About a year ago I started to get bored of the 2 card PLO variant known as "texas hold them" and over the past year have since dedicated myself to learning, playing, and hopefully one day mastering the PLO streets.

A twinkle in my eye, and the moon in my sights. I set out on quest of sorts...to learn and eventually CRUSH PLO!!

Fast forward one year. After many hours in the lab, lots of effort playing, studying, practicing mindfulness, physical exercise, a few broken household items later...and I don't think I could be further from my goal if I tried.





Poker is hard.

At this point, most people would quit. Most people would cut their losses, move on, or at least move down in steaks. Most people would probably do something else with their life.

But not me. I'm an idiot. An idiot on a ****ing quest. An idiot who doesn't know any better, is probably delusional, and almost certainly doing it wrong. But nonetheless an idiot on a quest to get unstuck, and return to even. What I lack in poker abilities, I more than make up for in delusions, raw grit, and determination.

I'll use this thread to share hand histories from sessions, summarize study insights, in general spill my guts. BUT I WILL NOT USE THESE SACRED PIXELS TO COMPLAIN. (Apologies in advance if I complain.)

godspeed. go me. go you. go us. go humanity.

Good luck! What site are you playing on?

Hand 1:





Hand 2:





Hand 3:





Hand 4:






Hand 5:






lolploBBV:

Thanks Fresh Heart. Good luck on your journey as well. I'm playing on ACR, BOL, and ignition. 4 tables only.

Hand 6:




Hand 7:

cue the post-thread start rungood

i dont no y but u hav Con Vinced me 2 SWITCH 2 4 cards.....................

GOOD LUCK 2 u ........... n 2 me now

HELP.............................................. ..... https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/3...kroll-1802383/

that's a tough one. i suck at these spots. a river bet is probably approaching thin value, and i'd never expect to be ahead after villain raises. definitely have a few hands where i play it the exact same though lol

hand 7




hand 8




hand 9

Lessons in loss: Be nice to humans, even at the poker table.

A couple of years ago I was playing 2/5 at the Wynn. The game was decent: A couple of regs, some recs, and 1-2 whales. The table banter was solid despite only 1-2 drinks between the entire table. One of the topics that came up was why we play poker.

In my head I'm thinking about my answer to the question: stack cash, own souls, and the never ending final boss challenge of me vs myself. not exactly what I'd ever share at the table. but it was on my mind.

I, like so many other poker players, found my way to poker through video games and other card games like Magic: The Gathering. Deep down there's a number of reasons poker pulls us in, but competition is a big part of it. Something that always went hand in hand with competitive video games for me was **** talking: Unleashing unbridled verbal fury on the competition, my teammates, and even myself. I don't think I'm particularly unique here, but I can definitely see the same rage and tilt from video games transposed into poker. If I had to distill it down, it's probably a mix of immaturity, semi-anonymity behind a computer screen, and intense emotions that we deem negative. That ****, when left to fester in its own devices will eventually consume you.

There was one whale at the table on the day in question, let's call him STEEEVE. He was absolutely positively in the bottom 1% of players I've ever encountered. He never raised, took every possible passive action he could, and basically played every hand like he had no intention of ever winning. Despite this, he had of course amassed 5x the stack of the next largest stack. The man could not lose. Now STEEEVE was more than a little overweight, seemed bound to a wheelchair, and had an oxygen tank assisting his every breath. Definitely a man most would pity, at least from the outside.

When STEEEVE chimed in as to why he played poker, he said it was the camaraderie. He just liked being around people, and the banter that follows. I felt a deep sense of compassion for STEEEVE when I heard this. Maybe I felt a little bit sorry for him, probably the result of my able-bodied bias. I imagined STEEEVE, juxtaposed against so many poker pros who seem like miserable people who hate everyone and themselves. But here was STEEEVE, sitting down to play cards. Not there for the money, not to own souls, or for the competition. The biggest enjoyment he got out of it was being around people. The camaraderie. The banter. Human connection.

I played through an all too common scenario of STEEEVE sucking out on someone in my head. Maybe he sucked out on your stereotypical poker pro with hoodie, glasses, earbuds. Maybe the poker pro went absolutely bat **** on the guy. HOW DARE HE, gentle STEEEVE who only wants to be around other humans, play a hand differently than the pro. I imagined further what effect this would have on STEEEVE. Maybe he likes pissing people off, so this would work out in his favor, but I doubt it. In this imaginary scenario, that I’m sure has happened to STEEEVE before, reminded me of someone stomping all over a little kids sand castle, right as they were about to crown the top of it with their favorite seashell of the day. Gross.

This whole imagined scenario, the feels I was having at the time, made me realize, maybe for the dozenth time or so, that there’s way more to life than poker and winning or losing, even at the poker table. The reasons why dear STEEEVE was at the table were vastly different than mine or many others, but that’s a beautiful thing. Pros should want people like STEEEVE to have a good time. To get what they came for: the camaraderie, the banter, and the human connection. What pieces of **** someone would be to take that away from STEEEVE. It will cost the angry pro nothing, but it might help STEEEVE with whatever monsters he’s dealing with, make him feel better, and increase the chance he comes back. Which is what we want ultimately, for this game we love to keep growing.

I eventually got into a hand with our friend STEEEVE. I flopped the glorious top set on a very dry board. Bets went in on the flop and turn. The turn and river respectively brought a flush and 4 to a straight. A great runout for STEEEVE. I checked back the river, despite it probably being a bet against STEEEVE’s range, but you gotta listen to your live reads and feels. STEEEVE turned over the winning hand, and I gave him a friendly knuckle tap on the felt followed by a nice hand. For once there was no malice in my head or body as I said this. I was happy just to chat with the dude, play some cards, and at the same time wish for him and everyone else at the table all the wellness in the world despite whatever unfortunate run outs were in store for me. I imagined what my teenager self would have felt, done, or said to STEEEVE. I probably would have behaved similarly to the angry poker pro in my imagined scenario. Given how I felt in this moment of unluckiness, It occurred to me I may have leveled up a bit as a human. And in turn, it made me a better poker player too.

hand 10

Gl mate.
What made you want to start at 1/2? It's not surprising a beginner would get crushed online at these stakes in 2022. Nice post about STEEEVE, I enjoyed it. Too many poker players act like entitled *******s.

awesome freaking story buddy........ enjoyed readin it................

n thx 4 feedbak on my hand i shudnta called river re raise, i wuzz aktually goin 4 thin value then i SPAZ out n clikk call quikk wen c re raise, gota rememba that at my lower stake big river bet = WATCH OUT

thanks, glad you enjoyed the story!

i started at 1/2 because i thought i could beat it from the get go, with small-medium study along the way . i underestimated all the things.

thanks! glad you enjoyed it

lol yea that sounds all too familiar! probably a good idea for both of us about river raises. i don't think most people at low to micro stakes have a lot of bluffs in their river aggression.

Just from looking at these hands i can see you making several mistakes just off the rip, your sizing on different flops is not good, not that i think it much matters at 1-2 plo online, but it probably means you have significant leaks elsewhere if your flop game has such significant leaks. Everything is sort of built on a house in poker, and it appears to me from looking at these hands and your graph, which has a hugely negative redline, that your house doesnt have a great foundation. HOWEVER, while this may not sound like a very nice thing to hear, this is actually fantastic news. Because 1-2 in particular online is very easy to beat with just a few easy changes. It is a very beatable stake. Itd be very bad if in these hands there were no mistakes and you were playing perfectly and losing. what im going to suggest, is to get the upswing Course of PLO mastery with Dylan Weisman. It is a very comprehensive course and i am confident that you will quickly go from where you are now to winning and having a reasonable redline. Youre going to immediately play different i can tell just based off of the hand histories youve shared already. Several things youre going to do differently. I would also suggest getting coaching from Dylan, ive gotten coaching from Dylan and have gone from basically never playing PLO before to now when i play PLO its 2-5 online and whatever is running at casinos nearby, in vegas its 5-5 rock game at aria or Wynn, or the 1-2 at wynn too, which is a very underrated game, which i prob shouldnt say on a forum, but it is the truth. I also from talkign to him, getting the course and going through it have moved from 50z online to playing 2-4/5 and 3-6 online NL every day open sitting anyone on ACR and playing any pool on bovada for zone and taking a shot at 5-10 and breaking into the online high stakes. Of course there are better players than me, that are more knowledgable but this is my story, and what has happened for me in the last 2 years that im sharing. I have other coaches as well for no limit, and dont want to diminish any of their help, but Dylan has been hugely instrumental for me and my mental game along with my understanding of game theory and every dollar ive made from PLO. If the price scares you or anything, its literally 5 buyins at 1-2, you prob swing 5 buy ins literally every session. And if you want to see how he thinks you can get on twitch and watch his stream, im telling you from personal experience how its helped me and i wish you the best.

Then STEEVE stood up, threw off the costume, shook my hand and said, "Nice game, Chomp."

Kidding, it really is a lovely story. 😉

thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it. definitely agree with all of your points, esp the part about me having a ton of leaks, and dylan, dude is a sicko. and the content he gives away for free while streaming is $$$. also +1 to the training content you mentioned. i've gone through a lot of it at least once, but i need to go through stuff like that multiple times before it sticks for me. it's pretty motivating that you were able to start crushing so quickly, hopefully i'll be able to patch these leaks with more time spent studying.

i really dig the house foundation analogy. i went through the flop cbet spots i shared and found a few improvements based on what little i know about GTO.

Glad you liked it, even without the mask and rope part of the story!

i dont know **** about PLO, but like what in the F are you doing bro? All this attempts at card removal to bluff opponents has to stop. Make a draw & hit it, thats it. Quit bluffing. Nobody is bluffing in PLO.

January is a wrap.

My focus for Jan was volume and application. Felt like I made some improvements but still a long way to go. Definitely need to hit the books, and really focus on not tilting. The days are long gone when you could punt 5-10bb/hr to tilt, and still come out well ahead. I like posting my **** up hands, the ones I'm scared to share with people. There's some power in putting it all out there for the world to poke at.

I have a 40-60hr week real job, so I'm proud that I was able to play 37 hours in Jan despite all of my other commitments. I really love playing poker as a hobby, or main hustle. Even playing and getting my ass handed to me over and over again, I was able to sit down and play my A game most days. Main problem is A game is probably -BB/hr lol.



Had my biggest losing session on the back of my biggest winning session. Definitely some proverbial shedding of blood and guts.

February Goals.
This is about as hard as I'm going to go on poker goals.

Grind hours: 15
As always, focus will be on not tilting, and taking 1-2 things from study and applying them in-game.

Study hours: 15
In addition to reviewing HH from Jan / other sessions, specific study areas to focus on will be flop/turn/river in single raised and 3bet pots. Specifically: cbets, playing vs cbet, and OOP leads. Flop for both SRP and 3! will mostly be review and trying to build intuition around some of the concepts I've learned initially. Turn and river will be a little bit of uncharted territory.

I'd say you know a lot more than you give yourself credit!

I've gotta give myself room to experiment and royally **** up sometimes. But maybe to your point, could have done it a lot cheaper lol.

There are soooo many possible spots to bluff in PLO, and it looks like you are taking.. at least most of them. You are almost definitely tagged as a bluff/spew in all possible bluff spots. This can make you money against those people who are waiting to call you down all the time now. You have advertised extensively. Now if you can tighten up, you may get paid more than your fair share for a while until everyone changes their notes on you.

Bluffing in PLO really only seems to work if you have been showing down winning hands or have a super nitty image. Once tagged as a bluffer, you doomed if you keep it up.

Based on your hand histories, I would just grit my teeth and call you down with anything decent on any scary turns and rivers, knowing your gonna have more blockers than actual hands.

i've got just the HH for you:

That's a pretty sick hand.. if you can c/r river bluff and do all the things, then it probably just a matter of toning it way down and find a nice balance. Looks like you could crush one day if you could learn to parent your inner child a bit

thanks for the vote of confidence

i've been battling with that inner miscreant my entire poker 'career'. only in the last few years have i been able to identify him by name. progress imo