I'm trying to learn PLO and its a bit easier for me to get some volume in by adding a few tables when games are dead on my site than by trying to find time to play PLO only sessions.

50plo is a level I feel pretty comfortable learning at and its also a level that I can play on Lock without having to deposit.

And by fill in tables I mean that I had 3 tables of NL for a while and that was all I could get.

1. Session Review
- UTG reg opens, short stack fish flats, reg squeezes from BTN. I have TT in the BB. I am about 150bb deep with both regs. Fish has about 30bb. I think the BTN is going squeeze wide value here to force out the UTG opener and get stacks in vs the fish. Hands like 88+ and AQ (possibly AJ too) are all in his range. I decided to cold 4b here. I think I look insanely strong here and I have that I am comfortable going up against the fish with if he decides to call all in. UTG basically has to fold everything except KK and AA. And even BTN is in a gross spot with AK and QQ. UTG folds. Fish sticks it in and BTN snap jams over the top and I make an easy fold. BTN really really surprised me here and shows up with JJ. It seems like a legit insane spot to ship JJ in. I can basically never be bluffing and JJ is way behind (what i though was) my perceived range. I'm still happy with my play tho.
- I open otb JJ, mediocre reg 3bets. He has a somewhat low 3b and is one of the few regs I'm not comfortable getting JJ all in v here. I flat. T56 flop. He bets, I call. Turn 7. He checks I bet 1/2p. My plan was to b/f bc he can call with worse but if he jams its always AA. He jams. I snap call anyway. Hard to even say why I called. some weird type of tilt where I was just ****ing angry that I was gonna have to fold JJ so I just clicked call even tho it was obviously terrible. He had AA. I binked a 2 outer on the river to reward me for my horrible play.
- I am playing an extremely aggro reg HU at 2/4. We are about 300bb deep with each other. I think I have an edge over him, but any HU match v him is going to be super high variance and we are going to be slinging stacks around a lot. I have 3b him 5 or 6 times in the past 20 hands or so. He opens BTN, I 3b with KK , He calls. He folded the previous 5 or 6 times. He is a player who sometimes gets into rhythms and there is just no way he lets me 'get away with' 3betting him that many times. So its kind of 'time' for him to play back at me. Flop is 997 I cbet a bit over 1/2p and he raises to about 2.5x. He is the type of player who can raise here with a wide range but I think its more likely to be air/9x than a draw. Especially this deep I think he would flat his draws rather than create a large pot. I call. Turn is the 8 . He bets 1/2p, I call. I think I can easily have the best hand here, and when I don't I always have some equity. River is A . He barrels again. $380 into $570.
My feeling in retrospect and after looking at some other hands v him is that if he were bluffing he is much more likely to go 2/3p on turn and 1/2p on river rather than 1/2o turn and 2/3p river. This seems like a bit of a stretch but I think its pretty accurate after pouring over some hands in the last few minutes. In game I was feeling pretty gross, but I know that with recent history of me running him over with 3bets he was going to be bluff raising this flop with a high frequency and that on this board run out he is never ever going to stop bluffing and would not bet a bare Ax like this on river. So I crying call. Villain shows A9 for the super nuts and ships the monster pot.
- UTG opens (same aggro reg that I was playing HU on other table), I flat KJ in MP, SB squeezes large. It folds back to me and I call. I think this is a mistake. Villain is a bit of an unknown reg and his preflop sizing is a bit larger than normal in this spot and he squeezing vs UTG and MP so reps a pretty strong range. Flop is JT5 . He cbets and I call. Turn is 7 . He checks. I could potentially check back here but villain could be checking hands like AQ/AK that have a decent amount of equity and giving those a free shot at a river isn't very good for my hand. Plus he could have some preflop bluffs like AT/9T that may c/c me here. I decide to vbet 1/2p, he snap jams which usually means I'm in ****ty shape but every once in a while he will show the NFD/KQ and I will actually be ahead and I still have 25%+ vs most of his made hands so I call (I only need 23% equity to make a profitable turn call). He shows KK. I still dislike my preflop call, but I think everything I did postflop is good.
- HU vs same aggro reg from KK hand. We are only 100bb deep for this hand. I 3B AK he flats. Flop is AT3 I cbet a bit over 1/2p, he calls. Turn J . I barrel a bit over 1/2p, he calls. River is 6 . Kind of a ****ty spot. He can have hands like the T8 but he is also the type that would raise these on the flop pretty often. He could have floated flop with KQ, but almost certainly would have raised turn with 2 FDs on board (even tho calling is reasonable as well, he is the type who would just go ahead and raise). Two pair hands like AJ/JT/A6 are definitely possible ahnds for him and JT/AJ I think are much less likely to raise turn. He still has a lot of hands like naked Ax or KJ/QJ that can potentially hero call me but I only beat hero calls. If I check he is good/aggro enough (I think) to turn some hands into bluffs but I have no idea how often he will. I just felt like every option sucked. So I jammed. I really don't think there is a clear correct answer but I think that c/f may be better, but not by a ton.
- Reg opens bvb, I flat 77. QQ9 he cbets, i call. Turn 7 , he checks, I bet 2/3p and he c/r a bit over 3x. I don't think he is bluffing here very often, but I think its just better for my range if I flat here rather than jam and stack his Qx right now. I call. River Q . He bets 2/3p after a fairly substantial tank. I now have a pure bluff catcher instead of the super nuts. The interesting about the river is that for me to fold I really have to put him on quads bc the only range that really c/r turn is draws, 99 and Qx. I still beat draws and its really unlikely that he vbets 99 anymore (what could possibly call him?). So his vbetting range is quads. But at the same time I just really don't think he will be bluffing a busted draw here. He'd have to be trying to make me fold better busted draws and/or 9x. I think he is the type who would just give up here. So i made the sigh fold. I'm happy with my play.

2. Evaluate your play (Mental and Technical)
Technical Game: Overall I am getting a bit lazy with betsizing and I need to get back to some more exploitative betsizing rather than just mashing the 2/3p button every time. It really misses out on value and loses money when smaller bluff would be just as effective. I'm adding it to my CLF for the rest of this month.
Mental Game: I got really frustrated when the aggro reg just crushed me HU. I tried to stay composed bu I made several preflop mistakes after that. Specifically the KJ hand. I'm pretty sure this preflop call was bc I was semitilted and didn't think thru the preflop spot entirely but just clicked call.

3. Take note of anything you did particularly well
- I am at a table for about an orbit. A player whose screen name I dont recognize is there and I catch the river action in a medium sized pot where a solid reg c/c with some absurdly weak hand (i forget what it was) and win vs the unknown. I immediately marked the unknown as a 'crazy crazy fish' bc this reg is very good and clearly had a reason for his play and the only reason that makes sense is that villain is a maniac.
- A few hands later I open AQo utg, presumed crazy crazy fish 3bets small. I debate between 4betting and flatted but i decided to flat and let him hang himself. T37 flop. He cbets 2/3p, I call. Turn 2 He barrels, I call again. River Q he tanks for a little bit and bets a bit under 2/3p this time. I jam, he snaps with KQ I had actually planned on calling any river, but obv this river is the nuts. Mostly I was happy with my attention to detail and ability to form a pretty clear picture of the type of villain this guy was just from seeing 1 river call against him from another reg.


4. Take notes on how the regulars played
I really love the new tag i have for 'Regsploit' I took about a dozen good notes on betting lines and size on regs from this session.

this is a cool thread, just found it. read a few session reviews and they're awesome, will be going back over the rest when I have time.

GL op

good read sir and really love point number 3. wp

as for the hands-

-TT is very well layed. good analysis of the spot and reg is just plain ******ed esp if he snapped it. i would guess u re pretty much at the bottom of your range there (maybe 99/AJ)

-i think there s nothing wrong with calling KK there given read history but more importantly sizing. i think villain is always going for a triple barrel on a board looking like 997 8 and so there s particularly little to be read into his turn sizing. river A he indeed is likely to bluff again so his turn and river ranges for betting are precisely the same

-AK is really gay. i think if villain is as good as he sounds u re gonna get jammed on every time you check as you shouldnt have a river checkcalling range really. however if you jam u re only winning the pot by getting him to fold. not sure if thats enough to outweigh him snapping you with better. rly close

-77 always quads and ******edly played by villain. wp sir.

Just took a quick look at your thread blakkman. Looks like you started off the thread playing cash and now you switched to some type of SNGs? Care to give me the super abbreviated cliff notes?

And I agree about the AK. Just a ****ty spot.

tyty

please try to ignore the typos (there are a lot of them in the session reviews), I don't spend much time proofreading

Just realized that though I've made some goals for Nov/Dec in my head, I haven't posted them here yet. I've added to my original goals list from the OP

Goals
1) Learn to recognize the onset of tilt
-I'm way way better at this than I was 2 months ago at the start of this thread

2) Learn to control tilt
-This is a bit tougher, but I don't tilt nearly as easily now

3) Show a profit at 400nl over a 100k hand sample
-I lost a chunk of my database so its gonna take a bit longer than I thought it might. I also have to play a mix of 100nl-400nl bc there is rarely enough 400nl tables running. At about 25k 400nl hands and 50k hands total after the data loss.

4) 200k RP by Dec 31
-The VIP system is similar to Poker Stars. If I hit 200k RP I get a $2,600 bonus. It's all or nothing. I'm currently at 146k RP and need to play about 70k more hands total. It's doable but I can't slack off at all.

5) 60k hands in Nov
-I am slightly behind pace for this and will miss another day or 2 due to Thanksgiving. Have to really work on cranking out the volume over the next few days.At 26k hands this month.



Current Learning Focus

1) Act slowly and deliberately

2) Narrow villains range on every street

3) Use exploitative bet sizing vs weaker opponents

4) Use balanced sizing vs stronger players

Obv don't know your 3b strat or how you play your turn range but after some thought I think AxKs becomes a somewhat clear check/call

cliffs:

-started january with $200 at nl5
-made it to nl25
-huge br nit so played 450k hands on nl25
-went BE+ lost motivation
-moved to Malta cuz Germany sucks balls
-found new motivation in HU hypers and got coaching
-playing on a stake now going for supernova

1. Session Review
- I open 63o otb against 2 nits. BB calls. J58s flop I check back. Turn 8. He leads for 1/2p, I raise bc I can easily have an 8 here and its very hard for him to have one bc of how tight he is preflop. He makes a small 3b which is just completely FOS a very high %. He doesn't have very many nutted hands in his range and I think that there is a high likelihood he would just flat the raise to iduce if he did have a nutted hand. I float. River 2. He checks. I bet a bit over 1/2p. Villain tanks for an extremely long time and finally calls with 33. I'm still mostly happy with my play as my read was pretty spot on and he just happened to hero call me this time. My assumption is that he put me on a FD when I just called the turn 3b. But even so I think he fold more than often enough to make my play profitable.
- I minopen J3 otb. 25/19 reg who I have played a little bit against flats from BB. Q35 . I cbet, he calls. T . He checks and I decide to give up. I did think about barreling down here but I'd prefer something with a bit more equity like maybe J3 I would have barreled. J river. He checks. I think he could potentially have called the flop rather than raised with a FD but its seems unlikely for him to have checked to me again on the river bc what hand can he expect me to bet once I check back turn (other than a weird ass 2 pair like I have). I also think he'd lead river with good Qx and any two pairs or sets he might have. So my weak 2 pair is almost certainly best, but it is going to be hard to get called as villain range is probably a lot of weak Qx or 77 type hands and maaaybe a OOP float that turned or rivered a pair (AT/AJ). I go ahead and bet a bit over 1/2p and he raises 4x after not much thought. This is really weird line for a value hand bc like I said he really shouldn't expect me to bet this river often. I am clearly bluff catching as I think there is no chance he is raising a worse hand for value. But I went with my read that it made no sense for him to check to me with the nuts and called. He showed K9 . Still happy with my play here.
- I open otb JT . BB 22/17 reg flats. AK4 . I cbet, he calls. 2 turn . I barrel and he c/r. It's really tough for him to have a flush here when I block his Jx combos and he is tight enough that I don't think he is flatting many SCs OOP preflop. And he would raise his FDs on the flop pretty often. I jam over his c/r and he snap folds. Kudos for seeing that his turn raise is FOS often. HOWEVER, what I didn't realize is that this was a 100nl table and I was jamming 160bb on top of his turn raise (and he has me covered). I somehow thought it was a 200nl table just based on our stack sizes and jamming 160 more on the turn didn't seem out of the ordinary. Oops.
- On the above hand I think that if I had realized how deep we were I would have just called the turn raise and called bets or vbet myself on diamond rivers, jam over bets on brick river or bet when checked to.

2. Evaluate your play (Mental and Technical)
Technical Game: I worked on my sizing a bit. I still need to focus on this in every hand and not get lazy. Some improvement here overall tho.
Mental Game: I stayed away from autopilot and made some plays/reads that I don't always see. They didn't all work out but I think they were all +ev

3. Take note of anything you did particularly well
- Played a solid reg HU for a little while. I think he thinks he has a big edge over me (he is a semi-known name who has made some vids for a vid site). I think I pretty much smoked him in every decision. He did end up winning a preflop all in AK>QQ so he ended up slightly ahead for the match but he some really exploitable sizings in a few spots. Felt good about my play. He eventually just quit me.


4. Take notes on how the regulars played
Done

swingy day

148,445 RP

Nice read sean. Like the reviews you're doing. Reading this has made me more aware of my own tilt problems so thats def a big plus. Good luck!

skraper, found your thread and been reading it from page 1. Great tilt reviews and love your hand analysis. Got lots learn from you!

how many tbls u usually play bro?

Thanks guys

Anywhere from 4-10. Usually 6 or 8.

Felt a bit out of it all session. I couldn't get my brain working straight. I think I played mostly OK but I was definitely off my A game. I did a half assed warmup and didn't do the session review before starting my play. I'm nearly certain this is why I wasn't playing my best.

I did run pretty poorly in large pots this session, but I suspect I made a lot of small to medium sized mistakes that could have been avoided.

very nice thread, i should probably try this too maybe not to the extent you're doing it but unfortunately i know myself too well that i am not ready and too lazy for it and wouldn't keep going for too long, still very impressed with what you're doing gl sean

thats where u re wrong imo

i dont have the endurance and commitment. yea first i would do it properly but soon become half arsed at it

thats what you assume now. you havent done it before tho. once u start and realize how fast you will improve doing it i think thatll be enough to keep u going. its way too easy to just say 'meh i cant do that'/'meh i m not the type' /'meh i m too lazy' before actually trying it

1. Session Review
- Playing a huge aggrofish HU at 2/4. He 3b every hand for the first 30 or so hands of HU. I open 55 otb, he 3bets, I jam, he calls with 88. He holds and insta quits table. I just did the math vs a reasonable calling range for this villain. I will have about 44% equity vs his range when called which means I need him to fold a bit over half the time (we were a tad deep). I think he probably will fold this often, but its still a thin spot. My jam is only +ev by a small amount. I mentioned to someone in another thread that vs fish at HU tables we often should pass up on small edges in big pots. This is bc they are extremely likely to hit and run if they win a large pot. So you can pass up on small edges when you know that 1) your skill edge is large and you will encounter many similar spots where you have a bigger equity edge 2) villain is very likely to leave when their stack increases by a large %. When both are true, passing up on small immediate edges is correct imo. This jam was a mistake on my part, especially bc I know this particular villain to be a hitnrunner (but generally terrible at poker).
- I open Q8 otb. Reg flats from BB. He has 35% fcbet otf and 41% fcbet ott. I cbet A92 , he calls. Given his extremely low fcbet I think he can be floated a lot of backdoor type hands as well as having PPs and Ax. Turn is 4 . I decide to barrel here with the intention of barreling rivers. With his very low fcbet on flops and turns he will have a pretty weak range for getting to the river so i expect a decent amount of folds there. I barrel and he calls. River is 8 . I barrel again and he snaps with TT . Villain has no real history with me that should make him think I and super bluff heavy here. I took a note and will just give up on flops a lot vs him. I also noted that he chose not to 3b preflop here.
- Unknown minopens BvB. This could be a miclick or he could just be a fish, i'm unsure at this point. I called with T9 . He checks to me on KJ4 . I bet, he calls. When he check calls this flop, I think he is significantly more likely to be a fish than a reg. But I also think his range is pretty weak. He could have some type of weak draw or weak pair+draw, or just a Kx/Jx that is scared of this flop. I decide that 3 barreling is going to work out pretty well in general, plus I have straight and flush outs. I follow through with my plan on A3 runout. Villain calls both streets and shows J 4 . I think most of my assumption were correct. he was scared of this board, he just had a hand whose absolute strength was too much for him to fold. I think he folds his naked Jx and Kx hands to my line. So I think its still +ev.
- Shallow 400nl table. reg minopen utg (this isnt standard but a decent amount of regs do it at the shallow tables). unknown flats from MP. I overcall otb with K9 . Flop is T48 . Reg cbets, unknown flats. I'm getting pretty good odds and I have position so calling is reasonable but I thought raising would force them off their equity shares some of the time. I raise, utg jams, MP calls, I call behind. I think the call once all the money goes is obv +ev. But I think that flatting flop is potentially better, mostly bc the original PFR is unlilkely to be cbetting this flop lite and I have a caller already so my FE isn't as high as I would like. OOP I think raising the flop is a much better play.
- Weird spazzy fish opens to 6x utg. I 3b to 16x w JJ, he flats. Flop is Q49 . I cbet a bit over 1/2pot and he calls. Turn is T and I check behind him. River is 4 and he leads for 2/3pot and I call. He shows 77 and I win. I dislike my flop sizing here. I think I should just go bigger and jam turns. The pot is huge and he will call wide. OTT as played I still should have jammed (I have about 1psb left). Dislike my postflop play here.
- I open AK in CO. BTN and SB flat. Flop is QJ2r . I cbet, BTN calls. Turn is T, I barrel about 3/4. River is 6o. I barrel just a bit under 2/3p. I really dislike my river sizing here. I should have gone large again. I'm only getting looked up by 2pairs and hero calls anyway.

2. Evaluate your play (Mental and Technical)
Technical Game: Continuing to try to focus on my sizing. I think I used some more exploitative sizings this session than I have been recently. But I still sometimes just get lazy or rushed and click 2/3.
Mental Game: Mostly held it together. It was a swingy day and my emotions were swinging right along with my bankroll. I don't think I tilted at all, but i definitely came close and was fast clicking for small periods of time. I'm not sure if I kept it together by force of will or by winning a few large pots here and there in the middle of the session.

3. Take note of anything you did particularly well
Made a few small hero calls that worked out well. Payed more attention to sizing. Still lots of work to do there tho.


4. Take notes on how the regulars played
Done

Rough day again. I think I played mostly well. I definitely lost some huge pots to pretty large suckouts and I think I also ran situationally bad over all. I'm trying to not post any of my bad beats or coolers ITT but there were some doozies this session.

24k/72k RP
34k/60k Hands

OP how do u construct a cold calling range vs your villans ?
Do you make an estimate of your pf equity vs a range of hands from their opening position and how do u know how what u can call ?
Do you call wider if you know how they play postflop and do you pass up small edges since it reduces variance n looking for more ev spots ?

Another great review Sean!

Just wanted to drop in and say I <3 the thread and your posts in general. Session reviews are great. You're a very helpful poster so keep it up!

Took some time off for Thanksgiving. Back to the grind tomorrow!

Also somewhat inspired to read the Mathematics of Poker by Chen and Ankenman after reading some interesting posts by durr and sauce HERE . Starts around post 180. Sauce is clearly right. Not sure why durrr is so convinced that sauce is wrong.

Anyway, if I do decide to read MOP for real I will prob post here about it. Though the material may be too dense to really be worth summarizing ITT. And it might be a bit over my head in terms of math.