I am an 18 year old college student who just took out 25k in student loans to start my bankroll. I have been a lifetime loser at NL (-10k ish playing stakes from 25NL online to 2/5live).

For this challenge I will starting at short stacking 1/2/5/Straddle live PLO (200-1k-75% match the stack) and PLO 100 on Iggy/Pokerbros/Global, and will be posting hands here, as well as a YT vlog if there is interest.

My biggest inspirations are u/AltruisticAutism on reddit and @I_Lose_Bets on Twitter.

Wish me luck guys.

Taking out a student loan as a BR lol, good luck you're gonna need a lot of it

How much of a lifetime loser at NL can an 18 yo. be? If you can't beat live low stakes NL, what makes you think PLO will be any different?
Can't see this ending well.

Yeah I've got to admit this look like a very bad idea. And I sure red a lot of bad idea on this forum. But at the same time... IM IN!!LETS GOOOO!

strong furst poast Mr. Omaha

Mood going into my first session of the challenge

https://youtu.be/VHpo2GaF33M?si=i2Fpcvkt_o3HDD9G

In before:



But I hope not. Good luck.

I understand why i see all these **** hands and plays in plo, just the game attracts all degens. Make it fun at least, railing, gl

Much easier to hit good hand with 4 cards!

Session 1: -370.

My biggest leak rn is my mental game. In this session, I ran a $200 bullet up to 1200 over the course of 4 hours, then dumped all of it in 2 hands. Decided to quit then rather than keep playing tilted.

Below I have included some hand histories from the session. I'm most unsure about the last three hands I played, but would appreciate any feedback you guys have for me on any of these hands. I haven't checked with solver on any of these yet (although I'm not sure I can even run any meaningful sims on these spots)

1. 2 limps to me, I over limp AAQ5 rb on the BTN, SB min raises to 10, call call, I pot to 55, 4 ways to a flop of A88. Checks to me, I bet 55, limper jams for 120, I win vs some random 8xxx.
   
2. 15 UTG straddle, 200 eff. 1 limp, I pot to 65 QT87 dsn(h,c). Only straddle calls. Flop QT3 2 clubs, x, bet 40, he jams, I call, and scoop vs Q33x.
   
3. 10 UTG straddle, 2 limps. I pot AQJ8ssn to 55 in the HJ. CO jams for 75, 4 ways to flop of KT6rb. checks to me, I bet 55, limp/caller pots for ~400, 100 behind. I call, win the main with runner runner 88, chop the side vs KQT9. (CO only goes once)
   
4. 15 UTG straddle, 4 way limped pot with T985 ssn(h, 9s, 5d). Flop A43 2 spades 1 diamond. checks around, turn 8d. I bet 35, one caller. River Qs, checks to me I pot for 125, V calls with QQ with diamonds.
   
5. 15 BTN straddle, I raise AAQJss spades to 50, 3 callers. KQ6, 2 diamonds. I check, BB stabs 100, folds around, I jam, he folds. Stabber said he had KJJx with J high diamonds.
   
6. 10 BTN straddle, I raise AKJ5dsn to 35. UTG2 calls, CO 3bets to 110, 3 ways to flop (co has 300 left, UTG2 and I are deep) Q98 2 hearts, I lead 125, CO jams, I call and we chop vs KQ99
   
7. 10 BTN straddle, T987 ssl, pot in the bb (btn straddle 10) 7 ways to flop, K73 rb. checks to btn, bets 200. I call, turn 8, check, he jams for 350, I call. lose both runouts to KJ73.
   
8. 10 BTN straddle, I overcall a $35 raise with JTT8 ssn in the CO, 5 ways to flop, 822. checks around. Turn 4, checks, I 1/2 pot, 2 callers. River Q, checks to me, I pot for the rest of my stack and lose when called.

I know that I'm a technically sound player(at least in NL) and I am winning at 1/2 and 1/3. The main losses came from a couple of sessions 5/5/Str uncapped private game and 2/5... Also should mention that I'm up 11k short stacking the game I'm playing at in the past 100 hours. However, I was playing on stake, so I only made 5k, which I used to buy my first car. I'm choosing to play Omaha because it is the game where my wr should be the highest at currently, and I enjoy it more than NL. IMO I need pressure to perform at my highest levels. I'm a serial procrastinator, and have had an easy life so far (I've gotten into a decent college barely trying in hs, and my parents are paying for my education).

It's time to burn the boats.

Graduating with a degree many people end up with 20-50k in student loans, and subsequently it takes them 10-15 years to pay off that debt. Because you're mostly paying interest rather than the principle until the very end of the loans lifespan. Enjoy this journey, considering that if it fails, you will be reminded of it for longer than you have been alive.

Overall, I think study would be very helpful tbh.

Hand 5 I actually wanted a call. This was vs a whale who 3bets QJT3ssl, stacks off with gutshots, etc. Really surprised he didn't call with his hand tbh.

Hand 7 I agree with you... In the moment I didn't think enough about how strong v's betting range is MW and thought there were a million good turns for my hand. How should I construct a checking range oop multiway on a board such as K73 rb?

Hand 8 I'm actually surprised you agreed with my river bet into two people. In the moment I thought my 8 blocker was strong enough and fish checking ranges are generally too weak, but I ended up losing to a 2, so maybe I'm just lighting cash on fire with the river bet? Idk. In the moment it felt like I was punting as I said pot.

I have been studying with PLO mastermind, and it has been extremely helpful so far.

Anyways, Thanks for the input.

Hand 5 vs whale seems bad still, but not a punt anyway. MW somebody is going to have something that has you in bad shape too often. Even when it’s a whale, it’s important to be careful imo.

K73rr you can donk your sets, pot fold 33 pot fold 77. can xr KK. It’s not balanced at all, but they can not exploit you 7 ways. And you will get action from the whales. If you x you are super weak, but it doesn’t matter.

Hand 8 the issue is Q8 is going to have showdown and is much better as xr. Don’t want to bluff with air here, so an 8 is your only option. Good cards to have here are middling strength cards that are in a lot of air that they will have already folded on the turn. Bad cards are missed straight draw stuff that will make up a lot of their river fold range(A, 3, 5, 6, 7).

I'd have taken a regular loan, easier to default worst case.

No negative vibes though. Alhamdulillah brother great thread to see my first time back in forever, glad 2p2 PG&C hasn't changed.

I'm going to remember this thread every time I see someone arguing for student loan forgiveness. GLHF

Hi 2+2. Since the last time we've spoken I've
-Tried molly
-Bought a car(and got a douchey poker related custom license plate)
-Started classes
-Binge watched 2 seasons of Suits (its a great show btw)
-played 0 poker.

That will be changing starting Friday. In the interim, I will continue to work through the shortstacking section on PLO mastermind. Unfortunately, I've been getting the itch to start playing NL again, but I will stay strong for the time being. The existential dread of not making it and going into debt so young is starting to catch up to me, but all it does is fuel me to study harder. I love this feeling. I wish you all well, and my God have mercy on our souls.

-Omaha4Rollz

Did you buy the car with part of the 25k loan? Time to hit the tables and pay for the car!

XDXDXDXD bro! This thread is legendary!

One bad part of me is saying: i wanna see this happening!

The good part of me is saying: Kid! You better put that loan back ASAP, move your ***** butt to college, make a solid base for the rest of your life, play poker as a part-time job until you finished, and once your done, once you did something in your life and prove yourself that your patient enough to take wise decisions, and everything worked out, you made some money beside studying, ONLY THEN, you go out there and turn pro!

Do your parents know about this student loan you took out? Do they support your time spent gambling while they're paying what I imagine could be hefty tuition, room, and board? Something tells me they would not be happy to hear of your poker pursuits.

I know you're only 18, but the plan you have described sounds woefully misguided on multiple levels.

College is a time to study, connect with professors, maybe find a mentor, make lifelong friends, hang out, socialize, maybe meet a romantic partner or two, try new things, go to football games and films and concerts, spend a semester or summer abroad, learn about the world, and figure out who you are and what you want to do with your life.

Poker could be a huge distraction from all of this. It has an opportunity cost (take Econ 101 if you don't know what that is): The more time you spend studying poker, grinding, and struggling to cope with the downswings and marathon sessions, the less time and energy you'll have to focus on any of these other things.

I would hate to see you wake up in 20 years and say, You know, I never really took full advantage of all the opportunities—educational and otherwise—I had at that decent college I was lucky enough to get into and fortunate enough to have my parents pay for.

That's one side of the risk you're taking. The other side is that taking a loan to play poker is financially illiterate.

If you have any poker ability, you should be able to build up a bankroll gradually. Plus, you need to learn bankroll management, and you can't really do that by taking this shortcut.

Your mental game is weak in part because you're young. It takes experience to develop mental toughness, to learn how to take variance in stride and still play your A game.

Have you considered the possibility that you might lose $25,000 in a year? Then what will you do? Max out your credit cards (you'll get some soon, I'm sure), borrow money from a loan shark, sell your car, maybe drop out of college and get some low-paying job just to keep up with your loan payments and try to maintain a minimal BR?

Poker is all about making good decisions, right? It's the same with life. You make good decisions now, when you're young, and they will set you on a path to health, prosperity, and success, however you choose to define it. You make bad decisions now, and they're going to have far-reaching consequences too.

Taking out a student loan to play poker has got to be one of the worst decisions I've heard of in a very long time. I wish you well, but I fear this may end very badly.

I'm new to PLO but my understanding of shortstacking is you have no opening range. You will always limp-rr with the idea to either get it aipf or at least have enough to ship the flop.

Obviously things change once you are fullstacked, but you can still goof around with SPR's by min3betting and such to freeze the action so you can keep shipping flops with good equity.

Also taking out a loan to play is terrible, you'll be paying off that debt for a decade when you could instead just try to save up the old fashioned way and take shots.

I mostly agree with what's been said above. I don't think it's an inherently bad idea though, but you have to make responsible decisions from now on, like not playing PLO with 5% of your very unlosable roll on the table. I'm a NLHE player myself, so i haven't got much of a clue about Omaha, but the hands you posted look quite bad even to me. I'd not recommend playing PLO because of the variance, especially online, you are very very unlikely to beat PLO100 atm. Instead, you could play live 2/5 NL comfortably, take 5/10 shots when there are whales and never play with more than 2k effective. With this method it's almost impossible to go broke if you are anywhere near decent. Live NLHE players are horrible in general and are very risk-averse and nitty, so you can grind out a profit with relatively low variance. After winning 30-40k you can take some risks, but now you should be very nitty with your br and also study (poker).

Damn, times have changed...You don't have to "show your math" with these loans anymore??

Good luck to you!