I am an ex-full time poker player who now plays only a few hours a week. I continue to play poker mainly due to the love of (or hate of) the game.

I aimlessly started a blog late 2022 and quickly found that I liked posting key hands I had played along with some post-hand analysis. I made a conscious effort in the previous blog to cover hands I misplayed. It's been a great process because I have been misplaying way more hands than I had realised. I've cleaned up many parts of my game just from writing up hands I played - I recommend that to anyone. Here is a link to the previous blog.

2022 was a disappointing year for me poker-wise. While I posted a winning year, I felt my game was very rusty compared to the standard I had played in previous years. I put this down to complacency and not working on my game for majority of the year. My biggest leak for 2022 was in live poker: I gave away thousands of dollars by trying to bluff rivers against opponents who had strong hands. Toward the end of 2022, as I played on a new app, I had to start learning 5c PLO. I had played 5c here and there on GG poker but quickly found I needed work. My main leak in 5c PLO was being too loose preflop. A second weakness was a poor understanding of all-in equities. Preflop is easy to fix. All-in equities is just a matter of plugging hands into a calculator - which I now do frequently.

I have no poker related goals for 2023 as poker now takes a back seat to my job, my family, my fitness goals and my social life. I plan on playing in the range of 4-6 hours a week so can range anywhere from 200-300 hours for the year. My primary source of poker volume at time of writing is an app (Pokerrrr 2) that a friend hooked me up with. The app mainly runs regular PLO and 5c PLO. I've only been on the app a few months but so far it is more convenient, and more profitable, than playing live poker. Should the app die off at some point, I will switch back my volume to live poker at Crown Casino, Melbourne, Australia. In 2022 I said to myself that I would go to WSOP in 2023 but that is now unlikely due to work commitments, though hopefully still a chance.

My plan for this blog this year is to continue writing about hands I've played. I intend to include tough decisions, big pots, big misplays, and anything else I find interesting.

If you're reading, GL in your own poker journey.

First interesting hand for the year. PLO5:





On flop I'm facing a pot sized bet and not closing the action. I really can't decide if this is too loose on the flop. Only 6 outs to the nuts, though I have some non-nut flush draws that can be good and nut backdoor spades.

Running some equities (ignoring the player behind) I get that I have 33% on the flop. This stat alone doesn't help me. One cool use for OO I found is seeing my equity breakdowns on different turn cards. Interestingly, the Ah gives me far more equity than other heart turns. Although it makes perfect sense, I must admit I didn't consider this previously:



I can do the same thing for spade turns. See the difference in equity between a 6 and 3 compared to the 2? That must come from the backdoor straights and backdoor trips whereas the 2s doesn't give any additional equity.



Given the equity distributions on spades and hearts, plus my 6 outs to the nuts, I now feel much better about calling the flop. The third player in the hand will change things but my gut feel is that it wont be enough to make the flop a fold.

This one not really an interesting hand, just a decent sized pot. I only had 53% equity on the flop!

There is a mistake in this hand somewhere. I have Ac Ks Jc 7c

Just lost $2.8k pot.

River decision was very tough.





When he gets to the river, I think his range is predominately AA:dd. Some other hands he might have include AA with a backdoor flush draw that turned some straight draws. E.g. AA98 or AAT9 with hearts. I didn't expect many AQT because it doesn't have enough equity to call the turn vs a pot sized bet, but maybe if he holds the Ad he might call with the intention of bluffing diamond rivers? Even that I think is a bit of a stretch.

Anyways, since I put him mainly on AA:dd I felt that he can bluff these since people love to bluff blockers in hand. It's now a matter of whether I have the required equity to bluff catch.

If I give him a range of AA:dd and AAQT then I have a whopping 75% equity and its an easy call - providing he actually bluffs all missed flush draws. If I then give him some AQT hands as well (constrained by preflop action and a diamond) then my equity reduces to 43% - still a call.

The final part of the decision making process is knowing whether he actually bluffs all AA:dd or not. Without knowing the player well, I have no idea. If he isn't bluffing them, then I just gave away $880. You could look up solvers all day but unless you actually know whether people will bluff the combos or not, you are still guessing.

Just had a preflop spot where I had no idea of what to do.

Limper is a very weak player and I think my hand is find to raise, but taking it multi way at short SPR? I'm conscious of being dominated by bigger straight draw hands like JT & T9. Also having single suit only plus small suits is not good multi way. I chose to fold. My gut feel was that the hand can get me in trouble multiway and I try to listen to my gut feel.



I later ran a very rough calculation. I know its not going to be accurate but I think an approximation like this is fine. I get that I have 26% equity (assuming the player behind never folds). The high equity comes from the EP player having a wide range and the other players having a big pair and/or high cards. I can't be certain but it seems like a perfect rundown actually works well in this spot.

This is a cool hand where I call the flop to play a multiway turn with nothing but draws to multiple bluffs.

[image]Ai0wART.png[/ima [image]

I recall back to the days where I played poker for a living. Those days I felt the constant pressure of needing to play and needing to win. The pressure is emotionally draining. These days, I have a full time job and am adequately bankrolled for the games I am playing. It allows me to play with much more freedom which makes me a better overall player. I used to grind solvers and study hard. I don't do that anymore yet feel like I am playing better due to better mental game I now have.

At the moment, all my poker volume is played on this app. The games are great and the stakes are high enough. I envision this app sooner or later dying out which always happens: the fish dry up and the games dont run. Until then, my focus is to continue putting in a few hours a week and reviewing hands in this blog.

Another thing I have started doing is actively posting my in the Omaha threads on 2+2. A few people are posting hands for review and I am enjoying the process of submitting my analysis. There isn't much discussion on there: my guess is that anyone who is taking poker seriously isn't using 2+2 as their place of learning.

I wish there were some other games for me to play. I live in Melbourne so Crown casino is the only place I can play live but the PLO action is pretty much non-existent. All the PLO action in Melbourne is at home games. There is also no online poker in Australia - I miss the days of Pokerstars.

Most blogs have a journey or a goal. Mine does not. I'd like to have something I'm working towards but at this point its just trying to log some volume on this app whenever I can. So its continuing to play the PLO games on this app - including 5card PLO which I am enjoying.

So I'm going to continue to just post hands here. If you are following, I hope you find these hands interesting. I'm learning a lot by reviewing the hands (using Odds Oracle) and writing out my findings.

How often do you fold the second nuts to a min-raise?

I only need to be good 20% of the time to break even.

The following hand is the biggest mistake I have made in a long time:





The hand starts off fine with a limper in the HJ and the SB coming in for a raise. I'm in the middle blind with a decent hand and call to see a flop.

The SB threatens a strong range when he cbets into two people. But that's fine with my top pair, gutshot and bdfd.

Turn is where it gets real dicey. The SPR is around 1.6 and he cbets for half my stack. I have top two pair and if I'm a level 1 thinker maybe I get excited and go all in. But here I know this isn't a good spot. I'm up against a range of mostly AK+ which has me pretty ****ed. If I allow for the best possible case and give him some 2p that I beat (e.g. A7,A6) plus some combo draws then I'm still only around 31% equity. In reality I think my equity is much lower than that.

At this point I believe the correct play is to fold. And in game I felt this too. The only problem is that I found myself getting the money in.

This mistake is not a technical game leak. I intuitively knew that this was a fold so the mistake is either a mental game leak or some other psychological leak.

This hand we go way outside the realms of GTO.

Preflop I'm in the middle blind with an average hand but with the pot odds I complete.

I flop trips with two over-kickers and check into the field. Upon reflection, I prefer betting because my hand has too much equity and gives away too much by giving away a free card.

On the turn, I bet since I recognise my hand is likely not good (but can improve) and I want to try fold out some weak flushes. Getting raised was certainly a surprise and normally I would weigh heavily to K7 or K3 but I had been watching this character play and I had a feeling that this wasn't the case here so I put in a reraise. As he called, again I would put him on a very strong range but for some reason I wasn't buying it with this guy.

On the river, as I chose to bet full pot to run the bluff, I did feel nervous that this guy could indeed call a flush or a hand like K3. I loaded up and went with it anyway, but alas, he was able to call me with a nut flush and not a single blocker to a full house.

In game I felt this was a difficult spot. Normally I would range him as having AA only with me having a pair+gutshot I have enough equity to call.

The only problem is in PLO5 im not 100% how often he has hearts to go along with his AA, and, if he does have hearts, what does my equity look like.

I did a very rough calculation in my head (under time pressure) and gave myself 13 outs. I figured that a PSB of 5/7 I would have enough equity to call.


]

Playing this turn felt tough af.

Firstly, both betting and checking felt uncomfortable. I have no heart blocker and nearly every river card allows a straight. Apart from having top 2p, my hand can't improve and barely blocks texture shifts. If I bet, I'm building a pot with a weak hand. But if I check, I allow him to realise all equity and have a tough time bluff catching on the river.

I decided to bet because I thought building a pot with a weak hand would be less of a mistake then letting him realise equity and having to play a difficult river. Then he check raises!

Now again, I'm faced with a difficult decision where both options are uncomfortable. I feel like folding because my hand only has 4 outs to improve but folding feels too weak especially when I block the top sets.

I decide to call mainly because "lolz i have top 2 pair" and can't really find a justification for any other play. I felt particularly lost in this spot because I'm not sure what range to put him on. I guess (KK,TT) are the main candidates but I'm not sure how the player pool plays combo draws here e.g. nut fd + straight draw. Against that range, I have pretty bad equity and I should fold.

After the hand, I asked a friend what he would do in this situation. His intuition was to fold to the check-raise but would check it out on Vision, Phil Galfond's PLO tool. It turns out that my hand is indifferent when it comes to betting and indifferent again when it faces the check raise. The interesting thing for me is that both spots that felt uncomfortable to me are indifferent according to Vision.

In terms of playing a hand that is indifferent, one approach could be to use a randomiser to make the decision, or, make the decision with player read considerations. If I could play the hand again, I would still bet turn (though maybe not for pot) but then fold facing the check-raise.

My cards for this hand are Ad Ks Tc 5c 2s.

I have a perfect double suit rundown and open from UTG - should be standard.

We go 5 ways to the flop! I flop a beautiful wrap at an SPR of 2.4

I checked because I was hoping a player IP would bet a pair of T allowing me to check raise. This could even work out to be a post-flop squeeze if a player IP bets and one of the blinds call. Alas, no one bets the flop and we go to a turn where I hit another wrap - albeit very non-nut and the board now two-tone.

As the blind leads out for pot and I'm pretty sure I have enough equity to call. Plus my hand plays pretty straight forward on rivers.

We go heads up to the river and I brick my draw. He checks and I have the option to bluff but at SPR less than half (plus all draws missing) I decide not to fire. It probably wouldn't have worked. It means in this spot I have 0 bluffing range and I think that is fine.

After discussing the hand with a couple of friends the comment from both was that potting the flop is better. It very well might be. 5 way pots are certainly unique, maybe I push everyone off whatever their equity is and I take down the pot with 9 high. At the same time, if I had have got it in on the flop I would have lost so saved $126 in that scenario. Although I can make an argument for checking, I do think potting the flop is better when I have this short of a stack and the remaining players are all deep because the bet leverages some additional fold equity.

This is just a fun one. One of those spots where you feel like a genius when it works and an idiot when it doesnt

Crown Casino have changed their PLO game structures and have introduced a 2/5 PLO. It's an excellent game that perfectly sits between the still existing 1/3 PLO and the previous 5/5 PLO.

I played last night and misplayed a few hands which I will examine here:

Hand 1

This hand is one of the more interesting hands of the night. I limp UTG with As Qc 3s 2c. I know that limping this hand is not technically correct but the game is so soft I think I can give up some preflop EV to make it back post flop. Though I should reconsider whether this particular hand actually allows me to do that.

LJ raises to 20 and HJ calls, I call.

Flop is Qs 9h 4s I flop top pair with nut fd. I check, LJ checks and HJ bets 50 into (60ish) and here I consider a check-raise. The player in question plays loose pre and post and can get OoL. I ruled out the check-raise because I didn't want to isolate myself against a hand like Q9 or better. I also don't mind letting the player behind in to give me a better price on my flush draw. The LJ comes along.

Turn is Ad now giving me top 2p. I decide to lead out for 150 because if the player IP has Q9 hes going to check it back and with the LJ in here also I dont want the turn to check through with so many straight draws available. LJ folds to the 150 and the IP goes all in. I only have about 200 behind and call it off. The IP player has something like AA96 for top set and I lose.

After seeing his hand, I regret my flop decision because its now obvious a check raise would have won me the hand. It leaves me questioning my reads. I had given him too much credit on the flop even when I knew he could get OoL. It was a mistake to give him too strong of a range and I need to be careful of this in the future.

Hand 2

UTG1 opens to 15, gets two callers and gets to me in the BB. I have A K K 9 single suit to the K. I squeeze to around 80, only the UTG1 calls after he gives it some thought.

Flop comes Q J 6 rainbow with a backdoor fd for me. SPR here is a little over 2 and I'm thinking about whether to cbet or not. On one hand, I know this board is good for his range. On the other, my guess is the guy is likely opening (and calling) a little looser than what he should be. I decide that overpair+gutter+bdfd is good enough to pot the flop. As I'm about to make the bet, I notice some body language that he is strong. But its too late. I've already made up my mind and I was just about to put my chips in. I continued with the bet even though I had the last minute read. I pot the flop, he goes all in, I call. He has something like QJ9[7 or 6] and I lose.

If he has a hand like QJ97 I have 42% equity but if he has QJ96 I have only 31% equity! I really need that bottom card available to counterfeit his 2p but also if he has the bottom pair and it hits on the turn, it gives me only 2 outs on the river.

This hand I could have saved around $350ish on the flop by check folding if I was a little more in tune with my read. What an edge to be had if I could just nail a few of those live tells!

Hand 3

Fish makes it around over one limper, I 3b from the blinds with 4c 6c 7h 8h, the fish 4b me and I call.

Flop is 2c 2h 3d I flop gutter and two bdfds. I check and he puts me all in. For me its $270 to call and the pot is $705. I'm tempted to call because I think that a gutter + two bdfds might just have enough equity.

I sit there and try do some maths in my head and decide that its just way too close and I'm probably not pushing any equity.

I now check the maths and I need around 22% equity to break even and I have 21% equity. Good thing I didnt call.

End

Overall, it was a bad session for me being down $2.5k

I certainly misplayed some other spots so I can't really put it down to variance. I played a little too loose preflop, I'm too tempted to try and play hands to get in there against soft lineups but last night I probably pushed it too far. I also played a couple of post flop spots a little too loose where I just got it in too loose.

Not too worried though, even my C game should be enough to win just didn't get many spots. Some major tightening up required on my part so I don't give the money back.

2/5 PLO at Crown again last night. All the money I lost the night before, I won back.

Very first hand of the night and I have bought in for the minimum with $200. I'm in BB with Kh Jd 6d 3c. EP raises for min and gets 5 callers to me. I call an extra $5 getting something like 10-1.

Flop comes Kd 5h 2d. I flop top pair, 3rd nut fd and gutshot. I check to the HJ who bets 40 (60), the BU calls and its now on me. Because I have bought in for the min, I only have $190 here and can check-raise all in if I want. The HJ is a regular, winner in the games, but tends to play a high VPIP. The BU, also a regular, is an older guy probably in his 60s.

I have to put both players on a range and guess if my hand is good enough to check-raise all in. Starting with the BU, he has 0 slowplays, most likely a better fd or a K with kickers/additional playability. The HJ is a bit more tricky, will mostly have 2p+ or the occasional high equity combo draw with some nut component.

This is a very difficult spot to run in Odds Oracle. 3 ways, I have only 33% so jamming here would be a mistake if both players got in their entire range. However, I do think the BU will have some folds. If he has a hand like AK with kickers/gutter or something like K with Q high diamonds, or even K with all high kickers, then I think he can fold all these.

The times the BU folds, I have about 50% equity with the HJ player but if BU calls then my equity drops to only 20%. The BU folds around half the time.

With these inputs, I expected the EV calc to show jamming here is a losing play but jamming turns out to make $27!

I did indeed check-raise all in, HJ calls. the BU folded and board runs out running 7s. I end up winning after he shows K2 and mucks the other cards

This is a hand from last week at crown 2/5 PLO. Most hands have a blind raise to 10 utg - including this hand.

I open HJ to 25 (the CO had posted 5 to come in), BU calls, SB calls, BB folds, blind raise calls. I have Qs Jh 5h 4s

Flop comes Kh Qh 4d. I flop top and bottom two pair plus 2nd nut flush draw.

Checks to me, I bet 70, BU calls, SB raises to 300 with 50 behind, blind raise folds, now on me.

The BU and I are 1k deep at this point so re-raising is a big decision.

A few factors to think about:

- BU's flop range
- SB's flop raising range
- How often does BU fold if I shove?
- If BU folds, how much equity does my hand have vs SB range?
- If BU calls, how much equity do I have 3 ways?

After giving some ranges to both the BU and SB it turns out my hand has terrible equity. What's worse is that the BU has a hand that can stack the flop around 60% of the time.

This makes shoving my hand on the flop a horrendous misplay - which is exactly what I did.

The BU folds, the SB never shows and my top/bottom two pair is good.

There is a big lesson here to also review the hands that you win. It's easy to scoop the pot and think that the hand was played well. This hand was severely misplayed so I have to recognise the positive variance and be mindful the next time I think I'm running bad.

As I was writing this blog post, I discovered something very interesting that I hadn't thought about before.

This hand I have Kh Ks Qh Jh 3h.

Preflop is a looseish call but I have the BU and play for a set-mine spot multiway. Preflop likely to be a losing call.

On the flop, checks to me and with 2nd set + gutshot I make a bet in this 4 way flop. I note that I have no diamonds which is not good and having second set on an A board can also be dangerous.

Turn things get crazy. BB leads out for pot (almost all in) and the preflop raiser shoves! I have $800 behind so this is a big decision for me. The key to stacking this turn or not all comes down to whether the CO player can have AA or not. In game, I thought that the CO would show up with AA often. I also thought that I could have AA often because there are plenty of AA combos that I don't 3b pre. However, here is the crucial part. Since the BB's range almost always contains an A, the CO knows I can't have AA. This allows him to stack the turn way more comfortably.

Given that I now know the CO knows I can't have AA, I need to assign the CO a far more wider range. Assigning a wider range, the equity of my 2nd set now increases significantly.

How did I realise this? Playing around in odds oracle, I noticed the calculations were behaving unusual and it was because the equities were so sensitive to ranges containing AA or not. It was then that I realised the CO can know that by holding a lone A I can never have AA

It has been 2.5 months since I last posted.

I was playing on an app at the time but I have since quit. My agent told me the owners had sold the club and I didn't feel comfortable playing under new ownership. I get paranoid that app games aren't clean and this particular one I had trusted since my agent knew the people who owned it and played there himself. So I cashed everything out into USDc and now I need to decide what to do with it. Probably put it into BTC or ETH.

After quitting the app I haven't played much poker. I have played at Crown a couple of times with the (relatively) new 2/5 PLO game. The 2/5 PLO action started off excellent but recently it looks like the fish are moving back to 1/3 PLO.

One drawback about the 2/5 PLO is that the max buy in is $500. This is actually good since it encourages some of the weaker players to play, but the games usually play with everyone agreeing to blind raise $10 UTG. The game becomes 2/5/10 with 500 stacks so everyone playing with 50bbs (until it gets deep and then the game gets good). 2/5/10 is better for the hourly rate and it does increase the action but being a 50bb game is a little less enjoyable and its not good for the weaker players. I would love to see the 2/5 have a 10 live straddle and max buy in $1,000 but deep down I know that this is too much. The game would be too intimidating for weaker players and it wouldnt run as much.

I'm winning at $10/hr on PLO at crown so far this year over 43 hours - barely any volume at all. This is well under expectation. I predict that a $100/hr winrate is possible - maybe even higher in some lineups.

My plan for the year is to continue putting in small volume here and there. Maybe 150-200 hours total for the year.

I'm going to talk about a big hand from a recent 2/5 PLO session that I wasn't involved in. There was a $3k pot, 3 ways all in with 1 player having to call off $1.2k on the flop.

UTG+1 tries to raise 15 but the dealer calls a string raise and only allows a limp. MP next to act makes it 20, gets 2 callers and back to the original limper who now pots to 102. All players call and they go 4 ways to the flop

Ac Tc 9d BB checks, original limp/raiser checks, MP player bets 100 (406). Now I can't remember if the last player calls or not but he only had $90 in front - him calling or not is not relevant so I will assume he folds. The BB calls, the original limp/raiser goes all in for around $220 and now the MP player jams four about $1,300! It's now on the BB and she is in the tank for a long time. She has the $120 she has already called and has to call off her remaining $1,200. She has Qc Jd 8s 7d for a full wrap. She makes the call, makes a straight and scoops a $3k pot.

She actually has a pretty profitable call and in fact could be a favourite 3 ways. If I give the limp/raiser AA and the MP player a bunch of 2pairs, sets, combo draws then the BB is actually a favourite:



The main pot is locked up for the first $120 she calls, the remaining $1k is a sidepot with MP. So if I remove the limp/raiser from the equation she still has 47% equity

I am UTG and there is a solid losing fish in the BB so I want to play hands with him. I am dealt Ah Kh 8d 6c and limp it in. Limping is usually not a good strategy but you gotta play hands with losing players. I don't want to raise because if I get 3b I have to fold but I can limp and call a raise. There are a few more limps and the BU raises, we go multi way to the flop.

Flop is As Ks 2d I flop top 2p but have no spade. Check to the BU who bets 100 into 200. The action is on me, he has 300 behind and I cover. If I choose to raise pot, its 500 which puts him all in (he has around 300 after betting 100).

I have 2p and most people would pile the money in without thinking but I want to consider the hands he will stack the flop. Firstly, he is a competent regular who is raising over multiple limpers and should expect the hand to go multiway. He will have a reasonable preflop range. Secondly, he can't be betting the flop too light because of the multiway nature (was 4 or 5 ways to the flop).

His cbetting range will contain strong hands such as: sets,2p, combo draws and I can't think of too many bet/folds. My equity vs this range is around 35%



So if I jam the flop and he never folds, I'm risking 400 to win 1,000 which means I need 40% equity.

However, he might have some bet/folds on the flop. He needs to fold 20% of the time for me to break even against his calling range. I don't think he will fold 20% so I rule out folding.

What about calling and jamming a non-spade turn?

Approx 50% of turns are non-spades and non-straights so I could call to jam on a brick. It turns out that this is a losing play (assuming he has no turn folds): a) I don't have enough equity on the turn for when we get it in, and, b) I'm check folding too high of a percentage.

I did in fact call to play a turn. The turn came a spade so I checked. He checked back.

River paired the 2, I checked and he bet all in 300 into 400. Now, I only beat a bluff. I chose to fold because I didn't think he had enough bluffs. Lo and behold, he showed a bluff!!

This hand really made me second guess myself. First, he showed up with a hand I never thought he had. So now I need to update my reads on him in terms of what ranges he can have preflop and what hands he bets on the flop multiway. Second, by writing this blog post, I learn that calling to jam a non-spade turn is actually a losing play (though I kind of already had a feeling that was the case). The best play (given my read at the time) was simply to fold the flop. It's just painful to fold top 2p.

People reading this might think it's ludicrous to fold the flop with 2p but if my read had have been correct then it was in fact the best play. And folding those spots is where the big money is made. I still believe folding is the best play (readless) and going all in on the flop here is the exploitative play.

The big takeaway from this hand for me is to know which people I can stack lighter against.

Going to crown tonight. Hopefully improve on my year to date:

Following up from last weekend's session. Very swingy :

- Up 1.3k early
- Then lost it all
- Buy back in and 3x my stack again
- Dwindle away to lock in 200ish win

The game real soft. Start of playing very solid but as the session progresses I find myself wanting to play more hands against the loose players and end up giving back a lot of EV. There are a couple of regs who play many hands preflop (huge leaks) but then play more solid post flop.

My strategy definitely beats them but I get too impatient and start giving back the EV by playing too many hands.

Need to be more patient to clean up the loose regs.

There has been some great action for 5-card PLO H/L on ACR and over the past couple of months I've been playing at stakes $0.50/$1.00 to $3/$6.

At first I was just playing this game because it was fun to play a different format but as I play the game more I've really grown to like it.

Even though I have only been playing this game a few months, it feels like there is some good value in these games.

My plan from here is to continue playing Big O on ACR until either the games die off or I feel like its not profitable.

I intend on posting my results in here along with some hand histories and analysis.

For results, Holdem Manager saves the results for this formant but the software can't record the hole cards. ACR provides financial results history and I'm currently trying to reconcile that against HEM records. My current HEM says im down a few thousand while ACR says I'm up a few thousand.

If I am able to reconcile between HEM and ACR I will post graphs of my progress.