Hi there!

I started a blog at Mastermind but this forum is bigger and it doesnt require Login first to read, so I wanted to post my journey here too.

Cliffs:
- former NL, SnG player learning PLO since about November
- started at Stars, did a big rake comparison and grinding GGPoker now
- just finished JNandez Mastering Small Stakes PLO Book
- started streaming yesterday at https://www.twitch.tv/foxpoker

Goals:
- PLO25+ Winningplayer this year

Currently:
- only regular tables, but I want to play more volume so I gonna test Rush&Cash today




I regulary watch suhepx (PLO500+) and Inky_Poker (PLO 200z+) on Twitch to learn stuff.

If you wanna learn with me, you're welcome to join the Discord https://discord.gg/8ASdhJp

Cheers!

Hopefully your winnings will exPLOde. GL!

I am transitioning from SnG's myself, currently learning how to crush HU PLO. Going through HU PLO course on PLO mastermind.

I am curious - what rakeback do you have on GG? And what about withdrawals? Nobody was blackmailing you or cancelling your deposits? I'd like to hear an opinion, as I saw a lot of people getting banned there.

Thank you!

When you make it to PLO10, I guess its easy to clear the first "Flat" Rakeback Level of 20%. On my stakes.. I cant say how much it is, a Dollar here, a Dollar there and sometimes you hit a Quad Jackpot or so. I think it adds up a lot. I just hit a jackpot few days ago for 35$.. which are like 17 BI's on PLO2. (RB and Rake not included in the graph) I think I paid ~5bb/100 Rake, which you have to deduct from that Graph.

Their Rake Cap is obv very good for Micro players who want to build a bankroll.

When it comes to withdrawels: I played there 6 month ago some NL.. wanted to withdraw and they said I have to rake more before thats possible (like other sites too I think?).

When I asked them "how much more?", they send me a link to some FAQs and those FAQs said: "we can't tell you how big that amount is". Which I found funny and shady at the same time.. so I played about 20k more hands and then my withdraw worked without any questions...

Now GG is getting more and more players (more than Stars during certain times..) and I think its normal that some players get banned, sheer statistically. No one knows what they really did.. E.g. if TOS say, you are not allowed to table select, but people looking for a good seat anyway, obv they have it coming.

As a German player, you cant table select anymore. I can only click on the lobby and get a table, so I'm not afraid of doing anything wrong.

When I would play PLO100+, I guess I wouldn't keep my entire BR in my account due to Black-Friday-Reasons.. but so far I can't complain about GGPoker at all. Since Germans are also restricted to 4-table max, I might be adding some day other sites.

If something happens, I'll report it here.

The flat rakeback is the better option from what I can tell. Just go with the 20% until you start raking enough each week to jump up to the next flat point scale.

My deposits were direct through GG either CC or now etransfer. No issues.

Withdrawals are always via etransfer and once again no issues.

There are people getting banned but don't worry about it. Just focus on having fun and playing for fun. GG is banning players who aren't playing like a Rec player would. Hunting down particular players, jumping tables all the time. Doing hit and runs. Just play normal and you'll be fine.

But I get this 20% flat as soon as you reached this Black Fish once right? and then you have the option to stick with it? Because I havent reached 1.500 FP yet.

Bests!

I don't think that you have to do anything but choose the option to be a black fish.

Guaranteed "20%"

20 is in quotes because if you didn't already know GGpoker modifies your rakeback based on a player value index that they don't tell you about. Basically the concept is that winning players get less and losing players get more.

So a winning player could have a PVI of .50 which means that if they rake $1000 they would be entitled to 20% of that multiplied by their PVI of .50 which leaves a net rakeback of $100

Just a quick update:

I decided to take the current RIO Earn and Learn offer, made a first deposit and got the From the Ground Up PLO course.

Content checklist:
[-] FTGU PLO Course (in progress)
[✔] JNandez Small Stakes PLO Book (finished)
[x] Working with solvers like Vision or PLO Trainer

After the first few RIO Essential videos and the course I get more and more the feeling that Vision is of course amazing to work with, but my opponents diviate so incredible much from GTO, that a basic understanding of the game, equity and lines we can play makes much more sense for anyone below PLO50..

I wanted to get the PLO Trainer for 1 month as soon as Mastermind releases the stand alone version in a few days, but I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe I invest those 50 bucks into OM3. Right now I dont have a tracker that can import GG Poker hands.. hm2 unfortunately doesnt support it.

Yesterday I installed the OM3 trial and was able to import my GG hands from this month to work them through, maybe gonna post some of them later here.

Have a nice Sunday everyone!

I would love to hear your thoughts on JNandez's book. I purchased it right after it was released, but opted to do the RIO From the Ground Up series first instead.

Good luck on your journey.

I'm very interested to hear your thoughts on JNandez's book also!

I think the book is pretty much based on his 10-week-transformation course on the Mastermind.. a lot of GTO stuff, even some flop examples are the same I think.

But when you read it, take notes for every single chapter. My PLO word blueprint has over 30 pages now. I took notes from all kinds of sources for every subject (SRP IP, OOP etc.).. I think its good for remembering things Ive read, like in school.. Overall, I think for everyone whos a PLO beginner, this book is the nutz! (for that price tag.. given that Mastermind costs 100$ per month, Vision costs 130$, RIO Elite also 100$)

When he writes stuff like.. "we should only call 11% of AK**ss of 3bets in this position..", thats for micros not really applyable because people play waaay different. When he talks about small stakes he really means PLO25-100, everything below, I think we need to focus on the basics and forget about "the optimal gto betting frequency".. The book gave me a fundamental unterstanding of PLO (e.g. Strength Buckets and Equity)

I also started a Word document for the Run It Once course, lets see how many pages that will be I'm looking for hands now to post..

Main Preflop weak villain at Micros:
- Limp/Call (mostly)
- Limp/Fold (rarely)
- Limp/Reraise (rarely)
- 10-20bb Stack@ GG

Main Postflop weak villain at Micros:
- Donk 1bb/Call Raise (mostly) SRP and Multiway
- Donk 1bb/Fold (average)
- Cbet 1bb/Call Raise (mostly)

But I'm about to find that out and will report how I beat the micros Regs are easy to spot, decent VPIP ~20 and using auto rebuy. About 1/3-1/2 of the players have 10-50bb -.-

Since GGPoker has this daily bad beat Flip-Out-Tournament, I feel like some 10bb stackers are just trying to get a bad beat at PLO2 cheap and on purpose to qualify. Which I guess could be even a +EV move, since they only invest a few cents for a 1 in 4 Chance of cashing a few dollars, maybe even two or three digits.

Right now going through biggest losses of the month, to find the clearly biggest mistakes first.



-> 3 handed, we raise the BU Limper who prob has a very wide limp calling Range.. Flop I went for the Check since we should have OOP usually have a bigger amount of Checks than Cbets.. Not sure if we should X/R this flop, Pot turn.. instead I X/R the Turn and when River came I thought: Well I'm blocking the Str8 outs, a made hand like a set or Two Pair mostly gets it in earlier.. hes most likely having a FD which arrived on the river, so I have to fold.



Dont know if its classic cooler? We 3bet AA** OOP, instead of checking I often opt to play it fast since villains on micros do not stab enough so that we often cant chk/raise. We go for 75% pot, turn bricks, obv I know at that point he could have KT but can he also have QQ/JJ? We are blocking massively AQ... I pot it and got it in. Can we srsly Chk/fold, or Chk/call turn, fold river?




Third but not last: I'm hestitating with hands like these to take a look at the Flop from BB.. sometimes also on the BU against UTG/MP. These tables are so soft that we often get a good payout if we hit a set or decent draw, that I sometimes tend to call this PF. In this case, we go for the chk/jam with TopSet, we even block 98 a bit.. obv NFD is gonna call but with the money in the pot, realizing our Equity should be the goal.

Let me know what ever you think about all hands I post in general. Remember this is yet a micro PLO blog but we are on our way to small stakes <3

The tournament is pretty much a joke from what I can tell.

Starting chips seem to be based on the size of the pot you lost and the equity of the bad beat, cooler, suckout so anyone playing lower than $200 or $500 tables almost has no chance of winning anything significant.

Most players in the tournament have starting stack sizes under 25K I believe and those players are fighting against enough people with stack sizes of 300K + that you pretty much have to win 4 or 5 flips in a row to make the money.

The algorithm for a bad beat is also not the greatest when it comes to PLO. Plenty of spots I've seen that are a suckout, cooler or bad beat in pretty much any poker circle are not considered so by GGpoker since the equities in PLO run so much closer.

Long story short, a $2 player would have to get incredibly lucky to win anything in that tournament.

Ah I see okay.. I thought the blinds are so high that it basically doesnt matter how many chips you have, but I saw some people would survive losing one or even two flips with a big starting stack, the rest is screwed.

Time for some life updates:
I started lifting again on Monday after I lost 6kg in the last 6 month due to emotional distress. Since I have health issues, putting on weight has always been a problem.

Last summer my peak was ~72kg, now I'm at 66kg (which is pretty much my baseline, without lifting and focusing on nutrition). I'm watching Henry Cavills Workout right now, since he has imo a great body..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSzlgybdkFA

We're both 6'1" (~185), but he weighs probably around 90kg. My goal have always been 80kg, which I was never able to achive yet.

So lets see what my full-body workout plus eating more can do this year.

I'm having too much time at work today and went through various forums and videos concerning rake and rake back. That whole discussion where to play, true rake back, etc made me so curious how much I actually pay, that I decided to only grind one format this month. Or maybe two weeks, we make it volume dependent.

My account is tracked on a rake back affiliate site for GG, which tells me exactly how much I have paid by the end of the month. After all my research I believe playing RnC micros is the most valuable options compared to regular tables and other sites like Stars.

I'll let you know what my research will have concluded by the end of the month.

Also a good video by Samy that indicates my own calculations might be correct:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRz_58UdN4o

Subbed! Good luck!

Hi Inky I had to overthrow my last plan quickly. I cashed out on GG and moved back to PokerStars for now. Main reason is that I would have to pay 60$ for HM3 or PT4 to be able to import GGPoker Hands. Since I do wanna save that money, I moved back to Stars where I can use my HM2.

In addition I read a few more bad things that I can't confirm about GG and someone mentioned that their "Insurance" thing is not very transparent for PLO. At Stars, if we don't wanna take a flip, we could cash out. Which I highly consider given my smallish bankroll.

When PLO Trainer is out in a few days I will take that first month offer and basically do hardcore studying with it.

Yesterday I started PLO5 Zoom because I'm a bit under rolled for PLO10 and want to get my preflop game right before moving up. Thanks to HM2 I can review hands now, post them on Discord, see all of my stats.. that was bit of a hustle with GG.

Cliffs:
- made about +50€ total in Jan from GG incl. rake back and cashed out
- moved back to Stars for better gameplay analysis (rake paid will be posted later)
- currently PLO5 Zoom
- BRM 35+5 (moving up to PLO10 with $400, moving down to PLO5 with 350)
- Worked out 3 times as planned (+EV move)

Have a great week everyone!

Trying to create some sort of content plan currently... since I'm having access to so much content I feel a bit lost what to work on first. There are so many things to work on that it makes sense to think about which spots occur the most often and which are the most costly.

As of right now I guess that would be BB vs any position as well as 3bet Pots. I'll write down some PLO trainer work here as soon as I have it.

Where do you lose the most money according to your database? I saw one guy from Mastermind I believe sorting the most occuring spots in a video.. obv number one is RFI, second was BU vs CO-EP I believe.. I gonna check.

Alright, some February Update:

- got the PLO Trainer for 1 Month for 49$ and cancelled it, since its obv way too expensive for 3 times the price now for everyone who plays micro PLO
- low volume month due to a lot of Trainer work (Postflop Flop structures and Preflop)
- went back to GG from Stars due to rake reasons
- compared Rush and Cash and Regular Table results and its shocking how much I suck at Rush and Cash
- going through RIO From the Ground up Turn+River section (which I couldnt study with the Trainer) -> right now I feel like I have a good understanding on how Flops are beeing played in different situations, but no idea about Turns and River, so big focus on that now

March focus:
- regular tables only
- PLO Trainer work until 16th when it expires (mainly Preflop now, to nail those 3betting ranges)
- main focus Turns and Rivers
- PLO2 instead of 5

My BR cant take big swings and it doesnt really matter if we play 2 or 5 for learning PLO.

I decided to get a coaching for profit deal at some point by some PLO200+ player to play PLO25 or 50.. If I try grinding it up from PLO2, I will need a year or so.. depending on the run.

Cheers!

Are you the fox from my stream by any chance?
I've subscribed here. GL for your journey

Indeed I am.

Quick update:

I had the crazy idea of grinding the RnC GG Leaderboard yesterday.. weird pool. Since people are getting most points for raising, basically the Top 10 are all opening 2bb preflop and then betting flop to river 1bb, no matter what they have. Sometimes they deviate from that when they have a strong hand obv.

Its almost impossible to get into Top5 if youre not .. i'd say grind 16-18h with 3-4 tables playing their style. If you play regular style, not possible.

First gets 20 BI's on PLO5 for 1st, on PLO10 its 16 BI's.. Thats quite nice, but I wonder how much they win or loose in those 10k+ hands they are clicking down.

However, I played mainly regular tables this month because I was so bad at RnC, yesterday I gained some confidence after 5k+ hands. I can't say whats the better "hourly", I will compare at the end of the month.

Have a great Sunday everyone!

Alright alright alright.. I sometimes forget updating this blog here but here it comes:

I did a lot of theory and made some progress at the tables.

PLO2 [check]
PLO5 [check]
PLO10 [in progress]

I ran a few numbers on my GG results because I thought about switching to Stars again to play this 40% rakeback promo which I frequently get. Now that I am at PLO10 with a mere 20 BI bankroll I might take a shot at it.

GG stats:
I'm quite certain that after all my calculations I am barely beating the ~7bb/100 effective rake at PLO10. Since I play regular tables I dont have a samplesize but it appears I am a minor winner at PLO10 with rakeback, and a very minor winner without rakeback..

Thats problematic since Stars rake is higher and the Zoom pool very likely much stronger than my opponents at GG.

I can't say if I gonna attempt the 40% rb challenge, but after running those numbers it appears to be worth it. Basically I would win 20 BI's (200$) for a month of grinding PLO10.. which would most likely be way more than I am making off of GGs rakeback in the same time.

I'll let you know when I know. I started liking GG because the RB is actually excellent for micro players, I just need a bigger winrate (said no poker player ever).

Cheers!

if can play there man i remember partypoker being good for omaha at certain times worth look also from what i remember the fast fold tables play even faster than the zoom games at pokerstars least it felt like that though was while ago i was on there (need to send paperwork and things to get back one there ).

Just picked up the book also and want to get into PLO. Any other PLO tools/solvers you would suggest? I'm comfortable with entire suit of NL tools like equilab, flopzilla, GTO+ etc.

PS: What's up with these ridiculous German rules? I don't get it.

Problem with PartyPoker is that the rake is acutally the highest and the competition is tougher. (in my opinion) Also Germans are excluded from the Leaderboard there.. so even less reason to play there.

Stars, GG and Unibet are good options. Unibet has overall the lowest rake possible, but you cant download Hand histories to review your hands or stats. And theres no rakeback... So I can really only advice every PLO micro player to choose GG.

@vladb: PLOTrainer is amazing if you put in many hours of work. But its also way to expensive for micro players (150$) for 1 month. I'm testing the Trainer web version right now.

The RIO From the ground up course is great for beginners too. I got it for 10€ because there was a promotion for Run It Once Poker once... Unfortunately RIO still doesnt offer PLO4, only NL4. PLO starts at PLO10 and even that doesnt always run. The traffic is too low currently..

But everyone is at a different stage.. so just buying some content, wont make anyone a winning player. If you have money to spend, working with the Trainer, then practicing Openranges and postflop play at micros and then jumping into PLO25+ could be much smarter than grinding your butt off like I am.. you know?

Hey guys,

I haven't been around for quite a while, but I'm back at PLO micros working my way up through the stakes.

Also my twitch channel name changed to https://www.twitch.tv/foxcatchr by now.

When I will go live for some studying I will post that here.

I also started working on my own software to practice certain spots. Its a preflop tool where you can choose which kind of hands you want to practice and then click through them like a trainer. The results can be noted then in an excel sheet, giving you a rank for your performance. I find that quite useful for me at micro stakes.



I'm also working on a tool that compares my RFI hand history with GTO ranges to see how much I deviate in every spot.

Most solves that are supposed to be for a "high rake" environment are still not high enough for the micros. 5% rake with 1bb cap or 2.5bb cap is not even close to what people are paying below PLO50, so I did alter many ranges to be more suitable for micros.

Next plan is to check out the PLO Genius tool for postflop practice and implement that into my excel sheet...

Many things to do.



Goal: Be a PLO25 winning player by the end of the year