by making money outside of poker to use for your roll or paying for coaching, courses, tools etc. that make you learn faster/better.

Good luck at the tables!

Originally posted by tranceactor

@vorpalF2F (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/participant/vorpalf2f/)

Yes, you are definitely right. Only play what you are rolled for. 100% agree. I'd even add "don't take shots". But why not roll yourself otherwise?

We take shots to test our skill against others at that level.

At this moment, strictly by the amount of money in my poker bankroll, I could play NL 100, or play tournaments with an average buy-in of $30

I think that it is better to build on what we know, then take the next step when we understand the game, the culture, and have the ability to accurately put players on ranges.

I can to this at higher stakes NL 5-Card Draw, but not at NLHE, where I play NL 10 OK, but continually fall flat at NL 25.

The biggest reason (or so I tell myself) is that I don't play it enough.

Cheers,

VS

Oh ok. I understand taking a shot as playing underrolled (in whatever form) and I understand what you are doing as cautiously moving up in stakes but not as taking a shot.

If you always fall flat at NL25 how do you exactly approach it? Do you play the same number of tables as you would do on NL10? Do you feel more excited/scared or anything because it is more money/better competition or sth else? Have you ever compared your stats on NL10 and NL25? Have you ever compared stats and tendencies of the two playerpools? Do you realise inconvenient spots that you get put in more often? Do you mix the limits when playing NL25? How does your tableselection look like/change? Etc

But why playing NL10 or 25 at all if you are already beating way higher stakes at 5 card draw?

Originally posted by tranceactor

But why playing NL10 or 25 at all if you are already beating way higher stakes at 5 card draw?

I like the ideas you present about playing fewer tables.

Next time I'm inclined, I'll play just one table of each (not zoom) and pay close attention to who is at the tables.

Also, to me "taking a shot" doesn't imply underrolled. It is more like taking the next step -- "cautiously moving up in stakes" as you put it.

So we're basically on the same page.

The main reason is that NL 25 is the highest stakes 5-Card Draw available except on rare occasions.

And on those occasions, the competition at the table is usually players all well known to each other.

Finally, No Limit Hold'em is the game that is most common, and has the widest selection of tables.

I don't want to derail Mascheranos thread too much but just some general thoughts:

The population on every limit on every site plays a little different and our brain needs to adapt. So, I would not mix limits but only play the higher limit cautiously on less tables when you try to move up. You can actually unlearn the right adaptions on your limit by playing lower limits where the same adaptions might be wrong. I am not sure how much that is true for NL but for PLO I can tell you that there is a huge difference from PLO100 to PLO200 and an even bigger one from PLO200 to PLO500 on Stars.

Apart from that I am not sure about wanting to make it in no limit cash nowadays. The competition is huge, the advantage for the already established regs in studying is huge and you need to be willing to put a lot of work in to have half a chance. I mean even waaghbozz wasn't able to beat NL100 properly lately despite having the work ethic, having been pretty much on top of the HUSNG world once and having fishy games because of lockdown poker boom (see german pokerstrategy forum). And RTA is starting to become a problem apparently (remember Fedor Kruse). So, I would definitely advise juicier games than NL cash. As you already made it in 5card draw why not add another mixed game instead where there is not much content/solvers/competition but some traffic? Not FL Holdem obv^^

Considering how interesting the discussion is, I doubt M95 will mind that we derail his thread a little I will add my own random 2c to Trance's already excellent $2:

• My biggest downswing in 10k hands was at NL10 for 20BI in 2010. I was a break even player in those days (despite having been quite successful at NL2 and NL5). I have little experience in PLO but I suppose for someone with a small win rate, it is possible to achieve -30BI in PLO in 10k hands.

• From what I have observed the guys with massive win rates for their stake are the guys who play two stakes below the stake they should play but for whatever reason have decided to play lower. That's why I think 20bb/100 for a first timer is very optimistic unless they are naturally very talented at poker (not the case of most players).

• The biggest skill jump for me was from NL50 to NL100 (on PokerStars). I believe the reason is that there were many pros playing NL100 vs NL50. Also, at the time, everyone playing NL100 could afford a seating script, making it quite hard to get a seat on good tables.

• Imho, the most important skill to gain at micro stakes is exploiting bad players. Never treat two bad players the same because they all have their own individual leaks. Do they call too much? Or raise too much? Or maybe they are very loose pre and tight postflop? How do you exploit them precisely? Don't leave a table because very good regs are playing there. On the contrary, be very observant of how they exploit bad players. That's the problem with starting too high a stake: bad players are rarer and you spend a lot of time against other skilful regs. On the other hand, bad players are everywhere at the micros. Also learn to evaluate a bad player's leaks: if they're losing at -8bb/100, you time is probably better spent elsewhere unless you have a very good read and a good seat on them.

• Life is too short. One of my biggest regrets is not to have played PLO earlier and wait till 2020 after 10 years of playing NL (6 of which being very active). The average NL100 reg is ridiculously good nowadays. It takes a lot of hard work to get a decent win rate and that win rate will never be as good as in PLO. I should have cut my losses (in term of time) no later than 2014 but I was too much into the mindset of playing challenging games and the fact I had invested so much time learning NL so I felt committed. I am certain I would be much richer nowadays if I had switched years ago. Now, I am talking from the perspective of someone who wants to max their earning. If your objective is different, this may not apply.

• Completely agree with Trance on studying a lot. Now, that's quite hard to figure out how to study effectively. It is very easy to lose a huge amount of time in situations that won't impact your win rate anyway. Been there, done that... (That's a large topic but here is a small free tip: in NL, a large part of your win rate comes from 3b pots so learn to navigate them well).

Originally posted by tranceactor

There is a lot of interesting stuff in your post.

• if you have those fears and have the feeling you wasted your time why not cut your losses and choose a new side hustle? Why stick to poker?

Because the battle is lost as soon as you give up. It´s not like I am making no progress at all and that I´d estimate at as a hopeless dream. So giving up is no option for sure. Poker is a passion to me. Like strategy games in general but poker is the way to go to financial freedom (contrary to chess or RTS-Games). Which side hustles do you mean? Some friends, one of it a former Mid-Stakes NLHE HU-Cash player, switched to Afiliate marketing. But that is even more dubious to me and I dont think getting rich is that easy and how much of the brags about lifestyle on social medie ie. is show-off and what´s real. I really think Poker is a serious opportunity to make it a easy living, but obviously it is a hard way to get there. If you jump on every train that looks promising you are getting no where.

• why taking the slow approach and grinding PLO5/10/20 at all? If you make 10bb/100 and play lets say 300 hands an hour on PLO10 you make 3 dollars per hour. So, to increase your roll by 120$ you grind ~40 hours. If you would instead work irl lets say one extra day for 8 hours and earn lets say 15$/h you would boost your bankroll by 120$ and can study 32 hours without even playing poker. Or, to stay "sharp" you play maybe 8 hours and study 24. This would amplify the speed of building your roll and your skilllevel drastically. Playing micros doesn't. This is btw not an idea from me but from JNandez when he explains why it doesn't make sense to start at micros when you aspire sth in poker (mentioned in some of his youtubestuff). It takes too long and is minus ev compared to other things you could do. I agree with him on this. As long as your hourly is better on doing sth else do mainly that to build your roll. That is very likely the case until at least PLO50. Consider doing the other thing to build your poker roll and give yourself more time to study and get better.

Because basically you need a roll to play relevant stakes and you need the skill to beat them. The sooner you achieve that the better. And as you said you have the feeling it goes to slow. Well, here you saw how to speed it up. You can basically achieve the same with working one extra day that you would grind poker a month for

Yes I know that vid by Jnandez, I watched it on YouTube. I can remember 2018 I said to myself, it is not true, I will do it within a reasonable time and I am just better than that. Well reality proved my wrong. I needed a lot of timeto actually beat the micros (I was a break-even Player the first multiple hunndred of thousand hands). So that was the first milestone. I also did a lot more studies in Hungary than it is possible now. I worked on Tom Chambers book Advanced PLO-Theory, watched Jnandez University Vids, made some MasterMind stuff, read the book "Strategies to beat Small-Stakes Pot-Limit Omaha" by Matthias Pum, discussed Postflop line (here in PS aswell), discussed hand samples with mates etc. It´s not like, the time used on Micros was totally wasted, it just primarily did not match my expectations (both in monetary results and content I could work through which appeared to be more complex and difficult than assumed). Obviously now it is too late to turn back the time. I already have a fulltime job of 45 hours per week. I manage to play 240 hands per hours (idk how you come to 300?). Where should I put thhe additional 40 hours grind and 24 hours study? After work I am quite tired mentally so a final session of 45 minutes grind is reasonable and the studies have to be made on weekends. That´s what my current mental capacities deliver.

• when you say you have the skill. Be aware that it is different skills that are needed to make it in poker. It really is not just the technical game. And on top I unfortunately have to assume that you don't have all the skills yet to beat PLO20. You just showed a horrible graph for December that unfortunately leads to one or both of the following. You either don't have the technical skills or the mental skills yet (or both).

Good luck

Thanks. I would tip on mental skills if so, maybe exhaustion since I had a quite decent volume, but as already mentioned 10k hands is not really a sample. In general I have to play some hands per day otherwise I get out of practice as the September 2020 and December 2019 Breaks have shown. To let you decide if the hand was tilted, technically misplayed or well played, I have picked out all big-pot-hands of my 3 biggest losing sessions in December 2020, let´s go:

iPoker - €0.20 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

CO: 207.65 BB

Hero (BTN): 100 BB

SB: 196.5 BB

BB: 244.5 BB

UTG: 100 BB

MP: 863.1 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J♠ 6♠ A♣ 9♦

UTG raises to 3.5 BB, MP calls 3.5 BB, fold, Hero raises to 15.5 BB, fold, fold, UTG calls 12 BB, MP calls 12 BB

Flop: (48 BB, 3 players) T♣ 2♣ 7♥

UTG checks, MP checks, Hero checks

Turn: (48 BB, 3 players) 4♥

UTG checks, MP checks, Hero checks

River: (48 BB, 3 players) 6♣

UTG checks, MP bets 33.6 BB, Hero raises to 84.5 BB, fold, MP calls 50.9 BB

MP shows 3♠ K♥ J♣ 7♣ (Flush, Jack High)

(Pre 44%, Flop 76%, Turn 80%)

Hero mucks J♠ 6♠ A♣ 9♦ (One Pair, Sixes)

(Pre 56%, Flop 24%, Turn 20%)

MP wins 212 BB

Villain is a crazy maniac with 90/80/70 over 100 hands.

iPoker - €0.20 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

BTN: 207.65 BB

Hero (SB): 100 BB

BB: 197.5 BB

UTG: 248.5 BB

MP: 101.5 BB

CO: 759.1 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A♣ T♠ 3♦ 4♦

UTG calls 1 BB, MP calls 1 BB, CO raises to 4 BB, fold, Hero calls 3.5 BB, fold, UTG calls 3 BB, MP calls 3 BB

Flop: (17 BB, 4 players) 9♦ 6♣ 2♦

Hero checks, UTG checks, MP checks, CO bets 11.9 BB, Hero raises to 26.35 BB, fold, fold, CO calls 14.45 BB

Turn: (69.7 BB, 2 players) Q♥

Hero bets 69.65 BB, CO calls 69.65 BB

River: (209 BB, 2 players) 5♣

CO shows 2♥ 5♦ 8♦ 7♣ (Straight, Nine High)

(Pre 51%, Flop 84%, Turn 80%)

Hero mucks A♣ T♠ 3♦ 4♦ (Straight, Six High)

(Pre 49%, Flop 16%, Turn 20%)

CO wins 204 BB

Same villain here.

iPoker - €0.20 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

SB: 225.15 BB

Hero (BB): 194.45 BB

UTG: 81 BB

MP: 100 BB

CO: 158.1 BB

BTN: 803.6 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 9♣ 6♦ 5♣ 7♠

UTG calls 1 BB, MP calls 1 BB, fold, BTN raises to 5.5 BB, fold, Hero raises to 19 BB, UTG calls 18 BB, MP raises to 82 BB, BTN calls 76.5 BB, Hero calls 63 BB, UTG calls 62 BB

Flop: (327.5 BB, 4 players) 7♣ K♠ 9♦

Hero bets 112.45 BB, MP calls 18 BB, fold

Turn: (363.5 BB, 3 players) 8♣

River: (363.5 BB, 3 players) K♦

UTG shows A♦ 9♠ T♦ T♠ (Two Pair, Kings and Tens)

Main Pot [324.5 BB]: (Pre 46%, Flop 15%, Turn 11%)

MP shows 8♥ 6♥ K♣ A♣ (Full House, Kings full of Eights)

Main Pot [324.5 BB]: (Pre 34%, Flop 45%, Turn 33%)

Side Pot#1 [39 BB]: (Pre 62%, Flop 50%, Turn 33%)

Hero mucks 9♣ 6♦ 5♣ 7♠ (Straight, Nine High)

Main Pot [324.5 BB]: (Pre 20%, Flop 40%, Turn 56%)

Side Pot#1 [39 BB]: (Pre 38%, Flop 50%, Turn 67%)

MP wins 358.5 BB

BU is once more the same maniac who drived the action in that session. EP and MP both weak-tigh 30/15 regulars.

iPoker - €0.20 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

CO: 100 BB

Hero (BTN): 183.45 BB

SB: 137.55 BB

BB: 100 BB

UTG: 122.4 BB

MP: 373.65 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J♥ Q♥ T♦ Q♣

fold, MP raises to 3 BB, fold, Hero raises to 10.5 BB, SB calls 10 BB, fold, MP calls 7.5 BB

Flop: (32.5 BB, 3 players) 4♦ 4♠ K♠

SB checks, MP checks, Hero bets 11.35 BB, fold, MP calls 11.35 BB

Turn: (55.2 BB, 2 players) 6♠

MP checks, Hero bets 41.4 BB, MP calls 41.4 BB

River: (138 BB, 2 players) 6♦

MP checks, Hero bets 120.2 BB, MP calls 120.2 BB

MP shows 5♦ 5♠ 4♥ T♠ (Flush, King High)

(Pre 34%, Flop 89%, Turn 95%)

Hero mucks J♥ Q♥ T♦ Q♣ (Two Pair, Queens and Sixes)

(Pre 66%, Flop 11%, Turn 5%)

MP wins 373.4 BB

iPoker - €0.20 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

UTG: 123.25 BB

Hero (CO): 155.35 BB

BTN: 235.3 BB

SB: 39 BB

BB: 112.6 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 4♦ Q♣ 6♣ 8♥

fold, Hero raises to 3.5 BB, fold, fold, BB raises to 10 BB, Hero calls 6.5 BB

Flop: (20.5 BB, 2 players) K♠ 4♣ 8♦

BB bets 10.25 BB, Hero raises to 51.25 BB, BB raises to 102.6 BB, Hero calls 51.35 BB

Turn: (225.7 BB, 2 players) 3♣

River: (225.7 BB, 2 players) 3♠

Hero mucks 4♦ Q♣ 6♣ 8♥ (Two Pair, Eights and Fours)

(Pre 42%, Flop 15%, Turn 23%)

BB shows 4♥ T♦ T♠ 4♠ (Full House, Fours full of Threes)

(Pre 58%, Flop 85%, Turn 78%)

BB wins 220.7 BB

It is the same maniac in both hands again. My bluff triple barrel was tilt obviously and I marked it as a blunder. Just posted it here for the sake of conveying you a complete picture. At the last hand I am not 100% sure if it is a mistake since my bottom-2pair could be somewhat okay against his range that´d include a lot of naked top-pair and weaker hands but probably I would not have shipped either in another state of mind.

PokerStars - $0.25 Ante $0.03 PL Hi FAST (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

Hero (BTN): 109.36 BB

SB: 100.88 BB

BB: 619.76 BB

UTG: 116.24 BB

MP: 86 BB

CO: 90.28 BB

6 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.12 BB) Hero has J♦ Q♠ 8♥ J♠

fold, MP calls 1 BB, fold, Hero raises to 5.12 BB, fold, BB calls 4.12 BB, MP calls 4.12 BB

Flop: (16.48 BB, 3 players) 4♦ T♦ 7♠

BB checks, MP bets 8 BB, Hero calls 8 BB, BB raises to 47.76 BB, fold, Hero calls 39.76 BB

Turn: (120 BB, 2 players) 2♥

BB bets 114.88 BB, Hero calls 56.36 BB and is all-in

River: (232.72 BB, 2 players) 7♦

BB shows 3♥ 6♥ 4♥ 7♣ (Full House, Sevens full of Fours)

(Pre 38%, Flop 58%, Turn 70%)

Hero shows J♦ Q♠ 8♥ J♠ (Two Pair, Jacks and Sevens)

(Pre 62%, Flop 42%, Turn 30%)

BB wins 224.72 BB

BU is a 40/30/10 Lag-fish.

PokerStars - $0.25 Ante $0.03 PL Hi FAST (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

BTN: 74.56 BB

SB: 238.44 BB

BB: 103.16 BB

UTG: 102.36 BB

MP: 378.68 BB

Hero (CO): 100 BB

6 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.12 BB) Hero has K♦ 4♥ 3♦ J♥

fold, fold, Hero raises to 4.12 BB, BTN raises to 14.48 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 10.36 BB

Flop: (31.08 BB, 2 players) T♣ 6♦ 3♣

Hero checks, BTN bets 19.84 BB, Hero calls 19.84 BB

Turn: (70.76 BB, 2 players) Q♥

Hero bets 65.56 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 40.12 BB and is all-in

River: (151 BB, 2 players) 4♣

BTN cashed out 93.04 BB for a fee of 0.92 BB

Hero shows K♦ 4♥ 3♦ J♥ (Two Pair, Fours and Threes)

(Pre 38%, Flop 36%, Turn 35%)

BTN shows 5♥ A♦ 2♥ A♥ (Straight, Six High)

(Pre 62%, Flop 64%, Turn 65%)

BU is an unknown player.

iPoker - €0.10 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

UTG: 272.5 BB

CO: 83.5 BB

Hero (BTN): 124.6 BB

SB: 72.8 BB

BB: 112.5 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 6♣ J♦ 5♥ 8♥

UTG raises to 3.5 BB, CO calls 3.5 BB, Hero raises to 15.5 BB, fold, fold, UTG calls 12 BB, CO calls 12 BB

Flop: (48 BB, 3 players) 2♦ 6♠ T♥

UTG checks, CO checks, Hero bets 24 BB, UTG raises to 120 BB, fold, Hero calls 85.1 BB

Turn: (266.2 BB, 2 players) 3♠

River: (266.2 BB, 2 players) Q♠

UTG shows 6♥ K♥ K♣ 9♦ (One Pair, Kings)

(Pre 65%, Flop 69%, Turn 68%)

Hero mucks 6♣ J♦ 5♥ 8♥ (One Pair, Sixes)

(Pre 35%, Flop 31%, Turn 33%)

UTG wins 258.2 BB

MP is a 40/30/10 something between lag and aggro-fish.

iPoker - €0.10 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

CO: 98 BB

BTN: 117.2 BB

Hero (SB): 141.9 BB

BB: 39 BB

UTG: 101 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 9♦ K♦ 7♥ K♥

fold, fold, BTN raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 10 BB, BB calls 9 BB, BTN calls 7 BB

Flop: (30 BB, 3 players) J♥ 8♥ T♥

Hero checks, BB bets 29 BB, BTN calls 29 BB, Hero raises to 131.9 BB, BTN calls 78.2 BB

Turn: (273.4 BB, 3 players) 8♦

River: (273.4 BB, 3 players) 5♠

BTN shows 9♥ J♠ 2♣ Q♥ (Straight Flush, Queen High)

Main Pot [117 BB]: (Pre 16%, Flop 100%, Turn 100%)

Side Pot#1 [156.4 BB]: (Pre 25%, Flop 100%, Turn 100%)

Hero mucks 9♦ K♦ 7♥ K♥ (Flush, King High)

Main Pot [117 BB]: (Pre 53%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%)

Side Pot#1 [156.4 BB]: (Pre 75%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%)

BB shows Q♠ 4♣ A♥ 9♠ (Straight, Queen High)

Main Pot [117 BB]: (Pre 31%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%)

BTN wins 265.2 BB

BU is a 80/40/20 maniac whereas BB is pretty much unknown.

iPoker - €0.10 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

MP: 153.3 BB

CO: 146.9 BB

BTN: 53.9 BB

Hero (SB): 100 BB

BB: 60.5 BB

UTG: 53.9 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A♦ 8♦ J♠ T♠

UTG raises to 3.5 BB, MP calls 3.5 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 15 BB, BB calls 14 BB, UTG calls 11.5 BB, MP calls 11.5 BB

Flop: (60 BB, 4 players) 2♠ K♥ J♦

Hero bets 24 BB, BB raises to 45.5 BB, fold, MP calls 45.5 BB, Hero calls 21.5 BB

Turn: (196.5 BB, 3 players) 4♠

Hero bets 39.5 BB, MP calls 39.5 BB

River: (275.5 BB, 3 players) 9♥

MP shows 2♣ 6♦ J♣ Q♣ (Two Pair, Jacks and Twos)

Main Pot [196.5 BB]: (Pre 16%, Flop 30%, Turn 33%)

Side Pot#1 [79 BB]: (Pre 32%, Flop 38%, Turn 44%)

Hero mucks A♦ 8♦ J♠ T♠ (One Pair, Jacks)

Main Pot [196.5 BB]: (Pre 51%, Flop 47%, Turn 44%)

Side Pot#1 [79 BB]: (Pre 69%, Flop 62%, Turn 56%)

BB shows 7♠ 6♠ K♣ 6♣ (One Pair, Kings)

Main Pot [196.5 BB]: (Pre 32%, Flop 23%, Turn 22%)

MP wins 267.2 BB

Good action at my local site also at the last hand, where EP a 90/25 and BB 70/10 two calling stations are sticking around with insanely wide ranges.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

From what I remember in last Primetime (when I went through hands in forum), there is a room for improvement in the hands you have posted. Which makes it easy to assume that there are also room to improve in the hands you haven't posted.

One way to find out is to have session reviewed in next Primetime, more information at https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=403175&goto=firstnew

Unfortunately no time at 18:00 (just arriving at home).

Originally posted by Donkey111

Considering how interesting the discussion is, I doubt M95 will mind that we derail his thread a little I will add my own random 2c to Trance's already excellent $2:

• From what I have observed the guys with massive win rates for their stake are the guys who play two stakes below the stake they should play but for whatever reason have decided to play lower. That's why I think 20bb/100 for a first timer is very optimistic unless they are naturally very talented at poker (not the case of most players).

• The biggest skill jump for me was from NL50 to NL100 (on PokerStars). I believe the reason is that there were many pros playing NL100 vs NL50. Also, at the time, everyone playing NL100 could afford a seating script, making it quite hard to get a seat on good tables.

• Imho, the most important skill to gain at micro stakes is exploiting bad players. Never treat two bad players the same because they all have their own individual leaks. Do they call too much? Or raise too much? Or maybe they are very loose pre and tight postflop? How do you exploit them precisely? Don't leave a table because very good regs are playing there. On the contrary, be very observant of how they exploit bad players. That's the problem with starting too high a stake: bad players are rarer and you spend a lot of time against other skilful regs. On the other hand, bad players are everywhere at the micros. Also learn to evaluate a bad player's leaks: if they're losing at -8bb/100, you time is probably better spent elsewhere unless you have a very good read and a good seat on them.

• Life is too short. One of my biggest regrets is not to have played PLO earlier and wait till 2020 after 10 years of playing NL (6 of which being very active). The average NL100 reg is ridiculously good nowadays. It takes a lot of hard work to get a decent win rate and that win rate will never be as good as in PLO. I should have cut my losses (in term of time) no later than 2014 but I was too much into the mindset of playing challenging games and the fact I had invested so much time learning NL so I felt committed. I am certain I would be much richer nowadays if I had switched years ago. Now, I am talking from the perspective of someone who wants to max their earning. If your objective is different, this may not apply.

• Completely agree with Trance on studying a lot. Now, that's quite hard to figure out how to study effectively. It is very easy to lose a huge amount of time in situations that won't impact your win rate anyway. Been there, done that... (That's a large topic but here is a small free tip: in NL, a large part of your win rate comes from 3b pots so learn to navigate them well).

It´s okay to derail to your personal experience as long as we don´t get into technical stuff about NLHE. At the end we are all somewhat trying to achieve the same: Winning at Poker.

PLO50 to PLO100 seems to a massive jump in PLO too from what I´ve heard. Yeah, not exploiting on Micros is cutting your self pretty hard since they deviate soo extremely from what could be considered optimal. Another regret is, that I did not take poker more seriously in the golden Ages around 2008/2009 where I´ve been already around at the tables at NLHE. I was even winning few just a few effort and everything was exciting and new but I barely considered it as something, you need to work on at a daily basis. I had no idea not know how frustrating a full -time job can be if you dont like it and if you study, you are basically in a fixed sheme work at the area where you are educated. But who wants to do the same work until 62 and stick to a lousy paycheck of 1500€ - 3000€ where you could make millions? So I can´t blame my old me to have not reacted to things I just did not know. It is hard to anticipate to things where you are just not really innvolved into. Adolescent Carelessness, but know I know what´s about. ♦

As a conclusionfor now I will take away that beside the goals in terms of BRM and volume I need concrete study goals and to set priorities at my studies and ensure my skill is improving at least at a slow rate. So for this month, first I plan to finish chapter 7 postflop strategy single raised pots from the book. Second, this week I have finished to create my preflop ranges from PLO-Matrix EP-SB RFI, BUvsCO and SBvsBU so I am ready to start memorizing those ranges which would be the something to get done in February.

H1: fold preflop. with assumption villain is no good player I dont see any foldequity with NFB on river

H2: fold preflop. What are you trying to achieve with AT43 non nut suited OOP in most likely 4 way pot? are you really check/2.5x raising the flop with a 4 high fd and a non nut gutshot 4way? insane comes to my mind. playing maniacs successfully is not to be meant to fight fire with fire and start playing like one.

H3: fold preflop. dont 3bet with top gapped ss rundowns.

H4: not sure about iso 3betting but i think it helps if you would have an A/K blocker plus nns or ds instead of ss. flop is interesting because you have SDV with that queens but no spade or kingblocker, i guess the cbet is ok aand with backdoors checkback becomes an option. if you continue on turn dont 2nd barrel without blocker imo. once river double pairs, a flush doesnt need to fold anymore so another bullet you can save.

H5: fold preflop. Q864s is already close open on BTN imo. i would like to see some general stats of yours if you adjust like this to all maniacs

Looked the pic and first 4 are easy folds pre. None of those are even close.

QQJT I don't like the 3bet, even versus maniac. Hand plays well with a call, and not having AK in hand really hurts. Turning the hand into pure 3 barrel bluff without any blockers can't be justified in any way.

QJJ8, someone leads 3way and you have weak overpair + gutshot on flushdraw board. Just fold. Third player goes over the top, this should be snapfold.

Didn't go further, but these go along the with some of the hands you have posted in the forum. Clear mistakes preflop, and overplaying hands postflop. And I don't think that is even an opinion, I don't think there is a winning player on this planet that would agree that most of the above hands are well played.

Now the interesting part is, how do you react to this feedback? What I have seen in the forums during my years with poker, there are usually three ways to react:

Denial: skip feedback, and hold the thought that hands were well played. With this, there will never be progress.

Semi-acceptance: Accepting the truth that in those hands there were some mistakes, but hanging on to the thought that overall startegy is still good. Usually, there will be no clear progress as the underlying truth about strategy is not fully accepted.

Acceptance: You take a critical look to your game and understand that your strategy is not good at the moment. And that is the reason why there are no good results.

If you choose the acceptance, then the next step is to figure out why you are playing in the way you are. Why open hands, that are not even close to opening by any method? Everyone has access to solver ranges for affordable price, or very close to solver ranges for free (PJ ranges). Even PPT rankings would help tremendously.

For postflop overplaying I would recommend Pokerjuice and just learn to define a range for opponent and check your equity and EV versus that range in the hands.

There's a lot of work, but the first step is to accept that the strategy you shoved in those (at least the first bunch, didn't look further) hands is not good. And not profitable poker.

edit. Squeezing with Jd8h6c5h? In PPT rankings that hand is at bottom 57%. I am curious, what makes you think that bloating the pot with that crap is a good play? I get it if you get monkey tilted and just pot pre anything, but you posted those hands to show that you are NOT tilting. From where have you learned your preflop ranges? Any idea how much you should 3bet vs. MP open, CO call from the BTN normally? And how much it affects your preflop strategy if MP opens 30% instead of 20%?

Just a quick one as I have only three minutes:

I was going to say it’s usually not the large pots, but in this case they genuinely seem to be an issue. Kyyberi wrote an excellent post earlier.

I’m in agreement with him. There are also fundamental points beyond the technical details — things like never bluffing a donkey and not going overboard because someone else is playing wildly — that I’m missing in the hands. I’ll share more thoughts tonight...

Originally posted by Mascherano95

Because the battle is lost as soon as you give up. It´s not like I am making no progress at all and that I´d estimate at as a hopeless dream. So giving up is no option for sure. Poker is a passion to me. Like strategy games in general but poker is the way to go to financial freedom (contrary to chess or RTS-Games). Which side hustles do you mean? Some friends, one of it a former Mid-Stakes NLHE HU-Cash player, switched to Afiliate marketing. But that is even more dubious to me and I dont think getting rich is that easy and how much of the brags about lifestyle on social medie ie. is show-off and what´s real. I really think Poker is a serious opportunity to make it a easy living, but obviously it is a hard way to get there. If you jump on every train that looks promising you are getting no where.

Thank you very much for sharing all this. I don´t think you got my math example right about why I think working a bit additional in real life + studying more and playing way less poker would be beneficial judging by the numbers you posted. As reality already prove you wrong, why still playing so much poker instead of following JNandez advice? And why do you play when you are mentally tired after work? You are too tired to do theory but you are not too tired to play?

What would you tell someone who does affiliate marketing for multiple years, invests a lot of time and still earns not even 100$ a month? What would you tell a footballer who wants to make it as a pro but is already 30 years old, tries for years and never has played in the 6th league or above?

I was about to post that it is not about the big pots usually but here they really seem to be a problem. Kyyberi made a really good post above except I like the 3bet preflop with QQJT deep against a non-potsize openraise.

I agree with him and also with most of efkay´s analysis. And a lot of the other hands seem pretty poor at least preflop. The 3bet with 9765 OOP is a mistake but somewhat understandable (as overvalueing singlesuited rundowns is a common mistake) but squeezing J865 or AJ96 pre, calling a potsizeraise with overpair+gutter+little backdoors only with QJJ8, punting the stack off with Khi flush on J♥:T♥:8♥: against a potsize bet and a call...

There are also fundamentals outside the technical bits like never bluff a donkey and not going crazy because someone else is playing crazy that I am missing in the hands.

How do you see those hands yourself? Did you realise those things as poor plays while playing? And if so, why did you play them this way? And if not why did you play them against your better knowledge?

Good luck at the tables

Originally posted by tranceactor

punting the stack off with Khi flush on J♥:T♥:8♥: against a potsize bet and a call...

Is this really a punt vs a shortstack and a maniac? Hard to find a fold anyway and the maniac shove the low flush on paired turn.

I might not be well adapted to the micros, but I would still say yes. Don’t get me wrong: in this setup we almost always lose the stack, yet we give up a lot of value if we shove the flop. The maniac can fold a straight or a weaker flush when we shove OTF. Also, we can be fairly sure we’re behind when the turn pairs and he bets into the empty side pot. The BB’s range here is usually strong — many nut flushes, some sets, not many random bluffs and, if he’s careless, some straights or weaker flushes. The maniac’s range can be any flush or any set and, depending on his postflop skill, more or fewer straights and sometimes even 2pairs. So, waiting for a safe turn and avoiding scaring him off is much better.

On top of that, we can be fairly sure we'll be beaten on a paired turn if he bets into the empty side pot.

That's an interesting point, because I was about to say he won't fold on the flop to a raise but could turn a weaker holding into a bluff on a paired turn.

Originally posted by efkay

Additionally, we can be fairly certain we're beaten on a paired turn if he fires into the empty sidepot.

That's an interesting point — I was going to suggest he won't fold on the flop to a raise but might convert a weaker holding into a bluff on a paired turn.

Still, even maniacs (and here we only know about his preflop action) seldom bluff into an empty sidepot. Bluffing into an empty sidepot is one of the poorest plays in poker. Beyond that: which hands will he call a pot-sized bet with on the flop that could become a turn bluff? And if he did bluff a paired turn, the third player likely would have made a boat (or still hold the nut flush that beats us) frequently. So in that situation we also don't win much as we lose the main pot to BB. Therefore, we can't call on a paired turn.

In my experience it’s rare that even a maniac pays off on the flop with a low flush or straight as Hero always has a strong flush when he raises and never executes a blocker play. However, I’m not playing these stakes and I don’t know how much more sophisticated maniacs are on midstakes versus microstakes

Omg.. lots of text here. Just opened 3 tabs to reference at anything.

Originally posted by efkay

H1: fold preflop. with assumption villain is no good player I dont see any foldequity with NFB on river

H2: fold preflop. What are you trying to achieve with AT43 non nut suited OOP in most likely 4 way pot? are you really check/2.5x raising the flop with a 4 high fd and a non nut gutshot 4way? insane comes to my mind. playing maniacs successfully is not to be meant to fight fire with fire and start playing like one.

H3: fold preflop. dont 3bet with top gapped ss rundowns.

H4: not sure about iso 3betting but i think it helps if you would have an A/K blocker plus nns or ds instead of ss. flop is interesting because you have SDV with that queens but no spade or kingblocker, i guess the cbet is ok aand with backdoors checkback becomes an option. if you continue on turn dont 2nd barrel without blocker imo. once river double pairs, a flush doesnt need to fold anymore so another bullet you can save.

H5: fold preflop. Q864s is already close open on BTN imo. i would like to see some general stats of yours if you adjust like this to all maniacs

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Looked the pic and first 4 are easy folds pre. None of those are even close.

Originally posted by tranceactor

How do you see those hands yourself?

H1 is a preflop RFI according to PLO-Matrix. We would open here any :8x:x or :3x:+:3x:+ non-Ace singlesuited.

H2 would be indeed a preflop fold but hu against the maniac I can try to hit 2pair or better to stack him for a comparable cheap limp. Hand has wheel-potential too. That´s the goal here. Yes, the play to gii with such a weak(-medium) strength draw is quite variance rocketing I am prob not rly bad here against the loose range he is prepared to rumble. But the raise i see indeed as a mistake, calling would have been the superior play since I have no FE. The limp-call I also consider as a mistake, should have limp-folded.

H3 I agree. Bad squeeze here by me.

H4 Against a loose range singlesuited seems to be a pretty standard 3-bet too according to PLO-Matrix. He would even go down here to hands like Q♠:Q♥:T♠:7♦: and Q♥:Q♣:6♣:5♠:.

H5 I agree. According to PLO-Matrix this is a clear preflop fold like singlesuited hands aswell.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Didn't go further, but these go along the with some of the hands you have posted in the forum. Clear mistakes preflop, and overplaying hands postflop. And I don't think that is even an opinion, I don't think there is a winning player on this planet that would agree that most of the above hands are well played.

Your references are pretty unclear: Some hands, one winning player on this planet (?) and most of above hands. Since you did not take a look at the other hands mentioned here, it does not make sense to start a discussion without context. Alltogether I posted quite a lot of hands in the forum, I am aware, that my style is overly loose preflop and my postflop hands are played very exploitative.

Now the interesting part is, how do you react to this feedback? What I have seen in the forums during my years with poker, there are usually three ways to react:

Denial: skip feedback, and hold the thought that hands were well played. With this, there will never be progress.

Semi-acceptance: Accepting the truth that in those hands there were some mistakes, but hanging on to the thought that overall startegy is still good. Usually, there will be no clear progress as the underlying truth about strategy is not fully accepted.

Acceptance: You take a critical look to your game and understand that your strategy is not good at the moment. And that is the reason why there are no good results.

If you choose the acceptance, then the next step is to figure out why you are playing in the way you are. Why open hands, that are not even close to opening by any method? Everyone has access to solver ranges for affordable price, or very close to solver ranges for free (PJ ranges). Even PPT rankings would help tremendously.

I am not sure what is your actual feedback? "Overplay" is heavily depending on the range/style you are up against, otherwise it might be for value. I am aware of this tendency in my play at this stakes so it cannot be a matter of "acceptance" but more if it is appropriate according to villain and the odds.

edit. Squeezing with Jd8h6c5h? ... I get it if you get monkey tilted and just pot pre anything, but you posted those hands to show that you are NOT tilting. From where have you learned your preflop ranges? Any idea how much you should 3bet vs. MP open, CO call from the BTN normally? And how much it affects your preflop strategy if MP opens 30% instead of 20%?

...

I agree this hand was played on tilt. Should have just folded pre. Ehm. Those hands are not supposed to show that I was not tilting, the idea behind it was to start an discussion to evaluate if and how much there was tilt involved:

Originally posted by Mascherano95

... To let you decide if the hand was tilted, technically misplayed or well played...

And my conclusion is, yes there was, the big losing sessions include lots of tilty hands. The remaining question imo would be, the points mentioned by tranceactor how I got to that point and what are the reasons behind it. Also interesting, how much it actually affected the EV to orbits that might have been played tighter.

Originally posted by tranceactor

why still playing so much poker instead of following JNandez advice? And why do you play when you are mentally tired after work? You are too tired to do theory but you are not too tired to play?

I am following his advice now?! I´ll get my first paycheck next week. Yes. Theory is much more exhausting cause you gotta process new content. Daily grind on the other hand is quite autmatic already and I feel like I can earn a few extra bucks. But it does not have to. This month will show what´s possible aside.

What would you tell someone who does affiliate marketing for multiple years, invests a lot of time and still earns not even 100$ a month? What would you tell a footballer who wants to make it as a pro but is already 30 years old, tries for years and never has played in the 6th league or above?

I dont know much about afiliate marketing but footall is a heavily physical demanding sport where success is to a high degree depending on your body constitution. You are just not running fast enough at your 40´s to compete at a professional level. Btw my teacher told me there was that guy from Argentine, who started his football career with 30 years. About business this is completely different. Studies have shown, that a lot of self-made millionars have failed multiple times before their business sky-rocketed mainly because the owners persistently repeated to take high financial risks even in their late 30´s. An extreme example would be KFC-founder Harland Sanders, a lifelong broke cook who made his first million after retirement at the age of 65.

As usual my response might sound harsh too, but I would like to add, that I appreciate all of your comments and contributions very much. No trolls, lots of interesting thoughts, that´s great!

I don't have access to my sims atm, so can't really confirm these. But are you sure you are looking at the 100bb tab in Matrix? Cold calling AJ96, suited to J preflop? 3betting QQT7, QQ65? Those sound really weird.

edit: Checked with Vision, although that is for PLO500 rake. At PLO20 you should play tighter.

AJ96 is 100% fold against UGT open and a caller. Even double suited.

BTN vs MP open, QQJT is 3bet only double suited. QQ65 is a call if suited to Q, otherwise fold. QQT7 is call if suited or double suited, rainbow is a fold.

Now the thing is that at high rake (especially if you play at ipoker!!!!) your preflop should be a bit tighter, especially for calling ranges. I also have done a sim where there is no Fold Equity for 3betting (truth at small stakes often), and that tightens the 3betting ranges from the bottom.

I don't have access to Matrix anymore, but I have a strong feeling that you have mislooked/misunderstood it.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

I don't have access to my sims atm, so can't really confirm these. But are you sure you are looking at the 100bb tab in Matrix? Cold calling AJ96, suited to J preflop? 3betting QQT7, QQ65? Those sound really weird.

edit: Checked with Vision, although that is for PLO500 rake. At PLO20 you should play tighter.

AJ96 is 100% fold against UGT open and a caller. Even double suited.

BTN vs MP open, QQJT is 3bet only double suited. QQ65 is a call if suited to Q, otherwise fold. QQT7 is call if suited or double suited, rainbow is a fold.

Now the thing is that at high rake (especially if you play at ipoker!!!!) your preflop should be a bit tighter, especially for calling ranges. I also have done a sim where there is no Fold Equity for 3betting (truth at small stakes often), and that tightens the 3betting ranges from the bottom.

I don't have access to Matrix anymore, but I have a strong feeling that you have mislooked/misunderstood it.

Yes I mislooked, it is 100bb but I was looking in the RFI section cause I thought it was an raise first in. Sry, my mistake: the 3-bet is a obious misplay, I would assume due to tilt.

QQ65ss is the weakest hand BU would 3-bet vs a CO open.

Not according to Vision. BTNvsCO, there are no QQss 3bets, unless you have an Ace in the hand (there are "some" combos, with really low frequency).

January, grind aside the work trial:

(https://ibb.co/2N9nJtn)

Earned me some additional BR$ but the success is somewhat questionable. Plo5 and Plo10 mixed, whereas Plo10 was quite lucky above EV and might saved me.

(https://ibb.co/w736xBm)

But at least I managed to get the Volume I aimed for. I wait now for my paycheck to deposit and take the 8th shot at Plo20 anyways.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Not according to Vision. BTNvsCO, there are no QQss 3bets, unless you have an Ace in the hand (there are "some" combos, with really low frequency).

Well I took this as an incentive to study the 3bet range BU vs CO. You are right, should only 3bet ~AQQ9-5 good singlesuit and AQQx weak singlesuit. No idea where I was looking..

Edit: Ugh, those ranges are so complex... this makes the learning process so slow. I am reall tired after having 2 study session each an hour. Sure you can say, grind 20 hours, study 30 hours etc. but one week after another this is not realistic because I just cannot concentrate any longer or internalize so much new content just like that after 40-50 hours with those madmen at my job.

There is also this itchy boric and chlorid acid I have a protectve equipment like this:

https://gyazo.com/c581e3848e4e10f12b4a4ee828b18f50

but it is insufficient. My hands are swollen and my neck is itchy even after my 10th shower.

(https://ibb.co/WkBn5w4)

(https://ibb.co/ySyphkb)

There is also this cleaning lady, fantastic body, very sexy who obviously wants me to give it to here. Teasing me and driving me crazy all the time. In general I find myself being much more attractive and getting tons of attention from the ladies after my 110th day of nofap now. But I have no time, no energy and not even a car. I am do workouts with my smartphone app called "Fitify". After 17 weeks I built some muslces (gained 13 kg, I guess a lot of it is fat too) but I still have troubles with my posture. 13 years of public school education left its mark. I have muscle tensions and not the best sleep. My hips are blocked and did not feel fully mobilized for years. I have pain when I have bend down, like a 70 year old grandpa.

Btw I am afraid too that after a jizz off I would just collapse due to lack of energy since my ridiculously high testosterone level seems to keep me still pushing forward. So hot and sexy girls smiling at me somehow scare the shit out of me. Anyways, last weekend I tried to make an hand-chart for the BUvsCO 3-bet but I did not finish it. So I wanted to do it this weekend. This morning looking into my Excel sheet, everything was poorly structured and it got me confused. Basically I had to start a new one, this time just the Pair-hands to get it done:

Raise/4-bet

AAds, AAsa, AABss, AAx3+ss, AA55+rb, AABrb, AAx5+rb, AKK-QQds, AJJ7+ds, ATT8+ds, AJ-T99ds, AT-988ds,

Raise/Call

AA9-32ss, AA44-22rb, AA7-54-3rb, KKQQ-44ds, KKQ-7J-6ds, QQJJ-88ds, QQJ-9T-8ds, JJTT-88ds, JJT-98ds, TT99-88ds, JTT9ds, TT98ds, 9988-77ds, 8877-66ds, 7766ds

Raise/Fold

AKK-QQss, AKKrb, AJJ6-2ds, AJJss, ATT7-2ds, ATTsa, ABTTss, A998-2ds, AK-899ss, AK-588sa, AK-988ss, AK-477sa, AT-766ds, A9-655ds

My PLO sheet was a mess too until a few days ago. But it just took too much time to check it in game, let alone memorise it. I have now make a simplified one that can be kept in memory (a priority to me). I prefer that even if it leads to loss of EV (fractions of BB most likely) due to oversimplification.

I will be very much looking forward to the report of your 8th PLO20 attempt!

Your preflop doesn't have to be perfect. Just close enough to thresholds.

Let's say that we are opening single suited QQ from UTG. There are two thresholds, one for kicker+dangler and one for connected QQ.

As we open all AQQ but not all KQQ, there is our threshold. And the exact threshold depends on the sim (or if you are using other preflop ranges, like PokerJuice). The one I have open here has the threshold at K7/K9 (depending if it's suited to K or Q). Now in reality KQQ9 and KQQ8 has virtually the same EV so your winrate is not defined by whether you open both, one or neither of those hands. The actual EV is affected by so many other things. It's just if you start to open hands like KQQ3 you deviate far enough from the threshold that it MIGHT affect your winrate. But still, if you have postflop edge you can even play KQQ3 with breakeven or marginally profitable.

The other threshold is at QQT8/QQ98 (depending if it's suited to Q or not), and once again the hands around that threshold are with same EV. Just don't go to disconnected QQ, like QQ54.

For some people using charts is useful way to visualize the range, but as you have access to PLO Matrix you can easily see the thresholds. Why won't you try just writing down the threshold, instead if putting in the syntax?

EP, QQss: All AQQ, connected QQ, all double pairs.

Instead of writing down the whole range from UTG, divide it to few sub categories. It's easier to practise and learn sub category than the whole range.

I have seen same winrates from good/decent players with VPIP 15, 20 or 25. There is no absolute optimal preflop range that suits all. As said, there are so many things that affect your winrate besides opening range, that you shouldn't be TOO focused on it. Just make it close enough, and focus on how to play those hands postflop more.

That being said, of course good preflop makes the postflop easier and more profitable. But if the preflop is decent, it increases winrate more to spend 20h on postflop than 20h preflop. Once the preflop is somewhat good, it will become naturally better if you check close hands after the session (where you are not sure how to play them preflop).

Good postflop can make profits even with bad preflop, but if postflop is bad then no preflop will save it.

I want to say you break down an easy-to-remember range really well, Kyyberi. Your 2019 PLO preflop coaching video on YouTube is excellent and has shaped how I tackle the problem.

February, entering the Low-Stakes:

This time shotting was succesful. I mixed PLO10 and PLO20 whereas the EV-graph of PLO20 is break-even only. Well, but this also means PLO10 was a success opposite to January. However imo 14k is a little thin to determine what I call a "tendency". So I´ll add another month grinding those stakes instead of making a large deposit. After 5.7k hands I got sick due to work conditions, I felt I lack focus and I still do not feel 100% recovered today which might be a reason for the following plateau afterwards. But this is really hard to say, despite I´ve started to make hand reviews again.

For my study goals it´s not going optimally neither. I finished to extract the BUvsCO ranges including 3bet-fold, 3bet-shove, 3bet-call and call from the PLO-Matrix which feels like such a small portion compared to what lies still ahead of me. I still have to write it down more compressed and still got the memorize it better, but I feel like my play otb already improved. I was indeed 3betting way too loose and with wrong range portions. With the book I am at the turn strategies now and I repeated the content of the Jnandez MM 10-week transformation where I finished reading at week 6.

My fitness is a total desaster and I did not make a workout for over 2 weeks. It is frustrating how I lost my muscles so quickly and I feel tired and exhausting and I have little head ache while writing this. I really hope I will be physically recovered quickly since there is such a strong relation to the mental game and general performance.

March, parabola down and up:

(https://ibb.co/qyx4p0F)

After my illness I did not played at all the first 5 days. After rejoining, I had (as always) felt difficulties to get back into the games, playing too loose with lack of awareness what´s going on at the tables. Together with running quite beyond EV it lead towards awful results losing nearly all my profits from February. After a little mental recovery and a fat 15 buyin deposit I managed to stabilize my mental game. Anyways, I have to keep grinding PLO20 in April aswell.

Studies aint going the best neither. I finished "Mastering Small Stakes PLO" and the ranges from BU and also started memorizing it. I nearly did about an hour but I feel like I could have done more if I had more focus. After getting tired after a 30-40 minute study session I just stop and I have never been able to add a complete second study session in the morning, which would be great so I could (together with the max. of 4 hours grind) utilize my full mental capacities (studies have shown, that the brain capacity of a human brain being able to gather and process information per day is around 6 hours). Now I have to study for the driving license (they accused me of taking alcohol or drugs). Despite the tests were negative I have to do that againcause I missed the 18 months recovery deadline. It´s a fuckin joke. And on the top of that, I failed the driving test 2 days ago. That governmental harassement costed me 1000€ + so far. It´s incredible how I get exploited on others area than poker. I have to study the driving test and it will take away precious time and focus I am able to spend for studies atm. I´ve not been able to keep up my fitness workout routines this month neither.

This alltogether kinda stressed me so much that I unfortunately have started smoking 3 weeks ago.. I´ll try a quit next month. Not buyin another pack of (https://ibb.co/qMTfD4S)

When life gives you turds, it's hard to play good poker. Focus on getting life stabilized, quit smoking asap and use poker time to study, think and learn. And hit the tables after that.

PLAN MODIFICATION, TRANSFORMING NEW HABITS (again)

I decided to rewind the PLO 10-week Transition program from the Jnandez Mastermind abo. I hope there will be no copyright violations so I will solely reflect the topics shortly from my own view, how topics look like that suit my current state of development and exchange the hand samples with private ones from my own data base.

I´ve quit my job for health reasons and will start a new one next monday as a storehouse worker with 2 shifts where the first is from 6-14 am and the second from 12-8 pm. I try to find a balance between poker studies and physical fitness workouts. I found maintaining a good health and physical well-being beside a regular daily routine having a huge impact on my mental game making a difference of multiple bb/h. At the moment I grind 3-4 sessions a day each lasting 40 minutes.

My new plan is to have my weight training Mo, We, and Fr in the forenoon, poker studies on Tu, Th and Sa when I have to work on the intermediate layer and do it in the afternoon when I have to work on the early shift. The sunday forenoon is fix reserved for a bycicle ride as a cardio workout. I will grind a single session fix each work day and 2 in the weekends starting with 45 min per session. If things go well I will try to add a second grinding session in the weeks I have to work on early shifts. My first weight training program for newbies fits the purpose of my training comeback. It will endure 12 weeks. For my PLO 10-weeks transition I will recap the first 2 weeks now and re-enter at week 3 on Monday.

My current situation:

Finished the book Mastering Small-Stakes PLO by Jnandez but forgot many stuff. I will have to read multiple times but will arrange it behind the transition program. I am playing PLO20 where a month was profitable while another month was break-even. This month started good so I can hope to take shots on PLO50 next month. I don´t wanna spend too much time on PLO20 since I am pretty sure I already can beat the stakes with a 2-digit winrate long-term. I did not manage to set up a basic preflop gameplan but I managed to become more tight and improve my range awareness otb and my starting-hand selection preflop.

Desired situation:

I want to stay at the grind mixing PLO50 and PLO100 while preparing a professional bankroll and the skill required to beat PLO200. This would enable to be not dependant on work which frees up capacities but it is no must. Since the benefit of having a solic basic income, federal promoted pension time and health insurance is pretty nice aswell. But I see the urge to quit once I become constrained due to lack of time for deep studies, the signal to do so is if I feel struggles to beat the next higher stake. For the beginning I also found a full-time job routine very helpful to implement daily routines compared to the life I had living as an hermit in Hungary.

The first milestone of entering Low-Stakes and reading through the Book Mastering Small-Stakes PLO is achieved. The second is that I want to have a meaningful sample beating PLO50 with a similar winrate like on PLO20 and enough cash on my bank account to replenish my br with 20 stacks at any time given. Unfortunately my second study milestone, setting up a basic preflop gameplan still has to wait, since it seems to be better to take an overall approach which is provided with the 10-weeks transition program. Beside this I will make hand reviews of any hand played where more than 25% of my stack was involved and post some of them in the forum. The starting hands from those reviews will be manually typed into a starting-hands grid which is templated by the chart also given by Jnandez MM-program. This ensures, I have at least a steady and slow progress working with my preflop ranges. This way I can do both, hand reviews and preflop gameplan work.

Failures so far were:

Wrong job (chemical damage to my health, working overtime).

Switching between different study approaches.

Overestimation of my ability to restart my workout routines.

Too heavy focus on solely preflop studies.

My Strategy:

GTO Solutions (preflop game plan is modified but still relies on GTO templates).

Adjustments (being flexible with exploitative bet-sizings, adapt AFq´s against different player types, avoid swingy reg confrontations).

Balance (play more tight to stabilize the red-line, reduce betting frequencies otf and oop against reggish players).

Optimization (find a new balance between physical workouts and study sessions, optimize the study-play ratio).

Integration (communicate goals, plans to get reflection, take responsibilty for my actions, having clear ideas and formulate them).

Who am I becoming?

I am becoming a professional poker-player.

What are the reasons to overestimate my disciplin?

Brain-Masturbation when imaging everything will be easier, so the actual drive to perform sinks.

How strong is my willpower actually?

Falling into old habits like nicotine addiction, lie in bed too long, no breakfast are a big source of risks and lowers my speed towards the ultimate goal.

What are my values besides the tables?

I want to remain a honest, straightfoward and emotionally sensitive person without fear leaving the comfort zone whenever it is necessary.

My HUD Display:

My Color-Coding System:

Tight, solid regular = red

Loose, solid regular = orange

Weak, erratic regular = yellow

Straightforward, nitty regular = blue

Weak, passive regular = cyan

Loose, passive fish = green

Aggressive, erratic fish = purple

Loose, maniacal aggressive fish = pink

Implement SPR´s together with Allin- and Fold-Equities required from 0.5 to 5.

My BRM remains the 35+5 approach.

I will try to get more knowledge about PLO postflop game.

Family All-In. I was the only favourite.. (Power of being not dominated).

iPoker - €0.20 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

BB: 107.6 BB

UTG: 184.25 BB

CO: 85.8 BB

Hero (BTN): 302.35 BB

SB: 71.5 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 8♠ T♣ 9♥ 6♣

UTG raises to 3.5 BB, CO calls 3.5 BB, Hero raises to 15.5 BB, SB calls 15 BB, BB calls 14.5 BB, UTG raises to 81 BB, CO raises to 85.8 BB, Hero calls 70.3 BB, SB calls 56 BB, BB raises to 107.6 BB, UTG calls 26.6 BB, Hero calls 21.8 BB

Flop: (480.1 BB, 5 players) 3♣ 9♦ T♥

UTG bets 76.65 BB, Hero calls 76.65 BB

Spoiler Turn: (633.4 BB, 5 players) 9♠

River: (633.4 BB, 5 players) 9♣

UTG shows J♥ 5♠ A♥ A♦ (Full House, Nines full of Aces)

Main Pot [357.5 BB]: (Pre 18%, Flop 9%, Turn 4%)

Side Pot#1 [57.2 BB]: (Pre 22%, Flop 10%, Turn 4%)

Side Pot#2 [65.4 BB]: (Pre 35%, Flop 21%, Turn 4%)

Side Pot#3 [153.3 BB]: (Pre 42%, Flop 23%, Turn 4%)

CO shows J♠ 3♥ K♠ Q♥ (Three of a Kind, Nines)

Main Pot [357.5 BB]: (Pre 21%, Flop 31%, Turn 0%)

Side Pot#1 [57.2 BB]: (Pre 27%, Flop 39%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows 8♠ T♣ 9♥ 6♣ (Four of a Kind, Nines)

Main Pot [357.5 BB]: (Pre 26%, Flop 41%, Turn 96%)

Side Pot#1 [57.2 BB]: (Pre 32%, Flop 43%, Turn 96%)

Side Pot#2 [65.4 BB]: (Pre 43%, Flop 69%, Turn 96%)

Side Pot#3 [153.3 BB]: (Pre 58%, Flop 77%, Turn 96%)

SB shows K♦ Q♦ 4♦ 4♥ (Full House, Nines full of Fours)

Main Pot [357.5 BB]: (Pre 19%, Flop 10%, Turn 0%)

BB shows 5♦ 5♣ 8♥ A♣ (Full House, Nines full of Fives)

Main Pot [357.5 BB]: (Pre 16%, Flop 8%, Turn 0%)

Side Pot#1 [57.2 BB]: (Pre 18%, Flop 8%, Turn 0%)

Side Pot#2 [65.4 BB]: (Pre 21%, Flop 10%, Turn 0%)

Hero wins 628.4 BB

Why are you squeezing that hand? The solver simply folds it preflop to any action, even to a cutoff open.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Why are you squeezing that hand? The solver would simply fold it preflop to any action, even to a cutoff open.

The preflop squeeze was an error.

I've discovered a major leak in my game: I'm cold-calling far too often preflop.

BU 24%

CO 18%

MP 16%

Originally posted by Mascherano95

I discovered a major leak in my game. I'm cold-calling far too often preflop:

BU 24%

CO 18%

MP 16%

Do you suffer significant losses from making these cold-calls? If you hold a reasonable edge over your opponents, your ideal cold-calling frequencies will diverge from GTO as will be your 3betting frequencies. Maybe you should go over a few of these hands to figure out what's happening.

Originally posted by Nunki

Originally posted by Mascherano95

I've discovered a major leak in my game: I'm cold-calling far too often preflop:

BU 24%

CO 18%

MP 16%

Do you suffer large losses from making these cold-calls? If you hold a reasonable edge over your opponents, your optimal cold-calling frequencies will differ from GTO. as will be your 3betting frequencies. Maybe you should analyze some of these hands to determine what's happening.

I'm not certain. But this could explain why my red line drops so sharply. Since I don't even know the GTO ranges, this is a useful starting point for making meaningful improvements.

How can you say it's a huge leak, if you don't know the effect of it to your winnings? Just filter hands you have cold called and see the graphs. Start from there.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

How can you claim it's a huge leak if you haven't checked how it affects your winnings? Just apply a filter for hands you cold-called and inspect the graphs. Start from there.

Anyone familiar with PT4? I simply applied the filter 1. Actions & Opportunities Preflop - Call 2Bet and 2. Actions & Opportunities Preflop - Cold Called 2Bet.

Ugh... this software confuses me. The manual isn't much help; maybe I'll buy HM3 later when I can afford it.

My CC2Bet without any filters..

Originally posted by Mascherano95

Anybody familiar with PT4? I just put the filter 1. Actions & Opportunities Preflop - Call 2Bet and 2. Actions & Opportunities Preflop - Cold Called 2Bet.

Were those two separate queries?

I'll try to help, but I'm not completely clear about the goal.

Also, there is the PT4 board (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/board.php?boardid=1647) where you can ask specific questions.

If those queries are combined, it matters whether they are combined with "And" or with "OR"

In this image, they are combined with "And"

When using "And" only the most restrictive of the two will show.

When using "Or" the least restrictive will show and since the Cold-Call is a subset of the Call, then the cold-call numbers get buried.

You can change the "And" and "Or" type by ungrouping the filters, then recombining them.

In this particular case, it might be useful to run them separately

I hope that helps.

Incidentally, in my case the "cold called 2Bet" had a significantly higher win rate -- but v small sample

Most likely cold call refers to situations where you haven't put any money to the pot = doesn't count calls from the blinds or after limp.

No one makes a lot of money with calling. Most players call too much at high rake environment and lose money or are breakevenish. You might want to check how tight solver calls opens, and start from there. Especially SB is the spot where people call way too much, and that hurts.

Good rule of thumb to get started with: if the hands is not a clear no-brainer call, don't call. Even in position, our calling range preflop to an open is mostly way under 10%, depending on how much we are 3betting. Overall playing % of hands is between 10-15% (15-20% from the BTN).

April, sudden drop:

Having a good start playing primarily PLO20, I somehow struggled between 2k and 7k with a short upswing and a rapid downfall which I can hardly explain. From my analysis what I have extracted so far, most of those hands were played quite solid, at least not very different to the way I played before even at the end of the downside. So the Allin-Adj. EV is confusing to me, seem not to be a reliable monetary EV measurement after all, as it only shows the EV of spots where we gii.

I hope that helps.

Thank you. I actually wanted just refer to the Cold Call. PT4 seemsto have Coldcall already in use for the positions MP to BU ( as Kyyberie mentioned blinds account as a bet). I found the "NOT" helpful to restrict my hands analyzing hands SRP (cbet f, etc..).

Even in position, our calling range preflop to an open is mostly way under 10%, depending on how much we are 3betting. Overall playing % of hands is between 10-15% (15-20% from the BTN).

+1

I think the winrate in coldcalling should not be too heavily negative but at least break-even, and actually +EV in such a weak environment.

I managed to add a 4th 45min session now, increasing my volume considerably without losing quality. I still try to find a balance where the additional play does not hurt the quality of my last session or sessions overall but I have the feeling, I am doing good despite what results say. I also managed to quit smoking for 15 days now and established a workout routine.

A few days ago I withdrawed all my money from Win2Day and put it to GG Poker. I got a 600$ first deposit bonus I have to clear withing 3 months. I am aware I should not increase my volume just for the sake of clearing bonusses. The rakeback there is nice too and the pool looks juicy. The reason I switched site is, that Win2day had a software update. I cannot use my HUD any longer. Second, the playing surface is just even more terrible now. I cannot even distinguish, what action the players took or if they are still in the hand. The labeling colours are also barely identifiable. The last point is the lack of traffic I experience in late afternoon.I hope within the Asian timeframe, it allows me to have decent traffic now in the afternoon, having earlier bedtime, more focus in the forenoon studies and a better daily rhythm overall.

I dont know how to continue here without graph, but I am going to keep making my Bankroll entries in the Get Rich or Die Trying Tankroll-Challenge (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=326222&page=219).

Maybe you guys have an idea how to import the hands played on GG into PT4?

Edit:

I found a way how to import the hands! You may find this step-by-step guide useful for how to do it:

Importand Hands from GG manual (https://standardbacking.com/how-to-import-your-hand-history-from-ggpoker-to-pt4-or-hm3-tutorial/)

Edit Edit:

Looks like it still does not work. The Pokerroom as shown in step 10 (GGPoker) is not available in the list. If someone know how I could figure that out, I would appreciate it!

Cold-calling out-of-position blinds should certainly be positive, as folding every one of those hands would be EV0.

afaik no GG support with pt4, hm3 required

Originally posted by efkay

afaik no GG support with pt4, hm3 required

I have imported hands into PT4, but haven't done so recently.

It worked for me.

I'll test it again later today

Just now I imported today's Spin&Gold freebie into PT4 without incident.

Note: I used PT4 4.15.30

Steps taken:

✔️: Open PokerCraft on GGPoker This opens in a browser window. I used Edge since it has no ad blockers.

✔️: Select Spin & Gold on left hand menu

✔️: Click the checkbox next to the games to download.

✔️: Click the "Download" button for Game Histories. There is also a button for summaries. I did not download this one.

✔️: The download will be a zipped file. Unzip it to a folder somewhere. I used the temp folder[1] since I didn't want to keep it.

✔️: Open the new folder. shift-right-click the file and choose "copy as path"

☑️: In PT4 Click the "Play Poker" Button. I Created a new database for testing. Good idea

☑️: Click "Get Hands From Disk"

☑️: Choose "Select Files"

☑️: In the dialogue that opens, paste the name of the file you copied above (or just navigate to it)

☑️: When you click "Open" the file is imported.

Works when I do it

[1] The quick way to get to the temp folder is %temp%

When I was active I held a hm2 and a pt4 licence and still had to obtain a hm3 license; either something has changed regarding pt4+GG or I forgot what the issue was. Maybe Hold'em hands are acceptable but PLO isn't!? Unsure, but I'm fairly certain a PLO grinder on GG needed to obtain a hm3 license

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Just now I imported today's Spin&Gold freebie into PT4 without incident.

Note: I used PT4 4.15.30

Steps taken:

✔️: Open PokerCraft on GGPoker This opens in a browser window. I used Edge since it has no ad blockers.

✔️: Select Spin & Gold on left hand menu

✔️: Click the checkbox next to the games to download.

✔️: Click the "Download" button for Game Histories. There is also a button for summaries. I did not download this one.

✔️: The download will be a zipped file. Unzip it to a folder somewhere. I used the temp folder[1] since I didn't want to keep it.

✔️: Open the new folder. shift-right-click the file and choose "copy as path"

☑️: In PT4 Click the "Play Poker" Button. I Created a new database for testing. Good idea

☑️: Click "Get Hands From Disk"

☑️: Choose "Select Files"

☑️: In the dialogue that opens, paste the name of the file you copied above (or just navigate to it)

☑️: When you click "Open" the file is imported.

Works when I do it

[1] The quick way to get to the temp folder is %temp%

Originally posted by efkay

When I was active I had a hm2 and a pt4 licence and still had to cop a hm3 license, either something has changed in regards of pt4+GG or I forgot what the problem was. Maybe Holdem hands are fine but PLO isnt!? unsure, but pretty sure plo grinder on GG need to cop a hm3 license

Yes that may be the case it is PLO. I tried again and followed the step-by-step guide (Ty btw for you efforts) but I got the same error message (Unregznized game type: plo...). I assume the Spin&Gold are in a NLHE format?

Edit:

I tried to replace the "PLO" with "Omaha Pot Limit" in the text files so PT could read it (Lots of work unless I pay for a tool to edit multiple textfiles at once) according to this: PT4 Forum Discussion (https://www.pokertracker.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=100378&p=362450). The update mentioned is useless, PT4 support are fags, I never found them to be helpful anywhere.

But doing this, I received a new error message: Invalid pot size...

I assume this is due to the fact I have the stacks ingame displayed as BB instead of the $Currency?

Anyways, I dont wanna change this, since I found it to be helpful to my mental game to not be confrontated with Currencies but "play"-BB. So I guess I have to get HM3 to get this going...

I played 31 hands of PLO this morning, and imported the results using the procedure described above.

Here is an example of one of the hands:

Poker Hand #OM255638885: PLO ($0.01/$0.02) - 2021/05/15 16:04:39 Table 'PLOWhite3' 6-max Seat #3 is the button Seat 1: Hero ($1.78 in chips) Seat 2: ea39510e ($0.22 in chips) Seat 3: 4527abcb ($2 in chips) Seat 4: 6e0af808 ($5.08 in chips) Seat 5: e1a49e4d ($2.21 in chips) Seat 6: fa7ac5bd ($1.1 in chips) 6e0af808: posts small blind $0.01 e1a49e4d: posts big blind $0.02 HOLE CARDS Dealt to Hero [9s 3h 5s As] Dealt to ea39510e Dealt to 4527abcb Dealt to 6e0af808 Dealt to e1a49e4d Dealt to fa7ac5bd fa7ac5bd: folds Hero: raises $0.03 to $0.05 ea39510e: folds 4527abcb: folds 6e0af808: calls $0.04 e1a49e4d: folds FLOP [Jh 4c 3c] 6e0af808: checks Hero: checks TURN [Jh 4c 3c] [Th] 6e0af808: checks Hero: bets $0.06 6e0af808: calls $0.06 RIVER [Jh 4c 3c Th] [6s] 6e0af808: checks Hero: bets $0.18 6e0af808: calls $0.18 Hero: shows [9s 3h 5s As] (Pair of Treys) 6e0af808: shows [6c 7c 4s 7s] (Pair of Sixes and Pair of Fours) SHOWDOWN 6e0af808 collected $0.56 from pot SUMMARY Total pot $0.6 | Rake $0.02 | Jackpot $0.02 | Bingo $0 Board [Jh 4c 3c Th 6s] Seat 1: Hero showed [9s 3h 5s As] and lost with Pair of Treys Seat 2: ea39510e folded before Flop (didn't bet) Seat 3: 4527abcb (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet) Seat 4: 6e0af808 (small blind) showed [6c 7c 4s 7s] and won ($0.56) with Pair of Sixes and Pair of Fours Seat 5: e1a49e4d (big blind) folded before Flop Seat 6: fa7ac5bd folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Copy that into notedpad -- or any plain text editor -- and save it to your disk.

Try importing it into PT4.

If that doesn't work, I'm out of ideas.

I would strongly recommend creating a new temporary database for this.

I created a new database... and my text file looks exactly the same (only red instead of white).

Still doesn’t work... Aaaahhh

I’ve read it might be because PT4 doesn’t support being run multiple times. Did you also have “run it twice etc.” in your HH?

Originally posted by Mascherano95

I made a new database, and my text file looks exactly the same (just Red instead of White).

Still not working... AAAhhhh

I've read it might be because PT4 doesn't support running it multiple times. Did you also have "run it twice etc." in your HH?

No, I hadn't used RIT.

The only time I could request it, I asked for run-it-once.

OK, I played 30 hands and bought in for $0.20 so I could be all-in more, and ran it twice several times.

I split one and lost 3.

Everything imported correctly into PT4.

Could you post one of the hands that fails for you?

I recommend posting it inside code tags (the second-to-last icon on the right of the toolbar).

If you use code tags, the hand history will not be changed in any way even if it accidentally includes markup characters.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

OK I played 30 hands, and bought in for $0.20 so I could be all-in more, and ran it twice several times.

I split one and lost 3.

All imported correctly into PT4

Can you post one of the hands that fails for you?

I suggest that you post it between code tags (second last icon on the right of the toolbar)

By using code tags, the hand history won't be altered in any way even if it accidentally contains some markup symbols.

I made an update to v4.15.31 and it works now!!

Thanks, I am really happy atm.

Woot!

I am running really bad for 2 months which made me doubting the quality of my game. Especially in stack-off situations I found myself being dominated so often that I am losing hard.. I have some of those vids from Jnandez about 3BP´s in my mind which always guided my but this aggressive is like pounding with stacks into ranges that are always aheads or flipping.

GG Poker - $0.25 PL Hi FAST (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/)

BTN: 64.92 BB

SB: 247.28 BB

Hero (BB): 113.08 BB

UTG: 329.52 BB

MP: 144.8 BB

CO: 133.6 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 3♦ 6♠ A♠ A♣

UTG raises to 3.4 BB, fold, CO calls 3.4 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 14 BB, UTG calls 10.6 BB, fold

Flop: (31.8 BB, 2 players) 3♥ 2♠ K♥

Hero bets 31.8 BB, UTG raises to 127.2 BB, Hero calls 67.28 BB and is all-in

Turn: (229.96 BB, 2 players) 8♣

River: (229.96 BB, 2 players) Q♦

UTG shows T♦ 2♦ T♣ K♣ (Two Pair, Kings and Twos)

(Pre 37%, Flop 72%, Turn 83%)

Hero shows 3♦ 6♠ A♠ A♣ (One Pair, Aces)

(Pre 63%, Flop 28%, Turn 18%)

UTG wins 225.96 BB

So usually K:h 3:h 2:s is a pretty good flop for my range because I often have the

Being oop it makes sense to pot, so we can deny positional advantage for the player ip.

Villain has a 30% range, so he will have us beat around 10% of the time, but he hits the quite often so with side-value like a fluhdraw I suppose he would stack off aswell. I made a little EV-calc to make sure, stacking off any is +EV:

EV= 30%*33bb + 20% * (70% * -99bb + 30% * 13bb) + 50% * -33bb

Spoiler 30% Fold-Equity where he has nothing, when villain folds I win the pot. Against a stack-off range like (54,K,3,2):hh, K3,K2,KK,33,22 which is 20% of his range we have 30% HvR-Equity. 50% he has hit the flop marginally like naked top-pair and is going to call to outdraw us so we lose our 33bb Bet.

EV(bet-call) = -19bb

Anything I am missing here? I mean otherwise I would check-folding/abandoning lots of my range in 3BP´s oop?

May, losing all over the place:

Something is going wrong here.. ARGH

Originally posted by Mascherano95

in €

PLO5 100 - 400

PLO10 350 - 800

PLO20 700- 2000

PLO50 1750 - 4000

PLO100 3500 - 8000

PLO200 7000 - 10000

The goal is to have a € 10000 bankroll for playing on PLO200 by the end of the year 2021.

At this time I have to cash out € 400 a month for the cost of living here in Hungary starting at the bottom PLO5.

Looks not good so far. The last week, I felt my mental game again being heavily influenced. I started reading "Tactical Pot Limit Omaha" by Devin Wilson and gathered to 2 new concepts which I will implement into my game. First, mental game issues usually fall into 2 categories:

Lack of money

Lack of confidence

And I feel lack the first point now finally lead into the second point becoming true aswell. Rising up quickly and losing hard again is quite a mental rollercoaster, which I understand may be due to inherent variance of the game but I am going to make some adaptions here because I need to fix that issue.

The second thing is to establish a 60 buyin Bankroll-shedule for Run-it-more-than-once Pokersites (80 for Run-it-once-only sites) if you are a semi-pro. To get € 10.000,- remains the goal but now for PLO100 (100 Buyin). I also have to delay the deadline.

Assuming a winrate of 15bb/100 (ik I cannot prove such a winrate yet for the stakes I am aiming for but let´s be optimistic...) I would play a 1 hour session during the week and 2 sessions at Saturday and on Sunday which totals 9 sessions/week. 1 month has accounting 4.3 weeks so we have approximately 38 sessions per month. In one session I will play 2 tables, so with 1 table producing 80 hands per hours I got 160 hands/session x 38 sessions/month = ~6000 hands/month x 15bb/100 = Winnings of 900bb/month + 100bb rakeback = 10 Stacks/month.

Pour it into my new shedule, I get this:

June PLO10 - 1000$ + 100$ = 1100$

July PLO10 - 1100$ + 100$ = 1200$

August PLO10 - 1200$ + 100$ + 350$ deposit = 1650$

September PLO25 - 1600$ + 250$ + 350$ deposit = 2200$

October PLO25 - 2200$ + 250$ + 300$ deposit = 2750$

November PLO25 - 2750$ + 250$ = 3000$

December PLO50 - 3000$ + 500$ = 3500$

January PLO50 - 3500$ + 500$ = 4000$

February PLO50 - 4000$ + 500$ = 4500$

March PLO50 - 4500$ + 500$ = 5000$

April PLO50 - 5000$ + 500$ = 5500$

May PLO50 - 5500$ + 500$ = 6000$

JunePLO100 - 6000$ + 1000$ = 7000$

July PLO100 - 7000$ + 1000$ = 8000$

August PLO100 - 8000$ + 1000$ = 9000$

September PLO100 - 9000$ + 1000$ = 10000$

My goal is to have a $ 10.000,- Bankroll to professionally play PLO100 full-time by the end of September 2022.

Originally posted by Mascherano95

I am running really bad for 2 months which made me doubting the quality of my game. Especially in stack-off situations I found myself being dominated so often that I am losing hard.. I have some of those vids from Jnandez about 3BP´s in my mind which always guided my but this aggressive is like pounding with stacks into ranges that are always aheads or flipping.

I frequently watch his live streams.

He may be one of the best players in the business, but man that guy's lucky!

I once won a month worth of his Mastermind class, and it was certainly well worth the time to go through all I could before the month ran out.

For me though, the goal was to get to know enough PLO to play that segment of 8-Game. For me that segment was the worst of all.

Now I'm equally bad at all of them

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Now I'm equally bad at all of them

Because your PLO game improved so much or is it because you forgot how to play the other games? ♦

Originally posted by Mascherano95

in €

PLO5 100 - 400

PLO10 350 - 800

PLO20 700- 2000

PLO50 1750 - 4000

PLO100 3500 - 8000

PLO200 7000 - 10000

The goal is to have a € 10000 bankroll for playing on PLO200 by the end of the year 2021.

At this time I have to cash out € 400 a month for the cost of living here in Hungary starting at the bottom PLO5.

Nem is tudtam, hogy te is magyar vagy. Sok sikert a kihíváshoz!

Originally posted by Mascherano95

Because your PLO game improved so much or is it because you forgot how to play the other games? ♦

🤣I was trying to be smart-ass there

I'm not truly an expert at any of the games in 8-Game, but I'm a bit above average I think.

Originally posted by LahtiPelican

Originally posted by Mascherano95

...

At this time I have to cash out € 400 a month for the cost of living here in Hungary starting at the bottom PLO5.

Nem is tudtam, hogy te is magyar vagy. Sok sikert a kihíváshoz!

Nem vagyok magyar, de egy ideig Magyarországon éltem. Ennek ellenére nagyon köszönöm!

15bb/100 pre rakeback/promotions at Zoom is doable at PLO5 and lower. Hard at PLO10 and really hard at PLO25. For PLO50+ VERY hard, if even doable (of course some will run hot, but for EV).

Originally posted by Kyyberi

15bb/100 pre rakeback/promotions at Zoom is doable at PLO5 and lower. Hard at PLO10 and really hard at PLO25. For PLO50+ VERY hard, if even doable (of course some will run hot, but for EV).

You are right, I did not consider the dropping of winrate when moving up the stakes. I am not playing Zoom but I am sure Zoom the WR is much lower, I am thinking about avoiding it for that reason. My experience of PLO5 winrate is somewhere around 40bb/100 over a decent sample and my impression is, that up to PLO20 the WR drops by 50% as an estimation but afterwards has an regressive increasing proporitonality. There is no big idea setting up new deadlines ayntime you receive new information about the realizability of your current goal, according "Time Management" by Brian Tracy.

There is another thing I forgot, my job situation aside the table is very fluctional. As you know I quitted the chmical plant due to my skin rashes, so last month I worked on construction (which was totally exhausting and might have contributed to the bad results in May since I played overtired) but the construction area is finished and I am once more without a job.

But without job, I can invest more time into the grind, let´s say I play at least 2,5 hours (2x75min sessions) and if I have a job I deposit the amount of money I would have won from that income into my bankroll. Beside this, I save the rest. In "The richest man of Babylon" they told me to save at least 10% of your monthly income no matter what, and that is what I did since I started here. Despite my bankroll not growing, I still managed to save money more than I ever had in my life and so I increased my total reserves (primarily invested in eToro..) since the beginning of the challenge (money that is not available since I will not touch it).

I think, I still have the leaky mindset to move up at any price faster than I can control it so I should reserve more time for the process of getting professional, as I have been shown, wealth grows slowly but steadily habits grow slowly too. As told in "Tactical PLO" playing under pressure with monetary results in my mind (no matter if losing or winning) turned out to be the biggest issue in my mental game. Managing your financial assets is just an important part of becoming professional poker player as any other aspect, unless you want to be stressful for the rest of your life! The hard part is to accomodate for my pokerstudies beside working, exercisizing and grinding.

(Edit: ) Anyways. Let´s make another conservative rough calculation for 50 stacks:

PLO20 10 bb/100

PLO50 7.5 bb/100

Shedule 2021:

Bankroll in €

PLO20

August 1250 - 1875

September 1875 - 2500

PLO50

October 2500 - 3400

November 3400 - 4300

December 4300 - 5000

I wanted to share important concepts beyond monetary values about how to complete my challenge successfully; it’s time for a motivation boost:

1. Personal Responsibility

I am accountable for my life and for everything that happens to me. 80% of success resides in me—my thoughts, my actions, and my habits.

2. Set goals

The main reason people fail is a failure to create new plans to replace those that didn’t work.

3. Acquire Skills

Anything you must learn to reach that goal can be learned. No one is smarter or better than you.

June, aimless Splashing:

This month I was having no routine, showing some "burn out" syndroms, having hidden tilt and losing basically my entire Bankroll playing underrolled and playing "Rush & Cash" due to "lack of traffic". I also watched Football Euro championship in the evening instead of the grind I usually do in this time.

Well, I managed to read the 3 Audio-books "Tactical PLO" Pre & Post by Wilson and "Eight habits of a great Poker Player" by Zhang.

I have to mention, that whereas Poker is a total loss I managed to progress in all other areas of life. I quitted my smoking habit for 2 weeks now, I am still on my 250 days no-fap challenge. I am following my Kettlebell training plan for 3 weeks and my Pilates posture training for 25 days now. I have better sleep routines so I am more focused on my new job. I saved money aside according to the 10% rule since November last year and I am just establishing a study routine where I review my sessions and work on the ranges and theory with the last routine still being in the forming process. I also feel like I have to refresh the theory I also have in fom of books and vids.

Grinding those micro-stakes is pretty much a waste of time from a monetary aspect since know I can beat those but the expected winning are not sufficient to increase my bankoll significantly. For this reason my goal for the July is to get back and reestablish serious grind slowly at PLO10 and get a volume of 3600 hands with a winrate of at least 15bb/100 and planning to make a bigger sized deposit in August moving up to PLO20 once more no matter what.

Ai the struggle is real Best thing you could do in my humble opinion is to set easy goals (since your not in a rush it seems anyway).

My goal(s) if I was in your shoes would be to beat a limit first for 100 buy ins and then move up and do the same.

You don't have to start at the bottom, but for a little challenge I would recommend starting at plo2.

Anyway best of luck!

PLO2 isn't available where I play, but I'll go back to the Low-Stakes level, cut my volume targets, and make a point of studying hands more thoroughly and examining details as frequently as it can be done.

You can do it!

Hello, nice thread — I’ve sent an invitation because I have a topic I’d like to discuss

Originally posted by karniak

Hello, nice thread. I’ve sent an invitation because I have a topic I’d like to discuss.

I accepted. Go ahead—let’s talk. I’m open to any prompts.

I switched to the new Get Rich or Die Trying BR-Challenge: The Bankroll Challenge 2021 (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=523971&page=3)

The July Break is over, I made a deposit up to approximately 50 buyin for PLO20 and here are my results for August playing PLO20 beside my fulltime job as a warehouse worker:

On Win2Day:

And on GGPoker:

Since my results on GGPoker were so bad, I decided trying to avoid PLO25 for this month but play PLO10 there instead. I only swerve to GGPoker when there is no sufficient traffic on Win2Day.

GL buddy, crush these races! btw: consider playing on the KKPoker app. I would have returned there with added bonus by pokerstrategy.com but german residents are blocked

https://www.pokerstrategy.com/de/forum/thread.php?threadid=1819555

Hey man, i read the forums here every 2-3months or so and normally dont comment on anything, but i think it might help you. Seems like you have been trying to become a professional (think you wanna quit your job if you reach the right stakes, right?) for quite some time now, like 2 years + you have been playing poker for10 years now, right?

I have no idea about your financial situation, but if you live in Austria you need some money to cover the essentials of living. That said, I would suggest that you safe up money from your job so that you can live comfortably for like 1 year without having to cash out from your poker winnings one single time. Safe the money on pokersites to build your bankroll. That said, I think that there are some other things you might want to consider.

• I would strongly advice you to stay away from rush and cash on gg poker, even if there is no traffic on normal tables. I saw your monthly samples and I think that it doesnt make sense for you to play that format, because a) you are not remotely close to putting in enough volume, b) the volume wont get you on the leaderboard where you would like to be to make extra cash, c) you wont produce enough rake to climb in the fish buffet fast enough to get more moeny out of that and, most imoprtantly, d) if you play higher than PLO10, the competition becomes tougher. Once you go above that, people are playing for a living and take the game very seriously. Again, stay away from that.

Also, I think that i read (not 100%) that you think that your winrate decreases by roughly 50% if you go up in stakes. So if you have a 40bb/100 on PLO5, that would mean that you can beat PLO10 for 20bb/100, PLO20/PLO25 for lets say 10 and PLO50 for 5bb/100. If you go to PLO100, that would mean that you have a 2.5bb/100 if i got what you mean correctly. Honestly, I think thats not true. If you come to a limit like PLO50, there are good regs and I am quite certain that you cant maintain a positive winrate at that limit, which does not mean that you will not be able to do that as a professional of course.

• Why play on ggpoker at all? It seems that it is going way better for you on win2day, so just stick to that and drop ggpoker 100%? Do what's best for you winrate, seek for the softest competition you can find and stick to brm. Dont take shots when there is no action, rather play lower if there is any action. There is no point facing different opponents on higher stakes if you are not rolled for that or having enough money to take a serious shot.

• I dont think there is much value in reading poker books. Idk if I am allowed to mention any products here, but i think you know what i mean if i say that a sub to a leading PLO training sight might benefit you greatly. Dont only go through a 10 week transformation and dont only watch a couple of other courses that might say how to beat this and that limit blah blah blah. Rather stick to the real deal, learn how to play 3bet pots, how cbets work, betsizing and so on as their are courses dedicted to only that. Practice quizzes and see + understand why a hand is played like its played. Do all that and revise it over and over again until you have it down cold.

First, focus on situations that happen most frequently, in your case startin with pre flop game makes sense i think. I saw that you posted some hands and 4 of them should have played differently pre flop. Dont deviate from these ranges and do not make up your own ones, bc they are made of certain rake environments.

I also saw that you came up with some ranges in other threads, Idk where you got them from, but I would also strongly adcive you to stick to GTO solutions in certain rake environments (included in training sites) and stick to that. Pre flop cant be exploited if you nail it close to 100% (not taking into consideration to get 3bet more often bc villain or player xyz folds to cbet to a certain % blah blah blah)

• If you wanna take it really seriously, try to get a coach. Best would be someone who plays plo200+. Idk their h/rates, but i can imagine that it is not that cheap. Maybe you can, if you focus on poker 100% for a year, make a deal with them and get coaching for profits or something. In case you manage to find someone, stick to what they tell you 100%.

• Does it have to be PLO? Or would you also be willing to try out other formats? Maybe there is more value in another gametype, maybe tournaments, idk. At this point i think its fair to say that you can still experiment with a lot of stuff, put some volume in and then decide on what you wanna be doing all day long for 1 year.

• If you should choose to go for it and try to become a professional for 1 year (implying that you have enough money for yourself + resources that you might need to up your game), forget about going out on the weekends. Take one day off a week at max. Work out, eat healthy, start meditationg. Do everything in your power to feel great and maybe start journaling, maybe even here in some blogs.

These are not meant to be any points of critique, I just want to help you to succeed in poker. Wish you good luck at the tables

edit: I forgot to meantion 1 thing. I do not know if you already do this, but have you ever considered playing PLO MTTs? They are incredibly soft and some good money can be made there.

How's it going ?

Haven't seen an update in a while from you.

Regarding ekfay's post - yeah you'd be eligible to play there. I am playing there myself,too - but very recreationally. That is also the advantage, together with 50% RB and all the dudes just playing a session on the loo - that gives a good winrate.

See ya around!

Hey.

I haven´t been making entries here in this forum or in the BR-challenge, since I did not found it helpful anymore for my mental game. It was kinda better for me to "inner-"reflect my progress and I´ve to admit, that I also felt embarrased to always present my striving ambitions just to report how I utterly failed so I settled it private for some time until I have more positive news.

I am happy to report, that I achieved my goal nonethless. Since my last post in September 2021 I managed to save a couple of hundred bucks every month from working stubbornly grinding PLO20 beside it. This spring things changed quickly. In March 2022 I moved up from PLO20 to PLO50 and changed my job into part-time so I have more time to play and study poker. In May I won 15 stacks over 25.000 hands on PLO100 which equals 6bb/100. I had some "straying" sessions with internet surfing beside the grind (a terrible habit that appears from time to time) and maybe played too many table in this new more competitive environment (kept playing 4 tables) so I am lucky that I´m in black. Overall since working 40 hours per week was really exhausting I had no more energy nor time to do studies and deep learning. I just played short session like 30-40 minutes + session review, usually once a day and multiples on holidays and weekends and I did it continously every day except for 2 weeks around christmas time so if you add those hands over time you get a decent sample too.

Now finally I have the 10.000,-$ Bankroll. I play on Win2Day and GG whereas the traffic on Win2day is not sufficient anymore, so the volume on GG increases. My impression of the competition on PLO100 on GG is still pretty beatable which feels releasing, no need to search for a better pokerroom at the moment. I expect a higher skill level to be there on PLO200 so I have to prepare for this now. Upgrades: I subbed to a RIO PLO course and the PLO Vision trainer where I train GTO ranges, I also got HM3. I finished "The Poker Mindset" from Mathew Hilger and Ian Taylor, I really can recommend this book to get the proper mindset and attitude for a longterm success in poker. At the time I am focused on mastering specific preflop skills. About my studies I really try to master a topic perfectly before moving to the next chapter, which means I am still improving preflop game. In order to do this better I need to get MonkerSolver.

Another lucky incident, due to the new legal situation in Austria, I managed it to sue the compound losses from 3 big pokerrooms I played from 2010 to 2018. That got me back another 10.000,-$ which I invested in Stocks and ETC´s and hold that as a psychological reserve. My job quit is on 15th of this month and I need to settle some stuff like dentist, vaccination, cutting wood and repairing stuff before I take my 20k$+ some cash+ +notebook +ticket and move to Lisbon where I will focus on establishing solid grind on PLO100.

A very helpful mental tool that supports my success is the so-called Ivy-Lee-Method where you execute min. 6 daily tasks. You can google that, it is very easy and very powerful. Also helpful as I mentioned is nofap, having breakfast everyday, stretching exercises (5-10min/day), cold showering and just try to remain integrity. Write down your goals and stick to it, day by day, week by week. Unfortunately I am still smoking and my fitness is not to a point where I want it to be. I already had good physique but I got drained into bad shape the winter 21/22. I also feel like the weather last months had an terrible impact on my mood, I still feel depressed quite often, so I guess I really need that location shift. I am also studying Portuguese on Duolingo, I really like the sound of the language, pretty cool.

Time to head on:

Updated BRM (June 2022) in US$:

PLO50 5000 - 10000

PLO100 10000 - 20000

PLO200 20000 - 50000

PLO500 50000 - 100000

The goal is to have a bankroll of US$ 100.000,- by the end of June 2024 (within 2 years) for professionally playing PLO1000.

See you at the tables!

iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

UTG: €87.51 (175 bb)

CO: €62.32 (124.6 bb)

Hero (BTN): €57.45 (114.9 bb)

SB: €88.52 (177 bb)

BB: €56.97 (113.9 bb)

SB posts €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has 7♣: J♦: 8♦: 8♣:

fold, CO calls €0.50, Hero raises to €2.25, SB calls €2.00, fold, CO calls €1.75

Generally I rarely have been raising medium semi-connected pocket pairs very aggressively. Something I changed after my training with PLO-Vision. GTO has some preflop raises with hands like J♠:9♦:8♠:8♦:, T♠:8♣:7♠:7♣: or J♥:8♣:7♥:7♣: from spots I did not expect it. I do want to play here with position against bad players, SB is a very loose passive player (75/15 AF 1).

Flop: (€7.25, 3 players) A♦: J♥: 8♠:

SB checks, CO checks, Hero bets €3.62, fold, CO calls €3.62

Pretty standard cbet here without draw-blockers or backup by myself. Despite the board being not very dry I opted for 1/2-pot only since the A♦: locks it down somewhat and I have decent FE with my perceived range here. The limper, a loose player (40/13/2 AF 5) comes along. He will have a decent portion of hands beside to obvious made hands and draws, weak-pair+gs too.

Turn: (€14.49, 2 players) 3♦:

CO checks, Hero bets €10.86, CO raises to €21.72, Hero calls €10.86

Following up a second barrel with my standard sizing when the texture goes towards enabling more draws. I prefer not betting pot here exploiting low-stakes tendencies of check-calling too much. The minraise is not very meaningful cutting down his range a little towards non-total crap. I had to think a moment between calling and raising since he won´t be folding much here but I did the call to let him hang himself.

River: (€57.93, 2 players) 4♣:

CO bets €34.73, Hero calls €29.86

River card is a perfect blank and I made the call as planned.

Results: €117.65 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: A♦: J♥: 8♠: 3♦: 4♣:

Spoiler CO shows A♥: T♦: 3♠: Q♥:: (Two Pair, Aces and Threes)

(Pre 47%, Flop 33%, Turn 20%)

Hero shows 7♣: J♦: 8♦: 8♣:: (Three of a Kind, Eights)

(Pre 53%, Flop 67%, Turn 80%)

Hero wins €116.15

iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

BTN: €44.50 (89 bb)

SB: €185.64 (371.3 bb)

BB: €68.38 (136.8 bb)

UTG: €57.50 (115 bb)

MP: €100.20 (200.4 bb)

Hero (CO): €55.89 (111.8 bb)

SB posts €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has A♣: 7♦: A♠: 6♠:

fold, MP raises to €1.50, Hero raises to €5.25, BTN calls €5.25, 2 folds, MP calls €3.75

With a Maniac (60/35/15 AF 4.5) otb sitting behind me, 3-betting the Lag (30/25/4 AF 4) before me is a mistake. Should have flatted to lay a trap. Anyways, BU calls cold. MP calls too.

Flop: (€16.50, 3 players) 9♣: 3♦: 5♣:

MP checks, Hero bets €12.37, BTN raises to €24.74, fold, Hero calls €12.37

Flop is favourable and I cbet to protect the hand and set up a shove ott. BU minraises and I assign him sth. like overpairs, sets, 2pairs, mediocre combodraws like top-pair+fd/oesd/gs. No need to come over the top since I am rarely far ahead. If he had called the flop and the turn would be a I give it up, and if it would have been a or it would have been a somewhat iffy spot, probably a stack-off considering my straight-draw blockers, his wide range and the SPR.

Turn: (€65.98, 2 players) 8♠:

Hero bets €25.90, BTN calls €14.51

Nice.

River: (€95.00, 2 players) K♣:

Results: €95.00 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: 9♣: 3♦: 5♣: 8♠: K♣:

Spoiler Hero shows A♣: 7♦: A♠: 6♠:: (Straight, Nine High)

(Pre 69%, Flop 29%, Turn 78%)

BTN shows 5♠: 5♥: 8♦: A♥:: (Three of a Kind, Fives)

(Pre 31%, Flop 71%, Turn 23%)

Hero wins €93.50

GTO-Training UTG

Let´s start with some Ace-Broadway hands:

There seeems to be a pretty significan difference between hands that have 2 suits and 3 suits (singlesuited). This one is a fold which is not typical for its hand category.

Having a as sidecard and a instead of the wheel danger makes things different.

The :Tx:x and :9x:x doublesuited hands fall closely on the side we still open from UTG. Their singlesuited versions are strong aswell and opened from later positions.

We do open some :Ax:-Broadway + Connector but with triple suit this one is too weak. :Ax:-Broadway-:5x: with a suited Ace often is an openraise though from UTG, we have nice wheel potential.

The medium-/low-rundowns are tricky too:

Triple suit, again, hurts us. We generally avoid medium rundowns that have 3 suits.

This seems to be the lowest rundown we can still openraise from UTG.

This one is a little strange, I do not really understand...

... why folding the mid-gapper but raise the top-gapper?

Originally posted by Mascherano95

iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

UTG: €87.51 (175 bb)

CO: €62.32 (124.6 bb)

Hero (BTN): €57.45 (114.9 bb)

SB: €88.52 (177 bb)

BB: €56.97 (113.9 bb)

SB posts €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has 7♣: J♦: 8♦: 8♣:

fold, CO calls €0.50, Hero raises to €2.25, SB calls €2.00, fold, CO calls €1.75

Usually I haven't been raising medium semi-connected pocket hands so aggressively. That's something I altered after training with PLO-Vision. GTO includes some preflop raises with holdings like J♠:9♦:8♠:8♦:, T♠:8♣:7♠:7♣: or J♥:8♣:7♥:7♣: from spots I didn't expect. I do want to play this spot in position versus poor players; the SB is very loose-passive (75/15 AF 1).

Flop: (€7.25, 3 players) A♦: J♥: 8♠:

SB checks, CO checks, Hero bets €3.62, fold, CO calls €3.62

A pretty standard c-bet here without draw-blockers or backup from me. Even though the board isn't extremely dry I chose 1/2-pot since the A♦: narrows things and I have reasonable fold equity with my perceived range here. The limper, a loose player (40/13/2 AF 5), calls along. He will hold a fair share of hands beyond the obvious made hands and draws, including weak pair+gutshots.

Turn: (€14.49, 2 players) 3♦:

CO checks, Hero bets €10.86, CO raises to €21.72, Hero calls €10.86

I follow up with a second barrel using my standard sizing when the texture allows more draws. I prefer not betting pot here to exploit low-stakes tendencies to check-call frequently. The min-raise doesn't change much besides trimming his range somewhat away from total junk. I paused between calling and raising because he won't fold a ton here, but I called to let him make mistakes.

River: (€57.93, 2 players) 4♣:

CO bets €34.73, Hero calls €29.86

The river is a perfect blank and I made the planned call as.

Results: €117.65 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: A♦: J♥: 8♠: 3♦: 4♣:

Spoiler CO shows A♥: T♦: 3♠: Q♥:: (Two Pair, Aces and Threes)

(Pre 47%, Flop 33%, Turn 20%)

Hero shows 7♣: J♦: 8♦: 8♣:: (Three of a Kind, Eights)

(Pre 53%, Flop 67%, Turn 80%)

Hero wins €116.15

Very nice analysis. If everyone could so clearly lay out their reasoning, we'd have many coaches critiquing each other here in the forum. (and with ghaleon, kyyberi we do have some!)

im glad youre back, excited to read more from your journey. good luck

e: and also grats to the 10k. well deserved! if you like you can still holla at skype

I think shoving on the turn is better into J887ds hand. The villain is almost never folding, and there are many rivers that either make it difficult for us or can kill action against two-pair holdings. Any 7 or higher, or any unpaired diamond, alters the nuts.

Those marginal small-to-mid rundown hands are often better to open-fold from EP in my view. The problem is the pool will likely call far more than they should, so we end up in multiway pots more often. That’s obviously worse for these sorts of hands.

I am satisfied with my June results so far. I played 13476 hands and won 2206 bb, giving a winrate of 16.4 bb/100.

My HUD currently looks like this (I can't use it on GGPoker):

I have 2 pop-ups showing positional RFI and cold-call stats.

For session reviews I tag hands with the following labels:

My objective is to sustain similar results into July, unlock the 360 $ rakeback bonus on GGPoker, and finish "The preflop mastery" from the PLO-Vision course "PLO from ground up" along with additional study from my books.

Checking out the net results in my database, I found that playing PLO25 and PLO100 fast tables was very unprofitable so far. I am going to avoid those tables like it´s already been recommended here.

Originally posted by Mascherano95

Checking out the net results in my database, I found that playing PLO25 and PLO100 fast tables was very unprofitable so far. I am going to avoid those tables like it´s already been recommended here.

Playing NLHE fast-fold tables, I find that tightening up considerably pays off.

I don't know if that translates to PLO or not.

Another thing is that people are rarely bluffing when I call them, but they call my bluffs — so the trick is not to bluff as much.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Originally posted by Mascherano95

Checking out the net results in my database, I found that playing PLO25 and PLO100 fast tables was very unprofitable so far. I am going to avoid those tables like it´s already been recommended here.

Playing NLHE fast-fold tables, I find that tightening up considerably pays off.

I don't know if that translates to PLO or not.

Another thing is that people are rarely bluffing when I call them, but they call my bluffs — so the trick is not to bluff as much.

Yes I agree. This seems to be the same like in PLO, you have to be considerably tighter in stack-offs postflop but not necessarily tighter preflop. Preflop when people before you tighten up, you can openraise looser in order to steal the blinds and the same is true vice versa.

The bluffings part is exactly the same in PLO. All people play more according to hand values and that makes high winrates much harder unless you would have a reliable Hud which I do not have on GGPoker. It is also problematic, because I would have to change my style from session to session depanding on which site I play because of the different player pools of Win2day and GGPoker. This is confusing and does not help me in my focus sessions which are not $/hour focused but should help me to learn how to implement my preflop ranges for becoming a better player.

Originally posted by ghaleon

I think turn is better to shove in J887ds hand. Villain is likely almost never folding and there are lot of rivers making it either tough for us or potentially kill action versus two pairs. Any 7 or higher or diamond that is unpaired changes nuts.

I found here another hand, that is similar. But this time I got raised on the flop.

iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 4 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

BB: €19.11 (38.2 bb)

Hero (CO): €178.87 (357.7 bb)

BTN: €34.56 (69.1 bb) - a very loose passive player (65/10/0 AF 0.7)

SB: €57.82 (115.6 bb)

SB posts €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has K♦: J♠: K♣: 9♠:

Hero raises to €1.75, BTN calls €1.75, fold, BB calls €1.25

Flop: (€5.50, 3 players) T♦: 2♦: 8♠:

BB checks, Hero bets €5.50, BTN raises to €22.00, fold, Hero?

A very important question is: What´s within villain´s range raising range?

Specifically: Would he raise overpairs (:Ax: :Ax:-:Qx: )?

This might be a common play at the SPR of 6.5 but against villain we have to take into account he is very passive raising only strong hands.

You might include A♦::diamond: as he could raise the bare nutflushdraw aswell, but it does not change the Equities considerably.

We compare our Equity one time against overpairs included and one time excluded:

Villain has overpairs in his flop raising range.

Villain has no overpairs in his flop raising range.

Both times we do not have Equity edge so calling makes sense (we do not want to go allin with hands that are close to a coinflip at best unless FE is on our side). By making the right play on the turn, we loose less, that we would if we had shoven it otf. But now since we have to assume multistreet-EV here, we need to know how much Equity we actually are going to have, if the turn is the ♦: we plan to fold on.

Villain has no overpairs in his flop raising range.

Villain has AA-QQ in his flop raising range.

On the turn are 21bb left and I need 15.2% Equity to justify calling on a :diamond:.

There are 2% Equity missing if he has no such overpairs. But big Equity surplus of 9,6% in case he does have them. But without proper Multistreet-EV calc this illustrated barely the case he would shove any turn 100%. Those calcs always have to be taken with a grain of salt. But it´s better to do those cals than just trying to imaginate the ranges.

Spoiler Hero calls €16.50

Turn: (€49.50, 2 players) 3♦:

Hero checks, BTN bets €10.81, Hero folds

Results: €49.50 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: T♦: 2♦: 8♠: 3♦:

BTN wins €48.00

In hindsight, with this hand, I feel like I did the right thing just calling the raise. Because my assumption is: A passive villain is going to check-back his hands unless he does have the flush.

Ingame my thoughts were way less complex, but I might subconsciously played it the way I did. I felt confident blocking the bdfd and blocking the straightdraw with my own nut-oesd so I just called. I also thought I would have great visibility if a diamond comes. The diamond came, I folded (you need discipline here) as planned and probably saved some bucks.

I suppose bet-shove would be reasonable on that KKJ9 hand. If we were 100bb effectives I would likely x-c. On turn when villain has only SPR 0.2 its imo very reasonable for him to shove his whole range. He gets so much value from denying equity from wrap type holdings if those fold when having like top 2 or sets. Even more so if he only has wrap with top pair etc.

Originally posted by ghaleon

I suppose bet-shove would be reasonable on that KKJ9 hand. If we were 100bb effectives I would likely x-c. On turn when villain has only SPR 0.2 its imo very reasonable for him to shove his whole range. He gets so much value from denying equity from wrap type holdings if those fold when having like top 2 or sets. Even more so if he only has wrap with top pair etc.

I agree that money would go in anyways. But even if so, you can still opt play bet-call flop to check-call turns 100% assuming villain would shove 100% with his remaining stack, calling would be still better play assuming we have 0% FE - we won´t have FE since I can´t find any raise-fold bluffs here. (And I rarely see passive players with AF of 1.5 or below shoving all made hands when they do not have the flush on a possible flush board, some even check back top2-pair or set. In my pool it is more likely, that with decent showdown value, they tend to check-back no matter stack sizes). And as already mentioned, if we manage to keep those 21bb remaining stack in situations where we are dead, we minimize our losses and make it a more +EV line after all.

If the river completes our straight on a flush board river, I guess we would have to donk shove otr.

Update July:

The last 2 weeks have been a desaster considering the net-$ results:

On my first session on 17.7.22 I lost over 10 stacks. Afterwards I felt like I tilted very hard during a few sessions and the sessionreview indeed showed a lot of hands were misplayed significantly and also more bad played hands in the other sessions than usual. Bad luck also was an issue during this two weeks so I will consider this is a heavy downswing, which is not a good timing, since I just arrived at PLO100 and still have to adapt to the player environment.

But now let´s show some hands:

I start with my first big losing session on the 16.7.22. ... I labelled 47 hands where 11 (23%) of hands were played badly despite my capabilities and knowledge how to do it better ingame. This mistake ratio is way too high, it should not be over 5% to remain a winrate of more than ~15bb/100 which is necessary to cover my monthly fix expenses and to reinvest in order to make reasonable bankroll progress.

First some information about villain, who is a Maniac (54/34/12) with a moderate overall AF of 2. He is capable of making triple barrel bluffs and big moves for stacks, 3-way aswell. Despite the lack of proper board evaluation and considerable ingame weaknesses like bet-sizing, frequencies etc.. he does have a good sense for handstrength evaluation and positional awareness, and he is capable of changing gears depanding on his monetary results so far in the session (mental weakness). He is a regular player with big leaks but somewhat solid postflop skills, exactly the type of opponent that can bring me on tilt after a series of bad beats.

1. On the flop I really do not like the stack-off with just a pair. I thought something like: Well, this guy barreled me several times now and I have a pair at SPR 1,5. He can very well be bluffing some portion of hands having no actual SDV but in hindsight, this play probably has been a terrible blunder, I was not patient enough. Turn play with an straightdraw picked up was fine. Anyways, this was my first big mistaken hand.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 2 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

Hero (BB): €51.41 (102.8 bb)

SB: €199.30 (398.6 bb)

SB posts €0.25, Hero posts BB €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has T♣: 8♣: 9♦: 7♠:

SB raises to €1.50, Hero raises to €4.50, SB raises to €13.50, Hero calls €9.00

Flop: (€27.00, 2 players) 3♦: 3♣: 8♦:

Hero checks, SB bets €27.00, Hero calls €27.00

Turn: (€81.00, 2 players) T♦:

Hero bets €10.91, SB calls €10.91

River: (€102.82, 2 players) 5♥:

Results: €102.82 pot (€0.50 rake)

Final Board: 3♦: 3♣: 8♦: T♦: 5♥:

SB shows K♣: A♦: A♥: 8♥:: (Two Pair, Aces and Threes)

(Pre 63%, Flop 82%, Turn 73%)

Hero mucks T♣: 8♣: 9♦: 7♠:: (Two Pair, Tens and Eights)

(Pre 37%, Flop 18%, Turn 28%)

SB wins €102.32

2. He is c-betting the flop with full pot. Idk if it is mirror thinking, but since he is multitabling every day, I expected him to be a regular and use the GTO default sizing (pot, half pot). So his main portion of pot-sized flop bets should not include (he very might have some of those, even should have from a balancing perspective). Wrong. I have enough (implied) value to call otf, the turn call is an odds call with 32% HvH-Equity against his nuts. The single inaccuracy was calling off the rest on the river, I felt committed but I think that was quite faulty with a bare middle pair blocking all of villain´s draws (and potential river bluffs).

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 2 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

Hero (SB): €57.97 (115.9 bb)

BB: €239.90 (479.8 bb)

Hero posts SB €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has Q♠: 9♠: 2♦: T♥:

Hero raises to €1.50, BB raises to €4.50, Hero calls €3.00

Flop: (€9.00, 2 players) A♠: 7♠: Q♦:

BB bets €9.00, Hero calls €9.00

Turn: (€27.00, 2 players) 8♥:

BB bets €27.00, Hero calls €27.00

River: (€81.00, 2 players) 8♦:

BB bets €81.00, Hero calls €17.47

Results: €115.94 pot (€0.50 rake)

Final Board: A♠: 7♠: Q♦: 8♥: 8♦:

Hero mucks Q♠: 9♠: 2♦: T♥:: (Two Pair, Queens and Eights)

(Pre 39%, Flop 30%, Turn 33%)

BB shows A♦: 4♠: A♥: T♣:: (Full House, Aces full of Eights)

(Pre 61%, Flop 70%, Turn 68%)

BB wins €115.44

3. Flat-calling 9♠:9♦:8♥:4♠: against my 3-bet is a mistake imo, very loose preflop range at HU was my impression here. A flop raise would have been superior imo, it might be another inaccuracy.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 2 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

Hero (BB): €50.82 (101.6 bb)

SB: €296.87 (593.7 bb)

SB posts €0.25, Hero posts BB €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has K♣: J♣: Q♠: 6♠:

SB raises to €1.50, Hero raises to €4.50, SB calls €3.00

Flop: (€9.00, 2 players) T♦: J♠: 5♠:

Hero checks, SB bets €9.00, Hero calls €9.00

Turn: (€27.00, 2 players) 5♥:

Hero checks, SB bets €27.00, Hero calls €27.00

River: (€81.00, 2 players) 6♣:

Hero checks, SB checks

Results: €81.00 pot (€0.50 rake)

Final Board: T♦: J♠: 5♠: 5♥: 6♣:

SB shows 9♠: 9♦: 4♠: 8♥:: (Two Pair, Nines and Fives)

(Pre 42%, Flop 22%, Turn 25%)

Hero shows K♣: J♣: Q♠: 6♠:: (Two Pair, Jacks and Sixes)

(Pre 58%, Flop 78%, Turn 75%)

Hero wins €80.50

4. This might have been a mistake. I did not recognize this pot betting otf pattern. I assume him to 2-barrel trips, fulls and straights ott so I made a quite bold hero-call otr.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 2 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

Hero (BB): €112.32 (224.6 bb)

SB: €234.10 (468.2 bb)

SB posts €0.25, Hero posts BB €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has 4♣: K♥: A♣: T♥:

SB raises to €1.50, Hero raises to €4.50, SB calls €3.00

Flop: (€9.00, 2 players) 8♥: 7♦: T♦:

Hero checks, SB bets €9.00, Hero calls €9.00

Turn: (€27.00, 2 players) 7♠:

Hero checks, SB checks

River: (€27.00, 2 players) 5♣:

Hero checks, SB bets €20.25, Hero calls €20.25

Results: €67.50 pot (€0.50 rake)

Final Board: 8♥: 7♦: T♦: 7♠: 5♣:

SB shows 6♥: Q♠: 4♥: 8♣:: (Straight, Eight High)

(Pre 40%, Flop 52%, Turn 33%)

Hero mucks 4♣: K♥: A♣: T♥:: (Two Pair, Tens and Sevens)

(Pre 60%, Flop 48%, Turn 68%)

SB wins €67.00

5. The flop call is pretty standard. Turn and river showed really tilty bullshit plays I made and was not even aware of in the heat of playing 4 tables.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 2 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

Hero (SB): €360.07 (720.1 bb)

BB: €94.73 (189.5 bb)

Hero posts SB €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has T♠: Q♠: T♥: J♦:

Hero raises to €1.50, BB raises to €4.50, Hero calls €3.00

Flop: (€9.00, 2 players) 8♣: 2♠: 7♠:

BB bets €9.00, Hero calls €9.00

Turn: (€27.00, 2 players) 5♥:

BB bets €27.00, Hero calls €27.00

River: (€81.00, 2 players) 2♥:

BB bets €54.23, Hero calls €54.23

Results: €189.46 pot (€0.50 rake)

Final Board: 8♣: 2♠: 7♠: 5♥: 2♥:

Hero mucks T♠: Q♠: T♥: J♦:: (Two Pair, Tens and Twos)

(Pre 64%, Flop 71%, Turn 30%)

BB shows 5♠: 7♣: 5♣: 6♣:: (Full House, Fives full of Twos)

(Pre 36%, Flop 29%, Turn 70%)

BB wins €188.96

6. This is an iffy one Idk if it is an overplay. Normally with 4+ players you would play very straightforward, but top-2pair is a quite strong hand, there are tons of draws and all opponents are very loose: MP (54/5/2.5), SB (65/0/0) and BB (55/15/4).

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

CO: €57.57 (115.1 bb)

BTN: €153.47 (306.9 bb)

SB: €67.86 (135.7 bb)

BB: €46.25 (93 bb)

Hero (UTG): €97.20 (194.4 bb)

MP: €32.49 (65 bb)

SB posts €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has T♦: 2♠: Q♣: A♣:

Hero raises to €1.75, MP calls €1.75, CO calls €1.75, fold, SB calls €1.50, BB calls €1.25

Flop: (€8.75, 5 players) A♥: Q♥: 5♦:

SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets €6.56, fold, CO calls €6.56, 2 folds

Turn: (€21.87, 2 players) 6♦:

Hero bets €16.40, CO raises to €49.26, Hero calls €32.86

River: (€120.39, 2 players) 2♥:

Results: €120.39 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: A♥: Q♥: 5♦: 6♦: 2♥:

Hero mucks T♦: 2♠: Q♣: A♣:: (Two Pair, Aces and Queens)

(Pre 34%, Flop 6%, Turn 1%)

CO shows A♠: Q♠: Q♦: 7♣:: (Three of a Kind, Queens)

(Pre 66%, Flop 94%, Turn 99%)

CO wins €118.89

7. One more "pot-sized bet on paired board" hand I fucked up. Theoretically it is hard to hit trips. Damn.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 2 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

SB: €174.24 (348.5 bb)

Hero (BB): €63.70 (127.4 bb)

SB posts €0.25, Hero posts BB €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has J♠: 7♥: J♥: T♠:

SB raises to €1.50, Hero raises to €4.50, SB calls €3.00

Flop: (€9.00, 2 players) T♥: Q♦: Q♣:

Hero checks, SB bets €9.00, Hero calls €9.00

Turn: (€27.00, 2 players) 8♠:

Hero checks, SB bets €27.00, Hero calls €27.00

River: (€81.00, 2 players) K♦:

Hero checks, SB checks

Results: €81.00 pot (€0.50 rake)

Final Board: T♥: Q♦: Q♣: 8♠: K♦:

SB shows 9♥: Q♥: 6♦: 5♥:: (Three of a Kind, Queens)

(Pre 39%, Flop 90%, Turn 95%)

Hero mucks J♠: 7♥: J♥: T♠:: (Two Pair, Queens and Jacks)

(Pre 61%, Flop 10%, Turn 5%)

SB wins €80.50

8. Bad because tilty river call.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 2 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

SB: €223.64 (447.3 bb)

Hero (BB): €54.64 (109.3 bb)

SB posts €0.25, Hero posts BB €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has 5♥: K♦: T♦: 3♥:

SB raises to €1.50, Hero raises to €4.50, SB calls €3.00

Flop: (€9.00, 2 players) 7♥: J♥: K♣:

Hero checks, SB checks

Turn: (€9.00, 2 players) T♥:

Hero checks, SB bets €9.00, Hero calls €9.00

River: (€27.00, 2 players) 7♠:

Hero checks, SB bets €27.00, Hero calls €27.00

Results: €81.00 pot (€0.50 rake)

Final Board: 7♥: J♥: K♣: T♥: 7♠:

SB shows T♠: 9♣: 7♦: T♣:: (Full House, Tens full of Sevens)

(Pre 54%, Flop 32%, Turn 13%)

Hero mucks 5♥: K♦: T♦: 3♥:: (Flush, Jack High)

(Pre 46%, Flop 68%, Turn 88%)

SB wins €80.50

9. A little cooler imo. I have third nuts at SPR2.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 2 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

BB: €274.42 (548.8 bb)

Hero (SB): €54.23 (108.5 bb)

Hero posts SB €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has 2♠: J♥: J♠: 4♥:

Hero raises to €1.50, BB calls €1.00

Flop: (€3.00, 2 players) 3♦: 2♥: K♥:

BB checks, Hero bets €2.25, BB raises to €9.75, Hero calls €7.50

Turn: (€22.50, 2 players) 5♥:

BB bets €22.50, Hero raises to €42.98, BB calls €20.48

River: (€108.46, 2 players) 3♠:

Results: €108.46 pot (€0.50 rake)

Final Board: 3♦: 2♥: K♥: 5♥: 3♠:

Hero mucks 2♠: J♥: J♠: 4♥:: (Flush, King High)

(Pre 56%, Flop 17%, Turn 0%)

BB shows 8♥: Q♥: 3♥: K♣:: (Full House, Threes full of Kings)

(Pre 44%, Flop 83%, Turn 100%)

BB wins €107.96

10. Flop bluff cbet is standard. On the turn I try to protect my hand against sets and all 2pairs (he is capable of calling 2pair-hands twice on monotone boards. On the river I should be checking for Showdown, but with A♦: and K♦: on the board I really like my J♦: flush blocker very much so I decided to turn my hand into a bluff.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 2 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

Hero (SB): €249.15 (498.3 bb)

BB: €200.50 (401 bb)

Hero posts SB €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has 6♥: J♦: 4♥: T♣:

Hero raises to €1.50, BB raises to €4.50, Hero calls €3.00

Flop: (€9.00, 2 players) K♦: A♦: 7♦:

BB bets €9.00, Hero raises to €18.00, BB calls €9.00

Turn: (€45.00, 2 players) Q♣:

BB checks, Hero bets €22.50, BB calls €22.50

River: (€90.00, 2 players) 6♦:

BB checks, Hero bets €45.00, BB calls €45.00

Results: €180.00 pot (€0.50 rake)

Final Board: K♦: A♦: 7♦: Q♣: 6♦:

Hero mucks 6♥: J♦: 4♥: T♣:: (Straight, Ace High)

(Pre 44%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%)

BB shows 8♦: 8♥: 9♦: 9♣:: (Flush, Ace High)

(Pre 56%, Flop 100%, Turn 100%)

BB wins €179.50

11. Idk how to explain this one. Totally messed up due to tilt.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 3 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

BB: €50.00 (100 bb)

BTN: €255.62 (511.2 bb)

Hero (SB): €128.11 (256.2 bb)

Hero posts SB €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has 5♥: 3♦: 7♠: 8♦:

BTN raises to €1.75, Hero raises to €5.75, fold, BTN calls €4.00

Flop: (€12.00, 2 players) 5♣: Q♣: 8♥:

Hero checks, BTN bets €12.00, Hero calls €12.00

Turn: (€36.00, 2 players) 4♠:

Hero checks, BTN bets €36.00, Hero raises to €110.36, BTN calls €74.36

River: (€256.72, 2 players) K♦:

Results: €256.72 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: 5♣: Q♣: 8♥: 4♠: K♦:

BTN shows 9♣: Q♠: J♥: Q♦:: (Three of a Kind, Queens)

(Pre 57%, Flop 96%, Turn 90%)

Hero mucks 5♥: 3♦: 7♠: 8♦:: (Two Pair, Eights and Fives)

(Pre 43%, Flop 4%, Turn 10%)

BTN wins €255.22

12. Same holds true for this one. The flop is a standard fold.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 4 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

SB: €43.25 (87 bb)

Hero (BB): €120.55 (241.1 bb)

CO: €50.00 (100 bb)

BTN: €333.02 (666 bb)

SB posts €0.25, Hero posts BB €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has K♠: K♥: 2♦: A♥:

fold, BTN raises to €1.75, SB calls €1.50, Hero raises to €7.00, BTN calls €5.25, SB calls €5.25

Flop: (€21.00, 3 players) 7♠: 8♠: 9♦:

SB bets €21.00, Hero calls €21.00, fold

Turn: (€63.00, 2 players) J♥:

SB checks, Hero bets €47.25, SB calls €15.25

River: (€93.50, 2 players) Q♦:

Results: €93.50 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: 7♠: 8♠: 9♦: J♥: Q♦:

SB shows 6♣: 7♦: J♣: 8♦:: (Two Pair, Jacks and Eights)

(Pre 47%, Flop 80%, Turn 88%)

Hero mucks K♠: K♥: 2♦: A♥:: (One Pair, Kings)

(Pre 53%, Flop 20%, Turn 13%)

SB wins €92.00

12. Tilty call otf combined with a nut-blocker bluff that is against the odds of his tendencies.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 2 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

BB: €352.33 (704.7 bb)

Hero (SB): €80.61 (161.2 bb)

Hero posts SB €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has A♥: 8♣: J♣: K♠:

Hero raises to €1.50, BB calls €1.00

Flop: (€3.00, 2 players) 6♥: J♥: 6♠:

BB checks, Hero bets €2.25, BB raises to €9.75, Hero calls €7.50

Turn: (€22.50, 2 players) 5♥:

BB bets €22.50, Hero raises to €69.36, BB calls €46.86

River: (€161.22, 2 players) A♣:

Results: €161.22 pot (€0.50 rake)

Final Board: 6♥: J♥: 6♠: 5♥: A♣:

Hero mucks A♥: 8♣: J♣: K♠:: (Two Pair, Aces and Jacks)

(Pre 57%, Flop 8%, Turn 5%)

BB shows A♦: 6♣: T♠: 9♠:: (Full House, Sixes full of Aces)

(Pre 43%, Flop 92%, Turn 95%)

BB wins €160.72

13. A triple barrel bluff trying to rep :Ax:.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 2 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

SB: €424.94 (849.9 bb)

Hero (BB): €57.06 (114.1 bb)

SB posts €0.25, Hero posts BB €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has Q♥: J♦: 9♠: 9♦:

SB raises to €1.50, Hero raises to €4.50, SB calls €3.00

Flop: (€9.00, 2 players) A♥: 3♥: 7♣:

Hero bets €6.75, SB calls €6.75

Turn: (€22.50, 2 players) 8♦:

Hero bets €16.87, SB calls €16.87

River: (€56.24, 2 players) 4♠:

Hero bets €28.94, SB calls €28.94

Results: €114.12 pot (€0.50 rake)

Final Board: A♥: 3♥: 7♣: 8♦: 4♠:

SB shows 4♥: 9♣: 5♣: 2♥:: (Straight, Five High)

(Pre 40%, Flop 73%, Turn 48%)

Hero mucks Q♥: J♦: 9♠: 9♦:: (One Pair, Nines)

(Pre 60%, Flop 27%, Turn 53%)

SB wins €113.62

14. I called the flop because of my K♠: blocking middle-set. But the turn should have been raised, a little inaccuracy.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

BB: €24.62 (49.2 bb)

Hero (UTG): €80.33 (160.7 bb)

MP: €56.30 (112.6 bb)

CO: €54.39 (108.8 bb)

BTN: €314.62 (629.2 bb)

SB: €46.00 (92 bb)

SB posts €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has Q♦: K♠: A♥: A♦:

Hero raises to €1.75, 2 folds, BTN calls €1.75, SB calls €1.50, BB calls €1.25

Flop: (€7.00, 4 players) A♣: K♣: 2♠:

SB bets €7.00, fold, Hero calls €7.00, BTN calls €7.00

Turn: (€28.00, 3 players) 5♠:

SB bets €28.00, Hero calls €28.00, fold

River: (€84.00, 2 players) 9♠:

SB checks, Hero checks

Results: €84.00 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: A♣: K♣: 2♠: 5♠: 9♠:

Hero shows Q♦: K♠: A♥: A♦:: (Three of a Kind, Aces)

(Pre 69%, Flop 65%, Turn 75%)

SB shows Q♣: J♦: 6♣: 6♦:: (One Pair, Sixes)

(Pre 31%, Flop 35%, Turn 25%)

Hero wins €82.50

15. Villain is another Maniac (80/45/30) AF 2.8 so I decided to defend turn and river. Not sure about it, marked it as "gray area". Might make an analysis, which is diffilcult though because of his wide ranges.

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

CO: €54.42 (108.8 bb)

BTN: €33.56 (67.1 bb)

SB: €39.36 (78.7 bb)

BB: €90.77 (181.5 bb)

Hero (UTG): €103.93 (207.9 bb)

MP: €112.26 (224.5 bb)

SB posts €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has 5♥: A♥: 4♠: A♦:

Hero raises to €1.75, fold, CO calls €1.75, fold, SB calls €1.50, fold

Flop: (€5.75, 3 players) 8♣: 3♦: 2♣:

SB bets €0.50, Hero raises to €5.43, CO calls €5.43, fold

Turn: (€17.11, 2 players) 5♣:

Hero checks, CO bets €8.55, Hero calls €8.55

River: (€34.21, 2 players) Q♠:

Hero checks, CO bets €17.10, Hero calls €17.10

Results: €68.41 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: 8♣: 3♦: 2♣: 5♣: Q♠:

Hero mucks 5♥: A♥: 4♠: A♦:: (Straight, Five High)

(Pre 58%, Flop 45%, Turn 0%)

CO shows K♣: 8♥: 6♣: 9♦:: (Flush, King High)

(Pre 42%, Flop 55%, Turn 100%)

CO wins €66.91

I will stop here, the second is similarly a catastrophe. After those 2 terrific session I managed to cool down a bit and read the chapters "Tilt" and "Downswing". I still made some mistakes per session afterward and also kept losing more money due to bad luck. Thanks to my financial reserves, I can still play those limits but I will have to focus on better performance, otherwise I am in serious troubles. Lots of play were sloppy and I prolongued my sessions with the mindset of winning money back, played more than planned. For this weekend I am going to reorganize myself and rewrite my personal goals on my papers, study and session goals and try to stick to it.

I think I can still get value out of his: Since I did not tilt for so long it is interesting to evaluate triggers and reasons and compare them analytically from what I have learnt from "The Poker Mindset" by Hilger & Taylor, I specifically reconsidered emotional stuff and leaks in my thought process that affected my mental game, the book allowed me to systematically summarize reasons for this mental blackout.

Since I currently also doing stats analysis with HM3 to find leaks by my own Id like to help you too on this if I can. If you dont mind you can post stats from you whole database and maybe I can find some leaks. You might want to post stats by position.

You should consider replacing the 'Went to Showdown' statistic since there is better one called 'River call efficiency' which is around 1.39. Jnandez mentioned that a loose crusher on micros is playing something like VPIP 32 PFR 17 3bet 7 fold2bet 11 Agression % 28 (you might want to switch this too since you use the factor default).

Obv stats should not be taken too seriously and on GG you cant even use a HUD. but for analyzing your own plays and finding leaks I believe HM3 is a great tool to improve.

For the tilting: I know this is super hard to overcome. I only have two advices for you to remember:

1: We all make mistakes. Even the best. So if you do some hard misplays I know that feeling but you should constantly tell yourself: It is about to make less mistakes then the other players!

2: Also even the greatest players do tilt. nobody is free from this. Your books will tell you enough ways to deal with this and avoid tilting the roll away. Just try to find ways to stop a session when you feel like you do not make good decisions but autopiloting your way through a downswing.

also find breaks from grinding. dont grind every day. I just played close to 10k hands since restart and already can feel the overheating point where one is too quickly grinding on autopilot for sample. AAA+ decisions > samplesize > monetary outcome

you also seem overplay your reads in the first hands. even in hand 1 villain is a maniac you are not in a great shape onn this flop in 4bet pot so just fold flop vs potsize bet at the low SPR.

Hand 2 is a river fold even in GTO.

hand 3: fold preflop. that proves that you had a too high 3bet% in your stats from the first stats and it is not only due to small sample.

the other hands have mistakes too but you already know that. relax, gear down and play more like if you are doing a trainer session IMO

HU versus aggro opponent is always tough. Personally I tend to evade HU unless I have clear edge. Quickly some opinions. Though in HU its very opponent dependent. If we call wide versus these maniac guys on early streets it will make their aggression more effective. Making aggressive lines can work if villains are capable of folding. But in some of these there are indication that villain is probably not best kind to make big moves against.

1: I suppose fine to 3bet in HU though I doubt call is bad option. Flop just fold. Even non AA, KK hands will have plenty of equity with likely multiple overcards and potential fd.

2: Villain likely rarely has nut fd at least with A+ as those are more likely using smaller sizing. Dry sort of AAxx should heavily prefer potting so there are good amount of those on drawy flop like this. Some less than Ax nfd combos might go for pot. I doubt we are making profit with flop call unless villain is pretty crazy or willing to overplay heavily. Turn is indeed call but on river its very optimistic to call even with those pot odds.

3: Not sure if efkay read hand wrong? We obviously wont fold KQJ6ds preflop. I think flop is pretty nice for x-r. Multiple components make hand strong enough.

4: Clear fold on flop. There is not a single turn card we are happy to face second barrel and we are drawing really thin versus straights and sets. Semibluffs and straight blocker bluffs can also push us off very often.

5: Yeah turn call is problematic as again can we get implied odds and potential negative implieds. If we had nut fd and nut gs then fine call. River is indeed very optimistic.

6: 5way pot make this awkward. I suppose its fine but facing that turn x-r is ugly. Would villain try to semibluff with draw? Usually not imo so very often we are versus set or AQ+draw.

7: Would just call pre. Flop we heavily block draws with JJ so I would just x-f. Versus pot size bet from opponent that is likely going to continue aggression we will just burn money in long run. Would likely just go for 1/3 cbet and fold to raise.

8: Not 3betting this. Classical trashy ds hand. Why to bloat pot with this? I dont actually mind bluff catch here. Villain check flop so nut fd combos less likely and same for boats. Its pretty weird to pot TT on turn when there is bunch of straights and flushes available. I suppose its sort of bluff from villain. You also block boats with KT.

9: No point to cbet really. As played I would fold to x-r. On turn hand should be bluff catcher versus sensible player but I suppose this guy was crazy. Point being it might be better to call and call river.

10: Just fold flop imo.

11: Total junk in SB, time to fold.

12: Yup very very bad flop for our range and even more so for our hand.

12-2: Seems pretty unnecessary again. Also its noteworthy opponent here is just potting and calling off turn when flush completes. Also when we block nut fd flop x-r range is more toward trips+

13: Again not fan of 3bet pre. This hand is likely not that great combo to barrel. Should we even shove river with AA or x-c?

14: Turn call is indeed weird.

15: Easy fold on turn. He needs to call flop with some 8x top pair and turn it into bluff.

3: yes I thought it is SBvBTN sorry. so this is at least a call preflop, I just dont like the dangler for 3betting this. since I also dont have to isolate a player BvB or have to play OOP I still think call > 3bet preflop

Yeah 6 isn't ideal, but when we're heads-up versus an aggressive player their BU/SB opening range can easily be something like 80% of hands, in my opinion. So it's not really a comparable situation to any 6max table spot. The villain has position and is up against only one opponent. I would expect 3bet range to be fairly wide, but yeah, HU isn't something I'd studied much so far.

In HU BB 3bets 17% or so. KQJ6ds is a 3bet. Every KQJx ds is a 3bet, rest of KQJx is a call. Versus that 3bet 9984ss is a call. Button folds 19% to 3bet HU in solver. And in that fold range there are some hands most would never fold, like some ds stuff. If we call with ds hands, we fold 17% or so.

Originally posted by ghaleon

1: I suppose fine to 3bet in HU though I doubt call is bad option. Flop just fold. Even non AA, KK hands will have plenty of equity with likely multiple overcards and potential fd.

Agree. I sometimes use the toppair to bluff-raise. But against him it´s a bad play and continuing is even worse.

2: Villain likely rarely has nut fd at least with A+ as those are more likely using smaller sizing. Dry sort of AAxx should heavily prefer potting so there are good amount of those on drawy flop like this. Some less than Ax nfd combos might go for pot. I doubt we are making profit with flop call unless villain is pretty crazy or willing to overplay heavily. Turn is indeed call but on river its very optimistic to call even with those pot odds.

Sorry but your range perception is nonsense. As described villain is a maniac and I saw him going broke with 4-high flushdraws for 100bb+ in a raise-reraise scenario. I am wondering here if I should have folded otr or maybe shove turn? I don´t think I can get out here earlier with such a good combo draw.

3: Not sure if efkay read hand wrong? We obviously wont fold KQJ6ds preflop. I think flop is pretty nice for x-r. Multiple components make hand strong enough.

I agree that check-raising otf would have been best.

4: Clear fold on flop. There is not a single turn card we are happy to face second barrel and we are drawing really thin versus straights and sets. Semibluffs and straight blocker bluffs can also push us off very often.

Agreed, pretty terrible to continue here.

5: Yeah turn call is problematic as again can we get implied odds and potential negative implieds. If we had nut fd and nut gs then fine call. River is indeed very optimistic.

Agreed. Lack of nuttiness.

6: 5way pot make this awkward. I suppose its fine but facing that turn x-r is ugly. Would villain try to semibluff with draw? Usually not imo so very often we are versus set or AQ+draw.

Yup. Well, but I am not so concerned about this one, since it´s such a rare spot. Hard to say what to do here, with wide ranges he could have called tons of hands otf and the turn is very inviting for made hands to check-raise. But on the other hand, villains are passive too and loose ranges are more likely to include lower sets and combos that should not be in a preflop range.

8: Not 3betting this. Classical trashy ds hand. Why to bloat pot with this? I dont actually mind bluff catch here. Villain check flop so nut fd combos less likely and same for boats. Its pretty weird to pot TT on turn when there is bunch of straights and flushes available. I suppose its sort of bluff from villain. You also block boats with KT.

Agreed, pretty tilt.

9: No point to cbet really. As played I would fold to x-r. On turn hand should be bluff catcher versus sensible player but I suppose this guy was crazy. Point being it might be better to call and call river.

Agreed..

12-2: Seems pretty unnecessary again. Also its noteworthy opponent here is just potting and calling off turn when flush completes. Also when we block nut fd flop x-r range is more toward trips+

I did not expect him to stack-off trips.

13: Again not fan of 3bet pre. This hand is likely not that great combo to barrel. Should we even shove river with AA or x-c?

Shove it. no hands bluffing at that line. Agree that preflop is clearly not a 3-bet.

Thank you guys for your feedback, I am very happy about it.

For now I try to play 3x 50 min sessions which equals around 75 hours per month (~18k-20k hands volume) every evening in the timeframe from 5 to 11 pm.

In the forenoon I focus on studies:

• Session Review (labelling and note-taking at HM2)

• Video course (PLO from GroundUp at RIO)

• Range design (Preflop RFI´s with MonkerSolver)

• Theory reading + summarizing (The Poker Mindset)

• Range practice (either GTO with PLO Vision or my Gameplan)

I finished the RFI of PLO Vision so far:

Next week I will get monker solver and translate those GTO RFI ranges into more tight personal Gameplan ranges better suited for Low Stakes. I will study those and study the deviations from different positions to have no conceptual interruption in terms of hand categories. I will lay my main focus on Preflop play for this year.

Afaik PLO200 there will be an even bigger skill gap (no wonder since it´s the income threshold to play full-time professional for western wage levels) so I will give myself plenty of time to establish solid grind PLO100 before moving on. The plan is to evaluate my bankroll and skill level again at the end of the year. I hope to hit the 20k then to take some shots.

My bankroll management became a little complicated, since I not only play on 2 sites, I also do not want to have all my money on those pokersites due to contingency and currency risks (€ losing value against US-$ and there might be an economical recession in the next 12-18 months with high inflation and federal banks´ rising interest rates).

At the moment alltogether I have 119 buyins (35 buyins on GG and 39 buyins on Win2day and 50 buyin in reserve) to play PLO100. Since I am mixing PLO50 due to low traffic it´s more like I would play PLO75, that would be more like 158 buyin (it´s allowed to calculate it like this). The cash reserve is not included at the amount stated in the official PS bankroll challenge, since a term of condition is to account only for money that is deposited at the pokersite.

When I have managed to establish my new habits/routines, I will increase my daily session durations from 2,5 hours to 3,5 hours. At the moment I do not feel mentally prepared to play the volume I aim for but this is okay.

Finally, what I have learnt so far: Wow living as a professional poker player those up and downs can be quite stressful. The more bankroll, the less stress you have. I can remember the times where I tried to turn things around with a 35 Buyin Bankroll after things went wrong. No wonder that never worked out. The pressure you feel influences the whole decision making process. Having a Bankroll edge is the mental edge. No surprise, when you think in a way that peoples´ Bankrolls are competing with each other, in a longterm time-frame, 1 single bankroll will eat all other bankrolls. Poker still is a zero-sum pyramid game at its purest. And you need to continue playing, when things go bad too. You need to continue playing half-decent to get that flow of EV-bucks incoming and without bankroll your career as professional is basically over. Always keep enough assets in back for the stakes that are required to play (to make monetary progress while covering fixed expenses) and focus on establishing a solid continuous improving process off the tables including non-poker related leisures.

Originally posted by Mascherano95

2: Villain likely rarely has nut fd at least with A+ as those are more likely using smaller sizing. Dry sort of AAxx should heavily prefer potting so there are good amount of those on drawy flop like this. Some less than Ax nfd combos might go for pot. I doubt we are making profit with flop call unless villain is pretty crazy or willing to overplay heavily. Turn is indeed call but on river its very optimistic to call even with those pot odds.

Sorry but your range perception is nonsense. As described villain is a maniac and I saw him going broke with 4-high flushdraws for 100bb+ in a raise-reraise scenario. I am wondering here if I should have folded otr or maybe shove turn? I don´t think I can get out here earlier with such a good combo draw.

You obviously know villain tendencies better but your hand is not combo draw on flop. Its just second pair with 2nd nut fd on flop. With some bd straight draw possibilities. Turn we definitely cant fold. If you had QJTx it would be combo draw on flop and we would definitely call. But these two hands are quite bit different. As default I would likely fold flop to pot bet but if villain is crazy enough I suppose its fine to continue. Issue though still is on how many turns we like to continue if he pots again? Hitting two pairs or even trips can still have decent negative implieds.

AAxx in overall has lot of reasons to pot on drawy flop like this. Whatever that is good portion of this player potting range I have no idea. But I just wanted to disagree that AAxx would rarely pot here gto wise. In general weaker the AA is more it pots. Then with support like bd fd, fd or straight draws it will be half potted more often.

Originally posted by Mascherano95

13: Again not fan of 3bet pre. This hand is likely not that great combo to barrel. Should we even shove river with AA or x-c?

Shove it. no hands bluffing at that line. Agree that preflop is clearly not a 3-bet.

Its not horrendous spot to bluff though SPR might be on low side for it. But 4 on river literally completes all the wraps. So if villain has busted fd he could bluff. Also issue in shoving river is lack of sets and strong two pairs in villain range. What is chance villain is not playing flop or turn as x-r if he has set or lets say A7, A8?

I am a bit confused for hand #2. In original hand it said "he is multitabling every day, I expected him to be a regular and use the GTO default sizing (pot, half pot)." and later he is maniac.

I would pot dry AA there every single time.

Maniac (54/34/12) with a moderate overall AF of 2

that would also be on a ranking with players i won't like to play HU like on my first place +2nd probably

wont even consider that a real maniac and more like maybe over lag as he doesn't seems to be completly out of mind

Oh, every hand is against that player. I didn’t notice that.

Originally posted by ghaleon

#2 ...

To the flushdraw I added 2 bd-straightdraws as a GS (both equal ~4 outs in terms of Equity).

I was not sure about the range, that is potting otf. But in terms of Equity there is not much difference to a 3/4 psb.

I do not agree with the negative implieds. If he is broking any flush (and maybe worse) my second nutflush would be nuts basically.

With the 2 bd-straightdraws I thought I have enough straightdraw redraws to continue but in hindsight a or is no real support indeed. Yes trips and 2pair is problematic, that´s the problem with calling playing mid-pair+.

Originally posted by ghaleon

#13 ...

It´s quite unlikely he would not raise or or better.

The hand is still misplayed imo since he calls down quite loose, I should have taken account for that before starting to barrel earlier on in the hand.

Gutshot on the flop has about 16% equity. Backdoors have roughly 4%. So two backdoors is just the half of gutshots equity.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

A gutshot on the flop holds about 16% equity. Backdoor draws are around 4%. So having two backdoors is roughly half the equity of a gutshot.

Yes ty.

Also something to remember is that with a gutshot you have that 10% chance to make it by the turn. With backdoors you are drawing to a draw, so you won't have it by the turn. Very important to consider if there are chips to play on the turn.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Also a thing to remember is that witg gutshot you have that 10% chance to hit it on the turn. With backdoors you are drawing to hit a draw, meaning you never have it on the turn. Very crucial thing, if the are chips to play on the turn.

Yes without position it´s harder here to continue.

I bought MonkerSolver yesterday but it looks like my notebook doesn't have enough RAM.

I have 16 GB. Anyone here with experience using MonkerSolver? Can it be run with less memory by computing shorter nodes?

I read that a full 6-max run requires about 1 TB. A machine like that costs roughly 20k$, so it doesn't seem practical.

If I uninstall Monker from my notebook, can I install it on a third computer instead, given the license allows up to 2 devices?

So many questions...

For preflop you require a substantial amount of RAM. I have 256Gb, so I can run preflop using reduced settings. Did you download Monker or Monker2? Monker2 is still in beta, but it's very dependable and consumes far less RAM. With 16Gb you could handle some postflop work, yet you still need those preflop ranges from somewhere.

There is an awful lot you can do with 16Gb RAM. I had 16Gb for a while, then upped to 32Gb so as to be able to run 5max50BB.

4 Max100BB PF sims fall within your capabilities and aren’t too different from CO+ in 6max. You’ll be able to do a ton of postflop work. The key is to produce some pf ranges and just start. Resources are somewhat scattered but once Monker is configured it’s very fast and straightforward to use.

HU SNGs are readily solvable with your 16Gb.

How I configured my 100BB PF sims: 6 Max 504Gb (that’s too much RAM for me), 5 max 73Gb, 4max 13Gb.

Good luck.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

For preflop you require a lot of RAM. I have 256Gb, and I can run preflop with reduced settings. Did you download Monker or Monker2? Monker2 is beta, but quite dependable and uses much less RAM. With 16Gb you could handle some postflop work, yet you still need those preflop ranges from somewhere.

Originally posted by Nunki

There’s a surprising amount you can do with 16Gb RAM. I had 16Gb for a time, then upgraded to 32Gb so as to be capable of running 5max50BB.

Good luck.

I’m not certain, I purchased it on this site for € 499,-: MonkerWare.com (https://www.monkerware.com/solver.html)

I wouldn’t necessarily need it for preflop if I could employ preflop range templates. I hope to simulate some common postflop situations (HU, 3-way).

I don’t know how to operate it though; getting familiar with it doesn’t seem straightforward to me.

What a sick one..

Spoiler GG Poker - $0.50 PL Hi FAST (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

BTN: $25.77 (51.5 bb)

SB: $43.75 (88 bb)

BB: $97.73 (195.5 bb)

UTG: $67.47 (134.9 bb)

MP: $49.21 (98.4 bb)

Hero (CO): $55.94 (111.9 bb)

SB posts $0.25, BB posts $0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.75) Hero has K♦: J♠: K♣: T♣:

2 folds, Hero raises to $1.75, BTN calls $1.75, fold, BB calls $1.25

Flop: ($5.50, 3 players) 6♦: 6♣: K♥:

BB checks, Hero bets $1.82, fold, BB calls $1.82

Turn: ($9.14, 2 players) 6♠:

BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($9.14, 2 players) K♠:

BB bets $6.86, Hero raises to $13.72, BB raises to $20.58, Hero raises to $52.37 and is all-in, BB calls $31.79

Results: $113.88 pot ($1.50 rake)

Final Board: 6♦: 6♣: K♥: 6♠: K♠:

Hero shows K♦: J♠: K♣: T♣:: (Four of a Kind, Kings)

(Pre 64%, Flop 95%, Turn 3%)

BB shows 5♦: 6♥: T♦: 5♥:: (Four of a Kind, Sixes)

(Pre 36%, Flop 5%, Turn 98%)

Hero wins $111.63

I’m not sure how to use it yet.

Feel free to contact me on Skype whenever you like, friend.

Originally posted by Mascherano95

What a sick one..

Results: $113.88 pot ($1.50 rake)

Final Board: 6♦: 6♣: K♥: 6♠: K♠:

Hero shows K♦: J♠: K♣: T♣:: (Four of a Kind, Kings)

(Pre 64%, Flop 95%, Turn 3%)

BB shows 5♦: 6♥: T♦: 5♥:: (Four of a Kind, Sixes)

(Pre 36%, Flop 5%, Turn 98%)

Wow!

Folding quads isn’t simple, but I’d say that’s one of those situations. I can’t really spot anything else besides KK to 4 bet on the river

Originally posted by ghaleon

Not easy to fold quads but that would be one of those spots imo. Can't really see anything else than KK to 4bet river

Yes, I like me Turn-check too, it makes it even harder for him to fold. Since I would not get 3 streets of value from a pair the only card slowplay makes sense.

I am going to share some hand-histories marked as "For review":

Hand1: Villain is a loose aggressive regular (35/25/10 AF 2.5) I have like 300 hands sample. If he does not x/r bare top-pairs otf my my call is pretty bad I guess.

Spoiler iPoker - €1 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

SB: €74.29 (74.3 bb)

BB: €186.54 (186.5 bb)

UTG: €176.37 (176.4 bb)

MP: €117.04 (117 bb)

Hero (CO): €232.57 (232.6 bb)

BTN: €101.11 (101.1 bb)

SB posts €0.50, BB posts €1.00

Pre Flop: (pot: €1.50) Hero has A♦: 3♥: A♥: 3♣:

fold, MP raises to €3.50, Hero raises to €12.00, 3 folds, MP calls €8.50

Flop: (€25.50, 2 players) 7♠: 6♥: K♣:

MP checks, Hero bets €12.75, MP raises to €63.75, Hero calls €51.00

Turn: (€153.00, 2 players) 7♥:

MP bets €41.29, Hero calls €41.29

River: (€235.58, 2 players) 4♣:

Results: €235.58 pot (€2.00 rake)

Final Board: 7♠: 6♥: K♣: 7♥: 4♣:

MP shows T♥: 6♦: 4♥: 7♦:: (Full House, Sevens full of Sixes)

(Pre 40%, Flop 66%, Turn 95%)

Hero mucks A♦: 3♥: A♥: 3♣:: (Two Pair, Aces and Sevens)

(Pre 60%, Flop 34%, Turn 5%)

MP wins €233.58

Hand 2: Villain is unknown. Ott despite being 4-way I (semi-)bluffed using my Nutstraight blocker, 2 set-blockers, and both gs-straight- and flush redraws. What do you think about my fold otr?

Spoiler GG Poker - $0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

CO: $30.07 (60.1 bb)

BTN: $157.50 (315 bb)

SB: $50.00 (100 bb)

BB: $6.81 (13.6 bb)

Hero (UTG): $69.37 (138.7 bb)

MP: $65.69 (131.4 bb)

SB posts $0.25, BB posts $0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.75) Hero has Q♥: J♥: 5♦: K♦:

Hero raises to $1.75, MP calls $1.75, CO calls $1.75, BTN calls $1.75, 2 folds

Flop: ($7.75, 4 players) A♠: J♣: Q♦:

Hero checks, MP checks, CO checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($7.75, 4 players) 8♦:

Hero bets $7.75, MP calls $7.75, 2 folds

River: ($23.25, 2 players) Q♣:

Hero bets $23.25, MP raises to $56.19 and is all-in, Hero folds

Results: $69.75 pot ($1.00 rake)

Final Board: A♠: J♣: Q♦: 8♦: Q♣:

MP wins $68.25

Hand 3: The semi-bluff x/r might be quite marginal but villain (60/25/17 AF 2) had shown an aggressive tendency over 50 hands so far.

Spoiler GG Poker - $0.25 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

MP: $196.37 (785.5 bb)

CO: $13.58 (54.3 bb)

BTN: $51.20 (204.8 bb)

SB: $24.21 (96.8 bb)

BB: $39.20 (156.8 bb)

Hero (UTG): $29.19 (116.8 bb)

SB posts $0.10, BB posts $0.25

Pre Flop: (pot: $4.35) Hero has K♦: 7♥: 8♦: Q♥:

4 folds, Hero calls $4.00, MP checks

Flop: ($8.35, 2 players) T♥: 6♦: 3♥:

Hero checks, MP bets $8.35, Hero raises to $25.19 and is all-in, MP calls $16.84

Turn: ($58.73, 2 players) 8♣:

River: ($58.73, 2 players) Q♠:

Results: $58.73 pot ($0.75 rake)

Final Board: T♥: 6♦: 3♥: 8♣: Q♠:

Hero shows K♦: 7♥: 8♦: Q♥:: (Two Pair, Queens and Eights)

(Pre 55%, Flop 37%, Turn 68%)

MP shows 9♠: 2♥: 4♦: A♥:: (High Card, Ace)

(Pre 45%, Flop 63%, Turn 33%)

Hero wins $57.73

Hand 4: Unknown villain. I think my preflop play is not mandatory but somewhat okayish with only 1 gap. I block the second-nutstraight but also on of my fullhouse-redraw outs. Check-calling or folding seemed not optimum.

Spoiler GG Poker - $0.50 PL Hi FAST (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

BTN: $82.66 (165.3 bb)

SB: $49.50 (99 bb)

BB: $83.65 (167.3 bb)

UTG: $28.91 (57.8 bb)

Hero (MP): $121.38 (242.8 bb)

CO: $143.90 (287.8 bb)

SB posts $0.25, BB posts $0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.75) Hero has T♥: T♦: 8♠: 7♠:

fold, Hero raises to $1.75, fold, BTN calls $1.75, fold, BB raises to $7.25, Hero calls $5.50, BTN calls $5.50

Flop: ($22.00, 3 players) 8♦: T♣: J♠:

BB checks, Hero checks, BTN bets $16.50, fold, Hero raises to $71.50, BTN raises to $75.41 and is all-in, Hero calls $3.91

Turn: ($172.82, 2 players) 7♣:

River: ($172.82, 2 players) 8♣:

Results: $172.82 pot ($1.50 rake)

Final Board: 8♦: T♣: J♠: 7♣: 8♣:

BTN shows 9♥: 4♣: Q♣: 2♥:: (Flush, Queen High)

(Pre 44%, Flop 62%, Turn 80%)

Hero shows T♥: T♦: 8♠: 7♠:: (Full House, Tens full of Eights)

(Pre 56%, Flop 38%, Turn 20%)

Hero wins $170.57

Hand 5: Villain (40/20/5 AF 1.7) is unlikely to have a bot since I block everything but the deuce. On the other hand, I actually cannot remember any bluff-check-raise shoves on those stakes either. The only hand that beats me would be .

Spoiler iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

UTG: €67.19 (134.4 bb)

CO: €57.05 (114.1 bb)

Hero (BTN): €51.95 (103.9 bb)

SB: €128.93 (257.9 bb)

BB: €77.25 (155 bb)

SB posts €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has 9♣: 3♦: 3♥: 9♥:

2 folds, Hero raises to €1.75, fold, BB calls €1.25

Flop: (€3.75, 2 players) 9♠: A♣: A♠:

BB checks, Hero bets €1.87, BB calls €1.87

Turn: (€7.49, 2 players) 3♠:

BB checks, Hero bets €5.61, BB calls €5.61

River: (€18.71, 2 players) 2♥:

BB checks, Hero bets €9.35, BB raises to €46.76, Hero calls €33.37

Results: €104.15 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: 9♠: A♣: A♠: 3♠: 2♥:

Hero mucks 9♣: 3♦: 3♥: 9♥:: (Full House, Nines full of Aces)

(Pre 50%, Flop 58%, Turn 75%)

BB shows A♥: 2♣: T♦: 8♥:: (Full House, Aces full of Twos)

(Pre 50%, Flop 42%, Turn 25%)

BB wins €102.65

1: just checking in position. We have no interaction with board and 76 is quite rarely hitting our 3bet range. Bet-call is pretty optimistic. Even KQT9 type hand is having ton of equity and it's probably one of weaker combos?

2: I would probably either cbet half pot using my EP range smashing this flop or check flop and turn. But yeah idea in flop bet would be that our two pair is pretty vulnerable and by betting flop we get ton more credit for nuts if we pot turn. Of course we can have fair amount of nuts as played as well if we check stuff like AKJT+ which we definitely should some portion of time as we block sets, two pairs and flop is rainbow. But yeah I would be more happy to check flop with AJ, or AQ two pairs as those are lot less likely to get out drawn.

3: Not sure what is going on preflop but flop is standard. Low SPR and we have just too much going on to not stack off.

4: As default open folding. In tight or passive table could be marginal open. But yeah facing 3bets is not something we want to happen with this hand. BU betting big puts us in nasty spot. Issue is his stack off range should be doing really good versus us. Plus his sizing looks like there is very little fe. Not sure but might be best to fold.

5: GTO wise we can't fold most likely but as you said this is very unlikely spot to be bluffed. He would need to take Ax trips and turn it into bluff. So I think bet-fold is way to go. Plus even when we block A9 and A3 he will have those sometimes.

Originally posted by ghaleon

1: just checking in position. We have no interaction with board and 76 is quite rarely hitting our 3bet range. Bet-call is pretty optimistic. Even KQT9 type hand is having ton of equity and it's probably one of weaker combos?

Yes, checking back was my first intuition too.. but I thought once more about the ranges in play. He should not have too many in his range assuming he is playing solid preflop but some LAG´s cannot fold them (incorrectly since at lower stakes 3bet ranges are even more -heavy), GTO is folding most of them because a 3bet range is quite -heavy in general too. In the MP he should not hit , and the according straightdraws around it very often either. This makes a top-pair or overpair much stronger. He still can have some middle- and bottomsets ofc and Idk how much this impacts our play at that SPR.

2: I would probably either cbet half pot using my EP range smashing this flop or check flop and turn. But yeah idea in flop bet would be that our two pair is pretty vulnerable and by betting flop we get ton more credit for nuts if we pot turn. Of course we can have fair amount of nuts as played as well if we check stuff like AKJT+ which we definitely should some portion of time as we block sets, two pairs and flop is rainbow. But yeah I would be more happy to check flop with AJ, or AQ two pairs as those are lot less likely to get out drawn.

I don´t like betting the flop... too many - twopairs and sets around and lack of playability ott. If we get called otf and have to fire another pot-sized barrel this is becoming an expensive line quickly against multiple opponents. After flop got checked through I can rule out at least some of the stronger combos that would have bet the flop. I am not balancing bluffs against 3 opponents .. that makes no sense on PLO50. Alternatively I could check and check-fold. But I really don´t like making multiple barrels into 3 players, despite my blocker someone still might have the nuts quite easily.

3: Not sure what is going on preflop but flop is standard. Low SPR and we have just too much going on to not stack off.

Preflop was straddled so he has 100% range here. Flop: ok then I guess x/r was fine.

4: As default open folding. In tight or passive table could be marginal open. But yeah facing 3bets is not something we want to happen with this hand. BU betting big puts us in nasty spot. Issue is his stack off range should be doing really good versus us. Plus his sizing looks like there is very little fe. Not sure but might be best to fold.

Agree with openfold. Yeah flop is iffy..

5: GTO wise we can't fold most likely but as you said this is very unlikely spot to be bluffed. He would need to take Ax trips and turn it into bluff. So I think bet-fold is way to go. Plus even when we block A9 and A3 he will have those sometimes.

Yeah. Bet-fold would be highly exploitative but probably best play. Well it´s not a big mistake I guess in terms of ranges.

Thanks for your opinion.

I dont get the hand #3, he posted 16bb straddle? I think this hand is quite nice with two high suits against any random hand, cant you just raise with it? On the flop I think some FE would be nice and we have too much going on to fold so I would just pot it myself (again, at this point villain just checked pre and has 100% range).

Originally posted by Padelbro

I dont get the hand #3, he posted 16bb straddle? I think this hand is quite nice with two high suits against any random hand, cant you just raise with it? On the flop I think some FE would be nice and we have too much going on to fold so I would just pot it myself (again, at this point villain just checked pre and has 100% range).

Yes you can restraddle your own straddle multiple times. Problem is I have 5 players behind me left to act.. but raising still might be better indeed.

First, I achieved my goal of playing 20k hands in August.

Because of my sloppy Session management I grinded Fast-Forward Tables on multiple tables, where my nearly all losses stem from.

Originally posted by efkay

a) Masch slightly over estimates his edge on short upswings which might lead to those shots but also b) under estimates the effect of variance and runs into short therm downswings that are inevitable.

Exactly. Now I think this is indeed a mental leak. As it just happened, I had a great run in first 2 weeks of August and blundered again on a higher limit. I now stepped back to PLO50 until I am back to the 10k$. ... during a downswing, moving up or not moving down is the most fatal error you can make. -The Poker Mindset

Furthermore, it´s not like I haven´t been warned...

Originally posted by Kyyberi

And to test and practise at PLO100 it could be costly.

Anyways, new month, new luck.

In studies, stuff has not been as bad. I feel like I am making lots of progress in improving my poker skills. Over the last couple of weeks I succesfully implemented a solid study routine which I want to keep:

1. Session Review, taking notes and mark hands

2. Replays at PLO Vision or Forum post

3. Gameplan work and studies

4. Theory, either by video or literature

This takes approx. 2-3 hours and in the evening I am going to play 3 x 45 minutes from Mo-Th and 4 x 45 minutes from Fr-Su. This equals 25k hands per month so

my goal is to play a volume of 100k hands by 24. December 2022.

Sub-goals are to beat PLO20 with 14bb/100 and PLO50 with 12bb/100 over that total sample.

FInally, I finished transfering my UTG Pair-Ranges from PLO-Vision into my brain. Consequently,

I am able to recap my RFI, Call and 3bet tables by 31. December 2022.

September

Week 13: x/6250 UTG unpaired

Week 14: x/6250 MP paired

Week 15: x/6250 MP unpaired

Week 16: x/6250 CO paired

October

Week 17: x/6250 CO unpaired

Week18: x/6250 BU paired

Week 19: x/6250 BU unpaired

Week 20: x/6250 BU completion

November

Week 21: x/6250 SB paired

Week 22: x/6250 SB unpaired

Week 23: x/6250 MP facing Raise

Week 24: x/6250 CO facing Raise

December

Week 25: x/6250 BU facing Raise

Week 26: x/6250 SB facing Raise

Week 27: x/6250 BB facing Raise

Week 28: x/6250 Facing Raise Completion

I grinded Fast-Forward Tables on multiple tables, where my nearly all losses stem from.

dejavue... before you lose your winnings on zoomtables you rather give in and play less than the desired samplegoal for the month. no big deal in the end. big deal is playing games where you dont win.

Originally posted by efkay

I ground Fast-Forward Tables across several tables, which is where nearly all of my losses come from.

dejavue... before you squander your winnings on zoom tables you’d rather give up and play less than your intended sample goal for the month. Not a huge problem in the end. The real problem is playing games where you’re not winning.

No, that’s not the point. I did lose a lot, but I didn’t actually play that many hands. And I lost most of it in July, when I had no volume-related goals.

Hey!

I just went through the whole blog and I was quite happy to see you back from doing not so well to grinding PLO50 and PLO100.

Great story sir!

I come from a similar poker background as you, started playing NLH in 2009/10 live with friends and moved online shortly after still playing live every now and then.

I have been making some extra income but didn't take it seriously. I have been studying but not as much as I should and haven't been using any tracking software either.

I moved to England in 2013 started working full time and been playing on and off until two years ago when I decided to switch to PLO which fascinated me and because I got bored of NLH.

I have deposited 1k$ to PS, purchased HM3 and started playing ZOOM PLO10. It wasn't going great as I had a lot of bad habits from NLH but I was studying and trying to get better. Long story short, I lost 500$, moved down to PLO5 and was kind of break even. Then I decided to move my bankroll to PartyPoker because I thought that playing without a HUD will develop my skill better. I was breaking even playing fast forward PLO5 and PLO10 depending on the traffic. One day PLO5 and PLO10 just died on fast forward. I have played a little bit on PLO25 fast forward but was way under rolled and swings were just too stressful. Decided to cash it out, kept some money and deposited 200$ on GGpoker when I found out about their welcome bonus and rakeback offer. I have chosen bonus with tickets instead of extra cash due to my full time job, knowing that I won't be able to play much. Been playing PLO5 rush and cash along with PLO5c and made my bankroll up to 550$ with bonuses. I don't use any tracking software which obviously is not allowed on gg and haven't been reviewing my game but I'm quite happy with the built in HUD which gives a clear indication of loose and tight players. I stopped posting hands to the forum because of that as well. I take a lot of notes and colours marking. I am not delusional about micro stakes and that I will make millions of it but I feel like I understand the concepts and I am ready for playing higher. I treat micros as a sort of training and a stepping stone to the higher stakes.

I am currently in the same position as you were at one point. I want to make a deposit and start playing higher and hopefully do it full time. My job is really limiting when it comes down to poker. Apart from that I work out 4 times a week at the gym and I'm single living alone which means I have to cook and do other house related stuff as well, plus I take driving lesson on weekends. That takes a lot of time and don't really have much time left to play/study. When I do it after work I'm usually tired and don't play my best. But things are going to change. I might be made redundant and will get some extra cash out of that plus I might be able to claim benefits which will pay my rent for the time being. That means I will have plenty of time to play and study and I wouldn't have to worry about the rent. If things would go my way I would consider moving to somewhere cheap in Asia and play there.

What would be your advice? You have been in pretty much the same place and you have keep it going.

BTW I wanted to recommend one book that I think you haven't read well at least you haven't mentioned it: 'Mastering Pot-Limit Omaha, the modern aggressive approach' by Herbert Okolowitz & Wladimir Taschner. It's been released in 2014 but its very advanced and I find it way more informative then Jnandez book who copied the name of it! Im reading it for the 3rd time and still finding a ton of new stuff.

I ordered 'The Poker Mindset' today!

GL!

Originally posted by PakerFace

I have chosen bonus with tickets instead of extra cash

Good decision, I made the mistake of taking the bonus to clear. In my calculation it looked realistic but due to lack of consistency it turned out as a matter of impossibility soon.

Originally posted by PakerFace

Mastering Pot-Limit Omaha, the modern aggressive approach

I have already read that. It´s a little outdated but the concepts are still valid. Its content is covered though "Advanced PLO Theory" by Tom Chamber which is a more complex but also more detailed work.

Originally posted by PakerFace

I am not delusional about micro stakes and that I will make millions

On higher stakes. Villains become stronger, Fish become rare, strategies have to improve, focus and performance requirements go up etc... but the theory concepts remain the same, the game is still the same since its the same 52 card-deck. You are not playing PLO25 to earn another additionall 300 bucks per month. You play PLO25 since it´s the necessary groundwork in a row of steps to make the real money. Try to not let those little micro cash results affect your game or perceptions.

Working in the gym supports your poker game as well. A better trained body does a lot for you mental game. Your mental game at the table is derived 1. from your mindset (the constellation of thoughts that lead to feelings and emotions) and 2. from your physical constitution. So do not skip your daily fitness workout.

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Well, I sleep 8 hours too but you get the point.

I also recommend Nofap if you lack of energy. You are going to feel a real difference after 30 days and there will be further boosts. Stop doing stuff like watching TV, Surfing Internet, playing video games, basically everything that has a screen so you can max out the performance when you do have to sit in front of a monitor.

Originally posted by PakerFace

I ordered 'The Poker Mindset' today!

Great decision! If you read it by heart, it has the potential turn your poker-world inside out. The concepts introduced in this book are theoretically simple but at the same time essential, they probably transformed me into a longterm winner. Especially the chapter 2 (right attitude) and 4 & 5 (bad beats and downswings). At first I thought, yeah sure, I know that content already but I´ve read it several times to internalize the concepts, recapped the content during my bad streaks and I have to say it is really powerful.

At the end I can say, the money you win or lose at the micro stakes does not matter at all. And if you have no proper study routines you do not profit that much from experience gained by more volume either. The only upside if you are losing on lower stakes is to get a feeling for unpredictability of your results. That also makes bankroll management (and discipline) so important. It´s all about getting the right frame for higher stakes where money will come inevitably if you have implemented healthy poker routines.

Establishing a superior skillset is not that difficult, especially not on lower stakes where people blunder around sooner or later. If you observe and evaluate ranges consistently, it will make you a better player automatically. Even if they play solid, you still have the edge because there will be some runouts or downswings in one way or another that tilts them otherwise they would not be on those stakes, so patience is key. Not only during sessions but for your whole career.

And furthermore in poker, your growth of income is exponential:

So let´s not give up but give our best!

I have already read that. It´s a little outdated but the concepts are still valid. Its content is covered though "Advanced PLO Theory" by Tom Chamber which is a more complex but also more detailed work.

I've touched on Chambers but I lost the eBook somewhere. I've read some weird stuff about him on various forums. A lot of people basically says he's not a credible person. I got the eBook again and gonna read it anyways.

Try to not let those little micro cash results affect your game or perceptions.

That's the problem I have. I would have a few winning sessions and everything would be great but then I might have a few loosing ones and I will start doubting myself etc.

So do not skip your daily fitness workout.

That's obviously out of question. I do it mainly for my mental health. Even though I might be loosing at poker, I still make progress in the gym. Daily, incremental improvements.

I also recommend Nofap if you lack of energy. You are going to feel a real difference after 30 days and there will be further boosts. Stop doing stuff like watching TV, Surfing Internet, playing video games, basically everything that has a screen so you can max out the performance when you do have to sit in front of a monitor.

I've done nofap for couple of months at most being single. If I'm dating someone I don't fap at all.

I don't have a problem with low energy, although my jobs drains me sometimes.

Regarding screen time. I don't play any games, I don't watch TV at all, I only watch YouTube for informative stuff. I prefer to read to be honest. Only time I might overuse screen is at work. I've got loads of dead time and to fill it up I either read or watch stuff on YouTube. I make sure I don't use any blue light device an hour before bed to improve quality of my sleep.

Great decision! If you read it by heart, it has the potential turn your poker-world inside out. The concepts introduced in this book are theoretically simple but at the same time essential, they probably transformed me into a longterm winner. Especially the chapter 2 (right attitude) and 4 & 5 (bad beats and downswings). At first I thought, yeah sure, I know that content already but I´ve read it several times to internalize the concepts, recapped the content during my bad streaks and I have to say it is really powerful.

Yeah, I can't wait to read it.

At the end I can say, the money you win or lose at the micro stakes does not matter at all.

I'm trying to let that sink in...

And if you have no proper study routines you do not profit that much from experience gained by more volume either.

Well, sessions review didn't do much for me when I was playing on PS with HM3. I play rush and cash as I mentioned before, mainly 2 tables so I do adjust as I go and see where I go wrong if I do. And if I'm in doubt about something I just pause my tables and reply a hand a have a closer look. I feel like I benefit more from reading about strategy and watching videos then implementing those things.

If you observe and evaluate ranges consistently, it will make you a better player automatically.

Two ranges of 13% might vary greatly due to the complexity of starting hands. It's really hard to evaluate ranges and that's why there's no starting hand charts in PLO. Simply too many hands. I mean, they're very wide ranges and very tight ranges with everything in between. That's how I see it. I do have my open raising ranges for each position but calling and 3b ranges I base on my opponents and their position.

So let´s not give up but give our best!

Always!

Thank you for your detailed reply, very helpful.

I think I'm going to adjust my goals. Yesterday I didn't manage to finish the UTG range I had planned. I only completed half of it this week and I don't believe I can finish both the RFI and calling ranges within the original timeframe. I'm also not handling the volume well because I played the 1000 hands across several days and, wow, that was too much for me. I'm always pretty anxious about the quality of my play in the last session. I really wonder how those players put up 30-40k hands per month. It's insane. Wtf. So my revised goals are:

to play a volume of 80k hands by 24. December 2022.

Sub-goals are to beat PLO20 with 12.5 bb/100 and PLO50 with 10 bb/100 across that total sample.

Consequently,

I am able to 1. recap my RFI ranges from the gameplan sheets I've completed and I have studied the 2. Mastermind 10-week Transformation by Jnandez and also watched the RIO PLO from Ground Up flop-play videos by Empty by 31. December 2022.

September

Week 13: x/5000 UTG paired MM10WT Week 1

Week 14: x/5000 UTG unpaired MM10WT Week 2

Week 15: x/5000 UTG unpaired MM10WT Week 3

Week 16: x/5000 MP paired MM10WT Week 4

October

Week 17: x/5000 MP unpaired MM10WT Week 5

Week18: x/5000 MP unpaired MM10WT Week 6

Week 19: x/5000 CO paired MM10WT Week 7

Week 20: x/5000 CO unpaired MM10WT Week 8

November

Week 21: x/5000 CO unpaired MM10WT Week 9

Week 22: x/5000 BU paired MM10WT Week 10

Week 23: x/5000 BU unpaired RIOPFGU VIdeo 1-7

Week 24: x/5000 BU unpaired RIOPFGU Video 8-14

December

Week 25: x/5000 SB paired RIOPFGU Video 15-18

Week 26: x/5000 SB unpaired Buffer

Week 27: x/5000 SB unpaired Buffer

Week 28: x/5000 buffer Buffer

Week 13: 7755/5000 UTG paired ✓ MM10WT Week 1 ✓

Pairs from UTG are completed. My range tables appear like this. It's a lot of work, I can tell you, but as is so frequently cited by those who supply their own ranges (and likely constructed them too...), I don’t think it’s time wasted, since you also learn while you build them.

Gl&HF master of Omaha!!!!:f_drink:

Originally posted by grackhack2

Gl&HF master of Omaha!!!!:f_drink:

Thanks! I don't worry much about luck because poker requires a long-term approach, but I'm aiming to enjoy the game.

I finished my UTG ranges already. So I will replace the goal for Week 15 with summarizing "The Poker Mindset" in my text document.

Week 14: x/5000 ? UTG unpaired MM10WT Week 2 ✔

Week 15: x/5000 ? Summarize "The Poker Mindset" Chapter 5-9 ?

I really like my preflop table so far. It is far better to look-up and memorize than other Preflop Charts that are out there, I will show you why:

For example I wanna take a look if 9♠:8♠:8♦:5♦: is a GTO openraise from UTG:

In the Jnandez Chart from the Mastermind you will see something like this:

So first you sometimes do not even know which category it is, with 2 gaps is it still connected?

What about 3 gaps like 9♠:8♠:8♦:4♦:?

Second, what´s 60%? If you do not know how many combos are in that category it´s a useless number. And where are swing hands of those 60%?

In PLO Matrix we have a vertical and a horizontal bracket depending on which of the suit is higher, it remains this format despite there is not much differenec in raising 9♠:8♠:8♦:5♦: or 9♠:8♦:8♠:5♦::

It´s basically a 3-d cube where where we see 1 grid that fits the function of organizing the next grind with the specific combos, so we first have to go into "EP" then "Pairs" and then look for the at the 5-axis that contains the pair of :5x:. Not very handy. You also are not allowed to print those sheets so you pay 50 bucks per months just to click around in order to single-check all those specific combinations while sitting in front of your screen.

In my outprinted excel sheets which I can study on my couch, I have a system, where I distinguished the pair combinations depending on if they have 1 or 2 overcards. The unpaired are divided into the first 3 cards of that combination.

If you have that axis of yourpaired dimension doubled you can have that in a 2d easy to study manner without giving up on the high-card suit details of PLO Matrix. So 9♠:8♠:8♦:5♦: has 1 overcard namely the 9♠:.

The 9886+ in a yellow field means, we raise all with a sidecard better than so the fourth sidecard is ranging from to :6x:. I can see it´s a fold since 9886 is the worst doublesuited hand we raise and we also fold all singlesuited versions (second and third row). If I want to check up 9♠:8♦:5♦:5♠: I´ll take a look in the 2-overcards tables, where I can see this is a fold aswell, I raise all doublesuited with pairs from to :6x:. Easy as that.

I would be curious about your opinions about this hand. I am going to make a more deep analysis about it, which we can discuss aswell. This hand was played out against a 35/15 AF 2.5 Recreational player with serious pre- & postflop weaknesses but decent hand-strength awareness, it is a very common player type on those stakes. I usually outplay those players bluffing certain textures with high frequency as a fit-or-fold traits are the norm. They also tend to overplay some situations due to lack of range awareness.

iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

CO: €50.00 (100 bb)

Hero (BTN): €60.25 (121 bb)

SB: €51.88 (103.8 bb)

BB: €37.98 (76 bb)

UTG: €74.45 (148.9 bb)

MP: €48.18 (96.4 bb)

SB posts €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has 9♠: 8♥: 8♠: J♥:

UTG raises to €1.00, 2 folds, Hero raises to €3.75, 2 folds, UTG calls €2.75

Flop: (€8.25, 2 players) 4♣: 6♦: T♦:

UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn: (€8.25, 2 players) 5♠:

UTG bets €5.77, Hero raises to €19.17, UTG calls €13.40

River: (€46.59, 2 players) 8♣:

UTG bets €46.59, Hero ?

Would just call in position preflop. Flop I would prefer to bet half pot. We have very little value in check and we can get reasonable amount of equity to fold. Good amount of overpairs can also fold but depends on player type somewhat. 998 will be blocking villain continue range somewhat.

As played on turn I would just fold. Not a big fan of making this kind of raise when we only have 3 nut outs. Our semibluffs should be more equity driven in board like this. Villain also bets on big side so there is high chance he has something fairly strong.

River is fairly blank and we did rep 87 on turn so this donk shove looks pretty strong. I suppose hand combo wise its still reasonable call as we have 9 blocker and unblock diamonds. So I dont mind river call. But to me earlier actions are not that great.

Also vote for call pre. To me it seems pretty clear call, UTG minopening doesn't really change the fact that hand is not that great. Looked for my 100bb and 200bb sims and in all situations that hand is just a call preflop in position.

Postflop I wouldn't raise turn unless I had reads that he stab-folds a lot after checked street. Now somewhat recreational bets big on a straight board with a flush draw. That doesn't look like a bluff with bad hand but more like a bet with good hand. Straights and strong draws would make most sense, and to make a recreational to fold those doesn't sound like a good plan. So turn raise would often require a river barrel, and for that to work we need a blank river. If he has a straight, recreationals are often quite sticky with them even if it's 3rd nuts or something.

Overall I don't think turn is a good spot to raise with 88 blockers. On the river a bit passive recreational pots, I wouldn't call without reads that he can make a bit stupid bluffs with pot donks.

Yes I really gotta study those 3bet ranges, also agree that raising turn was a bad idea, since this move messed up the hand I am going to skip the analysis and post another hand instead (Villain is a 70/40 AF 3.1):

iPoker - €1 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

UTG: €326.99 (327 bb)

CO: €40.00 (40 bb)

Hero (BTN): €274.30 (274.3 bb)

SB: €287.56 (287.6 bb)

BB: €100.00 (100 bb)

SB posts €0.50, BB posts €1.00, CO posts €1.00

Pre Flop: (pot: €2.50) Hero has K♠: A♠: 5♣: 2♦:

UTG raises to €4.50, CO calls €3.50, Hero calls €4.50, fold, BB calls €3.50

Flop: (€18.50, 4 players) 3♥: K♥: 4♠:

BB checks, UTG bets €12.95, CO calls €12.95, Hero calls €12.95, BB calls €12.95

Turn: (€70.30, 4 players) T♦:

BB checks, UTG bets €49.21, CO calls €22.55, Hero calls €49.21, fold

River: (€191.27, 3 players) 6♣:

UTG checks, Hero bets €95.63, UTG calls €95.63

Results: €382.53 pot (€2.00 rake)

Final Board: 3♥: K♥: 4♠: T♦: 6♣:

UTG shows 9♣: J♦: 3♦: 3♣:: (Three of a Kind, Threes)

(Pre 43%, Flop 40%, Turn 56%)

CO shows A♥: 7♠: K♦: 8♥:: (One Pair, Kings)

(Pre 35%, Flop 33%, Turn 19%)

Hero shows K♠: A♠: 5♣: 2♦:: (Straight, Six High)

(Pre 22%, Flop 27%, Turn 25%)

Hero wins €380.53

It took my whole time bank to figure out odds and implieds ott.

Preflop I would just fold as always ♦ But yeah reasoning is that its really hard to hit strong with this kind of hand. This time we get one of rare flops that offer nutty potential. Tight and passive blinds will help somewhat as we definitely dont want to face squeeze.

I would assume around 20% equity on turn as hearts are not clean outs. Meaning we need around 60€ implieds when hitting. Some factors that come into my mind in this spot:

• We have BB left to act. Rare that he will x-shove but some chance. This is not big deal though as it would not be 2xbet size so not reopening betting. But definitely something that decrease our EV if he had more behind. Creating potential situation where we have to fold turn after calling.

• Difficulties of getting implied odds versus decent player. When we call turn and BB folds there will be only bit over 50€ in side pot. So UTG should really ask how much incentive do we have in bluffing when one player is already allin for the 140€ main pot? In this case this is not as big issue as UTG seems not so good player.

Originally posted by ghaleon

Preflop I would just fold as always ♦ But yes, the reasoning is that it’s really hard to make a strong hand with this sort of holding. This time we hit one of the rare flops that gives nut potential. Tight, passive blinds will help a bit as; we definitely don’t want to face a squeeze.

I would estimate around 20% equity on the turn as; hearts are not clean outs. Meaning we need roughly 60€ implieds when we hit.

One reason I called preflop is that even weak players tend to fold low-rag hands, so with my wheel draw I’m unlikely to be dominated — giving me a slight preflop equity edge while retaining some nuttiness with the A♠:.

I ignored the flush outs. I calculated it like this: our 6 outs OTF are: A♣:, A♦:, 5♠:, 5♦:, 2♠:, 2♣:, so I compute 6 x 2.5 = 15% Equity = ~ 5 : 1 odds.

There’s a small inaccuracy in my math here since 15% = 5.5 : 1, but I accept that for a practical in-game calculation.

I must call ~ 50 € to see the next card in a pot of 120 €, which yields pot odds of 170€ : 50€ = ~ 3.5 : 1. There are a few minor rounding issues, but they shouldn’t affect the single-digit odds.

Finally I subtract the 3.5 from 5 = 5 - 3.5 = 1.5 and multiply that by the call size = 50€ x 1,5 = 75€. So I need to win 75 € on the next street to break even.

I bet half-pot only (100€) so Villain is less likely to fold. I knew this would make the turn play -EV if villain folds too often OTR, so I thought it was helpful to avoid greed and take the safer line. But I expected he’d call with anything that has reasonable SDV and fold bare flush draws. My line could still be -EV if villain bluffs bare flush draws often versus 2 opponents, though BB coming along may provide card removal. Things get complicated quickly with 3 players in the hand. I don’t give him credit for straight draws here due to his flop lead.

• We have BB left to act. It’s rare he’ll x-shove but there’s some chance. That’s not a huge issue though as; it wouldn’t be 2 x bet size so it doesn’t reopen betting. Still, it would reduce our EV if he had more behind, creating a possible spot where we’d have to fold the turn after calling.

Yes, I know — I didn’t mention that BB was a passive player.

In the PLO Vision Training there are 2 SB RFI ranges, one that includes limp and one that doesn't. I don't want to build the mixed SB range because I'm using a raise-only approach, but you still have to finish that. Ugh, this range is terrifying. I've been quizzing for days and I still can't get the 20 correct answers consistently lol.

Playing a mixed strategy from the small blind is extremely difficult to get right. And I mean EXTREMELY difficult, as there isn’t any straightforward or even somewhat simple rule for when to limp versus when to raise. In practice it doesn’t change EV much; most of the time a default no-limp as approach likely yields better EV than agonizing over the correct play for most hands.

Your outs most of time in that hand are non heart A, 2, 5 and 6 which would make 9 outs.

I would not worry about SB open limp strategy. It's not something that is recommended outside of high stakes basically. For MTT it might actually be quite a big thing considering no rake factor.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Mixed strategy from SB is really difficult to master. And I mean REALLY difficult, as there is no simple or even somewhat simple rule for when to limp and when to raise. And in practice it probably doesn't change EV much; most likely a no-limp as default produces higher EV than agonizing over what to do with most hands.

Yes.. Like A♠:T♦:9♥:3♥: is a limp and A♠:T♥:9♥:3♦: is a raise but A♦:T♠:9♥:3♠: is a limp again ... wtf?

Originally posted by ghaleon

Most of your outs in that hand are non-heart A, 2, 5 and 6 which would amount to 9 outs.

I wouldn't be concerned about the SB open-limp tactic. It's not generally advised outside of high-stakes play. In MTTs it can actually be significant, given the lack of rake consideration.

I forgot the :6x:´ses. Yes 9 Outs.

That results in 22% equity; I had that correct during the game, so the turn call was fine.

But nothing is in vaine. I got the SB no Limp 20 straight instantly:

♦

CO is a 50/0 loose passive fish and BU is a 12/8 nit. With AA and a SPR lower than 1 we have to stack-off on basically ALL boards (!).

GG Poker - $0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

UTG: $75.63 (151.3 bb)

Hero (MP): $60.19 (120.4 bb)

CO: $22.75 (46 bb)

BTN: $51.83 (103.7 bb)

SB: $43.53 (87.1 bb)

BB: $51.53 (103.1 bb)

SB posts $0.25, BB posts $0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: $2.75) Hero has J♠: A♦: A♥: 5♣:

BTN raises to $4.00, 3 folds, Hero raises to $14.75, CO raises to $22.75 and is all-in, BTN calls $18.75, Hero calls $8.00

Flop: ($69.00, 3 players) 6♥: 5♥: 4♦:

Hero bets $37.44 and is all-in, BTN calls $29.08 and is all-in

Turn: ($127.16, 3 players) 2♦:

River: ($127.16, 3 players) 3♣:

Results: $127.16 pot ($0.99 rake)

Final Board: 6♥: 5♥: 4♦: 2♦: 3♣:

Hero shows J♠: A♦: A♥: 5♣:: (Straight, Five High)

Main Pot: [$69.00]: (Pre 33%, Flop 2%, Turn 0%)

Side Pot: [$58.16]: (Pre 52%, Flop 3%, Turn 0%)

CO shows Q♥: T♦: J♥: J♦:: (One Pair, Jacks)

Main Pot: [$69.00]: (Pre 35%, Flop 21%, Turn 28%)

BTN shows 4♥: 3♥: 7♦: 5♦:: (Straight, Seven High)

Main Pot: [$69.00]: (Pre 33%, Flop 76%, Turn 72%)

Side Pot: [$58.16]: (Pre 48%, Flop 97%, Turn 100%)

BTN wins $125.67

This hand is a little test..

iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

BB: €68.30 (136.6 bb)

UTG: €54.49 (109 bb)

MP: €61.61 (123.2 bb)

Hero (CO): €51.86 (103.7 bb)

BTN: €50.00 (100 bb)

SB: €54.79 (109.6 bb)

SB posts €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has Q♥: Q♠: 7♣: 7♠:

2 folds, Hero raises to €1.75, 2 folds, BB raises to €5.50, Hero calls €3.75

Flop: (€11.25, 2 players) 6♣: 9♠: 8♣:

BB bets €3.71, Hero ?

What´s our strategy on the flop in general? Straight flops are lock-down boards but the flush-draw here makes it spicy.

With so many hits we clearly should do sth here. What´s our strategy with (straight-) blockers in general?

Solution:

Spoiler

Flop: (€11.25, 2 players) 6♣: 9♠: 8♣:

BB bets €3.71, Hero raises to €16.78, BB calls €13.07

Turn: (€44.81, 2 players) 5♠:

BB bets €44.81, Hero calls €29.58

River: (€103.97, 2 players) 5♣:

Results: €103.97 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: 6♣: 9♠: 8♣: 5♠: 5♣:

Hero mucks Q♥: Q♠: 7♣: 7♠:: (Two Pair, Queens and Fives)

(Pre 32%, Flop 15%, Turn 28%)

BB shows T♥: K♥: 8♦: K♦:: (Two Pair, Kings and Fives)

(Pre 68%, Flop 85%, Turn 73%)

BB wins €102.47

Solver is bluff-raising in case we have a backdoorflush draw. So this is a critical component to distinguish calls and raises with the overpair. Once we pick up the redraw we are just sticking it in ott.

Not sure about this specific flop but in general straight blockers are not that valuable in low SPR spots. That simply for lack of stack leverage.

Villain probably has some connection to flop when he cbets and then question is if we can assume enough fe. Issue is that he will continue to flop raise often and we then lack that stack depth to put more pressure on blank cards.

Depends of course how SB approach this spot. Small cbet could indicate his strategy is to cbet fairly wide. I would approach this spot as range check in SB shoes as default and solver probably springle low amount of cbets like 10% or even less. So few hands that play great over three street in 3betting range and even those few ones are then needed mostly to protect that check range.

Versus this sizing call might be best option as we have some showdown value and we can turn hand into bluff later streets as well if needed. Probably more effectively by keeping higher SPR. Hands like KK or AA should not be cbetting almost ever. Versus half pot cbet fold is likely best. Could check tomorrow similar flop on trainer.

Checked these spots on trainer. On 976ss flop SB only cbet like 9% and QQ88 with bdfd is split with call and raise. With spade blocker its pretty much 50/50.

On 985ss QQ77 would be just pure fold without fd. Here big difference in SB range is cbet frequency that is bit over 20%

So two clear difference between these flops is stability of straight blockers and amount of hands in SB range that hit strong. On 976 there is no wraps really but on 985 there will be fair amount of QJT, JT9 type combos that are obviously not looking to fold if they cbet.

Noteworthy also that in first flop if villain has hand like KKT7 so overpair, midpair and gs without spade or diamond he is supposed to check and mainly fold to half pot stab from CO.

Also if SB check our QQ+straight blocker pair is going for bet if it doesnt have fd. Big difference here though is possibility to go for three street aggression. So trainer will go for half pot, half pot and half pot shove line on blank runout.

I cannot double-check it since I have no CO vs SB simulation but only BU vs SB where SB would c-bet 24%

and I have also a split approx 50:50 on the 986ss flop.

I also checked the 985ss flop. PLO Vision is calling QQ77 bdfd 100% and not folding either. Maybe it is also because it is for the Button range. Could you double-check that? I slowly get the impression there is something wrong with your software since MonkerSolver is not playing that tight either.

Would be interesting to know how your software plays BU vs SB here.

Anyways.

This are my PLO50 results of this year.

PLO50 Regular Tables:

My winrate on Rush tables is lower at 6 bb/100 over 20k hands. The losses made in the BR-challenge stem from my PLO100 excursions explicitely which all ran pretty terrible. Both bad luck and bad play. Had to maneuvr lots of deep-stacked spots I was not used to and made mistakes I would just never repeat now. I think I improved a lot in the last couple of months.

So I am not going to mix PLO100 into it anymore until I am back to € 9.000,- bankroll. My results in Rush have been pretty good recently so I thought this might be worth a trial more promising to get in more volume and increase my hourly rate instead of mixing in PLO100 stakes to achieve that.

The last 2 months my winrate improved to 15bb/100 over 25k hands with my Allin-adj EV is still at 10bb/100. If my winrate at rush tables really improved up to just 8-10/bb per 100 it would be benefitial to play more fast tables. I could make focus session to train my GTO skills and it is less tiring to have a constant flow of focus on 2 tables for a shorter period of time rather than observing table dynamics on 3-4 tables. I also did not find it best way to make short sessions when playing regular tables and mixing rush with regular tables was kinda bad too. It would kinda stabilize my session and the hourly rate should improve slighly too.

After I have quitted my job in July I burnt quite some money unwilling to move down PLO50 only. That money I earned was destined to enable a PLO100 grind but at least I established a solid skill to beat PLO50 with a decent winrate now.

While September and October were not satisfying and November went really good, I was up € 2.500,- but I lost half of it again on PLO100, this time no bad play involved but primarily bad luck, I had like 1 bad session only so I am happy with my performance (I really checked all hands I played there) but for my BR it was bad. At the end it was a calculated risk. So for next week and december I try to repeat my PLO50 performance and if it works everything should be fine. I am not going to grind PLO25 again and it would be really bad for my studies if I had to take a job again but let´s see. I am coming to an critical point here and give you insight now in my financial planning:

So if I have like 9bb/100 avg on Rush tables I play 3.5 hours per day to grind in € 1800,- per month. This is basically my income estimated on avg $EV. I have like 750€+ living expenses and I am planning to cash out like 1000€ per month (I put some bucks into stocks everymonth for retirement) so I have to do better than that on the tables to pay my bills and add money to my bankroll and survive longterm. I have a quite generous buffer and ofc I want to add as much to my BR as possible so to go broke there has to be a downswing over 2-3 months (100k hands) which would either deplete my saving where I have to tremble for sufficient earnings on a monthly basis or I´d have to reduce my bankroll below 100 buyin, both measures would likely disable a well functioning mental game.

I still have a half year of spendings as cash plus a 130 buyin bankroll for PLO50. My goal will be to build more reserves, a sufficient bankroll for shots and establish a routine with a solid winrate at PLO100 over the next year.

My new Session Management rules are:

No distractive internet brwosing during the sessions.

Daily grind of 4 x 50 session = 200 minutes per day.

Preferably 3 regular tables otherwise 2 Rush-tables.

4bet-pot training:

What the hell?!

If this was preflop EP open, BU 3bet, EP 4bet then trips are actually kinda low in EP range. EP is probably supposed to cbet super small with whole range as huge majority of time he will have AA even in solver world.

That's a bit surprising, but it's not top set, there are almost no redraws, and those redraws wouldn't make you a nut. Well, there is a backdoor nut straight, but the board is paired. There's also the issue of not really having a top kicker here.

Happy new year to you Poker folks. New year new Luck! It is time for me to set new goals and in order to do this I have to reflect what happened in the past, so here I make a Goal status update from the BR-challenge:

Originally posted by Mascherano95

I think I am gonna modify my goals. Yesterday I did not manage to finish the UTG range I planned. I just made the half over this week and I don´t think I can complete to RFI AND calling ranges within that given time-frame. I am also not good with the volum since I played the 1000 hands over some days and wow it was too much for me. I am always quite worried about the quality of my game in the last session. I am really wondering how those guys get 30-40k hands per month. That´s just sick. Wtf. So my new goals are:

to play a volume of 80k hands by 24. December 2022. ✓

Sub-goals are to beat PLO20 with 12.5 bb/100 X and PLO50 with 10 bb/100 X over that total sample.

Consequently,

I am able to 1. recap my RFI ranges of my completed gameplan sheets and I have studied the 2. Mastermind 10-week Transformation by Jnandez and also watched the RIO PLO from ground up videos of flop play by Empty by 31. December 2022.

September

Week 13: x/5000 UTG paired MM10WT Week 1 ✓

Week 14: x/5000 UTG unpaired MM10WT Week 2 ✓

Week 15: x/5000 UTG unpaired MM10WT Week 3 ✓

Week 16: x/5000 MP paired MM10WT Week 4 ✓

October

Week 17: x/5000 MP unpaired MM10WT Week 5 ✓

Week18: x/5000 MP unpaired MM10WT Week 6 ✓

Week 19: x/5000 CO paired MM10WT Week 7 ✓

Week 20: x/5000 CO unpaired MM10WT Week 8 ✓

November

Week 21: x/5000 CO unpaired MM10WT Week 9 ✓

Week 22: x/5000 BU paired MM10WT Week 10 ✓

Week 23: x/5000 BU unpaired RIOPFGU VIdeo 1-7 ✓

Week 24: x/5000 BU unpaired RIOPFGU Video 8-14 ✓

December

Week 25: x/5000 SB paired RIOPFGU Video 15-18 X

Week 26: x/5000 SB unpaired Buffer ✓

Week 27: x/5000 SB unpaired Buffer ✓

Week 28: x/5000 buffer Buffer ✓

I finished the 10-week transformation program and also watched some of the RIO vids but did not make it to the flop play yet. My preflop raise-first in range are complete (I am not perfect yet with the 45% BU range though) and I also do well at PLO-Vision trainer. I also completed the MP ranges facing RFI from UTG (3bet and cold-call).

From week 13 to week 28 I played

61.718 hands at PLO25 with a winrate of 4.37 bb/100 from which 10.409 hands are played with a winrate of 15.45 bb/100 are played regular tables and 19.968 hands are played at Rush tables with a winrate of -1.41 bb/100.

122.368 hands at PLO 50 with a winrate of 1.77 bb/100 from which 66.041 hands with a winrate of 10.21 bb/100 are played at regular tables and 56.327 hands are played at Rush tables with a winrate of -8.13 bb/100.

So with 180k+ hands I outperformed my volume goals but also clearly missed my overall winrate goals. I was wrong about beating Rush tables since I struggled heavily this month again. On one hand I think it kinda improve my skill tremendously within a short time frame to face that way tougher and more tight/solid competition but on the other hand I lost a ton of time and money fighting those regs and my Bankroll is so crippled now compared to the start of the challenge.

I take away from it, it is better to acquire a more advanced gameplan before heading back to PLO50 rush tables, my unwillingness to face the fact I am a losing player there yet cost me a lot of time, nerves and money, since I still faced a lot of troubles in river situations, 3-bet pots and also turn play was very problematic. There are tons of combos in tons of situations and I´d need to figure out, what vague strategy solver plays from preflop to flop and how to implement that into my own game. Ofc lots of regs are really bad like all those nut-peddlers, but it took me too long to figure out, how ridiculously tight those rake-slaves play. We can´t study all the turn river scenarios since that would kinda go beyond the scope of a applicable gamplean yet but I also plan to have some templates for common turn-scenarios.

So for the year 2023 I will shift my goal setting to hours played instead of hands volume. Quality clearly beats quantity at least as far as I am concerned. So now I try to perform a reasonable amount of quality time every day, I think 4 hours are manageable. That makes 1440 per year, since there 20% buffer are recommended I will play 1440-290= 1150 hours this year on PLO25 Rush tables and PLO25 and PLO50 Regular tables. My aim is to make at least 5 bb/100 at the Rush tables and at least 12.5bb/100 at the Regular tables. My study goals includes finishing all standard ranges preflop including cold-calls, 3bets, 4bets etc.. and absolve all preflop 6 solver categories with gold (20 correct streak) which allows my to tick-off preflop play and but all my efforts into postflop game. I also want to finish the RunItOnce Video series by Galfon "This is PLO" and Emty "PLO from ground up". After "The Poker Mindset" I am going to read "Mastering Small Stakes PLO" by Jnandez, "Small Stakes PLO" by PUM and "Advanced PLO" by Nguyen a second time and summarize its content.

Okay let´s do this!

Originally posted by ghaleon

If this was preflop EP open, BU 3bet, EP 4bet then trips are actually kinda low in EP range. EP is probably supposed to cbet super small with whole range as huge majority of time he will have AA even in solver world.

Yes but check-fold trips? Remember BU is supposed to have no AAxx in his flatting range since he would 5-bet those?

Originally posted by Mascherano95

Originally posted by ghaleon

If this was preflop EP open, BU 3bet, EP 4bet then trips are actually kinda low in EP range. EP is probably supposed to cbet super small with whole range as huge majority of time he will have AA even in solver world.

Yes but check-fold trips? Remember BU is supposed to have no AAxx in his flatting range since he would 5-bet those?

But how high or low are trips in EP range? That is the crucial question. This is how this spot looks in solver world.

EP range:

BU range:

So EP has boat almost 80% of time. Even versus 1/5 pot cbet BU is supposed to fold all trips but some rare Ax would continue. Make sense as main point in BU call range is really to block AA. Also BU is supposed to have 10% of time AA in his call range. Probably bit less in plo50 rake level.

But yeah in reality EP will likely have AA even more often than 75% and BU will pretty much never slowplay AA.

PS: So if EP does check BU should probably not bet at all basically.

Originally posted by ghaleon

Originally posted by Mascherano95

Originally posted by ghaleon

If this was preflop EP open, BU 3bet, EP 4bet then trips are actually kinda low in EP range. EP is probably supposed to cbet super small with whole range as huge majority of time he will have AA even in solver world.

Yes but check-fold trips? Remember BU is supposed to have no AAxx in his flatting range since he would 5-bet those?

But how high or low are trips in EP range? That is the crucial question. This is how this spot looks in solver world.

EP range:

BU range:

So EP has boat almost 80% of time. Even versus 1/5 pot cbet BU is supposed to fold all trips but some rare Ax would continue. Make sense as main point in BU call range is really to block AA. Also BU is supposed to have 10% of time AA in his call range. Probably bit less in plo50 rake level.

But yeah in reality EP will likely have AA even more often than 75% and BU will pretty much never slowplay AA.

PS: So if EP does check BU should probably not bet at all basically.

When facing a bet and is supposed to defend about 30% by calling and 15% ... but it seems indeed we are checking so much of our AAxx slowplaying of huge portion of our flop AA. We have an Jack over 55% of the time and we are supposed to fold 90% since BU´s range is so small (below 1%) and indeed can have AAxx. So yes sick fold since Trips is so weak against a bet already because BU should check-back 99% but please tell me that was an obvious no-brainer to you. Not a realistic play you make ingame sicne we´d simplify check-back towards 100%.

Here I have another one:

Bet-folding nutstraight+double redraw at SPR 0,83 ?!

Yeah, from EP I’d simply c-bet extremely small with my entire range, so in practice I’d probably never face this situation. Only if I had some exploitative reason would it arise. From the BU, I would indeed always check back.

Also as I posted at least the trainer’s simulation would almost never choose to check. If that’s true, then in the vision simulator those very low-frequency actions can be modeled very inaccurately. They might even vanish entirely if the simulation used more iterations per node. Something to keep in mind with odd-looking spots.

That nuts-plus-redraw line looks like an obvious error...

You can never be too tight!

As I moved down in Stakes I have some results now for this year grindin the PLO25 Rush tables. The volume lowered because I decided to get back to work for a part-time position so I have a fix minimum income. Grinding PLO50 for a survival is just too stressful. Haha. But actually not funny. I am glad my efforts into improving at a Rush environment showed some results and I might have some sort of more realistic winrate expectations now (I thought beyond 50k hands luck is too big of an factor according to primedope but ChatGPT had the opinion that 20k hands in PLO is not that bad of a sample to evaluate winrate and that beating three Rush tables with a winrate of 5bb/100 is not that bad so I guess it is fine). Variance is really a tricky thing. I often hear, you do not play that many hands on a low stakes limit since you´d move up before but this is not true for me. And if it would be that easy, why all those regulars ain´t playing mid-stakes? I do not think, that the playing level at lower rush stakes is that worse if you take the necessity of beating rake into consideration (13bb/100 at my place).

Stats look decent too with one exception: My cbet% ip of 35% is way too low compared to GTO. Gotta have to take a more close look into that. I´ll continue to grind some for some time and might take shots on PLO50 rush later on if nothing changes.

Considering my studies I landed at a dual approach where I still convert tons of preflop range data and train PLO-Vision where I arrived at Turn play in 3bp already. My RFI accuracy is close to 100% and drops to 70% when moving on to making postflop plays in 3bp. Knowing GTO-lines is really crucial in a more anonymous environment, but still hard to figure out villains ranges as I have no villain player aliases from GGPoker where everything in HM3 is anonymized). ChatGPTmentioned some possible configurations at monker for adapting its solutions to exploitative ranges over pio-solver (you cannot import ptt-files into monker). That is something I have in mind for studies later on in the longterm.

Hallo Mascherano95,

da ich wegen PLO verschiedene Fragen habe, bei denen Du mir aufgrund Deines eigenen Werdegangs möglicherweise weiterhelfen könntest, habe ich Dir eine Freundschaftsanfrage geschickt; ich muss ja nicht hier alle damit belästigen.

Viele Grüße

Flibby

New Update for my 2 latest logs at the Bankroll Challenge.

Week 38-53 (11.03.-22.06.)

I left out the Hands played at GG (lots of Rush tables) in the screenshot filters as I do not play there anymore and not planning to do so. I mean I always thought I could beat at least the regular tables, but in fact together with the Rush tables it was just break-even over such a big sample. The skill difference is significant so I considered it is just not worth it. If you compare it with my Bankroll-Challenge Login from 23. June 2023 I played like 30k hands for less than 100$. My winrate of 22,83 bb/100 is surely not sustainable but having that over 30k hands is not bad either. I mean on lower stakes a bigger part of winnings is made by bringing good value-bets that do not show up in the Allin-adj. bb/100.

Week 53-64 (23.06.-09.09.)

Low C-bet otf again, but I managed to correct my River frequencies. This was quite laborius since I have to import those complex situations into Monker every time, and GTO at the river is already deviating a lot from what we have and what we should be doing exploitatively once we get there. But it helps to have a rough picture of what solver does on different turn-river runouts. I am not sure how bad the low Cbet is, since often I am up against people that just call too much oop. But since they do not check-raise I guess I am still not aggressive enough ip. My RFI´s from EP and MP in both scenarios are a little high, but it is not getting exploited in any sense (3bets, coldcall+solid postflop play) so I am getting away with it decently. The rake (2.547$ over 60k hands!) is pretty high but my solid winrates (7,49 bb/100 with 14,41 Allin-Adj. this time) make up for that. I am running quite below EV but that is fine as long as I am still winning. ♠_biggrin:

I nearly finished my RFI´s at my gameplan. Ofc I also traing with PLO-Vision in postflop spots, but the range construction process is still dabbling with preflop hands. I once more adapted the GTO ranges which I´ve already written into my excel sheets and modified them in a way, the frequencies remain roughly the same but the sidecards, structures, ranks etc. become easier to memorize. For example on the Button, where range gets bigger, I need a more rough orientation. So I do not care if too much if we raise T♥:T♣:7♣:4♦: but fold T♣:T♥:7♦:4♦: cause studying those nuances in detail would take too much time. So a table for high pairs stealing from the Button would look like this:

Furthermore it looks like I am succesfully implementing my routine to follow the daily plan and I recently improved small aspects of my life using artificial intelligence (namely Google Bard) who tells me stuff like "add oatmeal to your wholegrain muesli so the complex carbonhydrate delivers an energy surplus of up to 1 hour. This way you can work on your gameplan longer after the 30 minutes cardio session." or "when you have x $ amount of cash reserve and monthly cashouts of y $ with a standard deviation of 140 and a winrate of 10bb/100 etc.. you might put x% of your bankroll into the stock portfolio and y% on the pokerroom to reduce the risk of a total loss below 5%." You have to be a little tricky with your questions though about your finances cause "Google Bard is not an financial advisor and be aware with stocks your capital is at risk". Or when I was looking for stuff that could in general help me in life beside the known to me "approximation process" and "exclusion process" which I use more often after I brought them more into awareness several years ago, he told me "further concepts for daily life including the following scientific/mathematical procedures are:

Trial and Error: This is a simple process where you try different options until you find the right one. This can be helpful, for example, when you need to try a new recipe or solve a problem.

Logical Reasoning: This is a process in which you draw conclusions from information you have. This can be helpful, for example, when you need to solve a puzzle or make a decision.

Intuition: This is a process based on your gut feeling. This can be helpful when you need to make a decision for which there is no clear information.

Inspiration: This is a process based on your creativity. This can be helpful when you need to find new ideas for a project or problem.

Then poiting out application examples. I even invented a new German word which was approved by Google Bard. The technical method of using Inspiration would be "Schöpfungskraftverfahren" which would be translated into sth. like "Creative Power Process". Crazy and funny af. Helps a lot in many aspects.

So. The rough fundamental structure of my day now recommended by Bard is basically repeating this following structure:

1. consume food to produce energy

2. convert energy into relaxation through physical activity

3. use a relaxed state of mind to do concentrated mental work

I use this sheme multiple times a day to have a optimum input-output relationship that might look like this:

1. have breakfast

2. go jogging 30 min or go for a walk 1h

3. finish 1 table of my SB RFI range

then repeat but slightly varied

1. buy groceries, roast and eat a burger, put in the dishwasher, digest on the couch watch some news on TV

2. do a 15 min workout with your fitness app, warm-down with some stretching and a cold shower

3. grind 2 poker sessions each 45 min with a 10 minute break inbetween

My whole day is structured like that, the trick is, I dont need tons of willpower and discipline, activities just flow into each other as they should.

AI improved my life!

Originally posted by pkrprty

Spoiler Hey man, i read the forums here every 2-3months or so and normally dont comment on anything, but i think it might help you. Seems like you have been trying to become a professional (think you wanna quit your job if you reach the right stakes, right?) for quite some time now, like 2 years + you have been playing poker for10 years now, right?

I have no idea about your financial situation, but if you live in Austria you need some money to cover the essentials of living. That said, I would suggest that you safe up money from your job so that you can live comfortably for like 1 year without having to cash out from your poker winnings one single time. Safe the money on pokersites to build your bankroll. That said, I think that there are some other things you might want to consider.

• I would strongly advice you to stay away from rush and cash on gg poker, even if there is no traffic on normal tables. I saw your monthly samples and I think that it doesnt make sense for you to play that format, because a) you are not remotely close to putting in enough volume, b) the volume wont get you on the leaderboard where you would like to be to make extra cash, c) you wont produce enough rake to climb in the fish buffet fast enough to get more moeny out of that and, most imoprtantly, d) if you play higher than PLO10, the competition becomes tougher. Once you go above that, people are playing for a living and take the game very seriously. Again, stay away from that.

Also, I think that i read (not 100%) that you think that your winrate decreases by roughly 50% if you go up in stakes. So if you have a 40bb/100 on PLO5, that would mean that you can beat PLO10 for 20bb/100, PLO20/PLO25 for lets say 10 and PLO50 for 5bb/100. If you go to PLO100, that would mean that you have a 2.5bb/100 if i got what you mean correctly. Honestly, I think thats not true. If you come to a limit like PLO50, there are good regs and I am quite certain that you cant maintain a positive winrate at that limit, which does not mean that you will not be able to do that as a professional of course.

• Why play on ggpoker at all? It seems that it is going way better for you on win2day, so just stick to that and drop ggpoker 100%? Do what's best for you winrate, seek for the softest competition you can find and stick to brm. Dont take shots when there is no action, rather play lower if there is any action. There is no point facing different opponents on higher stakes if you are not rolled for that or having enough money to take a serious shot.

• I dont think there is much value in reading poker books. Idk if I am allowed to mention any products here, but i think you know what i mean if i say that a sub to a leading PLO training sight might benefit you greatly. Dont only go through a 10 week transformation and dont only watch a couple of other courses that might say how to beat this and that limit blah blah blah. Rather stick to the real deal, learn how to play 3bet pots, how cbets work, betsizing and so on as their are courses dedicted to only that. Practice quizzes and see + understand why a hand is played like its played. Do all that and revise it over and over again until you have it down cold.

First, focus on situations that happen most frequently, in your case startin with pre flop game makes sense i think. I saw that you posted some hands and 4 of them should have played differently pre flop. Dont deviate from these ranges and do not make up your own ones, bc they are made of certain rake environments.

I also saw that you came up with some ranges in other threads, Idk where you got them from, but I would also strongly adcive you to stick to GTO solutions in certain rake environments (included in training sites) and stick to that. Pre flop cant be exploited if you nail it close to 100% (not taking into consideration to get 3bet more often bc villain or player xyz folds to cbet to a certain % blah blah blah)

• If you wanna take it really seriously, try to get a coach. Best would be someone who plays plo200+. Idk their h/rates, but i can imagine that it is not that cheap. Maybe you can, if you focus on poker 100% for a year, make a deal with them and get coaching for profits or something. In case you manage to find someone, stick to what they tell you 100%.

• Does it have to be PLO? Or would you also be willing to try out other formats? Maybe there is more value in another gametype, maybe tournaments, idk. At this point i think its fair to say that you can still experiment with a lot of stuff, put some volume in and then decide on what you wanna be doing all day long for 1 year.

• If you should choose to go for it and try to become a professional for 1 year (implying that you have enough money for yourself + resources that you might need to up your game), forget about going out on the weekends. Take one day off a week at max. Work out, eat healthy, start meditationg. Do everything in your power to feel great and maybe start journaling, maybe even here in some blogs.

These are not meant to be any points of critique, I just want to help you to succeed in poker. Wish you good luck at the tables

edit: I forgot to meantion 1 thing. I do not know if you already do this, but have you ever considered playing PLO MTTs? They are incredibly soft and some good money can be made there.

...

I should have listened to some of this points more seriously. Not the "switch the game from PLO" but the "leave out playing at GG" part. That would have saved me lots of time and money indeed.

Originally posted by SvenBe

Spoiler

Originally posted by Mascherano95

iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

UTG: €87.51 (175 bb)

CO: €62.32 (124.6 bb)

Hero (BTN): €57.45 (114.9 bb)

SB: €88.52 (177 bb)

BB: €56.97 (113.9 bb)

SB posts €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has 7♣: J♦: 8♦: 8♣:

fold, CO calls €0.50, Hero raises to €2.25, SB calls €2.00, fold, CO calls €1.75

Generally I rarely have been raising medium semi-connected pocket pairs very aggressively. Something I changed after my training with PLO-Vision. GTO has some preflop raises with hands like J♠:9♦:8♠:8♦:, T♠:8♣:7♠:7♣: or J♥:8♣:7♥:7♣: from spots I did not expect it. I do want to play here with position against bad players, SB is a very loose passive player (75/15 AF 1).

Flop: (€7.25, 3 players) A♦: J♥: 8♠:

SB checks, CO checks, Hero bets €3.62, fold, CO calls €3.62

Pretty standard cbet here without draw-blockers or backup by myself. Despite the board being not very dry I opted for 1/2-pot only since the A♦: locks it down somewhat and I have decent FE with my perceived range here. The limper, a loose player (40/13/2 AF 5) comes along. He will have a decent portion of hands beside to obvious made hands and draws, weak-pair+gs too.

Turn: (€14.49, 2 players) 3♦:

CO checks, Hero bets €10.86, CO raises to €21.72, Hero calls €10.86

Following up a second barrel with my standard sizing when the texture goes towards enabling more draws. I prefer not betting pot here exploiting low-stakes tendencies of check-calling too much. The minraise is not very meaningful cutting down his range a little towards non-total crap. I had to think a moment between calling and raising since he won´t be folding much here but I did the call to let him hang himself.

River: (€57.93, 2 players) 4♣:

CO bets €34.73, Hero calls €29.86

River card is a perfect blank and I made the call as planned.

Results: €117.65 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: A♦: J♥: 8♠: 3♦: 4♣:

Spoiler CO shows A♥: T♦: 3♠: Q♥:: (Two Pair, Aces and Threes)

(Pre 47%, Flop 33%, Turn 20%)

Hero shows 7♣: J♦: 8♦: 8♣:: (Three of a Kind, Eights)

(Pre 53%, Flop 67%, Turn 80%)

Hero wins €116.15

Very nice analysis. If everyone could so eloquently describe their reasoning, we'd have a lot of coaches coaching each other around here in the forum. (and with ghaleon, kyyberi we do have some!)...

Also thanks for this! Sry for the late response, I think I kinda overlooked this.

Some more hand- and thought reviews in near future are coming!

Hi Mascherano95,

very good update. I am quite astonished about the high rake. Not sure, if that was payed all on GG Poker or another side.

Do you get any kind of rake back or is this amount just out of the chimney?

Read about a "Fish Buffet" promo, but as I am not playing on GG Poker atm, I haven't looked into it any further.

Your daily routine looks very structured and organized, very impressive!

Do you have - from time to time - any discipline matters, such as "oh now, not again, at least today I quit for one day", and if so, how do you deal with it?

Good luck for the future endeavour, go get them!

Also worth mentioning (Hero probably already knows this but for others) is that at GG they have PVI (player value index) that is a multiplier to collected fish buffet points. And it's below 1, meaning you get less points than the fish buffet says you should get. For high volume players (doesn't need to be winning one) it's roughly 0.33. That means that you get 1/3 of the points, which means that 15% rakeback turns to 5%, 30% rakeback to 10% and so on.

Rush&Cash is pretty much breakeven grinding (slight losses, slight profits) at PLO25 and above, and most profits come from leaderboard and flip tournaments. For those flip tournaments I think the value is best for PLO10/PLO25 as the minimum payout is significant for those stakes.

The hands from GG I filtered out, so without rakeback deal this is all blown out the chimney. But high rake scares away tight regulars so more fish for you! An old poker pal recommended to me, weaker players are always a better deal than a better rakeback system. With the fish promo, you have some inconsistency in your rakeback as the wheel of fortune pays you randomly but once you get enough points for the platinum octopus, this is the best option for PLO50 and PLO100. You get 35% rakeback fixed. At GG Poker this really pays off, if you play a lot of hands furthermore you´ll benefit from additional rakeback deals like the daily leaderboard.

The bad thing is that I found the competition unpleasantly dry at rush tables and regular tables aswell. I always feel like, I am the best player on the table but still hardly manage to extract sufficient money out of those hours. Many Asian rakeback-grinders especially on Rush tables are incredibly tight. Whereas they do not play fundamentally sound poker they are not dumb either and sit very tight on their stack and also have some tricky plays in petto. In general making profits by stealing those blinds and little SRP-pots is way harder than the bringing efficient value-bets. Also my GTO-knowledge aka postflop skills ain´t good enough to fully exploit those leaks in a more aggressive way. I´d say the main source of my current profits is due to superiour handstrength evaluation and better adaption in differing spots (SPR´s, Position, Tendencies). Those edges diminish in a more nutpeddling or handstrength-driven environment. Also the actual high VPIP fish often ain´t that bad, their passive tendencies are a weakness obviously but in terms of valuing handstrengths, they´ll often have something decent too if they pay out 2-3 bigger bets and finally you´ll have less of those crazy guys splashing around their chips. Like Kyyberi said, especially those Rush tables are Low-stakes Raketrap.

Well, I forced myself several times in the past to not do certain activities or not do anything at all for a day since many experts say taking a day off can help you to recover more quickly. But for me I did not find this helpful. Those days were boring and empty since I could not enjoy them very much and it also did not feel right to make no progress. Yes, I have a routined structure in my day but that does not mean 99% of the time is strictly pinned to activities nor that those activities are planned very specifically. My plans are simple and the have short-term goals.

I just recover over the span of the day I have a lots of breaks where I just relax. When all tasks are finished I also reward myself by playing some videogames or watching TV. But I have been able to restrict the time spent for those activities to 1-2 hours max so I do not waste too much time in the night time like I have done during school time. I also managed to replace more time of "non-productive" activities with activities that are still less mental demanding than the core stuff (workouts, studies, grind), like videogames that use up your capacities for concentration and mental focus aswell and do stuff like housework like washing my clothes or cleaning the floor instead. Doing that housework is actually pretty fun! Crazy^^ First, I feel like I get immediate reward in terms of that satisfactory feeling of having done something productive second the fact that I have more clean clothes now ie. (or living in a more clean environment) is useful too in an overall psychohygienic term of sense. Or cooking instead of eating out or ordering menus which also saves money. You cannot eat a whole chicken, lift weights for an hour a day, study 2 hours and then grind 2 hours repeating that from morning to night. Avoid becoming mentally exhausted is critical too. That usually always came from having barely any physical activities or playing videogames before the poker sessions, I needed some time to even recognize that. So those household activities actually fit the gap perfectly for the purpose of step "2. convert energy into relaxation through physical activity" and in the end even help to play higher quality sessions.

Hi Mascherano95,

a quick question about using the Excel sheets you mentioned for RFI:

do you keep them memorized and apply them from memory, or do you use, for example, printed charts that you keep handy next to the computer while playing?

35% fixed fish buffet is just 10% fixed with PVI.

If you haven't done it yet, I suggest you calculate your PVI asap.

Write down your balance and fish buffet points and play a session. If you get a session without any cash drops, check out your profits on Pokercraft. As that is without rake, the difference to your balance is the rake you paid. Check how many points you got.

1$ rake is 100 points, multiplied with PVI. So if you got 50 points per dollar, your PVI is 0.5.

Anyone who plays at GG should do this.

Originally posted by Flibby

Hi Mascherano95,

a quick question regarding the use of your above mentioned excel sheets for RFI:

do you memorize them and apply them just out of your mind or do you use let's say printed charts of them, which you might have handy beside the computer during play?

Yes I print thhem out and memorize them then rely on my mind.

Since that mental work is dry as f* I vary different methods in memorizing those ranges:

1. I either memorize the hand structure going top-down like BU RFI QQTx includes all versions whereas QQ9x all single-suited are RFI´s and QQ9 8-7 only the rainbows.

2. Then going through positions like repeating all QQ´s from EP to SB RFI´s.

3. Then I have an electric card mixer where I put in my deck of plastic cards and filter manually.

4. Finally I train with the GTO-Trainer from PLO Vision where I try to guess the GTO-line and compare the results how it would look like in my gameplan if there is a intentional deviation or not. Helpful in a way that swing hands often mark the boarders of marginal hands.

The last approach without comparation is the method I used the most so far, it is the most passive but with a high volume it also soaks in pretty well into your subconscious. Never undererstimate the human brain! ♦

I do not grind and study at the same time. This is too laboroius and distracting. I also do not play focus-sessions. I try to remember single hand(-categories) and how strong to deviate and the effects of different ranks, connectivity, danglers, triple-suitedness etc. A confirmation of my methods working is, that I have those "aha"-moments where I suddenly know how to play a hand which I can remember from studies which I get dealt ingame. Otherwise I approximate ranges and hands according to their structure, nuttiness, playability and the opponent-specific situation.

Since I sometimes get mixed up by all the different default bet sizes in various spots, I took time today to make a table showing my bet-sizing approaches:

My turn strategy is to bet 3/4pot both in and out of position when I’m in an SRP, and to bet both 1/2pot and pot IP and OOP when in a 3bp. On the river, for triple-barrel and bet-check-bet lines I bet 1/3pot or pot when OOP, and 1/2pot and pot when IP, both in SRP, and 3BP (in 3bpots it’s usually just a shove remaining OTR when 3 bets get in).

iPoker - €0.50 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players

Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3 (http://www.holdemmanager.com/)

BB: €50.00 (100 bb)

UTG: €361.44 (722.9 bb)

MP: €97.77 (195.5 bb)

CO: €56.73 (113.5 bb)

BTN: €50.00 (100 bb)

Hero (SB): €128.44 (256.9 bb)

Hero posts SB €0.25, BB posts €0.50

Pre Flop: (pot: €0.75) Hero has K♠: 7♣: K♣: A♥:

UTG raises to €1.75, fold, CO calls €1.75, fold, Hero raises to €7.50, fold, UTG calls €5.75, CO calls €5.75

Flop: (€23.00, 3 players) A♠: 2♥: 8♣:

Hero bets €11.50, fold, CO calls €11.50

Turn: (€46.00, 2 players) 3♦:

Hero?

CO is a 40/5/5 opponent over 100 hands but still with unclear aggression tendencies yet.

EP inbtw is a crazy Maniac 70/30/11 on tilt.

The flop favours our 3-bet range so I ended up bringing a modified 50% cbet. EP´s deep stack together with a his loose aggression makes it very tricky. If he shoves I make my call dependant on CO´s action. I think I can´t bet-fold with the top-kicker but the pocket pair hurts a lot and going allin with 250bb having top-pair no outs seems to be pretty crazy.

Fortunately he folds and we are down to 100bb effective stack. As the dynamic was wild I correctly assumed CO´s VPIP to be even higher. It played out as follows:

Spoiler Turn: (€46.00, 2 players) 3♦:

Hero bets €46.00, CO calls €37.73

River: (€121.46, 2 players) 5♠:

Results: €121.46 pot (€1.50 rake)

Final Board: A♠: 2♥: 8♣: 3♦: 5♠:

CO shows 2♣: 8♠: 4♥: T♣:: (Straight, Five High)

(Pre 39%, Flop 64%, Turn 75%)

Hero mucks K♠: 7♣: K♣: A♥:: (One Pair, Aces)

(Pre 61%, Flop 36%, Turn 25%)

CO wins €119.96

Ott with just SPR1 I decided to just shove making a rough deviation from his rather passive preflop style, tbh I primarily did not want to play a guessing game on the river. I am not happy about the way it played out, I assume it was marginal at best.

Reviewing thoughts:

According to GTO (at a little higher SPR, the SPR´s are not accurate here) being heads-up we should check and villain should bet here half pot only leaving another street to play for rivers. Usually any player would just shove or check though at SPR1. Solver conitnues to check-call with and plays a check-call 60% and check-fold 40% strategy:

The first 5 rows make obviouis sense as we prefer to check-call the stronger SDV 2pairs. The rest is more interesting, Monker prefers to check-call the (:Kx: - ) over the and (:9x: ). Villain is more likely to have a missed straightdraw when we unblock a or than a hit to the actual straight so we´d rather fold having those ourself. Blockers always make a difference even to the last decision. ♠_thumbsup:

I’d call preflop only with deep stacks and size the flop continuation bet smaller on such an extremely dry board.

Originally posted by ghaleon

I would only call preflop with deep stacks and cbet flop smaller on such extremely dry flop.

Agreed. Solver as a default cbet(-folds) 1/3pot 70%+ 3way on this flop. Cbetting the standard sizing would have been better (decent FE due to the texture while better odds to fold against aggression).

New Update:

I am really getting into solver studies now. Daily studies of all sort of spots and memorizing my gameplan. I also added some 5-card PLO tables some time ago. I actually want to do some studies there aswell, but the complexity of normal PLO is already quite occupying. I feel like I do okay though, probably because the competition on 5-card PLO seems to be just one more level worse and most people just did not do any 5-card studies so far either. I almost play it like 4-card PLO which basically can´t be very solid.. Still made nice profits yet^^. There are some interesting differences: Less value for lower ranked cards, nuances in the additional suit possibilities (you can be favourit with KK vs AA which is not possible in 4-card) and other logical consequences you´d derive from the transition of NLHE to PLO (even more importance of nuttiness, texture balancing, side-card components interaction, blocker effects)... It´s like "More PLO than PLO".

Since the beginning of this year I also do shots on PLO100 which were more successful than in the previous years but I don´t feel very comfortable in playing PLO100 only (also due to lack of traffic) so I basically mix everyhing now from PLO20, PLO50 and PLO100 both 4-card and 5-card PLO. I am skipping PLO100 5-card since you need a bigger bankroll for 5-card as variance goes up (200 buyin instead of 150 buyin I would recommend - or 150 instead of 100).

I might also add some poker content in the coming days, it´s very much the same style I apply that seems to be working and it´s not like I play completely different from a year ago but surely I improved. More aggressive in spots I know better now from GTO, more nuanced plays in 3bp´s. All in all it´s still a lot of Posion, handstrength awareness, estimating equities and picking up on easy identifiable and distinct tendencies. I opened a discord server where I exchange with other (mostly beginning) players, feel free to join or mail me if the link is expired:

https://discord.gg/9UbYHDeT

Private thoughts and life experience:

January and March, so some months ago I felt a little burn out because of all that everyday grind, so I tried to get a job and also got a commencement last month at a big pharmacy company but the first work day and my boss were so terrible that I just gave up the next day. It´s kinda sad, cause I do actually like to work and contribute efforts to society in general (very fulfilling if you beside just take it from all the fish on the tables and do not contribute to anything) but the conditions were just so bad. Also pay is not like I´d earn much more than just playing poker. But if you are new without super-specific expertise you are pretty much just a wage cuck lol. In the media they always talk about all opportunities and free market but I guess that´s not really true for the job market. It´s the only market where the seller does not get the benefits of trade. There is also a bunch of other social and psychological garbage going on when you just try to "trade" work(-time)-against-money. This would be different imo if there is less fixation on job security. It improves the value you are actually contributing to a company and lowers the cost the company has for employing someone. It´s not like it is super easy to have a start-up for example in Europe, not even start with financing it etc.. I am against minimum wage and current super-high taxes and all that federal interference within, it would open up real opportunities and stop the strangle on small and medium-sized businesses.

The health securance system in my country (and it is similar in many countries I assume), the compulsory insurance starts at ~380€ per month, totally not worth it for me so far. I had an accident summer last year where a piece of wood got stuck into my eyes. The ambulance lift and getting it out by a medical specialist with a small operation together with the eye unguent without being insured cost me less than 200 bucks. And it´s not like I run into a car once a month. I´d bet it´s not even worth it if you get cancer or even the plague because every rational human being probably is willing to trade its earnings for its life. Health insurance is basically not affordable when you need it and you don´t need it when it is affordable. You´d need to have some really strange and super rare disease where medication costs goes up 6-digits to actually benefit in terms of risk coverage. So this is all a governmental huge rip-off just like pensions and we have a 2-class health system already anyways cause nobody earning 6-digit a year would have no private supplementary insurance. What politician are talking makes no sense to me at all. As a self-employed you cannot really afford the basic insurance and you gotta pay more if you earn more before taxes, that is a significant monthly financial burden if you try to achieve more than the average 0815-job but you are not rich yet either. My 2 cents on it.

Another thing is, in hindsight I feel like, the longer you are in school, the more you basically waste your time and degenerate to a cocky but real-life distute NPC cause you are not gathering knowledge and practice that actualy fits your individual skill- or workplace requirements. Memorizing shortterm memory stuff has nothing to do with learning something useful. And it´s not like in every company that´s the case and not everybody can be a Elon Musk or Jeff Besos but you do need specific skills and personal qualities to contribute to the well-being and expansion of a business. I went to a business school for example and we had 5 years of accounting. So you do tons of detailed stuff you´ll never need, you can´t even build on it if you actually start working in accountacy lol cause you gotta relearn most of the stuff you actually do anyways and every company handles much stuff different, you´d learn it faster by just having a 3-year tenet or sth., this strikes me just as madness. On top of it I had stuff like biology, chemics and geography. Like Mendels´ law where you gotta know how beans can be cultured with each other.. I mean wtf. On the other hand you don´t learn at all how to manage your own finance or how to keep your self in physical good shape which is surely among the most important things for life. Financial management beyond simple BRM was really crucial last year to make a living out of poker. I have a simple but strict money management system going on that ensure there is always enough cash around, always an appropriate bankroll available and also that surplus money gets invested well. The way you handle your private money gives you a big mental and psychological advantage on the tables, I cannot emphasize this enough.

Considering my gameplan, I have finished all those RFI spots more or less. In the vision trainer I usually get around 95% accuracy, that should be sufficient to continue. I did not completely memorized every hand so I have to fall back a lot, RFI is where everything begins. The ranges I am now working on are "advanced" preflop setups. I will not do a comeplete gameplan on every spot but restrict to the most important ones:

• BB coldcall vs EP & BU (~15% & ~25%) and compare them

• SB & BB 3bet vs EP (both ~5%) and 3bet vs BU (both ~10%) and compare them

• BU 3bet vs EP (~5%)

• BU 3bet vs CO (~8%)

• BU coldcall vs EP & CO (both ~10%) and compare them

• CO 4bet vs BU (~3%)

• BU vs MP & CO and SB vs Co & BU sqz. opport. (both call ~3% & 3bet ~6%) and compare them

I am also occasionally watching the video series "this is PLO" by Phil Galphond. It´s to sprinkle in some high level thoughts, the main achievement unlocked from those was the hand reading method of "counting combos" by assessing frequencies (how likely someone will roughly have broad hand categories) and deduct the portion of those after each street. I may do this aside the tables in my session reviews but I am not sure yet how to implement this thought process in my game since I am not any doing focus sessions atm. Maybe I can even set up some (post)flop studies aswell if there is time. (Checking out swing hands on different textures/spots, figuring out raising candidates/bluffs, etc...).

Hello from Upper Austria,

very interesting PLO blog.

I'm a bit disappointed about one PLO expectation of mine — that you don't receive greater profit rewards for your hard work.

I'm sure you can win a lot of money at SpinGo's with your willingness to work hard on your game.

Originally posted by PokerSpass

Hello from UpperAustria,

very interesting PLO-Blog.

I am a little sobered about my one PLO-expectation, - that you get not more profit-rewards for your hard work.

I am sure that you can win mutch money at SpinGo's with your disposition to hard work on your game.

Hi!

Yeah, sobering down is a big feeling I have too when comparing to my expectations at my beginning of the poker journey more than 10 years ago where I thought I´d be a millionaire pretty soon for sure.

I still believe, hard work always pays off and that nothing will be in vain. I mean it already kinda paid off. In Poker I would say, you are not benefiting form your input immediately or 1:1. It´s like an exponential curve where gains will sum up in larger sums later on. Same is true for business they say. But doing something that is scalable in general is key. Other than this I'd agree with your quote:

Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm

.^^

Not transitioning to SpinGo's though, different game and more variance. You gotta specialize on 1 game ideally, not spreading your focus.

I hope our hard work will pay off for the future, and normally it will for sure.

The only problem with poker is that the framework conditions sometimes change so quickly that the future has no time to reward us for our efforts.

Hopefully a poker ban for players from Austria will never become reality.

Rare to find a good PLO blog within these stakes (20-100) . I'm in a kinda similar situation - at the moment I'm struggling with money a bit you could say: bad variance this year I am pretty sure - and some other things that messed up my playing routine pretty hard (on top of that, I have never managed to have ANY playing routine - which usually leads to me taking to many days of --> not getting in the volume needed to overcome the crazy PLO variance on a monthly basis. I have never really studied the game at all (solvers/ranges) and my preflop game is just FISHY (too loose), but post flop there is not the same kind of discipline required, so I've managed to win pretty good in pl50 especially for the last 4 years -

Yeah but actually the thing I wanted to ASK YOU: I'm interested to know what kind of Standard deviation values you have had in your PLO ring games (in your poker tracker, assuming you use one) , for stakes like 20 , 50 , 100 - and let's say 5 player or more dealt into the hands - I'm asking this because my values are EXTREMELY high around 300 for large samples - and I think this must be crazy - also leading to huge variance (assuming this is mostly due to my playing style and not the variance in it self causing it) - but yeah - would be nice to know what a solid GTO type of player's standard deviation has been ?

And also: how many hands per month do you usually put in ?

Originally posted by PokerSpass

I hope for you that our hard work will pay off in the future, and normally that will certainly be the case.

The only problem with poker is that the framing conditions sometimes change so quickly that the future doesn’t have time to reward our hard work.

Hopefully a poker ban for players from Austria will never become reality.

Yeah. I mean, you only have to reach PLO100 which is enough income to live almost anywhere on this planet as long as you have internet. So the aim is basically to become independent from job income and to be able to be mobile.

Originally posted by skeida

Rare to find a good PLO blog within these stakes (20-100) . I'm in a kinda similar situation - at the moment I'm struggling with money a bit you could say: bad variance this year I am pretty sure - and some other things that messed up my playing routine pretty hard (on top of that, I have never managed to have ANY playing routine - which usually leads to me taking to many days of --> not getting in the volume needed to overcome the crazy PLO variance on a monthly basis. I have never really studied the game at all (solvers/ranges) and my preflop game is just FISHY (too loose), but post flop there is not the same kind of discipline required, so I've managed to win pretty good in pl50 especially for the last 4 years -

Yeah but actually the thing I wanted to ASK YOU: I'm interested to know what kind of Standard deviation values you have had in your PLO ring games (in your poker tracker, assuming you use one) , for stakes like 20 , 50 , 100 - and let's say 5 player or more dealt into the hands - I'm asking this because my values are EXTREMELY high around 300 for large samples - and I think this must be crazy - also leading to huge variance (assuming this is mostly due to my playing style and not the variance in it self causing it) - but yeah - would be nice to know what a solid GTO type of player's standard deviation has been ?

And also: how many hands per month do you usually put in ?

Talking about bad variance: I had a 70 buyin downswing in August which was insane, but even more insane is, I did not go broke. I managed to move down and to not fall into a deadly spiral of tilt but keep grinding, I am already back on the lane having an insane upswing this week (90bb/100 >10k hands so far). Lost surplusses of months of grind but I still feel so confident cause I survived this shit comparatively stress-free. 3 years ago I would have had to head back to register at the AMS (labour market service for unemployed) for sure.

after getting my new HUD:

Hands / VPIP (pos. coldcall)/PFR fold-3bet ip&oop) / 3BET (pos. sqzs' & 4bet-ranges IP&OOP) / AF (AggFq's) / WTSD (W$SD)

Pos. RFI's (positional fold to 3bet)/Fold to Steal (BB&SB)/ Fold to steal from BU vs CO (resteal bu vs co)

cbet flop-river ip / bet-fold (srp&3bp ip & oop) / fold to probe ott (srp&3bp ip) / fold to probe otr ((srp&3bp ip)

cbet flop-river oop / check-raise (srp&3bp) / probe bet ott (srp&3bp) / probe bet otr (srp&3bp)

fold to cbet's in srp ip&oop

cbet flop-river in 3bp ip&oop

fold-cbet flop-river in 3bp ip&oop / check-fold flop as pfr in 3bp (turn&river) / bet-vs-missed flop cbet in 3bp ip (turn&river)

That was quite some work, im pretty proud of it. had to create many custom stats on my own (you can create custom stats at drivehud!!!). the template was from the jnandez 10-week transformation week6 advanced hud. i modified it in a way, that most significant lines deviating from cbetting are shown. so i have bets oop srp 4th row left for example. any skipped cbet would results in a check (otf) for this the first non-cbet stats would be 1. how often villain is check-raising (defending actively against a stab), 2. if hero decides to check-back we'd knowing villains probe 3. if we have a BX-line we'd knowing what how often villain bets otr (after X-X ott). Not losing too many small and medium sized pots in the probe/BXB lines and stealing more in suitable spots helped me a lot to stabilize my redline. 3 days of work and my NSD-winnings improved about 50% (so far)!!

I usually pendle around 30k hands per month, if I am running bad I usually add volume up to 40k hands. I'll upload some graphs later, but I made a backup recently due to my transition to DriveHud2. For this reason Idk my Standard deviation yet, but it is not too high, I usually calculate with a SD of 140-160. 300 is definitely too high imo.

Massing volume usually is not that helpful I think as I thought of it. I calculated my winrated and it looks sth. like this.:

7 tables my winrate is barely positive anymore

5-6 tables it could be somewhere around 5-6 bb/100 and playin

2 tables it's actually really high like 14-16 bb/100.

I'd say it makes no difference if I play 3 or 4 tables.

3 tables x 12bb/100 = 12bb/100

4 tables x 9bb/100 = 12bb/100

So I'd rather play 3 than 4 tables cause it makes no difference and you rather want to keep it relaxed and make some notes despite I could still make profits with more tables. Quality of your hands played is still important, you should have some feeling for what kind of dynamics on the table is going on right now. Start with 2 tables if you have decent cognitive capabilities (like if you already were playing video games or play music intrument etc.) otherwise 1 table and add them slowly one by one if you feel bored out consistently despite observing villains. Quality matters but it is blurred since someone is tempted to make a rough assessment after some 10-50k hands about his WR. This does not make sense in PLO. I never have a month with exactly 12bb/100 over 35k hands. Usually it's either 0bb/100 (bad month) or 30bb/100 (good month). So I had to learn the hard way to save cash bolsters for bad times and not spend it all after a good month. In the beginning if you are fresh from work to grind and you are not entering mid-stakes already you do have to tighten up your private finances, save as much as possible and count your pennies.

Playing routine is crucial. Don't stay longer for fish, don't quit after a lucky streak. It's so much of a long run that having session routines makes the difference. What helped me lot is to time limit your sessions. I got Tiltbreaker in 2017, now I don't need it anymore but the most important thing I kept was just closing tables at certain parameters. I have a session timer of 45 minutes and start sitting out next big-blind right after the ringtone. You also avoid playing in a tired mood you might not be aware of. Concentration usually is dropping really hard after 1 hour for most people and after 90minutes 99% of people can barely focus actively (but you are not aware of it cause you still make your decisions but the quality of your thought process usually dropps hard). Negreanue for example used to play around 30min sessions online.

You probably want to play longer than 20 minutes and you can extend the focus within the 40-60 minute zone with training but after 90 minutes you are usually crawling on your limits. So having those 3-hour sessions with multiple tables opened is killing your profits actually, most people cannot adapt to such thing and if they try to they will usually burn out after one month or another. Recovery also plays a role, I need a minimum of 15-20 minutes whereas more than 1 hours seems to not make a lot of sense either (you also gotta avoid depleting your concentration power by passively consuming media like TV, Smartphone or internet - playing video games is the hardest sucker among those distractions, so if you do this in your break it leads the purpose of a break to absurdity).

My graph flattened out since shotting at PLO100, pressing my Winrate down to 25bb/100. The sideways movement is kinda discouraging. There seems to be another level increase to PLO50, without overvaluing a sample below 100k hands. I feel like Fishes are more cautious and regs are more adaptive, I will try to find ways to beat the stakes though.

(https://imgbb.com/)

Villain is the most competent opponent I have met in my whole PLO career so far, all stats are solid even stuff like "Fold-vs-Probe in 3BP".

How do you defend on static textures at low SPRs?

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD 2 Poker Tracking (https://drivehud.com/?t=hh) Software

PL Omaha 0.20(BB)

UTG ($20) [VPIP: 30.8% | PFR: 21.5% | AGG: 35.3% | Hands: 175]

HJ ($20.86) [VPIP: 51.7% | PFR: 28% | AGG: 26.2% | Flop Agg: 23.3% | Turn Agg: 32.1% | 3Bet: 5.8% | 4Bet: 8.6% | Hands: 3073]

CO ($13.24) [VPIP: 34.6% | PFR: 13.5% | AGG: 50% | Hands: 52]

BTN ($14.60) [VPIP: 71.6% | PFR: 23.4% | AGG: 29% | Hands: 143]

SB ($66.79) [VPIP: 22.3% | PFR: 13% | AGG: 32.5% | Hands: 299]

HERO ($20) [VPIP: 27.5% | PFR: 20.8% | AGG: 28.6% | Flop Agg: 30% | Turn Agg: 32.2% | 3Bet: 9.8% | Fold to 3Bet: 23.6% | 4Bet: 8.4% | Hands: 21760]

Dealt to Hero: 8♥ T♥ Q♣ A♣

UTG Folds, HJ Raises To $0.70, CO Folds, BTN Folds, SB Folds, HERO Raises To $2.20, HJ Calls $1.50

Hero SPR on Flop: [3.96 effective]

Flop ($4.50): 9♣ 5♠ 9♥

HERO Bets $1.53 (Rem. Stack: $16.27), HJ Raises To $4.54 (Rem. Stack: $14.12), HERO ? ...

(Rem. Stack: $13.26)

Spoiler ...HERO Calls $3.01

Turn ($13.58): 9♣ 5♠ 9♥ 3♥

HERO Bets $13.26 (allin), HJ Folds

HERO wins: $13.17

Most competent, VPIP 52, PFR 28? Flop agg 28, 4bet almost 9?

Those boards create interesting dynamics when opponent starts to fight for them. First thing is to figure out how often opponent raises them and how often he just folds. If he is over-raising them, the first adjustment is not to bet-fold too much.

Once hero starts to fight back at him, like here, keep an eye how he reacts. After couple fight backs (in SRP or 3BP) he might switch to valuemode.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Most competent, VPIP 52, PFR 28? Flop agg 28, 4bet almost 9?

Those boards create interesting dynamics when an opponent begins contesting them. First task is to determine how often the opponent raises versus how often he simply folds. If he over-raises these spots, the initial adjustment is to avoid folding too often to c-bets.

Once hero starts pushing back at him, like in this hand, watch how he responds. After a couple of counters (in SRP or 3BP) he may shift into value mode.

They could be muddled by HU play (not certain since I thought I filtered those out?). Also stats don’t always capture the full picture — he performed much better than most 23/19 regulars.

I hovered his AF and noticed his Flop Agg% was roughly 25% and his Raise-flop% 12%... so there wasn’t a definitive read; clearly he includes some bluffs. Maybe I have a larger sample in an older database, but overall his tendencies aren’t bad. If we continued playing 6-max I’d expect his flop c-bet% to rise, his VPIP to fall, etc., yet he was particularly tough in heads-up matchups.

In-game I had a strong gut feeling — or call it intuition — that he was bluffing. If true, it might be related to timing (which I didn’t notice). Or it could be pure variance. Anyway, a funny hand since the turn was indeed a lucky card. Also I’m in a bind if his bluffing range isn’t pure air, because solvers will also raise with overpairs (+B) on those paired textures in SRP.

Right — when HU hands are included in the statistics it ruins everything.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Yeah, if HU hands are in the stats it screws everything.

For this I try to avoid tables with less than 3 players. My WR there is not great anyways... I am probably not a good HU player either

Today I sorted out the mess in my databases. I moved all those files onto my hard drive...

I entered the BR-challenge, which I haven’t done in quite a while. It indicates due to 9th September, so is it finished? Hm, I'll remain active here on my blog anyway. If a new challenge appears, maybe someone can let me know. This year I’ve played around 150k hands so far with a winrate of 15bb/100 running well above EV (9bb/100) — but perhaps that’s due to valuebets, since when you play tight you don’t shove all-in that often. In any case, I took the chance to capture a screenshot. The redline looks rather worrying; I hope it improves with my HUD. There’s been quite a bit of nut-peddling and fit-and-fold action.

Outside of poker I’ve been cleaning the house for weeks. Such a mess everywhere. God. How often do you tidy your rooms?

MAKE IT ALL CLEAN!

You can play 3way almost like normal BU, SB, BB in 6 max. But once it goes to HU, the whole game changes. But it's also a spot that will have huge impact on winrate if hero plays them. What I often see is that at lower stakes the recreationals and regs that come to HU are too passive. They mimic fast and might increase the aggression, but they don't drop it once it goes 3way.

HU is relatively easy versus one-dimensional players. Just throw solver from the window and exploit. Versus more balanced players it's a rake trap at lower stakes, so reg vs reg HU is quite often -EV for both. No shame in sitting out then.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

You can play 3way almost like normal BU, SB, BB in 6 max. But once it goes to HU, the whole game changes. But it's also a spot that will have huge impact on winrate if hero plays them. What I often see is that at lower stakes the recreationals and regs that come to HU are too passive. They mimic fast and might increase the aggression, but they don't drop it once it goes 3way.

HU is relatively easy versus one-dimensional players. Just throw solver from the window and exploit. Versus more balanced players it's a rake trap at lower stakes, so reg vs reg HU is quite often -EV for both. No shame in sitting out then.

So people are too timid 3bet pots? But as the 3bettor you are always oop so Idk how much of an edge it is actually if you do play better at low SPR.

Another problem is, I did not drill HU yet in solver so I barely have an idea yet how ranges in several spots look like. Also when players tighten up, it is not that attractive anymore to let HU tables opened aside if you are also multitabling other tables, they drain too much attention.

Yeah, I feel like I do not make profits against other regs in HU. Sometimes I still keep playing them when my ego wants to have a say but I feel like it's only a trap for becoming tilt.

But thanks for the hint about HU vs 3-max. So I will avoid HU-play...

On HU solver-wise you’re expected to open around 85% on BU, and BB is meant to 3 bet near 18%. But presuming the average opponent is anywhere near those figures seems highly doubtful. I believe figures like 60 and 10 are likely much closer to what actually happens.

One possible benefit of being 2-3-handed is a halved rake cap, which I think is standard practice. Even so, there’s little reason to play HU against an opponent who looks competent.

With aggression I mean RFI and postflop mostly. In 3bet pots often hands play themselves, so the important thing is hand selection for 3betting. But what I see often at lower stakes is these mistakes, even from regs:

• Open sizing is less than a pot

• Not opening enough -> folding too much preflop -> free money for hero

• Folding too much to hero's opens preflop

• Not 3betting wider than normal

• On the flop they either cbet too much or too little

• Flop cbets might be bluffs, but turn and river are mostly value betting

In HU the key is to figure out what kind of player the opponent is, as fast as possible. Like if the opponent folds hands preflop too much, the most simple adjustment is to open 100%. With super trashy hands it's one and done for instant profit, if opponent calls just give up unless the flop is really good for cbetting (high FE). Once you start to get postflop hands to showdown, always check what opponent had. Is he calling with gutshots etc. on the flop? Is he playing medium strength or even strong ones passively? If he raises, did he do it with value hand, blockers or pure bluffs etc.

Then you create a player profile in your head and understand what is your opponent's strategy, and start to exploit it. That's why HU is really fun game, especially versus not-so-great players. It's like a logic puzzle.

Originally posted by ghaleon

On HU solver wise you are supposed to open like 85% on BU and BB is supposed to 3bet around 18%. But assuming average opponent is even close to these numbers would be very questionable. I think numbers like 60 and 10 could be way closer to reality.

One potential advantage of being 2-3 handed is halved rake cap which I think is common practice? Still though no point to play HU versus ok looking opponent.

Yes I know those freqs but how do you translate those deviations into profits? If someone is not 3betting enough, you'd just RFI more theoretically, but I feel like it does not bring that much gain opening up to 90-100% RFI if postflop continuation is somewhat solid. Villain will usually pick up on it and adapt by defending looser which leads to myself tightening up again as a counter-adjust falling back towards 60/10 just like others in order to avoid some more marginal postflop spots I have poor knowledge on. I mean on PLO50 or lower you'd still have to play lots of hands for to make those blinds and small pots lost to actually hurt someones Winnings in terms of $$$.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

With aggression I mean RFI and postflop mostly. In 3bet pots often hands play themselves, so the important thing is hand selection for 3betting.

It is true handselection for 3BP is important, I assume this is also a big part where my edge lies in general. Not having solid 3bet ranges is surely not a problem in my game, I have memorized several GTO 3bet ranges from my gameplan and I have almost mastered them, it's rather continuation in 3BP under varying conditions (I know all the single combos and borderline hands and which structure occure how often - the part of how they interact with flop textures is missing though, something still to be done). But yes, Idk how a 15-20% 3bet range would look like as I have non constructed since you don't use that kind of a range in 6-max so I am also working with a 10-15% range in HU (still more loose than the 8-12% most other regs have).

3BP are still hard to play cause ranges are supposed to loose up and me among other regs struggle with this, cause you naturally try to avoid variance. Especially turn and river play can become very tricky and they are barely possible to play if you have no sound flop fundamentals (optimal frequencies, sorting out the right hands into lines accordingly).

But what I see often at lower stakes is these mistakes, even from regs:

• Open sizing is less than a pot

I rarely see that. You'd have to defend more. I'd also start to donk more which sometimes work. My rangeawareness for this 1-2 bet lines is not good enough to gain an edge oop, but yes I am probably overrealizing but it rarely wins me a whole stack, often it's just fractions of a pot for the cost of having a range disadvantage oop.

• Not opening enough -> folding too much preflop -> free money for hero

Yes, but those blinds seem to add so slowly in terms of $$$. One bad big bet paid off kinda kills it all.

• Folding too much to hero's opens preflop

Yes, but those blinds seem to add so slowly in terms of $$$. One bad big bet paid off kinda kills it all.

• Not 3betting wider than normal

That's an advantage yes (which slowly fades away when villain reaches the 8% mark or higher).

• On the flop they either cbet too much or too little

Regulars ony my stakes usually have solid cbet freqs. (40-60%)

• Flop cbets might be bluffs, but turn and river are mostly value betting

True yes. It incentivizes you to overfold... So you are folding oop but you don't necessarily get your own turn and river bluffs through either as they seem to call more loose (correctly) once they pick up on it?

The points you mentioned about player profiles I am aware of. I feel like it is still not easy to turn this knowledge into profits. Probably also because my knowledge is not extensive enough. What does GTO look like and how much am I bluffing when I turn one specific kind of blocker into a bluff? etc.. I feel like bluffing has to be done quite selectively and in 6max you get so much more credit in 1-2 street lines, players somehow seem to just be lazy or not interested in smallish pots. Finally there is something I have read recently where Mike Corisell mentioned,

Villain does A so to exploit that I play B. - Wrong

Villain deviates from GTO play C by doing A so I deviate from C towards playing B. -Right

Knowing play C is much work though. So in the end you'd still have to drill and study HU hard to get an rough picture of a solid strategy, and I am already fully occupied with my 6-max gameplan.

I have completed my preflop ranges so I have a gameplan for the most important spots here. Most players in 6max don't even have that settled and in HU you lose that "positional edge". But postflop my knowledge drops. For example in the Vision Trainer I had 90% for all preflop spots (80%+ for "facing squeeze"). Then on the flop I am at 80%+ - 70%+. For more MW-Flops, Turns and Rivers it drops to 60% or even less. When I play by intuition, pouring that all into an approximative Gameplan and applying it well against all sorts of random tendencies is another story.

If it was easy, we would have tables full of good players.

Funny thing was when Galfond had this HU challenge going on. In the very first match versus VeniVidi, neither player really played solver poker. They started to play the opponent quite fast with a lot of non-solver sizings to confuse the opponent, and VeniVidi was VERY aggro on the rivers with even remote blockers. And once he had Galfond on downswing, the aggression really hurt Phil who started to question his bluff catching or value raising ranges.

They both knew solver strategy for HU for sure, but in HU you play the player so with 2 great players it deviated from solver quite fast.

HU is cruel game too. As you said, piling those bb's is slow and then one hand can wipe it all away. It's like playing black jack for small bet and then putting it all-in on one hand when the deck favors you. +EV, but huge variance. Same in HU. Even versus significantly worse opponent the variance is still huge.

I love HU, as it's a trip back to old school poker where you play the player, not the solver or balance. But versus good regs I skip it, as it might be -EV for both or at least my EV is not that great due to rake. If one is not comfortable to play HU, no shame in sitting out. It's not about ego, it's about finding +EV spots. I remember back in my early days sitting out when I got over 200bb, as I wasn't comfortable in deep stack PLO. Now it seems funny to me, but back then I chose to skip situations that I weren't sure +EV in my opinion, until I practised and learned them.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

If it was easy, we would have tables full of good players.

Funny thing was when Galfond had this HU challenge going on. In the very first match versus VeniVidi, neither player really played solver poker. They started to play the opponent quite fast with a lot of non-solver sizings to confuse the opponent, and VeniVidi was VERY aggro on the rivers with even remote blockers. And once he had Galfond on downswing, the aggression really hurt Phil who started to question his bluff catching or value raising ranges.

They both knew solver strategy for HU for sure, but in HU you play the player so with 2 great players it deviated from solver quite fast.

I think it is the match where Galphond took a lot of hands from to analyze in his video series "This is PLO". I mean I could barely follow up the river thought process, HU the ranges went just way more loose from how I play but then on certain texture-shifts it went back to ridiculously tight. So I think it is really a thing to understand which frequencies contain what hand classes.

HU is cruel game too. As you said, piling those bb's is slow and then one hand can wipe it all away. It's like playing black jack for small bet and then putting it all-in on one hand when the deck favors you. +EV, but huge variance. Same in HU. Even versus significantly worse opponent the variance is still huge.

Probably, but against the passive fish at least you rarely have variance. Taking their stack can still take some while if they just refuse at one point to pay you off big.

I love HU, as it's a trip back to old school poker where you play the player, not the solver or balance. But versus good regs I skip it, as it might be -EV for both or at least my EV is not that great due to rake. If one is not comfortable to play HU, no shame in sitting out. It's not about ego, it's about finding +EV spots. I remember back in my early days sitting out when I got over 200bb, as I wasn't comfortable in deep stack PLO. Now it seems funny to me, but back then I chose to skip situations that I weren't sure +EV in my opinion, until I practised and learned them.

I can understand that. For me it kinda disturbs the gameflow so when looking for Variety I rather try 5-card PLO. The amount of fish there is just another level, it's like 4card in 2015 right now.

In my pool the player types are very similar, sometimes I even meat the same fish just climbing stakes. Here the Color Labels I use:

There are 2 types of passive fish = Cyan

80/14/0 AF<2 (checking out every flop but then continue very tight continuing with more or less selective calls, a raise usually is nuts)

40/12/2 AF <2 (more selective preflop but capable of getting it in more loose primarily in low SPR spots)

Aggressive fish = Yellow:

46/21/3 AF >2 (often they raise and call too many hands pre and try a O&D approach postflop, calling off single bets bad but are cautious in big pots)

Then there are the bad LAGs = Orange:

52/31/6 AF~3 (pounding on any weakness and starts handstrength evaluation depending on who calls, some are capable of turn/river bluffs)

And then there is a mix of reggish and recreational, but also weak:

32/12/4 AF 2-3 (somewhat solid cbet frequencies but bad preflop game, usually very cautious postflop aswell) = Yellow

23/7/2 AF ? (same playertype but more tight and not raising preflop) = Purple

Finally regulars:

23/19/6 AF ~2 (pretty solid but if they have consistent cbet stats above 50% but some with 30% are weak and play overly tight postflop and bad in 3bp) = Red for solid Tags and Lags and purple for weak Tags

18/13/2 AF ~2 (clueless nits who are overly tight but still stack-off comparably weak hands postflop, bad game both post and pre) = Blue for all nits with VPIP below 20%

Real maniacs like 80/43/16 AF>3 are actually very rare. So they together with all spewish player types get a Green.

Made the Hand Tags today:

4-Card PLO50 3-Betting KKT7ss and triple-barrel for value oop"

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD 2 Poker HUD (https://drivehud.com/?t=hh) and Database Software

PL Omaha 0.50(BB)

SB ($16) [VPIP: 21.7% | PFR: 10.9% | AGG: 22.4% | Hands: 1967]

HERO ($167.89) [VPIP: 27.7% | PFR: 20.6% | AGG: 28.3% | Flop Agg: 30.4% | Turn Agg: 31.3% | River Agg: 28.1% | 3Bet: 9.7% | Fold to 3Bet: 22.2% | 4Bet: 9.9% | Hands: 35874]

UTG ($59.86) [VPIP: 24.8% | PFR: 19.2% | AGG: 21.9% | Hands: 790]

HJ ($92.10) [VPIP: 40.5% | PFR: 12.9% | AGG: 23.8% | Hands: 299]

CO ($190.31) [VPIP: 55.1% | PFR: 28.7% | AGG: 26.1% | Flop Agg: 23.2% | Turn Agg: 30.8% | River Agg: 30.8% | 3Bet: 6.5% | 4Bet: 7.5% | Hands: 7086]

BTN ($235.33) [VPIP: 28.7% | PFR: 21.8% | AGG: 26.8% | Hands: 620]

Dealt to Hero: K♠ K♦ T♦ 7♥

UTG Folds, HJ Folds, CO Raises To $1.75, BTN Folds, SB Folds, HERO ?

Spoiler ...HERO Raises To $5.50, CO Calls $3.75

Hero SPR on Flop: [14.43 effective]

Flop ($11.25): K♣ 6♦ J♥

HERO Bets $11.25 (Rem. Stack: $151.14), CO Calls $11.25 (Rem. Stack: $173.56)

Turn ($33.75): K♣ 6♦ J♥ 3♣

HERO Bets $27 (Rem. Stack: $124.14), CO Calls $27 (Rem. Stack: $146.56)

River ($87.75): K♣ 6♦ J♥ 3♣ 2♦

HERO Bets $52.65 (Rem. Stack: $71.49), CO ... (Rem. Stack: $93.91)

The 3bet pre I don't know if it is too loose, but the dynamic ongoing against this player was quite aggressive already so I actually saw myself pushing decent Equity against a wide RFI (48% openraise from CO), no F3Bet and no 4Bet.

On the River I thought, "man if this guy has outdrawed me again I am going to explode". He has doing turn and river shoves frequently but usually had the good when I called so a shove otr would have been a hard decision. But I still rather bet then check-call since combo-wise it's the only thing to do. This is the "most competent player" I was talking about. But his leak is obviously raising too much pre so I tried to punish this here... but the amount of variance you expose yourself by doing this is not to my taste, we are always 3-5 stacks deep quickly due to our aggressive encounters.

Spoiler

...CO Calls $52.65 (Rem. Stack: $93.91)

CO shows: Q♣ Q♥ K♥ 6♠

HERO wins: $191.55

4-Card PLO50 AJ99sa setting up a trap in a 3BP oop

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD 2 Poker HUD (https://drivehud.com/?t=hh) and Database Software

PL Omaha 0.50(BB)

BB ($75.19) [VPIP: 24.8% | PFR: 19.2% | AGG: 21.9% | Hands: 790]

UTG ($96.60) [VPIP: 55.1% | PFR: 28.7% | AGG: 26.1% | Flop Agg: 23.2% | Turn Agg: 30.8% | River Agg: 30.8% | 3Bet: 6.5% | 4Bet: 7.5% | Hands: 7086]

HJ ($90.02) [VPIP: 33.6% | PFR: 22.9% | AGG: 29.5% | Hands: 2389]

CO ($52.38) [VPIP: 57.5% | PFR: 18.1% | AGG: 27% | Hands: 1862]

BTN ($55.51) [VPIP: 25.1% | PFR: 15.1% | AGG: 19.6% | Hands: 1782]

HERO ($50) [VPIP: 27.7% | PFR: 20.6% | AGG: 28.3% | Flop Agg: 30.4% | Turn Agg: 31.3% | River Agg: 28.1% | 3Bet: 9.7% | Fold to 3Bet: 22.2% | 4Bet: 9.9% | Hands: 35874]

Dealt to Hero: J♠ 9♥ A♠ 9♣

UTG Raises To $1.75, HJ Folds, CO Calls $1.75, BTN Folds, HERO Raises To $7.50, BB Folds, UTG Calls $5.75, CO Folds

Hero SPR on Flop: [2.46 effective]

Flop ($17.25): 9♠ 3♣ 7♠

HERO Bets $6.90 (Rem. Stack: $35.60), UTG Calls $6.90 (Rem. Stack: $82.20)

Turn ($31.05): 9♠ 3♣ 7♠ 3♠

HERO ?

Spoiler HERO Checks, UTG Bets $9 (Rem. Stack: $73.20), HERO Calls $9 (Rem. Stack: $26.60)

River ($49.05): 9♠ 3♣ 7♠ 3♠ Q♥

HERO Checks, UTG Bets $36.78 (Rem. Stack: $36.42), HERO Calls $26.60 (allin)

UTG shows: A♥ 6♠ 7♥ J♥

HERO wins: $100.75

4-Card PLO50 AJJ8ds call flop to donk-shove the turn in 3BP 3way

The first blunder I have found. 2 bdfd+ngs is too weak I guess to make such moves against 2 players...

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD 2 Poker Tracking (https://drivehud.com/?t=hh) Software

PL Omaha 0.50(BB)

BB ($79.30) [VPIP: 55.9% | PFR: 29.5% | AGG: 26% | Flop Agg: 23.1% | Turn Agg: 30.4% | River Agg: 31.2% | 3Bet: 6.6% | 4Bet: 7.6% | Cold Call: 55.2% | Hands: 7692]

UTG ($85.12) [VPIP: 24.2% | PFR: 16.9% | AGG: 30.1% | Flop Agg: 38.2% | Turn Agg: 30.6% | River Agg: 21.7% | 3Bet: 9% | 4Bet: 7% | Hands: 1883]

HJ ($51.64) [VPIP: 40.4% | PFR: 12.2% | AGG: 23.6% | Flop Agg: 21.3% | Turn Agg: 29.5% | River Agg: 26.2% | 3Bet: 4.5% | 4Bet: 0% | Cold Call: 35.4% | Hands: 317]

CO ($50) [VPIP: 20.2% | PFR: 14% | AGG: 28.3% | Hands: 180]

BTN ($20.47) [VPIP: 46.6% | PFR: 21.4% | AGG: 41.3% | Hands: 289]

HERO ($186.21) [VPIP: 27.8% | PFR: 20.6% | AGG: 28.4% | Flop Agg: 30.5% | Turn Agg: 31.5% | River Agg: 27.9% | 3Bet: 9.7% | Fold to 3Bet: 22.1% | 4Bet: 9.8% | Hands: 37082]

Dealt to Hero: A♥ J♥ 8♣ J♣

UTG Raises To $1.75, HJ Calls $1.75, CO Folds, BTN Folds, HERO Raises To $7.50, BB Calls $7, UTG Calls $5.75, HJ Calls $5.75

Hero SPR on Flop: [1.47 effective]

Flop ($30): K♣ T♦ 7♥

HERO Checks, BB Bets $22.50 (Rem. Stack: $49.30), UTG Folds, HJ Calls $22.50 (Rem. Stack: $21.64), HERO Calls $22.50 (Rem. Stack: $156.21)

Turn ($97.50): K♣ T♦ 7♥ 5♣

HERO Bets $97.50 (Rem. Stack: $58.71), BB Calls $49.30 (allin), HJ Calls $21.64 (allin)

River ($265.94): K♣ T♦ 7♥ 5♣ 9♥

Spoiler

BB shows: 9♣ K♦ Q♣ K♠

HJ shows: J♦ 9♦ Q♠ J♠

HJ wins: $161.30

HERO wins: $54.94

After this hand I have seen him tilting hard for the first time, he spew off 5 stacks that session afterwards against me and then regained 2 stacks in high variance spots. So mentally he is not unbreakable it seems. It's been the 4th day now playing multiple hours a day against him often heads-up. I am not sure if I should play HU against him but I feel like he was a new challenge and it kinda improved my way of thinking.

4-Card PLO50 AAQ3sa facing river shove with topset+straight-bl on straight board

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD 2 Poker HUD (https://drivehud.com/?t=hh) and Database Software

PL Omaha 0.50(BB)

HERO ($121.49) [VPIP: 27.8% | PFR: 20.6% | AGG: 28.4% | Flop Agg: 30.5% | Turn Agg: 31.5% | River Agg: 27.9% | 3Bet: 9.7% | 4Bet: 9.8% | Hands: 37082]

BB ($86) [VPIP: 55.9% | PFR: 29.5% | AGG: 26% | Flop Agg: 23.1% | Turn Agg: 30.4% | River Agg: 31.2% | 3Bet: 6.6% | 4Bet: 7.6% | Cold Call: 55.2% | Hands: 7692]

Dealt to Hero: 3♦ A♠ Q♠ A♣

HERO Raises To $1.50, BB Calls $1

Hero SPR on Flop: [28.17 effective]

Flop ($3): K♦ A♥ J♣

BB Checks, HERO Bets $1.20 (Rem. Stack: $118.79), BB Raises To $4.95 (Rem. Stack: $79.55), HERO Calls $3.75 (Rem. Stack: $115.04)

Turn ($12.90): K♦ A♥ J♣ 8♥

BB Bets $12.90 (Rem. Stack: $66.65), HERO Calls $12.90 (Rem. Stack: $102.14)

River ($38.70): K♦ A♥ J♣ 8♥ 6♠

BB Bets $38.70 (Rem. Stack: $27.95), HERO?

Spoiler HERO Calls $38.70 (Rem. Stack: $63.44)

BB shows: 8♠ T♦ 3♥ T♥

HERO wins: $115.60

Battle of Blockers

All those hands are played against the same villain (if you did not notice)

OMG. multiple sessions played rn. That guy totally roasted me taking like 20 stacks from me this week. I feel like he made a lot of obvious mistake which I tried to exploit, but in the end I always ran into some ridiculously unlike combinations which solver could never fold but he always either had it or brought it in with decent equity and sucked me out. I have almost 10k hands on him so he is not on a super lucky streak but some tendencies probable and I am proabbly not aware of some serious mistake I could have made. I mean there is really no point in playing regulars if this is to be considered normal or variance. Or he was just better than me. He made some really interesting adjustment quickly after I have adjusted aswell. Like when I kept folding in BXB lines he primarily bluffed there (even in 3BP which is harder to defend), then I put more value hands countering BXB suddenly he was bringing value-bets only. His pot raises were always hard to call. When he had streaks of strong hands in certain weird lines I did not recognize I paid him off like a monkey like X/R vs delayed CBets with sets on straight turn cards, I mean nobody else does such stuff. Some mistake I made he exploited well and those were extremely costly ones, like calling a turn check-raise on a double 2toned structure and then bluffing river blank. He knew I would check-back most SDV and would reshove very strong made hands ott to protect my hand so that was my stupidity but usually people weren't capable of picking up on it, he made some really light bluffcatches in big pots. I will try to avoid him and HU, feels like I am not the best player on those stakes anymore (which is so odds since you have seen his preflop stats with VPIP 50% etc...).

Ugh.

Hey, thanx for the answer regarding that STD value - sure 300isf must be way to high, I agree - but would have been interesting to see your actual real STD form PT4 - to get a real sample ! To bad that you don't use it any more. Btw. I also have Drive hud - I haven't tried to search if there is also the similar STD there, but if you find it, let me know what you got on 5-6 handed 4c PLO 50.

Also, this is funny, this guy you labeled at "most competent" - If I recall you also played at the AUS-FIN site (me too - or I played, now I haven't palyed much at all in the last 3 mon.) But if his stats were someting like VIP 50isf and PFR maybe 30 (I don't remeber exactly - and NEVER folding to 3B) - then I think I know the guy - I've played to most hands with him from all players....it could be the same guy - My take on him is that he was pretty OK postflop - but still making some bad callas in certain spots IMO - but his biggest leak was that he had HUUGE tilt sessions like maybe ever 2-3 months where he just gambled any 4, ready to call it off PRE 100+bb stacks with.....I made some huge profit session from those a few times, but if he's playing hes normal game, I also considered him decent, compared to maney of the more str8fwd regs. But it also might be some other guy u are refering too - btw, my stats were also somethign similar to that (VIP/PFR), but as I said, I havent even been playing in the last 3 + months there so it's not me (lol)

PS: I was playing with him already like 5yrs ago - starting at pl20 - then problay we both rised to 50 and 100 eventually - not sure what he would play at the moment- but he changed his nickname semi regularly - and at some oint he was also playing pl200 (maybe even shotting/gambling at pl400 (like 1-2 yrs ago) - but I have a feeling that he never was a regular at pl200 - as he at least this year and last year often played pl20 and pl50, and even pl100 at the same time sometimes. Just a classic guy when you get a lot of history with one player....good memories and not so good, as it is with PLO. Damn- I'd like to get back to playing a bit again. but at the moment I woudl not be comfortabl rolled for pl50 - and I find it hard to motivate myself to re-grind from pl20. Must see...still might be back some day

Originally posted by skeida

Hey, thanx for the answer regarding that STD value - sure 300isf must be way to high, I agree - but would have been interesting to see your actual real STD form PT4 - to get a real sample ! To bad that you don't use it any more. Btw. I also have Drive hud - I haven't tried to search if there is also the similar STD there, but if you find it, let me know what you got on 5-6 handed 4c PLO 50.

Also, this is funny, this guy you labeled at "most competent" - If I recall you also played at the AUS-FIN site (me too - or I played, now I haven't palyed much at all in the last 3 mon.) But if his stats were someting like VIP 50isf and PFR maybe 30 (I don't remeber exactly - and NEVER folding to 3B) - then I think I know the guy - I've played to most hands with him from all players....it could be the same guy - My take on him is that he was pretty OK postflop - but still making some bad callas in certain spots IMO - but his biggest leak was that he had HUUGE tilt sessions like maybe ever 2-3 months where he just gambled any 4, ready to call it off PRE 100+bb stacks with.....I made some huge profit session from those a few times, but if he's playing hes normal game, I also considered him decent, compared to maney of the more str8fwd regs. But it also might be some other guy u are refering too - btw, my stats were also somethign similar to that (VIP/PFR), but as I said, I havent even been playing in the last 3 + months there so it's not me (lol)

My standard deviation in bb/100 over ~30k hands is 139. I assume it won't change much when increasing the volume, my estimation of 140 was pretty accurate^^. If I mix in the 5-card hands played it goes up to 180 (!).

His nickname was Assax3. Man he tilted me hard but this usually means he is good. Problem also I tend to label according to preflop stats but I should have known this is a bad approach and it would haunt me sooner or later, now I take a different approach in labbeling (also taking villains handstrength/positional awareness into account, so some of those loose "bad lags" suddenly turned into most dangerous opponents). I also changed my nickname. Yeah he never folded to 3bets but his postflop stats were incredibly well balanced on all possible spots like 3bp's, delay cbet, probing, x/r, no statistical leaks at all. The only thing was not cbetting enough and overfolding on static textures like paired boards, it was only possible to recognize with help of DriveHud2 where you can seperate cbet stats according to board textures. Now This guy either moved up or vanished, very mysterical.

But there were some other finnish decent LAGs to, like Lahiomainen. Like one of them I have played a while thinking man he is just either hitting everything or playing insanely well. He left too but a friend who also plays there told me he busted in several night session so I guess it was on a runner. Maybe he was just one of those guys, cause when they are winning big, they seem to be invincible and it is hard to not go tilt on yourself in some way or another if you keep playing them over a long period of time. Other from this there are actually no players at all on my stake I perceive to be better than me, which is actually very good news in Poker^^.

If you struggle to make profits at the lower stakes like PLO20 I'd just keep playing to a very minimum and focus on improving like theory and solver studies (for solver it is actually helpful to have some hands to analyze). Cause with an aggressive BRM it is actually possible to move up quickly and on lower stakes you actually do not risk a lot of money so if you go bust it's not the end of the world (like burning 30 buyin for plo20 is not ending your career but if you spoil millions like gus hansen it would destroy you).

Maybe try out this one:

It's just 65 buyins so you might do it within a few months instead of a whole years' grind. There was a blog about Blitz-BRM on Pokerstrategy, I have accounted the higher variance in PLO with higher starting rolls and higher move-up requirement, I'd estimate you would save more than 50% of you volume since you'lld be playing on higher stakes more often but you'd need to move up and down a lot and should not go on tilt easily. If you finish the first table you cashout 300 bucks to grab yourself some food ... then continue in the second scheme. You should make sure that you are at least winning decently at PLO20 over bigger sample (have a solid foundation you can rely your self-esteem on when times are rough), the rest you learn on your way and on a regular basis. If you think you can beat your field at all lower stakes you'd have a 50-buyin bankroll quite fast to play PLO100 which is enough monthly profits do grind for a living even in Austria. But don't quit your job before having a nice sample lol.

I hope you will be back soon and we can keep discussing strategy together! GL!

Some highlights from yesterdays' session:

Hand 1

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.20(BB)

HJ ($54.40) [VPIP: 47% | PFR: 29% | AGG: 20.1% | Hands: 3413]

CO ($17.46) [VPIP: 24.4% | PFR: 12.7% | AGG: 22.8% | Hands: 2948]

BTN ($21.12) [VPIP: 65.6% | PFR: 23.9% | AGG: 29.9% | Flop Agg: 34.7% | Turn Agg: 23.3% | River Agg: 37.8% | 3Bet: 9.9% | 4Bet: 0% | Cold Call: 53.7% | Hands: 164]

SB ($22.55) [VPIP: 83.3% | PFR: 14% | AGG: 28.4% | Flop Agg: 21.8% | Turn Agg: 36.3% | River Agg: 30.6% | 3Bet: 0% | 4Bet: 0% | Cold Call: 82.1% | Hands: 227]

BB ($20) [VPIP: 60.2% | PFR: 39.8% | AGG: 15.8% | Flop Agg: 20.9% | Turn Agg: 10.3% | River Agg: 15.8% | 3Bet: 31.4% | Fold to 3Bet: 0% | 4Bet: 0% | Hands: 83]

HERO ($20) [VPIP: 25.8% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 27.1% | Flop Agg: 31% | Turn Agg: 28.4% | River Agg: 25.3% | 3Bet: 7.6% | 4Bet: 14.5% | Hands: 6293]

Dealt to Hero: 6♣ K♦ K♥ A:c 7♦

HERO Raises To $0.70, HJ Folds, CO Folds, BTN Calls $0.70, SB Calls $0.60, BB Raises To $3.50, HERO Calls $2.80, BTN Calls $2.80, SB Calls $2.80

Hero SPR on Flop: [1.18 effective]

Flop ($14): 7:c 5♠ 6:d

SB Checks, BB Checks, HERO Checks, BTN Bets $14 (Rem. Stack: $3.62), SB Folds, BB Folds, HERO Raises To $16.50 (allin), BTN Calls $2.50 (Rem. Stack: $1.12)

Turn ($47): 7:c 5♠ 6♦ 9♥

River ($47): 7:c 5♠ 6♦ 9♥ 3♠

Spoiler

BTN shows: J♥ 8:c K:c 7♥ J♦

BTN wins: $46

Hand 2

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.10(BB)

BB ($77.52) [VPIP: 43% | PFR: 21.8% | AGG: 26% | Hands: 768]

HERO ($95.98) [VPIP: 25.8% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 27.1% | Flop Agg: 31% | Turn Agg: 28.4% | River Agg: 25.3% | 3Bet: 7.6% | 4Bet: 14.5% | Hands: 6293]

BTN ($10.63) [VPIP: 47% | PFR: 29% | AGG: 20.1% | Flop Agg: 22.2% | Turn Agg: 22.7% | River Agg: 18.7% | 3Bet: 11.2% | Fold to 3Bet: 16.4% | 4Bet: 6.3% | Hands: 3413]

SB ($15.20) [VPIP: 34.8% | PFR: 21.7% | AGG: 32.6% | Hands: 379]

Dealt to Hero: 5♦ 9:c 4♠ 6♦ 7♠

HERO Raises To $0.35, BTN Raises To $1.20, SB Folds, BB Folds, HERO Calls $0.85

Hero SPR on Flop: [3.7 effective]

Flop ($2.55): 3:c 2♠ 9♥

HERO Checks, BTN Bets $2.55 (Rem. Stack: $6.88), HERO Raises To $10.20 (Rem. Stack: $84.58), BTN Calls $6.88 (allin)

Turn ($22.18): 3:c 2♠ 9♥ 7♥

River ($22.18): 3:c 2♠ 9♥ 7♥ 8♥

Spoiler

BTN shows: A♦ 3♥ T♦ A:c Q♥

BTN wins: $20.77

Hand 3

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.10(BB)

SB ($10) [VPIP: 40.1% | PFR: 32.8% | AGG: 36.5% | Flop Agg: 54.1% | Turn Agg: 45.2% | River Agg: 40.6% | 3Bet: 29% | Fold to 3Bet: 0% | 4Bet: 40% | Hands: 195]

BB ($63.19) [VPIP: 43% | PFR: 21.8% | AGG: 26% | Hands: 768]

HERO ($42.11) [VPIP: 25.8% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 27.1% | Flop Agg: 31% | Turn Agg: 28.4% | River Agg: 25.3% | 3Bet: 7.6% | 4Bet: 14.5% | Hands: 6293]

CO ($24.09) [VPIP: 47% | PFR: 29% | AGG: 20.1% | Hands: 3413]

BTN ($102.65) [VPIP: 90.4% | PFR: 8.4% | AGG: 15.5% | Flop Agg: 21.4% | Turn Agg: 22.2% | River Agg: 6.5% | 3Bet: 12% | 4Bet: 0% | Cold Call: 81.8% | Hands: 84]

Dealt to Hero: 7♦ 9:c 9♠ 8:c 7:c

HERO Raises To $0.35, CO Folds, BTN Calls $0.35, SB Raises To $1.50, BB Folds, HERO Calls $1.15, BTN Calls $1.15

Hero SPR on Flop: [1.85 effective]

Flop ($4.60): 4♠ 2:c 7♥

SB Bets $4.60 (Rem. Stack: $3.90), HERO Calls $4.60 (Rem. Stack: $36.01), BTN Raises To $23 (Rem. Stack: $78.15), SB Calls $3.90 (allin), HERO Raises To $40.61 (allin), BTN Calls $17.61 (Rem. Stack: $60.54)

Turn ($94.32): 4♠ 2:c 7♥ 6♠

River ($94.32): 4♠ 2:c 7♥ 6♠ 7♠

Spoiler

SB shows: 4:c 5:c 8♦ J♥ 5♠

BTN shows: K♦ 6♦ A♦ 2♥ K:c

HERO wins: $93.32

I could imagine my preflop play is not good as a default, lower ranks are quite bad in 5-Card. Since SB 3betted so aggressively 30% (!) I decided to defend it though.

Hand 4

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.10(BB)

HJ ($10) [VPIP: 40.1% | PFR: 32.8% | AGG: 36.5% | Flop Agg: 54.1% | Turn Agg: 45.2% | River Agg: 40.6% | 3Bet: 29% | 4Bet: 40% | Fold to 4Bet: 0% | Hands: 195]

CO ($53.45) [VPIP: 43% | PFR: 21.8% | AGG: 26% | Hands: 768]

HERO ($31.50) [VPIP: 25.8% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 27.1% | Hands: 6293]

SB ($24.14) [VPIP: 47% | PFR: 29% | AGG: 20.1% | Hands: 3413]

BB ($104.20) [VPIP: 90.4% | PFR: 8.4% | AGG: 15.5% | Hands: 84]

Dealt to Hero: A♥ J♠ A♠ 3:c J♦

HJ Raises To $0.35, CO Folds, HERO Raises To $1.20, SB Folds, BB Calls $1.10, HJ Raises To $4.85, HERO Raises To $15.80, BB Folds, HJ Calls $5.15 (allin)

Flop ($27.05): 4♠ 2♥ 2:d

Turn ($27.05): 4♠ 2♥ 2:d 6:d

River ($27.05): 4♠ 2♥ 2:d 6:d T:d

Spoiler

HJ shows: 8:c T♥ 4:d 5:c J:c

HERO wins: $20.61

This is a reason why you don't loosen up too much preflop no matter what. Merely 55:45 favourit with solid Aces against random trash.

Hand 5

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.10(BB)

SB ($19.64) [VPIP: 47% | PFR: 29% | AGG: 20.1% | Hands: 3413]

BB ($9.23) [VPIP: 77.2% | PFR: 31.7% | AGG: 21.5% | Flop Agg: 30.4% | Turn Agg: 27.4% | River Agg: 11.9% | 3Bet: 9.5% | 4Bet: 27.3% | Cold Call: 67.3% | Hands: 148]

HERO ($14.12) [VPIP: 25.8% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 27.1% | Flop Agg: 31% | Turn Agg: 28.4% | River Agg: 25.3% | 3Bet: 7.6% | 4Bet: 14.5% | Hands: 6293]

Dealt to Hero: J♣ J♥ K♥ 9♥ 7:c

HERO Raises To $0.35, SB Folds, BB Calls $0.25

Hero SPR on Flop: [11.84 effective]

Flop ($0.75): 4♠ T♠ 8:c

BB Checks, HERO Bets $0.60 (Rem. Stack: $13.17), BB Raises To $2.55 (Rem. Stack: $6.33), HERO Calls $1.95 (Rem. Stack: $11.22)

Turn ($5.85): 4♠ T♠ 8:c J:d

BB Bets $5.85 (Rem. Stack: $0.48), HERO Raises To $11.22 (allin), BB Calls $0.48 (allin)

River ($23.40): 4♠ T♠ 8:c J:d 4♥

Spoiler

BB shows: 8♠ 5♥ K♠ 3♠ T:d

HERO wins: $17.95

Not a standard CBet otf, but against the very high VPIP I went for it. Villain had 7.4% X/R so I am not necessarily up against the uber nuts when calling otf.

Hand 6

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.10(BB)

CO ($26.96) [VPIP: 40.1% | PFR: 32.8% | AGG: 36.5% | Hands: 195]

BTN ($3.55) [VPIP: 43% | PFR: 21.8% | AGG: 26% | Flop Agg: 27.7% | Turn Agg: 30.2% | River Agg: 21.6% | 3Bet: 2.8% | 4Bet: 5.1% | Cold Call: 37.2% | Hands: 768]

HERO ($10) [VPIP: 25.8% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 27.1% | Flop Agg: 31% | Turn Agg: 28.4% | River Agg: 25.3% | 3Bet: 7.6% | Fold to 3Bet: 23.9% | 4Bet: 14.5% | Hands: 6293]

BB ($10) [VPIP: 47% | PFR: 29% | AGG: 20.1% | Flop Agg: 22.2% | Turn Agg: 22.7% | River Agg: 18.7% | 3Bet: 11.2% | 4Bet: 6.3% | Cold Call: 36.9% | Hands: 3413]

UTG ($10) [VPIP: 32.2% | PFR: 6.8% | AGG: 34.2% | Hands: 59]

HJ ($76.10) [VPIP: 90.4% | PFR: 8.4% | AGG: 15.5% | Hands: 84]

Dealt to Hero: Q:c Q♦ T♠ A♠ J:d

UTG Folds, HJ Calls $0.10, CO Raises To $0.45, BTN Calls $0.45, HERO Raises To $2, BB Calls $1.90, HJ Calls $1.90, CO Calls $1.55, BTN Raises To $3.55 (allin), HERO Raises To $10 (allin), BB Calls $8 (allin), HJ Folds, CO Calls $8

Flop ($35.55): 8♥ 7:d T:d

Turn ($35.55): 8♥ 7:d T:d 5♠

River ($35.55): 8♥ 7:d T:d 5♠ A:d

Spoiler

CO shows: K♠ 8:c 5♥ J♠ K:d

BTN shows: 2♥ 4♠ A♥ 3:d J♥

BB shows: 8♠ 9♥ 3:c 6:d 5:d

HERO wins: $34.55

Excellent shove against those loose gooseys. Equity edge as far as you can have it.

Hand 7

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.10(BB)

HJ ($10) [VPIP: 40.1% | PFR: 32.8% | AGG: 36.5% | Flop Agg: 54.1% | Turn Agg: 45.2% | River Agg: 40.6% | 3Bet: 29% | 4Bet: 40% | Hands: 195]

CO ($14.10) [VPIP: 43% | PFR: 21.8% | AGG: 26% | Hands: 768]

HERO ($10) [VPIP: 25.8% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 27.1% | Flop Agg: 31% | Turn Agg: 28.4% | River Agg: 25.3% | 3Bet: 7.6% | Fold to 3Bet: 23.9% | 4Bet: 14.5% | Hands: 6293]

SB ($10) [VPIP: 47% | PFR: 29% | AGG: 20.1% | Hands: 3413]

BB ($10.86) [VPIP: 32.2% | PFR: 6.8% | AGG: 34.2% | Hands: 59]

UTG ($46.66) [VPIP: 90.4% | PFR: 8.4% | AGG: 15.5% | Flop Agg: 21.4% | Turn Agg: 22.2% | River Agg: 6.5% | 3Bet: 12% | 4Bet: 0% | Hands: 84]

Dealt to Hero: A:d 8♥ Q♥ Q♠ T♠

UTG Calls $0.10, HJ Raises To $0.45, CO Calls $0.45, HERO Raises To $2.05, SB Folds, BB Folds, UTG Calls $1.95, HJ Calls $1.60, CO Folds

Hero SPR on Flop: [1.18 effective]

Flop ($6.75): 6♠ 7:d 7♠

UTG Bets $6.75 (Rem. Stack: $37.86), HJ Folds, HERO Raises To $7.95 (allin), UTG Calls $1.20 (Rem. Stack: $36.66)

Turn ($22.65): 6♠ 7:d 7♠ 7♥

River ($22.65): 6♠ 7:d 7♠ 7♥ T:c

Spoiler

UTG shows: K:d 7:c Q:c 2:c A:c

UTG wins: $21.97

Call the shove and seems to be fine due to pot-odds.

Hand 8

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.10(BB)

HERO ($14.61) [VPIP: 25.8% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 27.1% | Flop Agg: 31% | Turn Agg: 28.4% | River Agg: 25.3% | 3Bet: 7.6% | 4Bet: 14.5% | Hands: 6293]

BTN ($15.09) [VPIP: 84.4% | PFR: 21.9% | AGG: 14.1% | Flop Agg: 3.8% | Turn Agg: 25% | River Agg: 25% | 3Bet: 17.6% | Fold to 3Bet: 0% | 4Bet: 0% | Hands: 32]

SB ($2.76) [VPIP: 64% | PFR: 40% | AGG: 32.1% | Hands: 25]

BB ($6.77) [VPIP: 40.1% | PFR: 1.4% | AGG: 25.9% | Hands: 142]

HJ ($12.46) [VPIP: 47% | PFR: 29% | AGG: 20.1% | Hands: 3413]

Dealt to Hero: Q♠ K♥ 7:d 7♥ T:d

HJ Folds, HERO Raises To $0.35, BTN Raises To $1.20, SB Folds, BB Folds, HERO Calls $0.85

Hero SPR on Flop: [5.26 effective]

Flop ($2.55): 3♠ Q:c T♥

HERO Bets $2.55 (Rem. Stack: $10.86), BTN Calls $2.55 (Rem. Stack: $11.34)

Turn ($7.65): 3♠ Q:c T♥ J:d

HERO Checks, BTN Bets $3.82 (Rem. Stack: $7.52), HERO Calls $3.82 (Rem. Stack: $7.04)

River ($15.29): 3♠ Q:c T♥ J:d 8♥

HERO Checks, BTN Bets $7.52 (allin), HERO Calls $7.04 (allin)

Spoiler

BTN shows: T♠ A♥ A♠ J:c A:c

HERO wins: $28.48

Sick calldown by me against a river barrel allin with 2pair+NBL. Not that obvious since villain was passive, but as the PFA I thought he won't have and often enough, and often appear to be nice blockers for bluffing.

Hand 9

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.10(BB)

CO ($10.42) [VPIP: 40.1% | PFR: 32.8% | AGG: 36.5% | Flop Agg: 54.1% | Turn Agg: 45.2% | River Agg: 40.6% | 3Bet: 29% | 4Bet: 40% | Cold Call: 17.1% | Hands: 195]

BTN ($10) [VPIP: 47% | PFR: 29% | AGG: 20.1% | Flop Agg: 22.2% | Turn Agg: 22.7% | River Agg: 18.7% | 3Bet: 11.2% | 4Bet: 6.3% | Cold Call: 36.9% | Hands: 3413]

SB ($8.02) [VPIP: 66.1% | PFR: 15% | AGG: 33.1% | Flop Agg: 35.6% | Turn Agg: 31.8% | River Agg: 54.2% | 3Bet: 8% | 4Bet: 0% | Cold Call: 56.1% | Hands: 128]

BB ($32.94) [VPIP: 70.5% | PFR: 4.5% | AGG: 15.9% | Flop Agg: 16.9% | Turn Agg: 15.6% | River Agg: 18.8% | 3Bet: 0% | 4Bet: 0% | Cold Call: 66.7% | Hands: 88]

HERO ($10) [VPIP: 25.8% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 27.1% | Flop Agg: 31% | Turn Agg: 28.4% | River Agg: 25.3% | 3Bet: 7.6% | 4Bet: 14.5% | Hands: 6293]

HJ ($26.84) [VPIP: 76.2% | PFR: 14.5% | AGG: 25.8% | Flop Agg: 25.3% | Turn Agg: 32.6% | River Agg: 21.2% | 3Bet: 5.6% | 4Bet: 0% | Cold Call: 61.8% | Hands: 200]

Dealt to Hero: 9♠ J:d T♥ 7♥ A:d

HERO Raises To $0.35, HJ Calls $0.35, CO Calls $0.35, BTN Calls $0.35, SB Calls $0.30, BB Calls $0.25

Hero SPR on Flop: [3.65 effective]

Flop ($2.10): K♥ 6:d 7♠

SB Bets $2.10 (Rem. Stack: $5.57), BB Folds, HERO Calls $2.10 (Rem. Stack: $7.55), HJ Folds, CO Raises To $4.20 (Rem. Stack: $5.87), BTN Folds, SB Calls $2.10 (Rem. Stack: $3.47), HERO Calls $2.10 (Rem. Stack: $7.55)

Turn ($14.70): K♥ 6:d 7♠ 9:c

SB Checks, HERO Bets $5.45 (allin), CO Raises To $5.87 (allin), SB Calls $3.47 (allin)

River ($29.49): K♥ 6:d 7♠ 9:c 8:c

Spoiler

CO shows: K:d 4♥ 3:d K♠ J:c

SB shows: 6♠ 4♠ 5:c 6:c 5:d

HERO wins: $28.19

Flop call prolly is a mistake.. Could not fold against flop min-raise though, I had nice equity to catch up (GS+BDSD+2BDFD's).

Turn play is a mistake aswell imo. Could not hold still at SPR below 1 but I think check is the only play. Aim for (SDV-)Realization and hope for the GS I guess. I got lucky..^^

Hand 10

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.20(BB)

CO ($16.64) [VPIP: 56.3% | PFR: 6.3% | AGG: 13.2% | Flop Agg: 8.6% | Turn Agg: 15.9% | River Agg: 23.5% | 3Bet: 4.5% | 4Bet: 0% | Cold Call: 49.6% | Hands: 225]

BTN ($31.96) [VPIP: 57.8% | PFR: 19.9% | AGG: 21.9% | Hands: 351]

SB ($20) [VPIP: 30.6% | PFR: 22.2% | AGG: 36.4% | Hands: 36]

HERO ($20) [VPIP: 25.8% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 27.1% | Flop Agg: 31% | Turn Agg: 28.4% | River Agg: 25.3% | 3Bet: 7.6% | 4Bet: 14.5% | Cold Call: 14.3% | Hands: 6293]

UTG ($8.95) [VPIP: 55.2% | PFR: 29.9% | AGG: 23.2% | Flop Agg: 25% | Turn Agg: 35.3% | River Agg: 14.3% | 3Bet: 14.8% | 4Bet: 0% | Hands: 68]

HJ ($39.81) [VPIP: 28.5% | PFR: 14.5% | AGG: 35.7% | Hands: 743]

Dealt to Hero: 4:d 9:d J:c 4♥ J♠

UTG Raises To $0.70, HJ Folds, CO Calls $0.70, BTN Folds, SB Folds, HERO Calls $0.50

Hero SPR on Flop: [3.75 effective]

Flop ($2.20): A♥ J♥ A:c

HERO Checks, UTG Bets $2.20 (Rem. Stack: $6.05), CO Folds, HERO Raises To $8.80 (Rem. Stack: $10.50), UTG Calls $6.05 (allin)

Turn ($19.25): A♥ J♥ A:c K♠

River ($19.25): A♥ J♥ A:c K♠ Q:c

Spoiler

UTG shows: A♠ K:d T♠ K:c 8:c

UTG wins: $18.14

Check-shoving the flop was the best option in my perception as I'd be up against merged trips primarily (few bluffs, almost no fulls). Looks still weird though to raise this big on a paired flop.

I recently switched my nickname as mentioned previously so I make a quick cash check and snapshot of my results since my last report on the BR-Challenge.

I basically played everything up to PLO50. Since adding 5-Card tables and losing big in August I want to be more cautious with the stakes I play and test out my self-developed BR-schemes. They could work fine up to PLO600and save massive time for midstakes (have not been that far yet though), there are some PLO1k tables but no traffic. My total bankroll is around 18k now but I am not going to play 4-Card PLO200 before I reach the 100 buyin anyways, I have been doing some PLO100 on my HM3 database but was quite unlucky on 4-Card (so I'd rather try to transition to PLO100 and add 5-Card PLO100 later on aswell.)

35k hands since August

Micros have high winrates but low profits

Very interesting your STD....I don't understand how the hell mine was something like 300 (I must check it again to be sure)...it feels so weird - I mean I have probably suffered SO much in vain due to it (my high VIP probably the main reason I would assume).

That nickname "Assax3" doesn't sound like a nick that guy I've played with would use (that Lahiomainen sound more like something he would use lol)...so not sure about the guy - but if I recall correctly - he also wasn't that CB happy...so you never know. Anyways - I still felt he was kinda a "fish" but his leaks were more like discipline leaks (maybe probably my own big leaks too- VIP 50ish) - but he certainly could play well too - So I agree that Do not make the mistake of labeling a player based on his VIP/PRE alone - I mean you would certainly have labeled me as a fish too lol - and I could imagine that at some point I might have won the most at PL50 at those tables between 2020-2023 maybe - at least when I put in more volume at that site (Veikkaus in FIN (I'm finnish)) - So VIP can certainly be missleading - but I would say that if someone has VIP 50 with a PFR under 20- then It starts to feel more like a real recreational - However- VIP 50% is a huge leak in ring games, I mean it MUST BE, not mater how you play I fell....and I always hated myself that WHY could I not manage to get it down...the discipline is key.

I also have played a lot of 5c - and YES the games are usually good, but at some point - you will hit an absolute SHIT run in that game and then you start questioning that is it worth the added variance - I would say that it's FINE, if you really are rolled for it (I'd probably would like to have 200bins for it. but I was always a hug bankroll nit, which was also a mistake (I had over 30k at some point, and I dint even really play pl200 ever....which was a huge mistake in hindsight) - I will check out your BR system - now with experience of to nitty BRM, I see the value of being able to use agressive BRM, especially at lower stakes.

Nice — I didn't realize Mas was involved in that AUS-FIN honeypot too!

I think you could change your nickname once a year. That could explain why it doesn't ring a bell for Skeida.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

Woot, didn't know Mas was playing in that AUS-FIN honeypot too!

You had the option to change your nickname once a year I think. That might explain why it doesn't sound familiar to Skeida.

Maybe. You also play there? Now you know how I get those winrates ... I am having lots of flaws in my game still, it's just a very hard game to learn but the fish help me to feddar the worst lol.

The nicest aspect of that site is it doesn’t become much harder on PLO100 and up. Sadly, I’ve only been losing there so far

In 5-card Equities run even more close. How close? Sometimes more close than you think.

iPoker, 5 Card Omaha Pot Limit - €0.05/€0.10 - 3 players

Replay this hand on CardsChat (https://www.cardschat.com/replayer?hand=5e53KGsO)

BU: €37.11 (371 bb)

SB (Hero): €22.69 (227 bb)

BB: €4.00 (40 bb)

Pre-Flop: (€0.15) Hero is SB with 8♦ K♥ T♠ A♠ J♥

BTN raises to €0.35, Hero 3-bets to €1.15, BB calls €1.05, BTN 4-bets to €4.59, Hero 5-bets to €14.92, BB calls €2.85 (all-in), BTN 6-bets to €37.11 (all-in), Hero calls €7.77 (all-in)

Flop: (€49.38) K♣ 6♥ 9♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Turn: (€49.38) 8♠ (3 players, 3 all-in)

River: (€49.38) 3♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: €49.38 (Rake: €1)

Showdown:

BU shows 6♦ 4♣ A♣ 8♣ A♥ (a flush, Ace high)

(Equity - Pre-Flop: 33%, Flop: 42%, Turn: 30%, River: 100%)

SB (Hero) shows 8♦ K♥ T♠ A♠ J♥ (two pair, Kings and Eights)

(Equity - Pre-Flop: 43%, Flop: 41%, Turn: 64%, River: 0%)

BB shows 5♥ T♥ 6♠ Q♣ 2♣ (a flush, King high)

(Equity - Pre-Flop: 25%, Flop: 17%, Turn: 6%, River: 0%)

BU wins €48.38

BTN was openraising loose and had 20% 3bet (but probably still 4-betting AAxx only, one has to be careful here). In the end I was flipping against his AAxx with AKJT8 pure ds and dominating the 3way stack-off. Ingame I thought I must have been close but actually I have been pretty nice favorit (!). I guess it's because my nice components (pure double-suit, decent connectivity ind the mid-high range whereas his AAxx were triple-suited and had bad connectivity).

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD 2 Poker HUD (https://drivehud.com/?t=hh) and Database Software

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.50(BB)

HERO ($64.94) [VPIP: 25.9% | PFR: 17.7% | AGG: 25.5% | Flop Agg: 26.6% | Turn Agg: 29.4% | River Agg: 28.8% | 3Bet: 7% | 4Bet: 10.4% | Hands: 3465]

CO ($79.20) [VPIP: 31.2% | PFR: 19.3% | AGG: 25% | Hands: 455]

BTN ($50) [VPIP: 26.2% | PFR: 17.7% | AGG: 36% | Hands: 141]

SB ($19.50) [VPIP: 48.9% | PFR: 26.7% | AGG: 16.4% | Hands: 45]

BB ($112.98) [VPIP: 58.6% | PFR: 26.9% | AGG: 23.1% | Flop Agg: 18.7% | Turn Agg: 28.1% | River Agg: 30.5% | 3Bet: 7.7% | 4Bet: 3.8% | Cold Call: 61.5% | Hands: 688]

Dealt to Hero: 8♠ 7♦ Q♦ 4♣ A♣

HERO Raises To $1.75, CO Folds, BTN Folds, SB Folds, BB Calls $1.25

Hero SPR on Flop: [16.85 effective]

Flop ($3.75): A♦ T♥ 5♠

BB Checks, HERO Checks

Turn ($3.75): A♦ T♥ 5♠ 8♥

BB Checks, HERO Bets $3.75 (Rem. Stack: $59.44), BB Calls $3.75 (Rem. Stack: $107.48)

River ($11.25): A♦ T♥ 5♠ 8♥ 2♠

BB Checks, HERO Bets $8.43 (Rem. Stack: $51.01), BB Raises To $33.86 (Rem. Stack: $73.62), HERO Calls $25.43 (Rem. Stack: $25.58)

Spoiler

BB shows: 6♦ J♠ K♣ Q♠ J♣

HERO wins: $77.47

I made a really nice bluffcatch against that loose regular who tends to play really straightforward and value-heavy against other perceived regs. He knows I am capped and he did those XR on turns and rivers several times to stop me from running him over ip (he is too loose preflop).

I am back in the zone after having some struggles in February/March. With my gameplan taking form now on several flop textures, I have put more weight on postflop play and trying to read individual ranges. I feel like this works pretty well. Some really sick calldowns I made recently:

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD 2 Poker HUD (https://drivehud.com/?t=hh) and Database Software

PL 5 Card Omaha 0.50(BB)

HERO ($129.23) [VPIP: 28.5% | PFR: 21.6% | AGG: 32.4% | Flop Agg: 36.9% | Turn Agg: 34.2% | River Agg: 33% | 3Bet: 12% | Fold to 3Bet: 15.4% | 4Bet: 14.3% | Hands: 17740]

SB ($99.11) [VPIP: 28.9% | PFR: 15.8% | AGG: 24.7% | Hands: 637]

BB ($80.55) [VPIP: 30.4% | PFR: 17.5% | AGG: 30.7% | Hands: 684]

UTG ($73.14) [VPIP: 82.9% | PFR: 50% | AGG: 16.6% | Flop Agg: 17.6% | Turn Agg: 19.1% | River Agg: 24.2% | 3Bet: 33.7% | 4Bet: 13.9% | Fold to 4Bet: 0% | Hands: 230]

HJ ($380.90) [VPIP: 56.6% | PFR: 0.9% | AGG: 10.4% | Hands: 106]

CO ($173.27) [VPIP: 28.5% | PFR: 20.8% | AGG: 30.5% | Hands: 1477]

Dealt to Hero: 6♥ J♥ K♠ A♦ 3♦

UTG Raises To $1.75, HJ Folds, CO Folds, HERO Raises To $6, SB Folds, BB Folds, UTG Raises To $18.75, HERO Calls $12.75

Hero SPR on Flop: [1.42 effective]

Flop ($38.25): 9♥ 5♦ 3♠

UTG Bets $38.25 (Rem. Stack: $16.14), HERO Calls $38.25 (Rem. Stack: $72.23)

Turn ($114.75): 9♥ 5♦ 3♠ 2♠

UTG Bets $16.14 (allin), HERO Calls $16.14 (Rem. Stack: $56.09)

River ($147.03): 9♥ 5♦ 3♠ 2♠ 2♥

Spoiler

UTG shows: T♦ 2♣ J♦ Q♣ 6♦

UTG wins: $145.53

3:1 Favourite ott with a pair of 3's... LoL.

I played roughly 170k hands this year being above 15bb/100 which is pretty nice. This month surely it's an upswing, but almost half the year is over so I hope I can make a good year one time.

How’s it going? How’s the challenge progressing?