Great day to have some run good!

in for $400 out for 4.4k, this along with rakeback should mostly erase my makeup. A much appreciated score!

Couple things don't sit quite right with me, it's a little complicated to explain so I'll do my best. First I want to say that I'm not accusing anybody of anything, I don't have enough experience in the poker world to say what is suspicious, and what is not. However a bunch of red flags got raised for me in the last couple hours.

First I'll give some context. Somebody in the chat posted this screen shot.



As the stable is polish, the comments surrounding the screenshot from the original poster are in polish and google translate is admittedly inaccurate. However it seemed to basically say something along the lines of haha this table is so bad, all regs. For context this is a PLO400 table.

To which I replied that I actually have one of those players tagged as a fish, and maybe that is why the game is running.

As it turns out, that player I had tagged as a fish is actually one of the stables best players, lets call him A. He posted his graph, actual winnings ~3bb/100 running significantly below EV. I think most months he has the highest or one of the highest winrates, around ~20bb/100ev adjusted.

So he posts, and I'm like oh haha whoops guess I'll switch that tag, whatever. I messaged a stable member that I chat with frequently that I couldn't find A's username on the stables sheet of registered players (I like to use this to see if I'm at the same table as anybody else in the stable, to immediately tag them as competent). This stable member said it's likely a new account, and that once you get moved up to 600s you have to continuously make new accounts, as the others get suspended for winning too much.

So far, I'm not thinking anything is weird.

Then I realized, I have 3k hands on player As username. This account can't be new, because I only have the hand history database from the previous month. So for some reason, this player that plays afaik up to PLO5k is effectively on an anonymous account in the PLO400 pool, mass multitabling and crushing every month. Player A is known for multitabling, so not just a random assumption.

A little sour that I might be giving up EV to a crusher, but still not thinking too much of it. But then it struck me as odd that the person who originally posted the screenshot was randomly birding a PLO400 table (this player is also one of the stables strongest players, and plays much higher stakes)

I had mentioned before about how there were accusations of collusion in the stable, and that person got kicked. Well two of the 3 players accused of collusion? Player A, and the player who posted the screenshot, who I'm assuming was also the person who took the screen shot.

I'm not really sure what to think, but I'm pretty suspicious atm. Have a meeting with the mental performance coach, will defs bring this up.

To cap things off, I really don't want people to take this the wrong way as an accusation of shady business. This is just a blog for me, and this incident I felt impacted me personally (given that I play PLO400, and probably have donated EV to player A without knowing they were even in the stable) enough to justify blogging about it.

cliffs - PLO5k reg is on anonymous accounts in the PLO400 pool, presumably utterly destroying the field. Some connection between him and person he was accused of colluding with, although it is unclear.

seems shady, nice thread btw!

Thanks! Talking to them about it and how I feel, I really think it will get cleared up and be fine. But who knows!

Head coach got back to me and I also talked to player “A”. Player A was kind of trolling / joking abt being that player, I think probably just didn’t think there were the implications that I thought there were.

Fwiw I believe it! Don’t think there’s anything shady going on regarding the account.

This is a typical cover up excuse. Not saying they are lying but if someone made that excuse I'd not be believing them.

Yeah idk, I know im somewhat naive when it comes to navigating the shady side of poker. So I tend towards the side of paranoia in order to prevent myself from being taken advantage of. I still have my thoughts on the matter though .

For example, there is a language barrier, but idk how to interpret this post.



At first I took it at face value. But now after sleeping on it I feel like there can be another interpretation which is "this account isn't me, but actually it is me"

Seems totally sketchy from your description. Your instincts are probably onto something. When they ignored your concerns over others’ collusion … that would have been a red flag for me. Can you find a different stable? Sounds like you’re pretty much out of make up.

Staking for PLO cash seems somewhat sparse. I had looked into a CFP program to get the coaching I feel like I benefit from, however it’s a pretty raw deal for me imo (bluff the spot), just not enough coaching per month or whatever.

I feel like even if there is a significant chance of sketchy stuff going on, the benefit of coaching and access to resources makes staying with this stable more than worth it. For example I have access to this is PLO, monker, all plo mastermind and run it once material, idk.

it does become a moral question. But I’d rather be very certain before jumping ship.

In the months I’ve been working with the stable, I’ve improved at a rate that’s probably 10x as fast as I’d improve on my own. And I’m not exaggerating. The resources and community have been extremely helpful.

how much do you pay x)

A lot, and it's still worth it

you play at pokerbros, there was no omaha when i was on the site only holdem.
you have a stacking deal where you have free acess to monkey solver, plo mastermind and run it once.
must be a really expensive deal while monkeysolver costs 500 dollars the other stuff is like 100 dollars each month.
2,5k each year for training stuff only .. lol

how much do you make?

2.5K/year really isn't that much if you play 2/4

what the hell is RFI ?
Good luck at the tables.

Raise first in, like raising in an unopened pot.

Regarding how much I pay vs how much value I get, a lot of the value comes from coaching, both mental coaching and strategy coaching. Both are unlimited for me right now.

How much I make depends on how much I play

A positive update near the end of July!



With some run good helping out, I should be completely out of makeup or close to it and somewhat in profit from rakeback. Tournaments wins not included in this graph!

Glad to see even in 2022 there are still some cool blog type threads going in 2+2. I would personally be very uncomfortable in your situation with the poker club. I can understand why you are putting up with it given profitability and benefits.

I would also take that advice from the winning reg of 'stop bluffing' with a grain of salt. Fish ranges are also extremely wide and even if they go to showdown with wide ranges they are also forced to fold a lot of their weak hands, so it's a double edge sword. It's just a matter of being on the right side of the edge, working on better hand reading and picking up on stuff like timing tells can mean a lot of EV vs recreational players.

I've been playing on GG Poker lately and I can't believe how soft the tables are and how good the software is. I feel like there is a new poker boom since the covid pandemic, and most people (old grinders) haven't realized yet.

I would also like to add some tables from those mobile app sites once I move up to plo200 and plo500, do you think you can hook me up with a deal like that? Feel free to pm me.

Thanks for the thread and gl at the tables!

Hello all, this is Bocian, the CEO and the head coach of PokerNinjas (long time Polish PokerStrategy coach – MrBocian, Fejhoa on Stars and FTP, Bocian on Party, used to play up to 5k on regular basis, perhaps you can Google me somehow). We are indeed not visible on the web, because we don’t need to overly expand or advertise ourselves. Our organic growth is driven by the players we have and the players they bring to us. We believe we are the only Poker Stable on the Apps, and we certainly have the best contacts on this market (nobody except us, as far as we know, guarantees the regular payments and constant access to these games). KKJ (Nathaniel) is one of our newer players (joined us this year), but I feel we are being treated somewhat unjust in this thread. I’d like to address some topics here:

1. Here’s some of the strategy input from this thread for a start that is golden and especially useful on Apps:

https://gyazo.com/f798aaeca1ca909887fcd04978f67f88

This is some great input, sometimes the ultimate exploit passive line is the key to win huge in these games. On the other hand, oftentimes the GTO approach is not optimal for these games. It’s good to know when to switch gears and adapt. GTO is only the baseline here. We should understand the way Solver “thinks” and use it to our advantage, not following it blindly.

https://gyazo.com/a7b2720679e075b4e298472a0f6aadf6

Two things to notice here.

1. Sometimes some players are just bad and this guy probably was trying to “maximize his folding equity” with potting a hand like AJJT or AQT8 or sth.

2. The guy you’ve mentioned was deliberately trying to leave us due to some ego issues (long story), meanwhile negotiating a better deal from some other Stable (for what we’ve heard). We didn’t want to mention this in the main Group Skype thread because we thought it’s not worth it, but now I think we should have. He made his point – he was the very first person that left us this way, losing a ton of our money deliberately (probably) ever. We didn’t like it, he exploited our rules, but so be it. We’ve learned our lesson.

https://gyazo.com/4ed09d44b74c2c2d2116652df2d2dc86

1. Variance calculator says, that being close to breakeven within 80k hands with true winrate of 10bb/100 (with SD of 140, which is probably perfect for Apps) is around 2% - possible, but unlikely.

2. The rest of the input is very good, I agree, thanks!

https://gyazo.com/23f95adc913c842943e3d596a559f65f

This is a very good CR with a hand that is not happy to check-call (pared, no bdfd) and has some blockers to the board. Wp.

https://gyazo.com/916175ba2016965b09bafb21cb211c8e

Just no 😊

https://gyazo.com/082e03eba94b7b99cb60eeb269808163

Yeah, I’ve checked this account and asked the guyif this was his account (I have some lags in the system regarding new accounts), none of the tests went positive. Hero decided to not believe us somehow, but it’s his choice. Hmmm.

https://gyazo.com/831e17d6222ad115fd48da2b589ea92e

Also, when the guy wanting to leave us made happen the whole weird thread about “some colluding players”, the players mentioned (who are selecting the very best tables together but NOT colluding) offered to send their databases to ANY of the Stable members wanting to find any suspicious hands -and no one was interested. OP included. So OP can still delve into the depths of those databases to find any suspicious behaviour, if he’d like to. He’s welcome. I would love to see some, too, we work hard to not have any foul play in our Group. That would mean disaster for our business model long term.

https://gyazo.com/a40bf84810717989c817a2f7c39e75cd

Ah ok. Following the thread post by post. Thanks for purification!

https://gyazo.com/6aa0cd5a3186dc62e596c7a3e76b08ef

Just no, again. Just ask OP for the details if you’d like.

https://gyazo.com/be19ee7447a97b7cabd160c8c62d6a52

I don’t believe that is a good description of what was happening. I believe that was some suboptimal judgement at best. If OP wants to leave us, I have no problem with that, unless he doesn’t leave us with Make-Up. We have many players waiting to join the tests and we don’t need to force anyone to play with us. We can part our ways.

Guys, sorry for the long post, but one of our players noticed me that this thread existed and I had to straighten some things out. Thanks for understanding!

B

Thanks coach!

It makes sense that it didn't seem worth it to go into detail on the guy that got kicked/left. It was only in combination with the account issue that red flags started to go off for me. Neither one would have made me wary on it's own.

Feel like I should mention it again because it might be overlooked in face of the other posts, but I am not particularly concerned in any way about anything regarding the stable! However, I feel like the conclusions I drew are reasonable with the (incomplete) information I had access to.

For now, I am looking forward to finishing July and starting August strong! I feel like I have made a couple level up moments from watching the Richard Gryko This is PLO 6max section. So I'm looking forward to increasing my winrate and battling!

Thanks!

I asked the head coach for you, and we aren't doing any affiliate deals.

I'm also hoping there is a poker boom!

You should teach your coach to quote tweet. My head hurts from those screenshots.

!

Got moved down back to 1/2 for poor results for another 5k hands at 4card PLO, then analysis. Annoyed bc my volume basically gets slashed (I would prefer to not play .5/1 rn), it can be difficult to find many 1/2 4card PLO tables.

However it is going to give me some time to improve.

Feels like banging my head against a wall studying trying to achieve high evbb/100 winrates like 20bb/100 consistently every month.

Somebody earlier in the thread said spew adds up, so for this month I'm going to focus on the process more than studying, in order to minimize spots where I spew off. Focus on being focused when playing, taking care of my body, and trying to perform at a high level.

August Goals

-15 days in the gym

-no longer than 3 hours without a break during a session (if playing MTT then 5 minute break will have to do, but ideally longer break.)

-Keep water bottle with me when I play to focus when I feel my mind wander I can just take a drink of water

-Eat before session so I'm not playing hungry

-Get off around midnight so I'm not playing tired

-Schedule two days of no poker every week, can use to do schoolwork, hang out with gf and friends

-Play 7.5-9 hours per day

My plan with these goals is to not have ANY big punts (final pot 400+bb). Punt as in mostly indefensible play. Punting off 3k+ a month because I make dumb errors is extremely costly. And I'm not sure that study is the answer to this leak, because I KNOW the moves I make are incorrect, even sometimes in the moment.

Ideally I get into a rhythm, get back to crushing 1/2 and move back up to 2/4 soon!

After I am playing well at 2/4 my goal is to move up to 3/6, which from what I've heard is an extremely difficult leap. So I'm looking forward to the point where I can start challenging it!

Subbed, gl dude.

Thanks! GL at the tables, I feel like I have seen ur sn somewhere