Hey all. I'm cross-posting this from my blog b/c I had a lot of fun updating my challenge thread here when I did my last challenge.

It's been a while since I've done a poker challenge, and I can think of no better time than now to start another. My last one was my 100 hours in 7 days 'Poker Marathon Challenge' attempt from late last year.

So what makes now such a good time? Well, I am never more motivated than when I challenge myself and I always play my best poker when I am most motivated. And I feel like I need to be playing my best poker right now, and a lot of it.

The year so far has not been kind to me. My volume has been low, the quality of my play has been poor and my run-good has been non-existent. There are plenty of reasons why all that has happened but let's just say that here I am - after my last withdrawal and seemingly weeks without a winning day, my poker balance is sitting right around the $1k mark. I have no qualms with making a deposit and continuing to trudge through the days - but it might be fun to try and run it up. Enter this challenge! And what do we say to a challenge?..



Now conventional & prudent bankroll management suggest that I would probably need to play PLO $0.10/$0.25 or something. But we're not going to do that. First it's because the $1k I am using isn't my "bankroll", it's just what I have on Stars atm. Second is because i'm already taking a step down in stakes by starting at $0.50/$1 or $1/2 which is where I intend to start - I can still eek out a respectable winrate at those stakes that wouldn't hamper my long term goals too much. Lastly is because this challenge is intended to force me to play my very best poker - if I drop too low in stakes I might fall victim to the trap of not being able to take the games seriously. Likewise if I simply make a deposit and continue playing as I am atm I can easily be auto-piloting my bankroll away. Taking the time to take a step back, evaluate, set goals, clear my head, focus and attack the tables is the best thing I can do for myself and my poker game right now.

Speaking of my goals - what are they for this challenge? I'll set my end goal as having 100 buyins for 5/10, and the end date that I want that by as September 31st 30th (30 days hath september..god damn roy it's the first one!) That will allow me to comfortably play my regular tables and allow for taking shots and sitting in bigger games when I see fit. It's also something I think I have a reasonable shot at accomplishing. I'm also going to cheat a little and use my SNE rewards to help me along the way. I'm starting with a fresh bank of FPPs but the rewards will still help me trod along if things do start to go stale. Speaking of SNE - On top of my goal of 100 buy-ins, I also want to make about 350k VPPs throughout the challenge. This will put me on a good pace to hit my million by year's end and contribute about 30% to my 100 BI goal when all is cashed in.



If I fail (read: busto the account) I don't think I'll attempt it again - I'll just make a deposit and start back at higher stakes. I might start a separate challenge of some other sort for when that happens should I feel I need to motivate myself further but that's a bridge that hopefully won't need to be crossed cause my rambo run-it-up challenge can't fail.. can it? Of course it can. PLO is a game with crazy high variance. No matter how well I play or how high my winrate could be if I am playing my A game all the time and never faltering, there's still a legit chance things go pear shaped. That outcome may even be the favourite. But with good table and seat selection, proper tilt control and the focus required allowing me to play my best - I think I can eek out a significant winrate at the tables and with a smidgen (or truck load) of luck on my side, this might just work out nicely.

First and foremost though I have got to get my mental game sorted before I even attempt the challenge. Losing/breaking even at poker for an extended period will take it's toll on just about anyone, and I am certainly no exception. I've allowed myself to get distracted a lot lately and my focus has been split 100 different ways - this leads to poor poker. I haven't been adhering to a routine sleep schedule resulting in inadequate quality and quantity of sleep - this leads to poor poker. My diet started slipping, about 6 months ago, so it is well and truly slupped (new word, nailed it) by now - this leads to poor poker. I've been working out a bit, but it's been mostly 1 or 2 intense days a week with 5-6 sedentary days - leading to poorer poker. There's definite improvement to be made. I'll be working on all these things throughout the challenge.

I am going to get a coaching session with mental game coach Jared Tendler next week, and I am about to start a 7-day "mindfulness intensive" meditation program created by my friend and fellow poker player Yaniv "Sentin9" Ronen. I'll post a review on that when I am done; I have high hopes. I have finally downloaded and installed Poker Juice - what looks to be the next generation in poker training software - and will post a review of that too after I've had a good chance to play around with it. I'm going to commit to doing 10,000 steps a day to ensure I stay active and get out of the house. I'll meditate daily, eat right, and limit my caffeine to 1 coffee a day + green tea only.



On paper, I feel like I am doing everything right. Or I'm about to be at least. I'll try to keep the updates flowing, and initially I want to be updating on a daily basis. Wish me luck!

Good luck man, will be following

GL!

Woke up today nice and early ready to hit the ground running. I completed day 1 of the 7-day meditation course i'm doing, had a good breakfast, stretched/exercised and am about to set out my BRM rules and start my first sesh.

I'm starting with $1k which is 10 BIs for $0.50/$1. I don't want to play any lower, and I want to be as aggressive as possible so i'll stick to a 10 BI bankroll per level at the early limits. As I move up i'll need a bigger BR to play higher stakes due to tougher games/lower winrate/higher effective variance. Once I move up, if I lose enough to put me back at 10 BIs for the lower level (or 20 at higher stakes) i'll drop for a bit until I can re-grind and move up. This is bound to happen but

BR @ $1k -> $0.50/$1
BR @ $2k -> $1/$2
BR @ $4k -> $2/$4
BR @ $5k -> $2.50/$5

After 2.50/5 I want to work with 20 BIs.

BR @ $12k -> $3/$6
BR @ $20k -> $5/$10
BR @ $40k -> $10/$20

And that should see me through to my final goal of $100k BR / 100 BIs for $5/$10.

I'll be playing full stacked at the lower stakes but once I get to the higher end I'll be buying in shallow to reduce variance and keep my effective BR higher. I'll also game select a lot more and won't necessarily play the highest stakes my BR "allows" me to - ie with a BR of $20k+ I will still likely grind 2/4 a lot. I imagine a lot of my volume will be at 2.50/5 zoom too as that's where most of the liquidity of games are today, especially during off-peak hours.

Roy, how many tables do you plan to play? It's a fun challenge and you don't need me to tell you this but with the shear aggressiveness of your BRM during it this is essentially going to be a test of how good you run.

It'll be a good sweat nonetheless and I hope you run ludicrous and get there.

I think i'll start out with 6 regular tables or 3-4 zoom tables until I get my BR high enough to start adding more at the 2/4 level.

GL ROy. Always liked reading your posts in the PLO forums. I'll cetrtainly be following.

Question about your BR strategy. When you hit a new tier, i.e. $2k do you have x amount of buyins before you drop back?

So when I hit $2k i'll be playing 1/2, if I drop back to $1k i'll move back down to $0.50/$1. That means I could be playing 1/2 with a BR of $1200 if I lose a few buyins immediately after moving up, but once I hit the amount that leaves me with 10 BIs at the stake below (ie $1k leaving me 10 Bis for 0.50/1) i'll move down. Hopefully doesn't come to that too many times!

id didn't read a ton of the first post but im assuming rb is going to be a large contributor to your end goal if you want this done by sept 30. Gl with the challenge

It'll be about 30% of the total. Thanks!

Pretty weird first day. I won money, a couple of buyins, which is great. My EV was not so great though. It's such a small sample that it doesn't mean a whole lot, but I also do agree with it in the sense that I didn't play too optimally for the games. I played all $0.50/$1 with a mix of zoom and regular tables, never more than 6 at once. I got set-over-setted three times and I was pretty close to folding on all of them. I think at my usual stakes they're straight forward stack-offs but the general sense of play at 0.50/1 is a lot tigher/nittier and it was probably a mistake not to fold. The same can be said for a couple of river calls when the flush completed and my opponent's bet - they had it every time and while it's again an insignificant sample, my gut feeling and general sense of the games says that players are bluffing far less in spots like that than at 2/4+.

I also probably played too tight. Looking back I am sure I missed a lot of good steal opportunities from the CO/BTN/SB as a lot of players seemed to be overfolding their BBs and it was very rare to see someone 3betting > 10% even vs steals. Speaking of which, I don't think I 3bet enough in position. I went with the approach that if I flatted a wide range it might reduce variance and let me outplay my opponents post-flop, but later in the day I started experimenting with 3betting wider and most people reacted very poorly (by calling too much pre and folding too much post) so that's another change i'll be making tomorrow.

Volume-wise I fell short of my daily goal by a large margin (my goal was 5k) - that goal was probably too ambitious though. Having never regularly played these stakes before it was an almost entirely new player pool and I was going in readless. This + the wider disparity in opponent types that i'm used to made it harder to multi-table and keep my focus for too long. Very often a table would have a super nit, a tag reg, a loose passive playing like 70/4 and a maniac. In cases like that it's so important to pay attention to your relative position and adjust ranges accordingly - it does make for a very juicy table though!

Going forward I see tomorrow being better, and think that I will be at 1/2 within a day or two. My plan is to move up when I have 10 BIs for the limit I am moving to, so when I hit $2k I will start playing 1/2. If I then drop back to where I only have 10 BIs for the level below I will move back down. At higher stakes my winrate will be smaller and variance higher so I might opt for 15 or 20 BIs at 3/6+.



Hands played: 1,871
Money won/lost: +$292.49
EV Adjusted: -$156.53
bb/100: 15.6
EVbb/100: -8.37
VPPs: 936
VPPs/hand: 0.50
How I rate my level of play: 6.25/10
How I rate my focus: 7/10
How well I thought I ran: 7.25/10

GL OP!

Have a feeling this is going to be an epic thread, GL OP!

This thread will go down in history as being nominated for the SSPLO Grand Digest less than 2 days after the creation of the former It's amazing how I managed to find it despite not reading PG&C usually except for a few threads.

GL, show us all that micro-PLO is not dead!

Btw, the readers might also check out the meditation thread of Sentin7 mentioned in the OP.

Edit: but please, please, please step down to PLO25 so that 1) we, microstake 2+2'ers, have a chance to pick on you (for a bit of our own money), 2) the challenge be successful and influential with a higher probability.

subscribed.

Hello Roy,

What you do here really proves that you are mature and honest with yourself enough to point out what you were doing wrong.
I hope you will find the motivation to play your best poker.
Your BRM is very very aggressive. losing 10 BIs while breaking even EV wise can happen so quickly in PLO.
Starting at PLO100 is fine as you will be very focused and have a big edge. But you should at least give yourself 20BIs for higher stakes.
Hope you get a very decent amont of luck, you will need it .

PS : By the way what is your VPIP ? looks like your rake is very low (9.5bb/100). nit inside? ^^

9.5 bb/100 is normal rake for PLO100, I'd say, even a bit on the LAG side.

But, Roy, you should find strength to play PLO25-50 focused. A fellow SSPLO poster, Kyyberi once told about his HS friends who were as alert in play money games as at their normal stakes. Tons of people play chess somewhat seriosly, even though it doesn't bring money to most.

This grind should be rather for the challenge than for profit, stack sizes - just numbers. Stack and bet sizes can be shown as bb's if necessary, using StarsHelper [it might be broken by Stars' updates, so it's handy to downgrade the client by copying files from the backup subfolder to the main client folder; of course then the default desktop shortcut, which links with pokerstarsupdate.exe, should be replaced by a direct shortcut to pokerstars.exe].

Did you really think that playing at the small stakes is technically easy?

Because of such problems, sadly, your bb/100 edge is not going to be as big as you thought. It would be great if you went down stakes for a few days until you get used to multitabling in the 'new' landscape.

The last but not the least, having 20 BIs in the siteroll allows to play at 9 tables within an hour comfortably with 100+ bb stacks without ratholing. With 10 BIs, you're going to have liquidity issues. I know how bad it feels when there's no money in the cashier to top up or when I have to turn it off because I want the rest of the account balance to go to the softest of my tables if necessary - I'm more experienced with playing on short siterolls than you because I don't like to trust money to poker sites and the balances I store there are often small

in glgl

Thanks for the nice words! My VPIP yesterday was 25.5, so far today it is 31.8.

I didn't think it would be technically easy, and I knew i'd need to make adjustments. I'm working things out as I go along!

I really don't want to drop to PLO25 and I don't think that I will. The whole point of this is to run up my balance and get back to normal stakes ASAP with a bit of fun behind it all. If I drop that low it would be too much of a grind and i'd be too likely to spend more time than I wish grinding low stakes for little profit. I might be more successful, but it would take me longer to get there and i'd rather take the higher variance route where if I fail I can just redeposit and get back to my normal games soon anyway.

I'll be having 20 BIs when I get to midstakes, and i'll be buying in shallow too a bit which will help me play more tables and mitigate the variance / chance of cashier busto.

I am pumped to watch this challenge. Roy, you are a beast.

Will you be posting any hands? Would be really cool if you posted the interesting ones and give a little insight. Big bluffs, Thin Value shoves, Big hero calls, etc.

GLGL

I'll try post some hands that I think are interesting

And still, buying into PLO-X - a softer field than at PLO-2X, mind you! - for 100 bb (or 250 bb with antes if you insist on running it up quicker) results in a higher $/hand winrate, a lower $^2/hand variance and hence the ability to have money at more tables at once than buying into PLO-2X with 40 bb (respectively, 100 bb without antes). I can't understand for the life of me why people shortstack at small-medium stakes, where fish is always available, at all.

And certainly there's no need to sit at one limit at all - pick the softest of the softest tables from three at once to maximise the hourly (this_passing's theorem)!

Also, loose BRM takes away the opportunity of pumping the excess of the BR into staking With MicroMillions around the corner and the recent change to satellite rules (unregistration from the target tourney is now disallowed), the market equilibrium is going to shift to backers' favour. I'm not sure if these profits can legitimately count into the challenge, though.

Subbed GL Roy

Just a question, i read in HSPLO for Heads up some of the regs were talking 200 buyins required per level, and i think one even said 500 buyins both for full time players obv

question to you is do you agree, or do you think that's way to many buyins?

its completely situational OP isnt going to be able to help you much without more info