Greetings, all -

Former online MTT grinder here; played for a couple of stables online such as ImAWhale on the soft USA sites (Iggy, BOL). As Texas began to offer live games in 2016, I was a steady winner in them, but after college I moved away from Houston to live in Virginia with my then-love interest, where there wasn't much poker being played unless I made the trek to DC.

I've been back in Texas now (Houston) for about 18 months with a full-time remote gig. Everything you've heard about the Texas cash games - the poor play, the deep stacks at $1/$3, the sheer degeneracy - is completely true. These are the best games I have ever played in; for the first time in 7 years of playing, I finally understood what it meant to have excellent game selection. I wasn't treating poker very serious when I moved back to Texas initially in 2021. I was no longer grinding for a stable and was focusing on work.

After traveling to the WSOP in July, I decided that, firstly, I wanted to take PLO seriously and improve, and second, that it would be best to begin to keep track of my cash results. I purchased the PLO Mastery course from Upswing and got some PLO live coaching as well. Along with studying the game, I feel that having a career at the same time as playing (whereas I was attempting to make poker my sole income with the stables) has ultimately made me a better, more confident individual and poker player.




I've played at Spades Poker House this first 176 hours (-15 hours from WSOP Tulsa), which is on the south side of Houston. I just moved to the north side with my girlfriend & look forward to checking out the action at Texas Card House Spring. My plan is to continue to grind $1/$3 Houston PLO games as well as travel to Vegas and WSOP Circuit stops to play PLO cash games, as well as the $400 PLO tournament each Circuit stop offers. I'll be at The Bike in December, and have Vegas trips planned for next week and January. Tulsa round 2 in March; went in August and had a great time.

I really find these Texas games quite interesting; it's not every day that a Korean woman shows up, dusts off 6 $1000 buy-ins in PLO, gets it all-in with her 7th, and thinks she has a flush with the ace of clubs in her hand and four on the board. This is ultimately why I think this little poker journey of mine is worth outlining. I hope the Circuit stops, although more challenging, will continue to be enjoyable as well, and worth reporting on here.

Let's improve, move up in stakes, and have fun!

- Wilson

In. Good luck!

Had a late night session back down in south Houston this weekend. $700 -> $2800. Absolutely LOVE Spades Poker House.




I avoided Spades PLO game like the plague in 2021 and early 2022; the game was rife with softplay and collusion between a group of individuals who'd been known for doing so in south Houston games. Finally, in July, the players were banned. I got home from WSOP and decided it would be my spot for PLO moving forward.

A couple of hands from this weekend:

Hero has QQ64 no suits in the SB. UTG makes it 10, UTG+1 makes it $30, but we are aware that UTG+1 is 3! lots of hands preflop. There are two callers including BU & us, and we see a flop.

AQ2 rainbow. UTG & +1 check. BU bets pot, $125. We have some history with BU at this point. She is an Asian woman in her 40s who is a PLO reg at Spades. In the past, we have flopped top set against her middle set, and she was angry with me, and mentioned we couldn't be friends moving forward. And, although she'll still be curteous, she clearly wasn't joking - she does not care for me. It has been a month and no friendliness is exchanged.

Ruling AA out of her range ofc. KJ10x seemed most likely to me. I re-pot. UTG and +1 get out of the way. BU has just a bit more left than a call, but she calls anyway and leaves about $45 behind.

Board: AQ2A

I lead for two green birds and she instas. Set over set again, unfortunately for her. She shows 8822. No river quads; pot's ours. She explains to another Asian in a different language what just occurred as I'm scooping up chips, and I'm looking at her and grinning. I finally get a grin back after a month - "You know what I say?" I tell her no, but of course I understand she is talking about me and upset (based on me flopping a set over hers again). She just laughed and said "Poker is crazy game, man." Good to see she took this hand a bit better, but we are still not on good terms - it is evident.

I saw a guy I went to high school with at Spades. He mentioned he just moved over here and realized poker was available to him. He said he discovered quickly that hold'em is too 'slow' for him, so he prefers Omaha. We get into a hand with him about 10 hours into my session. I Have AKJ10 and we see a flop HU vs. him.

KQ4

He leads into me for pot $30 and we call.

KQ49

He pots it again and I muck. I'm not thinking about it until he asks, "What did you have?"

"Straight draw," I mention.

"Guess you needed a 10 or an ace instead," he says.

It then occurs to me that I just folded the freakin' nuts on the turn to this rec who was ready to lead all three streets. Jesus freaking Christ. I played two more hands as I stacked up my chips. I always do an overtly friendly "goodbye" to my table, win or lose, and this time was no exception, but the table could not fathom the grief that I was masking. I dapped up my old buddy stricken with angst about what only I knew. Lesson learned: never play when you're tired.

I am so FREAKING STOKED for Vegas next week! It will be my fourth time there this year. My flight lands on Wednesday at 8 PM & I have check-in set for the next day at 2 PM at PH. My plan is to grind an all-nighter at The Bellagio. What was theat about never playing tired? Meh. Nothing a couple of Bangs can't fix. I've only ever played PLO at Bally's, The Wynn, and Aria, but I'm hearing Bellagio is the softest.

Got a cool pic when I stayed at Bally's in July. I'm probably preaching to the choir, and perhaps this is a surface-level remark, but there is a distinct urban beauty in LV that you simply won't find anywhere else.





I won't be playing any until Wednesday, but will update then. Coming up on 200 hours since keeping track of PLO results and taking PLO seriously, which I am confident I will surpass in LV this week! I'm hoping to be at $35/hr at the 200 hour mark. I'm currently sitting at $34/hr at 186 hours... can we do it? I feel like I'm due for a nasty session Vegas, be kind to me - I'll see you soon!

- Wilson

Will anyone be in Vegas on Wednesday night - Thursday AM with nothing to do? Join me and let's play some PLO!

Three sessions in here since Wednesday. Up $565. Did not meet my goal of $35/hr at 200. Does anyone have any suggestions for a realistic hourly goal for $1/$3 PLO at a certain hour mark (300, 500)?






I'm here for a comedy festival going on as well. One of the comics sold some of his art during his set. Now the proud owner of "Somersault Joke," a Jamar Neighbors original.







I'm meeting some people I've been talking to online for a few years for the first time on this trip, so I'm going to spend the evening with them. I was physically threatened at the poker table and will share the details later. I'm a pretty passive individual who reacts to that **** pretty terribly. I need to do better in those situations to internally process that the actions that just unfolded have nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the person. Anyway - will check in later. Hope everyone's havin' a nice weekend.

You'd think as much as I'm out here in the desert, I'd start to remember to bring my own damn chapstick. It was Fiji water all day at my Aria sessions.

Still currently in Vegas staying at Planet Hollywood. Been here a week as of today; leaving tomorrow. I'm up about $2000 total. I've only played at Wynn and Aria. In my experience, Aria has been more reg-heavy, whereas Wynn seems to have more whale types. In any case, I found the Aria games to be of pretty similar difficulty to The Wynn. I think this was due to the specific regulars that I was sitting with at Aria - the type that claim 'reg' or 'pro' and are ultimately breakeven players with good borrowing skills and maybe 1 or 2 big scores in their past. They all seem to ultimately reveal through their actions in the brief time that I spend with them at the table that they don't possess the qualities of a successful player (not that I should be the ultimate judge, but I'd like to think I have a decent idea). I'll discuss two regs at the Aria that I had peculiar interactions with.

Let's start with Mr. Aggressive from my previous post. We played with each other during my second session at Aria. This fellow knew all the dealers and the other regulars in the game. An older gentleman; maybe 55-65. He kept rebuying for $200 and sitting on around $75-$125. We had three hands together where his stack was around $100; two heads up, first, and the third was multi-way. Each of the first two hands, he went all in on the flop, and I had a solid hand/solid equitt in each situation, and end up winning both hands. In the third hand, he asks the third player in the hand with us, "Are you gonna call my shove with bullshit like red down there?" Red referring to my hair color. The irony, of course, is that he is the one who is putting himself in these low equity spots, but I say nothing. After the third hand (where he loses to the third player), he moves to the seat next to me and rebuys for $200.

"Look at me," he says. I look at him.

"Don't disrespect me, mother****er. Because I'll go crazy in here right now." I look at the dealer and look back at him and kinda do a "Uh..." He continues, "That means I'll clock you, son."

Now, before this, I did not sense any aggression from him whatsoever other than when he complained about my hand to the third player, but that's par for the course, and didn't bother me much. So, for me, this is not only quite a shock, but I am now quite fearful of this person. He has proven to be unpredictable and to have an emotional attachment to his results, and I can't help but fear the worst. He's to my direct left, and I'm just picturing him throwing a right straight into my jaw.

The dealer says "Hey guys, lets not do this," (as if I was even slightly aggressive back?) and the gentleman and I say nothing. After a couple of hands, I move to his now open seat. 45 minutes go by and I decide to get up, because I'm not having a good time. He really rattled me internally. As mentioned in my last post, I don't process negativity directed toward me very well. I need to not put it on myself so much and understand that this is behavior that has everything to do with the person, and not with me. I hope in the future I can be more zen and balanced mentally in those situations.

The other regular I wanted to mention was this guy I played with at a couple of tables - we'll call him Z. Z was a self-proclaimed grinder. He didn't say he was a grinder outright, but he mentioned his activity on poker apps, private clubs, being a regular at Aria, having chips at multiple casinos in him, etc. I think it's a mistake to be so open with this information. Letting people understand you play and may possess solid fundamentals just has to be -EV.

The reason I wanted to mention Z, though, or why he was so interesting to me, was that he was truly living the Las Vegas low stakes grinder lifestyle. He lives in and out of hotel rooms, and yet, grinds PLO daily at Aria and Wynn, and has thousands of dollars on poker apps in private clubs. He seemed healthy, but if you live this lifestyle, is it ultimately conducive of being an excellent poker player? I think not! When I was in my early 20s, I remember being staked and trying to make poker my sole living, and how miserable I was. Granted, I think Z is more successful than back when I was doing what he is now, but surely the lifestyle he spoke of - traveling from hotel to hotel, in multiple credit disputes with online clubs - didn't sound worth the hustle. I may be biased and naive, but I like having a career on the side. I am confident my current job and the stability it offers has made me a better poker player.

I just found these two characters interesting, and they each made me do some self-reflection. We'll play once more tonight - haven't decided where - and then we're back to Texas. My plan is to seek out the best game in North Houston, where I just moved, and head to The Bike in December for the WSOP Circuit stop. Will post my results after tonight; should be around 210 hours. Currently sitting at $35/hr

Is it okay to start two posts off mentioning Fiji Water? Thanks, Aria. I'll battle the "regs" here any day for a free one every half hour or so.





As mentioned, I was also in town for a comedy festival. Several of my online friends joined me, the last of whom left today. During my lunchbreak working remotely, he and I went up to the top of The Strat and rode the roller coasters up there. Back at Planet Hollywood now - wrapping up the workday, lamenting on my 8 days here in Sin City, and thinking about what's next.

In addition to shopping around for my new room in North Houston, a buddy of mine mentioned that a bookie back home was starting up a poker club on PokerBros. He mentioned that the pool is made up of solely the sports bettors back in my hometown. Sounds like some fantastic, juicy games to me. Hopefully I'll have more on that over the next couple of days as I get back to Houston and get settled. I miss my girlfriend terribly.





I know it's a small sample size and concede I could lose it all in two or three bad sessions, but for now, I am happy that I feel that I am treating the game seriously by studying the best material available, getting in consistent hours, and playing in solid games. I reckon I'd feel the same way if my winrate was lower.

I agree and I can't stand the low grinding reg mentality. When I play live, I try to avoid letting anyone know I grind online. If they really drill me, I will be honest. I'm not openly mentioning it to anyone. I'm pretty sure most online winning reg feels the same.

These types of guys are just always going to be grinding low stakes. I see them online too; I play with guys now at 1/2 online that I've seen in glimpse of like RIO or coaching videos from 3+ years ago and they are still here grinding rake back or .01 bb win rate. Almost always, the ones who are bragging about their online winnings, don't have any online winnings. Brings me back to the hashtag king days.

I'm down for some table trash talk and banter but threating to clock you is way out of line. In my experience, the loudmouths are usually the most scarred and least likely to actually clock anyone. He would be banned from all those properties for life as well.

Hello, north Houston Here I am - ready to battle in live $1/$3 PLO.

It was a weekend of debauchery and grinding. On Friday, I decided to give Empire Poker Room a try in Humble. The room is closest to my new place according to PokerAtlas, so I figured I'd give this smaller room a shot first. I called ahead and they had an ROE game going - good enough for this PLO player. There is only a single table going when I arrive; this is quite disheartening for a Friday night. At Spades, the Friday night freeroll was always popping, and there were at least 2-3 tables of action PLO. The owner and a couple dealers mentioned that there were huge games the night before, and that explained why there wasn't anyone around on Friday. Not sure if I buy that or not. Maybe there was a big game, but I've never known a Thursday game to prevent players from showing right back up, ready to fire once more.

The most interesting occurrences at Empire did not have to do with the action. Firstly, I'm pretty confident that the owner sent a friend of hers/regular of the game to another card room or bar game to recruit players. Maybe there was something I wasn't aware of in the situation, but it seemed clear as day to me. As the owner sat and played with us, she carefully instructed this gentleman to go attend another game, and mention that "there's a game down the street" when the opportunity seems good to do so. I know everyone has a bottom line and business is business, but this really rubbed me the wrong way. The poker room market may be saturated right now in Houston, but that's no excuse to steal someone's business - or at least attempt to.

Peculiar Occurrence #2: As I was leaving and the owner was out of earshot, I asked the table where the PLO action is on the northside. The table unanimously directed me to Texas Card House Spring. The dealer then takes some interest. "You're new in town?"

"Well, from south Houston; I played at Spades a lot, but never on the north side."

She starts to name all of the poker houses in the area and how the action is.

"Super helpful," I mention as I'm getting up. "Thanks!"

As I am cashing out, she is completing her shift at what is still the lone table in the room. She holds the door open for me as I'm leaving and we start chatting about the games in the area once more. The conversation turns personal as she begins to whip out a cigarette, but I wrap things up. Unbeknownst to the cute, female dealer, my girlfriend awaited about 25 yards away in our car. From her perspective, it seemed like the dealer was following me out. Fortunately, my girlfriend and I have a nice relationship (for now!) and we were able to make jokes about it. "So did you like Empire?" she asked. Before I could answer, she mentioned my new dealer girlfriend. I died laughing. "I KNEW you were going to say something!" She has since told my mom about my 'side action,' as she calls it. Girl, the only side action I have is when I'm all-in and there's action left. I didn't share that last one with her - that's a 2+2 exclusive joke.

Saturday, we went to Texas Rennaisance Festival together. Lovely time; unbeatable people watching. And it was pirate weekend, matey! I won this authentic hookhand shooting decapitated heads into a basket.





Sunday, I decide it's time to head to North Houston Poker Mecca - Texas Card House Spring. I'm just praying for similar action to Spades at this point, and I was not disappointed. After a brief -$500 stint at the two-card game that I forget the name of, We're on the lone $1/$3 PLO table. I quickly befriend three Israeli friends who are traveling from Israel just to play in these wild Texas games, two of whom are to my left and right in the game. Onto Vegas next - similar to my recent travels. I make note of this; not because I think there is cheating, but huge potential for softplay here. Thirty minutes in, the Israeli to my right leaves, so it's no longer a concern. A blatantly obvious PLO reg at TCH sits in his place. I *never* understand this. Why would you care to make it so blatant that you are confident and potentially capable at the game you are sitting down to play? Obvious -EV that could be easily avoided by not wearing a damn jacket with the club logo on it, or buying in for $3K in all blacks.

There are no memorable hands from this session that were my own. We were in for $1300, and cashed out for $1640. Ultimately, today, the action wasn't nearly as solid as I know Spades' action to be on the weekend. Perhaps I should stop comparing new games that I play in to Spades, as the baseline is quite low there. I'm praying this doesn't affect my hourly too much, but I have grave concerns about my winrate being due to the action at Spades. I suppose time will tell.

My plan is to study at least 20 hours between M-F (without forcing it). Upswing's PLO Mastery has been incredible for me. We'll play again Friday night.

An occurrence worth mentioning that I omitted in my last post - there was a situation involving a $1500 double board bomb pot at TCH tonight where the floor was called. The blatant reg that I mentioned was heads-up with a recreational player. I am in seat 3, the reg in seat 2, and the rec in seat 1. Fast-forward to the turn action where seat 1 is heads-up with seat 2. Boards are (suits irrelevant)

844K2
66435

I have the button. Seat 1 bets $175. Seat 2 pots to $510. Seat 1 says, "I'm all in," but then turns over his hand before seat 2 does anything. Seat 1 shows 8864 and seat 2 quickly mucks. Seat 2 starts counting out more than $510 in chips, but then hesitates, and leaves $510. "The pot bet was $510, so that's what I owe you," he announces, feeling the need to clarify before anyone requires him to. Seat 1 says "Wait, I said I was all in," and points back to his stack (about $300 more than $510). Seat 2 responds, "Yeah, you said all in, and before I said anything, you turned over your hand." Seat 1 wasn't having it, although that's exactly what occurred. "You started counting your hundreds across the line!" Seat 1 kept saying. And fair point; maybe seat 2 should have been more careful in this small regard. "Floor!" shout the dealer and seat 1 simultaneously. The floor comes over, at which point seat 2 changes his story and mentions he never heard all-in. Me and the Israeli chime in that we decidedly did hear it, but the floor tells us to not intervene, and rightfully so; I apologize.

The floor confirms that since he announced all-in and it was not met with a call, the only bets that stand are the $510 raise and $510 call. They jaw at each other for 20 minutes or so afterward and I am made severely uncomfortable. I ask the dealer to bring the floor back over because I don't like the confrontation. Seat 2 gives me **** for it, but as I was leaving and giving the table my usual overtly kind goodbye, he mentioned "Ok, I see now. You're just a nice guy." As if to say, "Now I see the justification of your action. Not before, when I assumed you were just being a bitch."

I bet we'll be seeing more of this character in seat 2 as we continue to grind the $1/$3 PLO game at TCH Spring. Let's call him "Mr. Reg" for the time being.

It looks like there is a seat open for me in @DonkFishPoker's online meet-up game. I've been following his YouTube vids since the end of WSOP when I started to take PLO seriously.

Going to study for about an hour today beforehand. We're starting tonight at 7 PM ET. Really excited to play with a couple of PLO YouTubers I've been watching!

DonkFish's YouTube:

https://youtube.com/c/DonkFishPoker

I was the meet-up game's biggest winner! There were about 10 players total; these are just those who remained when I left just now. We played $.50/$1 PLO, $20min-$500max. I was in for $500, down to as little as $122 during the session, but we finsihed at $864.





Will go over a couple of hands tomorrow; work in 6 hours. Really happy about this result in particular, and I think I'm attributing to playing with people who I respect in the game. And I think I played *really* well. I love when spots show up and I feel super confident because of my studying; that happened SO MANY times this session. Still made some mistakes; a lot of work to be done still, to be sure!

The spot that I question the most from last night's game is a pre-flop decision when facing a 3bet OOP.

We are 6 handed, 150bb effective

UTG raises to 3.5bb
folds to BU
BU 3! to 12bb
SB has QcQs8c6d

Is this too wide of a call with Queens with a single suit? I feel like I'm definitely folding 10s with a suit and probably folding Jacks with a suit, but calling with Kings with a suit.

In theory you are basically never cold calling here. Cold calling a 3bet OOP is going to be a spot you want to avoid, with UTG still left to act. If UTG was a mega whale who is unlikely to 4bet you could make an argument for calling double suited, but you will be totally fine never cold calling any hand here, 4bet or fold only. Your specific hand is losing 4bb by calling here according to the sims. The deeper you are as well this becomes worse as it lacks nuttiness. The worst QQ combo to 4bet would we QQ98ds.

Beautiful. Thanks for running this, disciplus. I didn't understand what a detriment it was to be cold calling here. I think I must have lots of leaks like this that I need to plug, but am missing due to lack of experience in PLO. I also think (or know) that online grinders like you probably understand such basic concepts like the back of your hand. I need to continue to hone in on the fundamentals to truly be successful in the long run.

Side note, but I think I am catching myself underestimating the general player pool I'm battling against, and it makes me lax on these sorts of key concepts, so I need to nip that mentality in the bud in order to develop.

Appreciate you, once again.

Played live at TCH Spring on Sunday. Made friends with one of the Israeli guys that I noticed last time at the room, who all turned out to be Greek. Maybe there was a miscommunication, or maybe I'm just a presumptuous bigot. In any case, we start chatting it up with Nick the Greek, which unfurls into the most interesting conversation I've had in a long time. I get up to go outside and rip my pen, and he follows. While outside, he confides in me that he isn't from the United States (shocker! hah) and that he is part of a small Greek stable whose backers have set up shop in Houston as of July. They pay for his flight to and from Greece and room, and their agreement is 50/50. I tell him to come to my house afterward with some dinner with me and my girlfriend, and he agrees. We cash out up $365. nearly 4 hours played, and only 3 hands won, two of which with aces. He comes to my apartment, we have some french toast and sausage, hang out for a few hours and talk PLO, and a bit more about his situation. Very kind fellow. I'm planning on inviting him to my family's Thanksgiving coming up if I see him a couple more times.

Strategy question: In live games like these where players will call in the situation I'm about to describe quite marginally, do we think it's okay to be getting it in OOP on flops that are good for our range head-up when SPR is like 1ish? Note that in this situation, we are also the preflop aggressor.

Played in the online YouTuber meet-up game again on Monday. We finish $175 in the green, but solely because of the four-handed action at the end of the session that included me, each YouTuber - DonkFishPoker, PLO Professor - and a loose unknown player likely a fan of DonkFish. He ended up down $950, $500 of which he lost during the last 45 minutes of the session, if not less.

We are continuing to tighten up oop and in early position, which is enough in the games I play in to be far ahead of the general pool.

I still don't think I'm a good PLO player. I think my winrate is far more due to the games I'm playing in. There is still so much work to do and further understanding to grasp. I started writing down showdown hands in my bankroll app notes to run in an equity calculator, but I need to remember more spots so I can go over them here and by myself later on.

Played at TCH again tonight. In for $500, out for $1317 and a Sunday night date with Nick to see Chris Rock.

My most notable hand was as follows.

We have Ah5hAdQs in UTG +1. UTG raises to $15 and we elect to just call here as the button has demonstrated in his first 5 hands that he is willing to 3bet and 4bet preflop blind, and the other regulars are whispering that he does this every session. CO comes along; BU disappoints us by just calling, and even had the audacity to peek at his holdings. BB calls as well.

Flop A69 rainbow. UTG checks. I lead for $60 into $76. CO pots to what would be $255, but he is all in for $240. BU and BB fold; UTG calls for $240, and I shove for $420 total. UTG calls. runout is the 10d and the 3d, not bringing in any flushes, however. UTG shows KQJ10 suited to the K, and CO shows 99 and mucks his other two.

Nick came up behind me at the session and we greeted each other. He mentioned that he wanted to chat before I left. I ended up racking up about 30 minutes later, and we spoke outside for a bit. He had a pretty miserable day at the tables, but his spirits were quickly perked up as I agreed to go see Chris Rock with him on Sunday. Yep - he's definitely getting a Thanksgiving invite.





Although I admit that I suck in PLO, I am confident that I am a winner here in Texas. I will continue to maintain my confidence and crush in the longterm and continue to study & improve.

Eclipsed the five-figure mark today in my live PLO grinding journey.





This is only the beginning!


Hilarious that TCH Spring also has a strict Fiji-only water policy. The Aria of The South, I call it.

First update in 19 days. In these 19 days, I have:

-been invited to a juicy invite-only game

-successfully shot-took at higher limits up to 5/5/10

-eclipsed $20,000 in earnings.





I have continued to grind $1/$3 at Texas Card House Spring. I have been tagged as a reg there, by all accounts, and was eventually invited to the invite-only $1/$3/$6 PLO game by a fellow I'll call Doc, a very prominent regular in the PLO games that seems to have a close relationship with management. I showed up one day to play, and he asked if I wanted to fill in for some of the $1/$3/$6 regs. I decided to shot take, and it went very well - $4000 in the green, to be exact. I received a text from him again today, and decided to play; this time, in a 5/5/10 game. In for $3.9K, out for $6355.





PLO Mastery has been excellent. I have amped up the studying. I study after work each day. I purchased PLO Mastermind yesterday per the recommendation of a pro friend of mine up in Austin. Excited to dig in this coming week.

The Greek players have left north Houston, making PLO even softer there for the time being. I think it is only a matter of time, though, before we start to see Euros move to Texas to grind these games on a more consistent basis. It will be the new Vegas in this regard in a couple years' time, I think.

I really can't say enough about how grateful I am that everything is going well poker-wise. I feel that I have a distinct preflop advantage against nearly every regular in the player pool, but I need to work harder on understanding what is optimal in so many spots postflop, and also what exploitative plays I can make in this game that are profitable.

I like the stories subbed

Subbed GL!

gl, subbed. is there a reason why you only played at the wynn and aria? are those the only two casinos that run 200 and 500 PLO regularly in vegas?

In my experience, yeah. I've been to Vegas about 12 times specifically for poker in my life. Venetian and Bellagio have not had PLO the few times that I checked. I did play at Bally's at the WSOP, but in general, I've only been able to rely on consistent PLO at Wynn and Aria. And, for what it's worth, fine by me; those are my two favorite rooms in Vegas.

Grateful for your sub and all of the others! Hoping to continue to run it up and improve!

Heading to Texas Card House now for a Sunday session. Late last week, I had my second losing session there, and biggest by far. I made a terrible flop play after squeezing preflop that resulted in me getting it in on the turn with terrible equity.

$1/$3. I had AsQdQh5s on the button. UTG straddles for 10. UTG+1 makes it 25. There are two more callers, and I make it $125. The blinds fold, and there are three callers. Flop comes 884 with a single spade. UTG checks to UTG+1 who makes it $300. It folds to me, and I call. DISGUSTING. UTG folds; I picked up the nfd on the turn and went with it when UTG+1 ripped it. It's so embarrassing reading this back because of how terrible this is. It really points to the fact that there are huge mental leaks in my game if I am capable of making such a loose call in the moment. I think I need to work on some personal stuff to improve my consistency and discipline. It's high time that I give into the fact that I'll never be the poker player I want to be without applying some more heuristics to my lifestyle.

Will update on my Sunday session later.

LA has been a total wash. I'm up about $570 after 24 hours and 3 sessions of grinding out here. I should have done my research, but The Bike barely runs PLO cash games except for an $80/$160 ROE game that I saw Kenny Tran in every night. I feel so freaking stupid for just assuming there would be PLO cash consistently at a WSOP stop. Feeling like booking something for the WPT event at the Wynn going on at the same time would have been much smarter.

I met a floor manager at The Bicycle - Aaron - who claimed to have ties to the management of TCH Spring back in Houston. He was desperate to start a PLO game at The Bike, although in hindsight, he could have just been putting on a show for me. Seemed like a genuine dude, though.

Since PLO didn't run at The Bike or Hustler before 4-5 PM on any day, I had a lot of time to myself. Spent some time in Long Beach and one evening in downtown.



All hands were pretty straightforward. I guess the most notable one would be a hand I played against a loose female regular at The Bike that everyone called Mama. She led into about 5 of us for pot on the flop below with aces and no redraw. I pot with top pair & nfd, and we got it all-in on the flop HU for about $1400. Both streets brought diamonds:



Mama was upset and berated me, and it made me think about how, in general, I am improving faster and honing my game more compared to the rest of those in the games I play.

There was a double-board bomb pot hand at Hustler where I made the nut flush on both boards, but the pro to my left flopped a boat on one board, and turned trips and rivered a boat on the other board. $2400 pot. This is why I shy away from talking about hands like these on this thread, though - because even typing it made it seem as if I was bitching about variance, but I'm truly not.

I am starting to feel more comfortable on more flops and with flop decisions in general. I think I am c-betting more correctly than before; that is, leading more often on boards that hit our range, and exploitatively checking even more often than what is optimal on boards that don't hit our range. I think that one exploitative decision that is solid in low-stakes live PLO is that we can be comfortable checking more flops than what is optimal.

Hoping for LA's sake that, one day, the card-centric gamblers discover PLO. It is strikingly bizarre to me that $5/$5 PLO does not run on a more consistent basis in a gambling ecosystem like Los Angeles has.

Back to Texas we go. I miss my girlfriend so much. And TCH Spring.