The start of the new year has been interesting! Firstly, I've committed myself to a small PLO online bankroll challenge. $500 to $5000 starting at 10NL. I've voiced this in one way or another several times, but these soft games do not require winning players to really hone in on their fundamentals like other games might require. Because of that, I thought a good way to work on my PLO game and improve faster would be to grind some 6max online while continuing to study and play live. I put out a (very amateur) YouTube video talking about my 2022 and discussing the bankroll challenge a bit as well.

https://youtu.be/ofj0D-_Eiq8

My first live session of 2022 was abysmal. We lost a flip for our first $1K bullet, and I played another hand poorly, losing another $1100.

$1300 in my stack. Ah9hAc8s UTG. $6 Straddle otb. Every pot has been raised to $30 pre, so when it goes call call to me, I also limp. Sure enough, HJ makes it $30. BU, SB, BB call. There are enough $6 limps to make it $200, so that's what I do. Folds to HJ. He calls. SB calls. BB calls.

Pot is $820ish before the flop. 10h4h10d. SB pots. BB folds. I think here is a crystal clear fold, because I'm not doing well against his range, which is 10xxx as far as I'm concerned. i go ahead and call and get the rest in on the turn, where he had boated up. I'm a clown.

I had two sessions this weekend, however, and am up $5K. Played a sick $10 double board bomb bot the first session against an absolute whale. I had a little over $2K at this point in the session and get KKJJdd; flops come 345ddd and J84r (LOL). I check, but I reckon I should lead for 1/2 or 2/3 here more often? In any case, it checks around. turns do not change anything. NOW I lead for 2/3 for $60. there are three callers, but the whale - with $6K in front of him - makes it $300, I repot it to $1025. Folds to the whale, and he calls. the river on the top doesnt change anything, but the bottom river brings straight possibilities. Only one thing to do here - I pot my last $1089. As soon as he doesn't snap, I know I'm scooping these. He calls after a couple of minutes and shows a Qhigh flush and two pair on the bottom; practically drawing dead the whole time.

Today, our biggest hand was a 3bet pot four ways. I had AK106 single suited on the button. A player makes it $25 pre. I call. BB raises to $110. Action player in eary postion calls. I call. Flop A99 rainbow. It checks around. Turn 2. Action player leads for $300. He could bave A9 but I thought in the moment that this player would have led on the flop with a 9, and I have an A of my own blocking A9, so I think I'm good here often enough to call. BB folds. Turn is a 6 and bb checks it to me. I think I'm golden here, and I think he's bad enough to call a lot of money with worse, so I make it $600. He folds quickly. I think $600 is a bad sizing in hindsight, and even in a crazy game against an action guy, we need to be sizing down in that spot. Something more like 1/3 pot instead of 2/3 pot.

Looks like this year is going to be more of the same. I'd welcome it if so.

Guy in his 30s has his girlfriend sitting behind him while he plays. He got in his flush draw vs top set and lost, then told his girlfriend that he was actually the favorite in that situation (no, no straight outs for him; he was 100% behind). I thought he may just not have known better, and wasn't flat out misleading his girlfriend on purpose, but then he did it a second and third time. He flopped bottom set against a straight but then explained to his girlfriend he was actually an 80/20 favorite in that situation. Again, no additional draws with his bottom set. This man knew damn well he was a dog on that flop, but lied and whispered to his girlfriend that he was a significant favorite when all the money got in. I've only been playing live for 8 years, but this was a first for me.

The only hand worth mentioning from yesterday:

AKQ5ss suited to the ace. We make it $30 from the sb (button straddle) and get 7 callers. flop is KJ10 with two spades. Checks to a guy in middle position who bets pot for $215. there's one call, and it folds to me. I pot for the remainder of my stack - something like $865. there are three callers. Three of the four of us are all in. Two of us in the hand are known to only go once, so everyone already knows this $3K pot is getting one turn and one river only. Turn is a 3h, and the river is another J. The gentlemen who covers us all, a friendly older guy who is a regular to the game, lets out a "Whoa!" and turns over JJ97. Another guy turns over Q9, and another turns over KK. A great situation as they are blocking each other's outs to the full house/quads, let alone the king in my hand.

Up about $2600 six sessions into the new year.

The year so far, by session:



Up about $5K this month so far, which lines up with my earnings per month last year.

Last night at the table I talked extensively with Doc. He is a very solid PLO player and regular in these games. I think more solid regs in splashy games gravitate toward each other inevitably after awhile. Whether it be to discuss hands, a member of the player pool, whatever - it seems beneficial to forge such relationships. Turns out we had the same studying trajectory; PLO Launchpad > Mastery > Mastermind. He also is a physician of course, and I work remotely for a medical software company, so we had that to chat about.

I received advice awhile back on here regarding staying low as a winning regular in a room, going so far as not to fall in with the regs. For a long time and even now, I struggle a great deal with desire for validation. Since I've started playing at TCH Spring and consistently winning, I've wanted the regs at the room to notice, and I would post my graphs and stacks on Insta to ensure my people IRL knew that I was succeeding. This is something that I desperately desire to grow out of. I've stopped stack-posting and graph-posting on Insta, but more importantly I'm trying to remind myself constantly that it doesn't ****ing matter - not one bit - if people validate me, my current success, or not. I'm beating one of the easiest $1/$3 PLO games in the world. Even if I was doing something more difficult, I need to get over myself and not seek approval or validation based on my success. It's such a gross thing to consider - realizing that you want others to pat you on the back and say "Good job" and are spending both time and energy trying to make that happen, or daydreaming wishing it would. What a waste of each of those precious resources. It makes me feel very stupid.

I would be grateful for feedback and personal anecdotes surrounding this subject.

Being around poker players so much can be difficult on the psyche. At the end of the day you just need to compare you to you. Don't worry about someone elses successes vs your own, don't worry about others validating you. The money you win is all the validation you need that you're a winning player.

I know I'm not the best player in the world, that my style probably isn't the most profitable. But......I've found an approach that works for me, that's within my comfort zone.

The thing I struggle with is that I try to be a good guy at the table, insofar as I'll announce when the blinds come back around I'll be finishing up. I don't want to win a huge pot in my last orbit and then just up and leave making it look like a hit and run, so if I've announced it they can't be mad about it.

But then I have to deal with the ****ing misregs who just can't shut their ****ing mouths and have to make their stupid comments:

"oh, you play one hand an hour, we won't miss you". But it's these same ****s who'll piss and moan when you leave with money. Had one nitwit mutter "that should be illegal" when I left 20-30 minutes after I had won a sizable pot. I've played in a game where a kid had 18K two to my left and was potting blind preflop EVERY hand. I bought in for the minimum of $500, lost two bullets (in as the favorite three ways both times) and then my third bullet I tripled up, then I doubled that up, continued playing another 30 minutes before racking up.

And some **** misreg at the other end of the table had to say "nice hit and run". I had been in the game for FIVE ****ING HOURS.

What's hilarious is they should be happy as pigs in **** that I'm leaving the table, I'm not the guy they want in the game playing tight and grinding it out on his leather ass. But they'll piss and moan if you stay, and they'll piss and moan if you leave. There's just no win with the misregs out there.

So I'm torn between getting snarky with them (probably not, don't need the drama and additional stress and to feed the trolls) or just stop announcing when I'm leaving and if I win a big pot right before I rack up, too bad, so sad, suck it.

Yes, poker players.....

January has been good to us








Played a session last night where my equity held up in some huge spots. Sick +$3690 comeup.

A couple of spots I wanted to inquire about -

Hero has Ah5hAd2c in the CO. Button straddle to $6. blinds limp, UTG makes it $30. there are two callers to me. I make it $130. Button and blinds fold. UTG and the two callers make the call. $538 in the middle. Flop is 575r. It checks to me. What sizing are you using here? I went with $350; this seems far too big.

Hero has Js9s10d9d in the BB. Button straddle to $6. SB makes it $30. I call. There are four other callers including the BU. $180 to the flop of 9c7d3s. SB checks. I lead for $125. There is just one caller. This is a tight older player who, while spewy occasionally like many, is not one of the gambly aggro types in the game. He has like $2K which is the effective stack. When he calls here, he has a wrap or two pair at very least. Turn is 5h. What do you do here? How is my $125 sizing?

You've flopped a well-disguised three of a kind in this spot. Your hand is going to look like Aces or Kings. On this rainbow flop given you have a 5 in your hand you're really only worried about running into 77xx or 75xx. Now you definitely don't want to just check it back because plenty of cards bring in straights that you don't block, so a bet is certainly in order.

With $538 in the middle I might make a weaker $175-225 bet if there is an aggro player likely to try and take the pot away (i.e. they know this flop looks good to Aces but you are unlikely to have the 5 so they can try and run a bluff on you to take the pot away). Of course sometimes you will run into someone showing up with 77xx or 75xx here which sucks. it's tough to know without seeing how deep we are (i.e. effective stack size) to know what play may be best. REALLY deep-stacked against deep-stacked opponents we don't want to play for stacks here because we will lose too much the times we're beat. But if stacks are more shallow in relation to the pot size we can go with it I think




Sizing looks fine on the flop. That turn card sucks because the 86 gets there and we don't block it, although we block some combinations of hands that contain those cards.

Does the tight older player have position on you going to the turn? Are we first to act or has he checked to us? If he's checked to us I check it back with plans to call a reasonable river bet (or just get there lol)

If we are first to act there is $430 in the pot so I likely continue for a bet of $200-220 and if we get raised we are likely beat and can let it go. But we could also have easily flopped the wrap on this board and gotten there, so our bet looks like value, but if our opponent is there I expect he'll let us know.

read 40% of thread a tldr at end of post would be awesome.

Sounds good, beez. I know I can be a little wordy; will do that moving forward for people catching up.

tl;dr: I will start doing tl;drs

I definitely need to increase my bet-folding range in these spots. It's practically nonexistent right now. Thanks, as always, Jeezus. btw - 100% on Georgetown next month. See ya there

Awesome, looking forward to stacking PLO Professor lol

Keep talking like that and he'll be stacking you! Looking forward to seeing everyone.

Just capped off a sick ass January with a +$740 session. Ran well in many key spots all month. Very fortunate.



Been hitting PLO Mastermind ****ing HARD. A week hasn't gone by where I'm not spending at least a few nights looking at content and really solidifying GTO play so that I may better understand how to exploit the player pool more.

Been consuming tons of Phil Galfond YouTube content lately. Not so much PLO, though, but his videos on mindset. My mental game is quite sound from having played millions and millions of hands and being a generally zen individual, reading up on psychology in poker (The Mental Game of Poker, etc.), but some recent YouTube vids on mentality have been excellent refreshers. Love Phil.

A gentleman playing hold'em at the room tonight introduced himself to me and told me he read and enjoyed the blog! Cheers, James. See you in Austin sometime.

Being up $29,000 in five months feels ****ing sweet, to be sure. I musn't focus on my results so much and continue to study hard and ensure I have a solid foundation of strategy. I also think it would be worth investing in more in-depth live coaching at this point.

Motivation

Started Februrary with a $1140 session last night.



Sat next to an older regular of the game. He has hit quads in this blog, actually. Unbeknownst to me, he was a longtime Houston gamerunner in north Houston in the 90s and early 2000s. Of course, it was different back then for Texas poker; games were in the back of a bar, or unlabled space in a strip mall, and the games were taking rake - and ridiculous rake at that. Compare that to now where the games have social media pages, advertising, a front-facing sign and logo, etc. The old not-so-above-board operations were/are referred to as 'underground' games here - not sure if it's the same elsewhere.

"Did the underground games in Texas experience the same thing as the rest of the country when the Moneymaker boom hit?" I asked.

The older reg nodded with swagger. "Sold the room in 2006 for a pretty penny," he told me.

Dope.

I wanted to acknowledge that I am running extremely well.



And not just recently, but really since I started playing PLO.



Last night's session put me at 402 hours of grinding PLO. With 400 hours under my belt, how many hours do I need until I have a solid sample? I feel I have yet to face any adversity in the form of a downswing, and once I do, how I respond will be truly telling as to how solid of a player I am.

By the way, Bozo walked with like $4K. He killed it. Good for Bozo.

Generally speaking a full years worth of grinding (2,000 hours live) should give you a decent idea. My worst downswing live was 2.5 months, where nitwiths who absolutey positively KNOW my limp-repot for stacks is going to be Aces, would call off with shitty Kings and just find all the miracles to stack me. Although at some point during that downswing I did experience some loss due to tilt as the beats began to wear on me.

Glad to see you crushing man, keep it up!

What bar is that?

Apologies but I'm not sure. I went to a birthday party in midtown and we were bar hopping. Midtown isn't really my scene, so I couldn't tell you. It was also a hookah lounge if that helps.

Upcoming poker trips:

Round Rock Feb 16-18 to meet three PLO YouTubers I've been watching for awhile.

Vegas 3/15-3/19 to grind cash games during March Madness. My old man played for Baylor back in the day and coached high school ball in Texas for 24 years, so I have some affinity with basketball, and I actually like college basketball's particular brand of play. Had a flight credit and found a cheap airbnb off the strip.

I've been hitting PLO Matrix on Upswing hard to solidify 6-max pre-flop opening ranges and trying to apply them to full ring as best as I can. One exploit that has came from this that I like to do now is three-bet a bit wider from late position preflop. Hands like Ah10h8c7c, for example. I think (in certain situations and against certain players) suited ace hands that have connectivity as well are great candidates to 3-bet preflop with against a single raise or raise and call. Thoughts?

$1K effective up here now at TCH Spring.

I have Ad10dJh2s UTG.

Button straddle to 6. BB calls. I raise to 30. MP and CO and BU call and BB call.

Flop Qd4d9h

BB checks. I check. MP checks. CO goes all-in for $150. BU calls. BB folds. I pot for $750 with $220 behind. MP calls for $700ish. CO already all-in. BU folds.

Three ways all in. Board runs out Qd4d9hAc3s, so I have AJ three ways all in for Aces with a Jack kicker... and I scoop. So I missed my open ended straight draw and my nut flush draw, BUT won with top pair and a jack.

God Bless Texas

Damn, haven't played out that way yet but I've heard the stories lol

Played a hand last night that confirms I'm still a godawful PLO player.

Hero has AhKdQh9c in middle position. 1K behind although this is not the effective stack.

There are a few limps to me and I make it $30. Two callers, and then, the BB makes it $125. It folds to me and I... Make it $500 to go???? WHAT A HORRIFIC 4bet at live $1/$3 PLO. 3bets pre are ONLY AAxx and KKxx from 95% of this pool. I have no business raising it up against the 3bettor's range here. Two others decide to call, but of course, the BB gets his stack in, as do I. The runout is irrelevant; I still BLOW at $1/$3 PLO. The studying, etc. is moot if I am capable of making such a terrible decision with confidence in the moment only to easily realize my mistake minutes later.

I put a message in the Notes section of my phone that reads, "You ain't ****, bitch." I don't think I have any ego in these games because I understand what little it compartively takes to beat these games than other PLO games in the world. But, in case I need to be humbled, I put that note there for me to find when accessing the Notes section to write out a hand history. Awful, awful, awful play from me. Gonna take a break for awhile and reassess what the hell is going on.

I have been studying my dick off. Further, until last night, I was highly convinced that my mental game was very sound and that I was even improving in this regard. But this hand makes it oh so clear that I still have so much work to do. I need to say "**** you" to my solid results and just accept that I am a bad player and continue to try and improve.

Regardless of the hand, this seems like a pretty big overreaction to one hand. Maybe there are many others you're thinking about but not mentioning? Nobody's perfect.

I appreciate you saying so, and of course we're all human. I guess I thought I had done well to nip such a spot in the bud, but I clearly haven't leading to the desire to not play for 4-5 days and consider what I can do better.

Recognizing those spots where we make errors and working to correct them is the mark of someone who will succeed. While I can still get upset over taking beats, I generally get more upset when I screw up how I played a hand rather than someone just getting lucky against me.

Haven't played this week partly due to the desire to take a few days off to reassess as mentioned in my last post, but also because I'm about to be grinding multiple days in a row up in Austin. Going to head up tomorrow morning, play a session at The Lodge, then head to Georgetown Poker Club where the YouTube meet-up game is.

My original plan for this trip was just to grind at Georgetown all weekend, but now I'm thinking that I may get another airbnb and stay up in Austin Monday through Wednesday to play at The Lodge. They have a tournament series going on those days. Makes sense to work remote and keep grinding in those games, I say. Just a matter of working it out with my girlfriend.

I'm stoked to play this weekend. Although I don't have many expectations, I do think I'm ready to play some good PLO this weekend in one of the best cash games in the world.

We're like -$1100 so far this month. We have yet to have a losing month in our journey. With some luck and good play, I'm hoping to turn that number around this week up in ATX and keep the green month streak alive.