Hey guys. I'm just your average pro looking to share the ups and downs of my poker journey. In particular, I will be focusing on my transition to PLO (mostly PLO5 right now) from NL and what it is like living a normal/comfortable life on the east coast as a poker pro.

Short About Me

Been a full time poker professional for about 5 years now. Started at the bottom of NL and climbed my way to 500 NL on U.S. facing sites and to 10/20+ live. Recently moved to the east coast of the U.S. with my wife for her job and to follow her career dreams. I'm transitioning to PLO5 because those are the best games I have access to at the moment. Also let's be honest, the action is addicting. I live pretty well, but not extravagantly. My personal expenses are usually between 3-4k USD per month. I love raves and festivals. I miss the golden days of progressive house https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xETEYG-az9E.


Current Goals and Past Issues

I currently have around 60k liquid to work with. My goal is to reach the top of the PLO5 ladder on app games while practicing good bankroll management. For PLO5, I would like to have at least 100 buy-ins for a stake. Honestly, this might not even be enough for this sick game.

In the past, I've been too aggressive with my roll. I've also had some tilt issues with PLO5 like I've never had in my NL career. It's just so much easier to spew preflop on 40-50% vpip required tables, and you can justify almost anything to yourself in the heat of the moment when you're playing against tables with insane whales. I need to control this better.

Outside of poker, I want to continue my workout schedule and eating better. Like many of you I'm sure, I've gained a fair amount of weight since becoming a poker pro. I've improved this part of my life in the past couple years, but would like to continue making progress on this.

Plans for this Blog

-Going to try and update poker results at least once a week
-Will aim to reflect on my mental game and thoughts dealing with the insane variance of this game
-Will keep updates on my expenses outside of poker, to show a complete picture of the financial situation of an average pro in a major east coast U.S. city. I feel like this is neglected in a lot of blogs.
-Occasional updates on weight, work outs, meditation, festivals, fun things, etc.

Thanks for reading and looking forward to the future.

Are you going to be playing plo5 in MD? Lots of game around here. Gl!

I've heard mgm national harbor has great plo5 games, unfortunately it's quite a ways from me. Do you play plo5 live anywhere else on the east coast?

Maryland Live, that's about it. The next best bet is Hollywood Florida.

Subbed

In a similar boat to you, in the process of transitioning to full time PLO5 player. I think with the quality of the player pool in 5card 100buyins is fine as long as not playing uncapped, straddle games etc. I have played about 100k hands of 5 card in the last few months and can tell you for sure this game is just as beautiful as 4card, if not higher EV too.

If you'd like to jump into any study sessions just shoot me a PM! GLGL

Thanks for the sub mate. Where are you putting in most of your volume in right now?

gl subbed. ever get overwhelmed witht he spots you say or does the many other spots keep you wanting to play and sane??

I've found myself getting emotional after losing many buy ins a very short period of time. Such as losing 80 20s or 70 30s on both runs when running it twice, sequentially on a few tables, while also losing just a bunch of standard flip all ins, all within like a 20 minute period of time. I've played millions of hold'em hands and I had never experienced something like that over such a small number of hands. I've gotten more used to it now. It still is something I need to work on.

Outside of that, I don't find myself overwhelmed by the spots. I just make a note whenever I found myself in a spot where I don't know what to do and move on (happens a lot right now).

I mix between all the apps basically. Right now playing most of my volume on clubGG but lots of Bros, Suprema and PP in the last year too. The 5card games on GG are very soft up to the high stakes too, just terrible rake/rakeback structure.

i just asked in the venues forum if PLO5 runs at parx or borgata ..they said no

GL GL!

Week 1: January 9, 2023- January 15, 2023

App Games: ~ +3,560
Live: -1,500
Total: +$2,061

Lost a buyin at $5/10 NL live at the casino hanging out with a friend I hadn't seen in a while. Game was decent, lost of bunch of standard spots.

Most interesting thing on the apps last week was a ~650 stretch of hands. Lost 1000+ big blinds within less than 150 hands. Then won back 1000 big blinds in the next 400 or so hands. As I've alluded to before, this type of variance hasn't rly happened to me in millions of hands of online NL unless insanely deep stacked. PLO/PLO5 is a different beast.

https://gyazo.com/f17ccaf7fc1bc7ef5b58d79e113b1185

Anyone else feel like the PLO5 app games in certain unions are actually the softest at 5/10+ ? Smaller plo5 games often seem to have much less volume and less number of running tables as well, it's weird.

I play a lot of app games and I see the same names from 1/2-5/10.

Yeah, I imagine the regs are just trying to get volume in wherever they can.

Right now in Diamond Union there are 4 plo5 games running at 5/10 , but only 1 of each at 2/4 and 1/2. Whenever I check out the diamond union games, 5/10 seems to have the most tables of all the plo5 stakes actually.

Results This Month

1/2-1/8/2023: -2334.87
1/9-1/15: +2061
1/16-1/22: +2692.03
1/23-1/29: +600.64

January Total: +$3018.80


Decently happy with my results considering I've dropped in stakes compared to NL. Up about $4500 from PLO5 if you take out the -1500 loss from live 5/10 NL this month. Did a lot of studying this month, and now will try to get in more volume. I'll try to post more graphs for the future, but it's hard when a decent amount of my volume is untrackable/played on phone/tablet.

Good luck sir!

Nice, yeah 5 card can be sick. Gl dude.

good luck

Any thoughts on this hand? Only had a small sample on UTG, but he seemed to have reggy stats. HJ is a complete agro monkey who is literally 3 betting almost 50%.

Normally AAAK6s is a standard fold facing UTG open and MP 3b. However, there are a few dynamics in play. Obviously the hand plays ok vs. a 50% 3b range, but also we have to consider the "reg" who opens UTG, who we assumes knows that the maniac will be 3betting. Is my cold 4b here a punt? Anyway, quite amusing hands that were flipped over for stacks. Only in plo5....



PL 5 Card Omaha 10(BB)
HERO ($803.44)
BTN ($1500) [VPIP: 24.3% | PFR: 18% | AGG: 25.3% | Hands: 560]
SB ($2184.40) [VPIP: 51.5% | PFR: 26.7% | AGG: 21% | Hands: 724]
BB ($8844.20) [VPIP: 47.3% | PFR: 19.1% | AGG: 36.4% | Hands: 112]
UTG ($1000) [VPIP: 37% | PFR: 21.9% | AGG: 26.9% | Flop Agg: 21.7% | Turn Agg: 50% | River Agg: 28.6% | 3-Bet: 7.1% | 4-Bet: 0% | Hands: 74]
HJ ($1643.79) [VPIP: 92.7% | PFR: 50.9% | AGG: 33.7% | Flop Agg: 46.1% | Turn Agg: 46.8% | River Agg: 33.3% | 3-Bet: 46.5% | Fold to 3-Bet: 0% | 4-Bet: 55.6% | Hands: 110]

Dealt to Hero: 6 A K A A

UTG Raises To $35, HJ Raises To $120, HERO Raises To $410, BTN Folds, SB Folds, BB Folds, UTG Calls $375, HJ Raises To $1643.79 (allin), HERO Calls $393.44 (allin), UTG Calls $590 (allin)

Flop ($3462.23): 6 7 K

Turn ($3462.23): 6 7 K Q

River ($3462.23): 6 7 K Q 5

At first glance this looks like a punt,single suited and multi-way.

Yeah it is hard to get it in multiway with a worse hand than this. Against any two random hands with AAA and no nut suit and no wheel or broadway side card you are probably less than 20% against any two random hands. You would be better getting in almost any other hand. In 4card you can get away with getting in AAAx combos, but in 5card you are burning money getting these hands multiway.

The player being agro actually makes this a worse get in too, because if he has just any old **** you block all of the hands you have a sliver of equity again, AKKxx combos mostly. You only want to go with the very very best high connected double suited AAAxx combos. If you have a play about with PLO trainer or on an equity calculator you can work out what kinds of AA combos play fine multiway. A lot of this isn't that intuitive so definitely will save you a lot of money in the long run to have an idea of these thresholds!

Thx for the feedback guys. I'm aware of how bad AAAxx especially no nut suits plays multiway. I was really hoping to just get it in with HU a lot with the HJ whale (even though that's still only like a 55%-45% spot, and I guess overestimated how much the UTG folds. Obviously the more the UTG continues, the worse this is. x% chance to have like a 55-45% vs whale at the cost of being in pretty big trouble the y% UTG continues.

Felt awful as soon as I saw the UTG do anything but fold.

I understand trying to get HU vs the whale a bit lighter, but would be better to choose some AKKxx or AKQJ2ds type hands. The problem is even with your hand heads up you are gonna be a 40%+ dog against any random hand.

I follow you, except for the 40%+ dog against any random hand part. On ProPokerTools Odds Oracle sim I'm always getting about 50% with this exact AAAk6s suited hand against ***** . Either way though, you're right, I underestimated just how bad this AAAxx hand was.