Had a fairly uneventful 1/3 PLO session at the Aria Thursday. Ended up basically breaking even after not getting into many pots. The game got short-handed for a while which made things more interesting because there is a lot more room to maneuver than in a full 9 handed game.

Today I was back again for a much more interesting session. The first major hand I got into I flopped a straight on a 345 board with QQ67. We ended up getting all-in 3 ways on the flop. One guy had the same straight as me but no re-draw and the other guy had two pair and the nut flush draw, so my re-draw was no good. We ran it twice and both board bricked out, leaving me and the other straight chopping the pot.

A bit later I had 4-bet pre-flop with AAT4 and was called in two spots. The flop came A83 with two clubs, of which I had none. The first player led for about 1/3 pot and I shoved. The other player folded and the bettor called. Again we ran it twice and I won both, never seeing the other players hand but I'm fairly sure he had some sort of club draw, probably with a pair or back-door straight draw.

The last interesting hand of the night was this one:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/38...board-1235743/

I feel like I should have folded pre-flop but given how I played it pre, I like my fold on the flop.

I ended up winning a few other small pots and racking up with a nice profit. For a few hours in the middle of the session the table was horrible because everyone was playing fairly solid. Luckily near the end there was some turnover and some bad players got in, but its still been quite tough compared to most of the PLO games I played during the series. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up on the game just yet though, since right now I'm just not interested in playing only hold'em. I'll probably end up going back and forth, maybe playing the PLO game only on weekends/when the game is good.

Congratulations on the nice profit. Those days always feel good.

I think moving between games (PLO and NLH) may help to "cross fertilize" your game.

Ended the week with some more PLO at Aria. Played a short session Saturday, only getting in to one major hand. I 4-bet preflop with AAJ6 and was called by one player. The flop came JT5 with two clubs and my opponent bet the pot, putting me all-in. I called and he showed 4589 for a pair of 5's, an open ender and a flush draw. Even though I had the best hand on the flop, I am actually a pretty big underdog, with him having about 65% equity. Fortunately my aces held up for the double up.

The table wasn't all that great so I left to go eat and was planning on coming back and playing the must move game that had started up and looked pretty good. However, after about an hour the must move game got short handed and I was moved to the main game which was not all that great so I left, losing a bit on the second session.

Played again today and there was already a must move going when I got there and I had a seat right away. The game was short handed but definitely a good game. I only got into one major hand before I was moved to the main game. After betting the flop and calling a bet on the turn I made the nut flush on the river. My opponent bet into me for about 1/2 pot and I raised. He called and I took down a nice pot.

At the main game I made a little bit by winning a couple small pots but there was nothing major that happened until what was essentially my last hand of the night. I had called a raise with KK56, a few more people called and we were 5 ways to the flop. The flop came J23 and it checked around. The turn was the beautiful 4. The first player bet the pot and it folded to me. I raised the pot with my nut straight and re-draw to a king high flush. He raised the pot, putting me all-in. He didn't want to run it twice so we went once, with the river bringing the 3. My stomach dropped a bit as I thought it was possible my opponent hand made a full house. He opened his hand and revealed J567 for the same straight, and we chopped a massive pot. He also had a re-draw to a higher straight and a club flush, but I had bigger clubs so the only way he can win is with a 5 or 6, which would give him a higher straight. As it stood I have 7 outs to win, he has 4, and the rest have us chopping the pot. Certainly a great situation for me.

I left soon after that hand since it was getting late and the game got down to 5 handed, only one of which was a bad player. Gonna take tomorrow off and get back at it Tuesday with either more PLO or possibly back to hold'em.

Pretty sure I recall that hand on Saturday. I played a bit of PLO that day. I am a total noob at PLO. I was wearing a Tigers hat and probably played like a super nit.

Nothing much has changed recently but I figured its time for another update. I've been still playing the 1/3 PLO at Aria. The last two sessions have been sort of interesting, especially my session on tuesday. I ended up booking a small win tuesday and was basically break-even wednesday, but I got into more confusing spots than I have in the last couple weeks of playing PLO. For a while I was never really getting into any spots that I was unsure about, but tuesday I got into one what seemed like every hand. At the end of the night I realized that there were about 4 or 5 hands that I got totally lost in and didn't know what was the right play. After about the 3rd one I decided I was going to put some notes in my phone on them and review them later. Then yesterday I took my notes and wrote out all the hands and just started thinking about them and running simulations on propokertools to sort of figure them out. I also ran a few by another poster, which helped a lot.

I've taken notes on hands before but I usually just think about it for a while when I get home and then delete it, while this time I did a lot more in-depth analysis. I'm not going to write out any of these hands because this isn't really intended to be a strategy thread, but I think doing this analysis helped a lot because I found at least one major leak in my game and was able to take away at least one idea/concept from each hand. Yesterday's session only produced 2 such hands and I wrote them down as well.

One of these hands I just completely butchered. Basically I made a bet on a river where I'm never getting worse hands to call, never getting better hands to fold, and if my opponent bets the river I'm beat 100% of the time and can just fold. As I was making the bet I sort of felt like it was a bad bet but I still made it. Something that analyzing this hand and a few others showed me is that I sometimes make my decisions too quick and then upon a simple analysis I realize I made a bad play and if I would have just thought for 30 seconds I could have avoided the mistake.

Going forward I am going to continue to jot down notes in my phone whenever I have a tough spot and analyze them away from the table. Hopefully this will help me to plug some more leaks and possibly find some outside-the-box plays that I wouldn't otherwise find.

It feels a little bit like doing homework (damnit I thought I was done with school!) but having no grade to worry about and just using it to get better at my craft made it fairly enjoyable.

Writing the hands down and reviewing them in detail later is a great idea.

Thanks for the insight regarding the situation on the river and slowing down a little bit to think the hand through.

Indeed... Or simply reviewing with skilled players

Just left cushlash all the PLO gold in vegas. Expect good results in the coming weeks!

Yea as soon as you left game got real good, 3 donators. Unfortunately about an hour ago they all left pretty much at the same time and the game was pretty tight. The only two bad players were on short stacks and I was tired so I skedaddled.

Still in PLO mode at the moment. Yesterday the game was really good for a while mostly because of 3 players. I ended up getting some from the worst of the 3 when I flopped a set of tens against his top two pair on a T62 board. A 6 peeled off on the turn and I got the rest of his short stack. A while later I got it all-in on the flop in a limped pot with Q2TT. The flop was AT4, giving me middle set and a flush draw. Usually I'm not one to jam with middle set but with the flush draw I felt like it was hard to be doing bad against any hand, as AA with diamonds is the only thing I have to worry about. My opponent ended up having AA without diamonds and we ran it twice. I hit my diamonds to win the first run and he hit quads to win the second. Around 1 the three bad players left pretty much all at the same time and since I was getting tired I decided to leave.

Today I played a bit of a shorter session because a bit after 11 the 1/3 PLO game broke unexpectedly after I had played for about 3.5 hrs. I had won a bit in a fairly uneventful session but I was a bit disappointed the game broke. I really didn't feel like playing holdem since I was sorta in the PLO mindset. They had started a 2/5 PLO about an hour before that so I decided to watch it for a while. Even though I am not rolled to play 2/5 PLO on a daily basis, I decided that if the game was good I would take a shot and play a short stack strategy similar to that which I used in the Venetian 1/2 PLO game. There were at least 4 known regs in the game and 1 other player that I had played with a bit and was a bit loose pre-flop but solid post-flop. Of the other 4 players one was a young kid that didn't seem to get out of line and there was only one player making clear mistakes. This was certainly not the type of game I was interested in taking a shot in. I thought about possibly heading over to the Wynn and checking out the 10/20 limit Omaha hi/lo game but I checked on my phone and there was a long wait list and only 1 table and it was already after 12 so I didn't feel like waiting it out. I ended up just going home and going over some hands I played during my session.

Gonna be keeping with the PLO grind this weekend as long as there is a game running. I'm hoping that once the Venetian's new room is done in September they start getting some PLO action. Football season should also bring increased action from what I've heard, so hopefully some of that crowd is fond of the silly four card game.

Feels like a broken record, but the last couple days have been filled with more 1/3 PLO. Yesterday's session was extremely boring. 6.5 hours and I really only got into one interesting spot. We were 4 handed and I raised the button with KT68 and the small blind called. Flop came down QJ3 and I cbet after SB checked. My bet was called and we saw the A on the turn. This time the SB bet out about half pot and I called. My thinking here is that even though I have the nuts at the moment, I don't have either of the flush draws and so I don't want to get all-in getting free-rolled. Getting free-rolled is a PLO concept where two people both have the same hand, usually the nut straight such as JT on a 89Q board, but where one person has a flush draw, set, or bigger straight cards to go with it. This person has outs to win, whereas the best the other person can do is chop. The player with the free-roll has a huge advantage because they can win the entire pot but the other player can not. So I call and the river rolls off the 4. Now my opponent bets about 40% of the pot. To me it seemed like he also had KT for the straight but didn't have clubs and wanted to get to showdown cheaply. Because I have the K, I know he can't have the nut flush so its going to be very difficult for him to call a raise just in the hopes of chopping the pot. I announce a pot-sized raise, putting him all-in and he fairly quickly folded.

After that hand I basically bled back down to my starting stack by calling raises pre-flop and missing flops, ending my session just barely above even.

Today I was back and to my surprise there was no PLO game going when I arrived at 6. I played some 2/5 no limit for the first time in about 3 weeks. After half an hour the PLO game was called so it wasn't a very long session but I felt a bit out of my comfort zone, despite winning a few small pots and turning a profit during the session.

In the first orbit of the PLO game I made what I think was a major mistake in a hand where I decided to raise as a semi bluff with a nut flush draw+gutshot in a spot where it would have been better to just call. Then when I bricked the river I tried to bluff my only caller and got snapped off by bottom set. A semi-bluff is betting or raising as a bluff with a draw as a sort of backup. We really want our opponent to fold because we don't actually have a good hand, but in case they do call, we have a decent shot at winning the pot if our draw hits. In this spot I have a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw, giving me 12 outs in case I get called.

After that hand I went really cold. I would get good starting hands and just miss every flop. Then this hand came up. I got dealt 9TJQ in early position. The UTG player, who was clearly on tilt from losing a big pot the previous hand, raised the pot and I just called. I have a premium starting hand, but its still not a hand I want to 3-bet from early position. 5 more people call and we see a flop of Q73, giving me a pair and a flush draw. The tilting UTG player bets the pot. I know that I'm likely way ahead of his range and so I raise the pot in an attempt to get it heads up with him. Everyone folds back to him and he goes all in for what was less than a min-raise and I call. We decide to run it twice and I hit a 9 on the first run for two pair and the second board ran out T K, giving me a straight. He turned over AKK4 for a pair of kings a the nut flush draw, so I scooped the pot. As it stood I was doing pretty horribly against his specific hand, as I was about a 70-30 underdog. However I am a favorite over a bare overpair and given that he was tilting I thought he would be getting it in with many weaker hands as well.

After this hand nothing much happened until I took my dinner break. Afterwards I came back planning to play a few more hours but only played for about another hour for a combination of two reasons. The first was that the game sucked. There was no 2/5 going so a bunch of the players that usually play that game were in the 1/3 game and so it was a pretty horrible game. Secondly I had sort of lost focus for some reason and found myself kind of on autopilot and getting easily distracted. I wasn't really paying attention to hands I wasn't involved in so I just decided to rack up.

All in all I think it was a pretty good week. Just one losing session, one biggish win and a few small-medium wins made for a second good week in a row results wise. I still think I made a bunch of mistakes but recording my trouble hands has helped a lot and I think my game is improving.

Taking tomorrow off for my usual laundry/grocery/relax day and probably a bit of reviewing some of my hands from the week. Thanks for reading.

Somewhat interesting day today. I headed to the Aria for 1/3 PLO as usual and when I got there had a short wait and got a seat. The game was really good as it seemed like a bunch of the regs had taken the day off. I won a few decent pots in some standard spots but about 2.5 hours in to my session the game broke because a few of the people wanted to play 2/5 PLO. Two of the guys that left were a couple of the biggest spots I've seen in any PLO game since the WSOP. They were friends in town from Texas, both really nice guys. One was just potting it whenever it got to him almost no matter what his cards were. They clearly were there to gamble and just wanted to play big pots and have fun.

Naturally, most of the table followed them to 2/5 and the 1/3 game broke. I had not been on the 2/5 list and the game was full so I couldn't get in right away, but with those 2 guys in the game and at least one other bad player, it was ripe for taking a shot at the bigger game. I put my name on the list and waited it out. After about an hour of waiting I decided to go eat something and come back. After eating it had been 2 hours since the game broke and I only moved up one spot on the list; from 3rd to 2nd. Nobody wanted to leave the game because it was too good. I was about to leave and go to the Wynn to play 10/20 Omaha hi/lo, a game which has been my sort of back up plan for a while but I still haven't actually played. I was literally going to walk away when one guy said he was leaving if I wanted his seat. I was 2nd on the list but since the 1st guy wasn't there I got the seat. I bought in for the minimum of 400 with the plan of playing my short stack strategy that I used for Venetian's 1/2 PLO during the WSOP.

I ended up winning two pots without a showdown, once on the flop and once on the turn. The first (and only) time I got all in came about 2 hours into the session. I limped AAK9 in early position and it got raised by one of the crazy guys. 4 people called and I raised the pot to 185. The original raiser called and it folded to the second crazy guy, who went all in for about 700. It folded to me and I called all-in for less, about 525, and the first crazy guy also called. The board ran out pretty horribly for my hand: 34537. I showed my aces up and judging by the all-in players reaction to the board I knew I had him beat. The other guy, however, looked at his cards for what seemed like an hour and then turned over AK64 for a flopped open-ender and rivered straight. I lost but I got my money in extremely good, as I'm crushing AK64 with my AAK9 and even though I didn't see the other player's hand, he said he flopped an open-ender with a flush draw but didn't have a 3 which means he had a 2 with either a 4 or 5 and whatever else. No matter what is other 2 cards are I'm a huge favorite and after running a few simulations have somewhere between 43 and 48%, which is huge in a 3 way situation.

I rebought and played for about 30 minutes more until both the crazy guys left and the other major spot busted out. The game was not that great anymore so I called it a night. Overall pretty happy with my first foray into 2/5 PLO. The two crazy guys said the would be back tomorrow so as long as they are in the game I'm planning on playing it again.

How many Bi's are you down ? I would not play just PLO you should find an easy 1/3nl or l10/20 limit game to make some bread on and play PLO when the games are good.

Not down in PLO. Yea I've been thinking about playing other games but the problem is I haven't found the 2/5nl games at Aria all that good and I can't really scout the PLO game from another casino. Right now I'm gonna see what happens with the Venetian room opening and football season starting. If PLO action doesn't kick back up I'll have to start jumping around again and playing hold'em and/or some of the 10/20 O8 at Wynn.

Will be a short update so I think I'll just do it in this post. The two texans weren't back today so I never played the 2/5 PLO since there were too many regs and not enough bad players to warrant another shot. Played the 1/3 for just over 6 hours and ran pretty cold. Never got into an all-in confrontation and just won a few small pots to stop the bleeding a bit but still ended up with a medium loss.

The quality of the 1/3 game has been really hit or miss and its becoming apparent to me, as my response to Chavez alludes to, that I'll probably have to play more than just PLO.

Last couple days have been pretty swingy to say the least. Yesterday I was again at the 1/3 PLO game at Aria. Pretty much right away I got in a big hand where I flopped top set of kings on a KT3 board. I bet the flop, got raised, and I re-reaised for most of my stack. I shoved on an 8 turn and was called. My opponent had AQJ8 for a wrap and flush draw, leaving me about a 60:40 favorite. The river was the J and his straight took it down.

After rebuying I was able to build my stack up a bit until I flopped a set of Aces on an AK7 flop. I bet flop and turn, which put my opponent all in except for about 50 bucks. I put the rest in on the river and my opponent called and I was good. I didn't win or lose much after that pot and racked up after 6 hours with a fairly average win.

Today was a different story. After calling in to Aria for the 1/3 PLO game I checked my phone and noticed a 1/2 PLO was running at the Venetian, a game that hasn't run at all to my knowledge since the WSOP. I decided to check it out. Because the game structure is so conducive to shortstacking for reasons I have discussed, I bought in for the minimum basically with the plan of getting all or most of my stack in pre-flop with AA hands and going all-in on any flop. Long story short, over about 3.5 hours I got to do exactly that 3 times and lost all 3. After that I decided to get something to eat and then figure out whether I wanted to go back or just go to the Aria.

After eating the game was short-handed and I didn't really like it so I headed to the Aria to play some actual post-flop PLO in the 1/3 game. That session also didn't last very long. Right away I got into this hand:

A decent player raised to 10 from late position and I called on the button with JJ96. The BB, an elderly man I've never seen before called also. The flop came JT4. It was checked to me and I bet the pot and was called by both players. The turn came the A and the elderly man came out and bet pot and the other player called. At this point I am positive that the elderly man has KQ for the nut straight and because he decided to lead for pot rather than check-raise suggests to me that he does not have clubs to go with it. I think the good player has the same hand because if he had the nut straight and a higher flush draw he would just about always shove to take advantage of the free-roll possibility. So I think the most likely hands I'm up against are two bare straights, which is a great situation for me because 3 ways I have about 40% equity with my set and flush draw if they both have just the bare straight, so I shove. Unfortunately the elderly man was short stacked and so there was a fairly significant side pot between me and the other player, which I think makes shoving a mistake. The river was the 5 so I bricked and the good player showed exactly what I though he had, a bare KQ. However, the old man had ATTx for a flopped middle set. I am still confused why he played his hand the way he did. He check-called on the flop with middle set and then when the only draw completes on the turn, he decides to pot and get it in. The only thing I can think of is that he thought he could use 3 cards and had a full house, but when he showed down he seemed to know he lost to the straight so I'm still kinda lost.

Anyway after that hand I lost another small pot that I played correctly but my mindset was so off after having such a bad day that I decided to leave, only playing at Aria for about 45 minutes. Its sort of the same thing that happened to me with 2/5 nl, I would win small a bunch of times and then have a huge loss. It's not as bad as when it happened last month because this time I won small enough times that this loss didn't completely wipe it out, but it still sucks to lose everything from the last week in one day. Its not like I'm cutting sessions short just to lock up small wins, something I see scared money players do a lot, I'm playing normal length sessions but just lately have had a lot of small wins.

This month I played 147.75 hours, which I'm pretty happy with. Unfortunately today wiped out most of what I was up for the month, but I still ended up in the black a bit.

On the bright side, tomorrow is the first college football saturday of the season and I'm jacked! I was already planning on taking most of the day off and at least watching the Wisconsin game. I also wanted to watch the Bama v. Mich game and was thinking I might shift my day off to Saturday's for the football season. I know thats probably not a good decision from a strictly poker EV standpoint since the games should be good on Saturday's but I really love college football and I think in terms of life EV it might be worth it. I can always go late at night after the games are over if I'm not too tired. Anyways given today's session I'll probably end up taking the whole day off tomorrow.

Long update so thanks for reading, and hopefully it didn't come off as too run-bad whiny since I'm actually pretty happy with my play, just giving my thoughts on the situation.

Oh yea and GO BADGERS!!!!!!

Don't worry about the old man. I watched him get it all in with questionable holdings a couple of times after you left. You should hope to see him again. Every time he got it all in he was nearly drawing dead. He seemed to have some idea what he was doing but was not very good post flop.

hey, really enjoying your thread my man - I play full time at the venetian...hit me up when you go there and we'll grab a bite if you are interested

Yea not really worried about him, he was definitely a spot, just so confused as to how he played that hand. If he's gonna jam on the turn I don't see why he doesn't raise the flop. I think his mindset was as follows. Flop: "I have a huge hand, I'm gonna slowplay" and turn: "oh that card sucks but I can never fold because I have a 3 of a kind so I might as well stick it in now". Funny thing is if he raises, the other player probably folds his straight draw, I 3bet and set over set him. Oh well.

Thanks, I'll try to find you next time I'm there. You usually play 2/5 or 5/10 I'm assuming?

So I ended up taking Saturday off. I could have gone and played after the games but I felt sorta blah and didn't want to. Got back at it yesterday in the 1/3 PLO game. Not a whole lot to report, it was a decent session and I really don't think I made any mistakes. I won two main pots, flopping a set of aces in one and making a full house on the river after flopping trips and turning a flush in another. The game was also very good, which I was happy to see. Around 4 the game got short and was mostly competent players so I left.

Today was a pretty up and down day. After waiting for over half an hour for a seat in the PLO game to no avail even though I was 1st on the list, I decided to play some 1/3 no limit for a bit. Ended up playing that for maybe 20 minutes, winning one small pot.

I got in the PLO game and man was it crazy. There were 4 people in the game that were clearly just clueless. Two of them were building huge pots pre-flop on basically every hand. The best part was they were all talking like they knew what they were doing and basically had convinced themselves that they were great at the game, but they were awful. All 4 of them were on a huge heater at the same time and all had pretty big stacks. The first hand I played I got about 1/3 of my stack in preflop with AQA5 and got two callers. I went all in on a flop of 478 and was called by one guy who ended up having a set of 8's. He only wanted to run it once and his set held up. After this hand, I saw the guy running it twice with everyone. I don't mind people who only run it once, but I don't really like when people sometimes will run twice and sometimes don't based on the strength of their hand, so I just decided if I got in another pot with him I was only gonna go once.

I pretty much just sat for a couple hours, not catching much, and watched the 4 worst players at the table run up huge stacks, one of which actually left with most of his. Then, I won two hands within about 20 minutes against the guy from the first hand. The first I turned the nut straight and we got it in, I ran it once, and took it down. The second I flopped top set and check/raised all in on him, ran it once and again took it down.

At this point all the bad plays being made by the two main fish were starting to catch up with them. One busted his huge stack and left while another busted his and kept re-buying, eventually leaving to go play 2/5 PLO.

I don't think I won another hand for the rest of the session after the two quick hits I gave with my straight and set. After the really aggressive fish left, the table pretty much completely changed except for me and two other players. It calmed down a lot and I really couldn't get anything going. I ended up getting chipped away at for a bit before leaving for the day just above even. I think I played well except for a couple small mistakes at the end and I was happy to get some good situations against the couple big fish that showed up, despite losing one of them.

Been a mixed bag the last couple of days, played in 3 different games. Yesterday I headed to the Aria for 1/3 PLO as usual and got a seat fairly quickly. I felt really good the whole time, won a few pots and didn't get myself into trouble at all. After a couple hours, the game got shorthanded, which I loved because most players in live PLO just don't know how to adjust to short handed play. Unfortunately about 3 hours in to the session the game broke, so I just took a break for dinner and decided to evaluate what I wanted to afterwards.

After dinner there was not even an interest list for the 1/3 game, and 2/5 looked like a horrible game, so I checked my phone for ideas. Wynn didn't have any of the 10/20 Omaha hi/lo going so I headed over to the Venetian for some 8/16 Omaha hi/lo. When I got there I was about 8th on the list and it was already after 11 so I was pretty much about to leave when they started another table, so I sat down. I ended up playing for about 3 hours, during which I scooped 2 pots and got quartered in another. Getting quartered is when two players have the same hand (usually happens with the low), so each player gets a quarter of the pot. I also got sort of unlucky in a 3-way pot where my nut low got counterfeited on the river so in a pot that I am going to get half the vast majority of the time and I'm gonna scoop every once in a while, I ended up getting nothing. Getting counterfeit means that a card came that I was using from my hand to make a low, making my low basically worthless. For example, in this hand I had A239 on a board of A58J, giving me the nut low. The river was a 2, which now makes the nut low 34, and basically makes my low worthless because even something like 67 or 73 has a better low than me. I left down basically what I won in the 1/3 PLO, but still very happy with my play.

Today I went back to Aria, but the 1/3 PLO wasn't running yet. There were about 10 on the list, but a bunch of them were sitting in the 2/5 PLO game so they won't start a table since if people stay at 2/5 there won't be enough players and if they leave, the 2/5 game will break and they don't want to break one game to start another, which makes sense. So I had to decide whether I wanted to play 2/5, wait an unknowable amount of time for 1/3, or go play Omaha hi/lo, which was running at Wynn and Venetian. I looked at the 2/5 game and though it didn't look exceptionally good, a lot of the usual suspects weren't around and I didn't recognize many faces so I decided it would be worth a shot.

I ended up playing in the game for 6 hours and overall I was satisfied with how I played. The game was playing very passive, with lots of limping and not a ton of raising. I played mostly small pots, picking up a few here and there to keep my stack even. Near the end of my session I got it all in on a flop of T56 rainbow with QJT6 against 3456, my top two pair having about a 60/40 advantage over his bottom two+open ender. We ran it twice and I won both. From there I chipped down some, mostly from one medium sized pot and a bit from calling raises pre-flop and folding flops.

I ended my session with a small win, but more importantly I gained a bit more experience in the 2/5 game, which will helpful for future shots. I was a lot more comfortable this time than last time, and I think that was partly because I played a full session instead of the few hours I played after the 1/3 broke last time. Once I really got into the session and was thinking about hands and making the best decisions I could, all the trepidations related to playing a bigger game went away and I was able to just play my game comfortably.

Picking up my brother from the airport tomorrow. He'll be here for about a week, with his poker time spent grinding 2/5 nlhe. Looking forward to seeing him as it should be a fun week, and hopefully a profitable one as well.

Hollaaaaaaaa. Hope all is well.

I'm gonna go ahead and second with what Chavez said.. An average $2/5 NLH game is far more profitable than your average $1/3PLO game. If marginall enjoyment > profit, stick to PLO.

Get on skype occassionally eh?

Yea and when he said that I was already starting to think I would have to play some nl but lately the PLO game has been pretty good. It still gets reg infested sometimes, and its not as easy as play PLO on weekends and NL during the week because, for example this week the PLO game was amazing on monday and I've played on Saturday when its all regs. I'm probably overestimating how good the PLO game is sometimes just because I'd rather play it, but in the end I should probably go back to playing mostly NL.

Yea I've been on but I just realized that I had it set to make it look like I was offline. On now.

Ended up going to the Venetian yesterday to check out the new room. Its pretty nice and the chairs are definitely better. I also like that everything is closed in to keep out noise/smoke. Also got a chance to meet squid face. He was sweating a buddy so we just talked for a few minutes and he seemed like a really nice dude.

I ended up playing some 2/5 nl for a few hours before I went to go pick up my brother from the airport. First time I've played a real holdem session in about a month and it was actually kinda refreshing. The game was really good and I definitely ran above average and ended up booking a solid win. I also got into some tough spots and so now I'm gonna have to start another word doc to analyze holdem hands like I was doing with PLO. That had been helping a lot with PLO so I think it should with holdem as well. Since I haven't played much holdem lately, I think I wrote down about 6 hands from the night. A few were very simple hands I would have never thought about before, but I want to "leave no stone unturned" so to speak when looking for leaks.

After my session I picked up my brother from the airport and headed back to my apartment. Today we went to the Venetian and I again played 2/5. Had another fairly successful session. I felt pretty good about my play and even though I again wrote down a bunch of spots to think about, most of them were small things that I am writing down just to make sure I don't miss anything I might be doing wrong.

Not looking at results, but just looking at some of the play I've seen, the 2/5 games I've been in the last two days are certainly more profitable than the 1/3 PLO when it is full of regs (not to mention it moves a lot faster). When the 1/3 PLO is good, its probably close but the problem is there is no way to predict when it will be good. Sometimes it will be good for 3 hours in the early evening on a Wednesday and horrible on a Friday night. Because of that I won't be playing any game exclusively anymore. Rather I'm going to be playing the best game I can, which will mean much more holdem and mixing in PLO whenever I see or hear of a good game. I think this is the optimal decision and I want to thank the other posters who's advice has helped me realize this. I'm also confident that incorporating my hand analysis work I was doing with PLO into holdem will keep it from becoming boring this time around as I will be thinking about different spots all the time instead of just being on auto pilot.

Plan for tomorrow is to watch Wisconsin crush Oregon State and then head out and play some poker as there aren't any late games of interest; mostly just good teams against cupcakes.

Thanks for reading and I promise I'll only switch games 589370982797598798998 more times at most.

good call on deciding to play both. A very successful gambler budd of mine told me a long time ago that as a solo gambooler it is of paramount import to have a very high edge in the game you play...and it seems to me that the reg filled 1/3 plo does not have that for you. Where as 2/5 nlh on any given day one that is skilled (or working hard to improve their game) can play circles around there opponents.

Oops, hope you didn't bet on the game!

Nope I don't bet sports except for very small bets with friends for ****s and giggles. That game was tough to watch though, they played about as bad as they could have offensively.