ABOUT ME:
My screenname is portemilio. I've been playing Poker since I was 16. I started off playing poker on Runescape gambling sites where you'd buy coins ingame which had a $ value and deposit them on runescape poker sites. I found myself obsessed with the game since I was young. I specifically loved the HU format. At 16 i ran up 100$ to 20k when BTC was around 1.4k playing 6 max and 9max nlhe but ultimately got destroyed headsup because i lacked a lot of discipline and had major ego issues wanting to be the best. I always wanted to be the best and would get extremely angry when dealing with variance on top of the fact that I was an unstudied player. In college I transitioned to PLO. I got staked and coached but I wasn't winning no matter how hard I tried because of my serious BRM issues. I'd run up a couple of thousand dollars then instantly shot take 5/10 and lose it all and then go back to the lowest stakes to rebuild, rinse, and repeat. My senior year of college I decided I really wanted to give it my all. In class I'd bring my laptop and drill spots and this was the first form of studying I'd ever experienced (other than hundreds of hours of youtube videos and poker content that I consume). I significantly saw a change in my game. I've always been a highly intuitive player but with the baseline theory I developed I quickly skyrocketed though the ranks. I still had really poor mental game and not great BRM but I was able to run up my first 30k ish month in April of 2022. Unfortunately, I lost it all back shot taking 10/20 on ACR (very commend trend in my poker career). I had to take6 a fifth year of college because of a couple of other reasons but I always knew I was going to end up being a poker player. I dreaded school and felt it was the reason I wasn't succeeding because I still had to commit so many hours to school (studying Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Fluid Mechanics). I come from an Arab household and poker was not accepted at all but that didn't deter me. My fifth year I had the same routine where I'd study in class and play countless hours when I was back. I was also gaming a lot (League) so i decided to cut that out because I figured it was a waste of time if I really wanted to succeed. After I graduated (May 2022) I moved to Lebanon where my parents lived. I finally had no obligations, nothing holding me back and barely any expenses. I devoted all my time to poker (literally 15h days). After 6 months playing 1/2 - 10/20 on mainly bovada and BOL I made roughly 170k in profits. My mental health really suffered. I longed for social interaction; I had none of my friends in Lebanon and I started to not care about poker anymore. My health declined heavily and I felt despite the fact that I was winning that there was a constant judgement surrounding what I was doing. Once I showed my parents how much money I was making they couldn't complain about the journey I was decided to take ( as much anyways) but they were still greatly against it. My biggest mistake came when I decided to shot take 10/20 on Bovada. I was absolutely crushing Betonline and Bovada midstakes for atleast 8bb/100 over a sample of 400k+ hands, but when I played 10/20 nothing I did worked. I got absolutely crushed. My mental game was very strong at this point and I wasn't disheartened, I just figured it was variance. I ended up losing 45 ish buy ins (90k) running 70k below EV. This was almost 2/3 of my roll. I had heard rumors about collusion and cheating rings going on at 10/20 Bovada but I just figured that was bad regs crying about losing because the same was being said about every stake that I was consistently beating. I will never know if I actually got cheated as I have no definitive proof but I highly highly suspect that I did. At this point despite convincing myself that the loss of the money didn't affect me in reality my play began to change because nothing I did was working so I thought i had to deviate. I ended up going to EPT Barcelona in 2023 because I felt the need to prove to myself and everyone that what I was doing was a real job. I had around 50k to my name. I ended up losing 20k there playing 25/50 live (brm issues started coming back I really began to chase what I lost). Once I returned back to the US, started paying rent I prolonged into a 4 month period of break even/losing. I really thought at the time I was playing well I dont know maybe it was variance but looking back at it I had basically given up. I was playing 3h a day max and not putting in any volume at all (20k hands/month max). I'm using this 2+2 thread to hold myself accountable. I'm not going to give up on poker because I know I truly have a talent. I'm at a crossroads right now because im 24 and have little to no job experience so If I want to get a real 9-5 I'd really have to start looking now. I have a couple interviews with some investment banks just to appease my parents but it isn't something I'm taking seriously. On top of that it's really hard to explain to friends and family the journey I've been on because they don't understand variance at all. I'm not saying I didn't make any mistakes I definetly did, but to lose that amount of money is definetly gut wrenching I finally made it and saw it gone at the blink of an eye. I have a lot of fuel in me now and I'm ready to play atleast 50k hands/month. I'm not going to let anyone pressure me or feel the need to prove to anyone (online or IRL) that what I'm doing is valid, I'm just going to do it. It may get lonely but this is truly what I love and I know i will get rewarded.
I'm going to attach this month's results. I had very little money to my name, I moved to my uncles house where I'm paying no rent and felt a lot less pressure on my bankroll. I started at .5/1 and 1/2 and slowly started to shot take 2/5 and very little 5/10 volume. I played almost 72k hands this month, which is the most volume I've ever put in in a month in my life. Attached is the graph. Eventually when I fix my old computer I'll export the DB to my new one and merge them. I will be posting interesting hands and lines I play here as well as weekly-monthly updates. I want to hold myself accountable no matter what and am interested to hear people's thoughts. I only have the last two months of my play tracked I'll post them shortly as I had to buy a new computer
GL ME!

Also, decided to play a live game yesterday. I knew going into it the rake was insanely high. Its a 5/5 PLO game 10% 75$ max rake (15bb !). I genuinely dont even know if its beatable but the players there were absolute belugas which is why I decided to stay. I got in a couple massive pots where i got it in like 70%, ran it twice, and lost every single one. Ended up losing 4.8k yday. the 25 straddle was on a lot. I don't think I'll be going again but I definetly think I want to transition to live play more. The games are so soft and I feel like every spot was just so easy you just have to be patient which I'm really good at. I'm going to be searching for more home games with less rake and I'm planning an Atlantic City trip next weekend with a buddy of mine from college. Theres a 1k PLO tournament I'll be playing to which I've already sold 50% of my action and I'm going to be playing some 2/5-5/10 max 4 card PLO. I've never given the live grind a shot but I feel like it'd be easy

Damn, this thread goes hard when you don't look at it

Good Luck on the Journey back to HS PLO.

i was really debating between betting and checking flop i think in restrospect check is better bc i have playability with bdfd without it probably bet? given the action i like the bluff on the river. i dont think i have to jam tho its really hard for me to have a bluff here

Ambitions are high, hope the mental is strong! GL!

GL bro you sound like me when I was younger. Sounds like you’ve matured through all of those experiences

Live is soft, but that rake is unbeatable. If you’re in the northeast US check out Parx

I’m in the northeast. Would you say parx is better than AC for 4 card PLO? It’s similar distance away from me

Yeah for sure. Maryland use to be good too but I think a lot of the action is 5 card now

Had a great day today. I noticed when I first start the day though I’m always super rusty it takes me like 30 mins to get in the zone . I always lose money in that first 30 mins- 1h period. It’s not even through bad beats I’m just making plays I wouldn’t make. So I’m gonna start the day off from now w lower stakes and then slowly add everything up to 5/10. Going to be playing pretty low bc I like 5/10 rn just gonna play if the game is good, I’ll add it to my volume consistently when I have atleast 50 bis.
Other than that my mouse died at the end of the session causing me to lose 300$ and that really tilted me bc it was something I could control, so I ended the session early

I really hate 5c tbh

Killed it today really happy with my play.

This was a fun one. xx flop, he bets turn i call. he checks river i half pot praying he has aces, he raises and i jam and he snap calls w aces !! finally some good variance its been brutal

definetly caught some heat in the past couple of days which is nice bc ive been running extremely below ev for the past month esp at 2/5 so i feel like its fair! Won like 4 bis at 5/10 too which is nice. below are the may results so far!



I think i ran into an error with ignition card catcher. idk which hands are duplicates or if theyre being reported twice so i separated the databases of the catchre (on IPoker) and of the 24h after which goes on the ignition one, i contacted support so hopefully they resolve this. SO maybe i didnt actually play 72k hands last month lol. But without the possible doubled hands im still pretty happy with my WR and the volume i put in last month (around 56k hands in April) and my winrates at all stakes. I'm pretty sure some of the hands from the Ipoker database are hands not in my current database but we'll see!

Nice run, what's your name on ipoker?

Bovada card catcher shows up as ipoker I dont play on there

Taking the day off to spend time with my girlfriend. I obv think it’s important to not only poker but I’m ok w really good grind rn and everytime I take a day or two off I’m not in the flow I usually am in which is annoying. Going to have to figure out how to balance my social life and poker

update: she fell asleep. in the mix. the night games r fkn good

crazy sesh won 15 bis. gonna start incorporating night games into my routine for sure during the week. some crazy ass players in the field during late night. goodnight world

3B pot --> xx flop, he pot turn pot riv i call.
was close but if hes not overvaluing hands and is only repping 9T it looks like an intuitive call but sometimes they get tricky w hands like set + str8 blocker or even low str8s if they dont put u on a lot of 9T. but his polar bet on turn kind of got me to just sigh call riv

Nice call, well played

Caught a head cold. Terrible timing was rlly playing well I feel like death. Hopefully it’ll go away by tmr or the day after slept all day today

Buy Wick-Medinait bottle. Drink all at once before going to bed, and thank me later

It depends where you play live but live tends to be hard to beat the rake. I would stick with online. The games are still really good online. Way better then Texas Holdem. This is imo the best way to make money with online poker is doing through plo from mid to high stakes. Everything else is drying up. GL I will definitely follow this thread.

Well played but I don't tend to 3b this hand to often vs ep raise. Your draws are going to be dominated when they call your 3b and you end up in these tough spots on the river. Great call though. I think you have to call here though with the 9s cause its basically he has a nut straight or nothing. I guess he is capable of having 45 since he called 3b with that hand. I guess he can have that but from mp it is unlikely. I would of snapped him off for tilt value.