Hey guys,

I'm a 21 year old CE student living in US. I played NL recreationally for about 6 months back in 2018. I played my first hand of PLO 2 weeks ago and found the game very interesting and something I'd like to become very good at.

I believe the biggest obstacle I'll face during this challenge s avoiding self-destructive behaviors and maintaining self-discipline and consistency. I've always had some tilting problems and BRM-problems so to help that I'm going to stream the challenge on Twitch here ParkerShamblin Twitch and continually update my website parkershamblin.com and this thread with my graphs, hand histories and other stuff.

I'm doing this challenge so I stay in my BRM and so I have a log of my journey from Micro Stakes to Mid Stakes.

First goal to achieve is to get to PLO 50 with a BR of $2,000
Current BR: $1,000

I'll try to play everyday for 3-4 hours straight and to update graphs and hands 4-5 times a week.

A very ambitious challenge considering you only played for the first time 2 weeks ago.

What site are you going to play at and what's the smallest games which run there?

I agree this challenge is very ambitious. I'll be playing on Bovada and the smallest stakes there are $0.02/$0.05.

UPDATE: Starting at $0.02/$0.05 instead of $0.10/$0.25

I've decided to start at $0.02/$0.05 instead of $0.10/$0.25 because I don't believe I'm a winning player at PLO 25. I've only played 10k hands at PLO 25 but it's very apparent from that limited sample size that I'm not a winning player. So I've decided to move down to the lowest stake possible $0.02/$0.05 so I can lose as little as possible while learning the game.

I also had to withdrawal $500 from my bankroll for medical reasons so now our total bankroll is at $500 instead of $1000. This gives us 100 buy ins for our current stake of $0.02/$0.05 and if I lose 100 buy ins at $0.02/$0.05 then I either had to be trolling, tilted or unbelievably unlucky.

New BRM Rule: 100 Buy Ins
To move up to the stake I must have 100 buy ins i.e. if I want to move up from $0.02/$0.05 to $0.05/$0.10 I must have a $1000 bankroll.

For now that is all. This challenge is probably going to be a lot more difficult since I'm now starting at PLO 5 instead of PLO 25 but I think this decision was for the best.

Here's a public google drive sheet where I'll be logging all of my session results https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

gl!
I started 25 in november and now play 200. you can do it!

let me know if you want to talk strat.

Be more aggressive than 100 buyin rule at the micros. I’m not even sure if plo5 is beatable with the rake (guessing it is at Bovada?). Gl

PLO5 sounds like a cheaper place to learn and make mistakes, it makes more sense.

Good luck.

Finished with my first session. Lost a lot at the end but I feel content with the way that I played most of my hands. I did have one big hand that I played awful by calling an all in too light on the flop in a multi-way pot with nun-nut flush draw and open ender.

Second session completed. Ran a little bad with us ending up 4buyins under EV but I'm still happy with the session overall.

I noticed while playing PLO5 when I lose a flip or just run poorly it doesn't seem to effect my play or bother me too much. I'm glad that I made the decision to move down because now I can focus solely on improving and not on how much I win or lose during a session.

I'm really hoping after we get around 25-35k hands in at PLO5 we will start to see a winning trend but I wouldn't be surprised if we don't. I still have a lot of improving to do and honestly might be a losing player even at PLO5.

3rd losing session. Played decent all the way up to the end where I punted 2-3 buyins. Ran about 5 buyins below EV in this session.

Looks like things are off to a bad start but I'm just going to grind it out and keep improving. Eventually we should be a winner.

Maybe post some hands/concepts you struggle with. Can do my best to help you out and I’m sure others will chime in as well

How do you assess that you played decent?

I don't really have a quantitative approach to evaluating how I played during a session. Generally after a session I just have "feeling" that I played good or bad. Sometimes I might look through a couple of big hands after a session is over and see how I feel about them afterwards but nothing more.

Now that I think about it... I did actually jump the gun yesterday and purchase MonkerSolver. To develop a more quantitative approach maybe I can take a couple hands after a session and run sims on them to see how my play differs from the Solver. What do you think of this approach?

If you'd be willing to share how you evaluate your own sessions, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Not sure where to start since I have so many leaks. I know a majority of my leaks are in my post-flop play but I'm unsure how to properly go about fixing them.

I just purchased MonkerSolver with the hope of improving my post-flop play but I don't have any sims so I'm still finding it difficult to improve my post-flop play. If you have any sims you'd be willing to share with me, I'd greatly appreciate your help.

4th losing session. 1 huge punt. Need to keep improving.

I don't really study per se or go over the sessions. I might review a few hands to check what my equity in the spot was and whether I made the right play or not.

Generally at the table I am aware of whether i'm picking good spots or if i'm being a bit too reckless and pushing some bad spots. Usually the mistakes for me start pre-flop and playing a weaker holding I should probably fold which then turns into something ok on the flop which ends up costing money.

Perhaps post a few hands up here? I'd say the first part of the game to work on is pre-flop because a lot of hands in PLO can look rather nice but are actually trash.

Good luck. I just started playing PLO and on Bovada as well. Does 5NL run consistently?

Yes from what I seen 5NL runs 24/7 on Bovada.

Had our first winning session today.

Biggest thing that turned me from a loser to winner in PLO is understanding preflop play. It’s boring etc., but honestly in my opinion is the most important part of PLO at low stakes especially. When you start out you see a good looking ds hand that after looking into you realize is burning money.

Never used monker and still don’t study as much anymore, but I’ve used training sites where others (who are presumably better than me) analyzed monker results and put it in a digestible format to utilize. I’ve found rio useful to do this and honestly I’m sure the essential package at your stakes is a worthwhile investment.


Going over individual hands to a point can be useful. At the same time though if you don’t know the correct play then it can be a detriment and build bad habits. I’ve always found concepts to be more beneficial when studying (e.g., what sizing to use on a paired board when you raised utg type thing).

I started taking plo seriously about 3 years ago and have been winning from plo200-600 over that span. It’s definitely still doable especially on US sites.

Day 6. Not a good session overall. I was just trying to finish my volume goal for the day and not really focused on playing my hands properly.

Need to make a lot of changes to my post-flop play.

Nice session. Made some good calls on the river and played little bit tighter than usual pre-flop.

I think I have a lot of flawed thinking in my post-flop play that I need to sort out. Especially in multiway pots (which are quite common at PLO5) I find myself confused on what action to take. Over the next week, I'll spend most of my study time towards improving my post-flop play in heads-up and multiway pots.

Why so obsessed with learning post-flop, preflop comes first in every hand