First things first, I will introduce myself.

I have been living in Brussels, Belgium for the past 15 years. I can say IÂ’ve a pretty good situation, a good job paying decent money, a lovely wife and 2 adorable kids. 😊 IÂ’m enjoying life as much as I can, and I certainly canÂ’t complain.

However, Poker is always in the back of my mind. IÂ’ve been playing for a while, I started in 2007 and pretty tried everything, from SnG to MTT, from HU to 6 max CG, I played a lot of NLHE, PLO and even some mixed games.

As for live experience, IÂ’ve been playing with friends each month for the past ten years, your perfect friendly home games, lots of drinks, some illicit smokes and chips going all around. IÂ’ve also played in many casinos around the globe and spent a full week in Vegas with my wife (who used to play a lot)...told you she is lovely.

I’ve always been what I call a reasonable gambler…For as long I can remember, I always loved playing, cards games, video games and I would be the first one to take a bet…But the word “reasonable” is important, I love to gamble for money but I know how to limit my losses and to only play the money I can afford.

Reading the above, it could be seen as a (light) brag but why am I writing this and starting this blog? Here is the real story. 😊

IÂ’m the classic lurker, I read everything I can about poker, news, blogsÂ…I love reading stories and challenges on this forum, I read pages and pages, I vibrated following progresses, and I had my deceptions when people stopped posting so I told myself, itÂ’s time to contribute maybe in a different wayÂ…

I think IÂ’m not that different from many players, I built numerous bankroll and I always made cashouts or went busto because of a very limited bankroll management, a huge tendency to tilt (IÂ’ve a great sense of justice and I feel the biggest injustice when I keep loosingÂ…😊 &#128522

Overall, IÂ’m a winning player but I always laugh thinking of my hourly win rate, IÂ’d better work 10 hours a week at the factory!

I know itÂ’s good to say that I study my game and mental but in fact IÂ’ve the worst habits:
- I watch my results during the session (and not only onceÂ…)
- I canÂ’t stand having a losing session and want to finish in the green
- I play on the spot, not preparing my sessions
- Playing cash game, I use the cash out option (whaaaaaat?), this helps me a lot avoiding the tilt.

That being said, I know what I need to improve (the 1st step towards success)!

For this blog, I will start playing PLO10 and will tell you more in the next post.

Good Luck Cap 🫡

As I told previously I will play PLO10 for this challenge.

Why? because after years of playing, it's clear to me that PLO is what excites me most, I can play play more hand, see a lot of flops, remember, I told you I have every symptoms of the gambler (who said fish?). More seriously I find it's the game that balances the most patience, strategy and putting chips everywhere.

It may be weird to have a tendency to tilt and still play PLO (at least I'm not playing 5 cards PLO), but I feel I have more control as I can't throw all ins each and every hands. I could play limit holdem...haha...come on, I'm not 70...no offense old men.

Moreover, I feel like I have a natural understanding at PLO, I subscribed to PLO mastermind (Jnanez) and read his book, and it feels like pretty straightforward BUT I'm (very) far from being a GTO star, it's painful for me to apply those concepts consistently and I rely way too much on intuition.
This will be something to work on (maybe).

As I said earlier, I live in Belgium and guess what Rakeback is forbidden here...yeah I know, this is the most stupid think...we know why, they want to protect the player from addiction...as if rakeback was the key...so we pay an insane rake and we don"t get anything in return, as they say: Casino always wins. This is adding difficulties to success but I LOVE this game, I don't have any trouble putting the hours...I always find the motivation to play. I have to admit that I always struggle to understand when I read people not enjoying the game of having troubles putting the volume. The explanation might be that I'm not a pro player and as it's a hobby, I keep loving it...Same way, I dream about living in the sun close to nice waves to go surfing everyday and maybe I would be disappointed to have that everyday...naaaaaah, no WAY, I would play poker on the beach and surfing during my breaks...

Well, you will notice I sometimes go out of the road when I write...sorry for this.

So, I will play 4 tables of PLO10 (again we are limited to 4 tables here...), I know I could do more but at the same time, it allows me to focus on every decision. (hahaha I would love this to be true).

I played higher than PLO10 but more than the money, I want to prove myself that I can succeed not going in every direction.

The goal is to reach 1.500$ before moving to PLO25, it will certainly take time but I have quite some time now to put some volume so I'll take advantage of this.

I don't want to commit on a frequency of updaes as I know this is the most difficult thing but the other think I know being a professional lurker is that CONSISTENCY IS KEY so I'll try to be consistant.

I will obviously post graphs, probably no hand, not something I like to read in blogs (even if I appreciate hand analysis) and if you allow me I will also sometimes post off topics posts when I feel like it.

Next post will be the first results, wish me luck

First 4K hands are in the book and I've to say that I couldn't have hoped for a better start...I've been running like - choose your prefered messiah - (I have none).

From experience, I know this won't last and this might seems odd but I'm always afraid of the boomerang effect. I told you from the beginning that I'm far from having the cold blood of those pro's player so I'm always dealing with emotions. (Maybe this is what keeps me in love with the game)





As you can see, I use an uncommon tracker - Poker Copilot - well, I've never seen one using it here, but it works fine for me.
I just noticed that everything was in french but guess what I'm sure you will understand and realize you're that close to speak français.

Overall and it's not a surprise, the level is catastrophic at PLO10 and you need to wear your bullet proof vest but it's good to see poker is not dead.

2 observations:
- Rake will always win and I'll keep publishing the amount because I need to remember that I've no other hobby that cost me so much
- Throwables on PS...I can't say enough how I'm direspecting player using this feature

I make this one short, don't hesitate if you have any question/comment

GLGL, keep it up!

It was too good to be true...Played again 4K hands and things didn't go as planned, to say the least...

I didn't run well, so many bas rivers, but hey, we are here in total honesty I also played overconfident and made some donkey moves

I guess it's part of the process. Only good point is that I really sticked to the plan and didn't go degen in higher limits or spewing everything in a Spin, which I did a lot in the past...I'm sure you know what I'm talikng about.

So here are the graphs:



It hurst...



Let's stay positive...we are still in the green



Evrytime I see the rake amount I have an heart attack, you must love the game



See you for the next roller coaster!

Back on track...I was able to play well and run good which is a nice feeling even it started badly.

We all know the feeling of being in the zone when decisions are crystal clear and everything is going according to the plan.

However, I still have massive leaks both in the game itself (way too calling station sometimes, but I keep improving) and in my behavior, I keep looking at my results during the sessions, that's crazy how weak I'm. I'm challenging myself constantly trying to avoid looking but I keep failing, I'll need to work hard on this one.

I don't really understand my focus on short term result, as I said in my first post, this is not life money and the amounts played are not significant but still I can't stand losing man. (classic) I can't imagine how pro players handle the swings with big numbers, I wouldn't be able to sleep. When I was playing out of any Bankroll Management, I lost few hundreds at some point and had the worst nights, it affected me. I always surprised we don't read this that often. Coping with bad results is for me the number 1 skill of a poker player. (not using throwables is the second one)

Now the graphs:





And the recap:





Oh Boy I miss my rakeback!

If only I had stopped my session at the scheduled time...

I can't remember how many times I told this to myself. If I had to guess I would say that it has rarely been a good idea to do the extra mile (or worst the 100 extra miles).

I would love to know where I would be right now if I had have the discipline.

Let's list the many excuses that we tell our(donkey)self:
- I need to stop positive
- I can't leave this F****** fish
- The tables are so damn good
- I'm in the zone, I read minds, I own all those guys...(u see what I mean )
- One more round and I close the tables...One more round and I close the tables...One more round and I close the tables...
- It's 11:23, Ok I'll play until 11:30 ! Damned it's 11:32, Ok let's go until 12:00....u all know it can bring you to 4 in the morning
- I'm up 19,67$, let's make the 20$ mark...(Stop looking at results in session...)....you look again and you're +12$...(see point above)
- I'm waiting for one last big hand/pot..(ridiculous one, well they are all dumb excuses)
- I will close all tables except this one and play it tight...boring...let's open moooore tables
- ...

There are a lot more I guess, anything you can think of?

This is my main resolution for this "challenge". I set a stopping time and I'm sticking to it. I mostly respected this (come on, can't leave that whale!). I'm convinced this is an easy fix that is improving the winrate on the long run!

If I have lot of tlme to play, I include real breaks between session, believe me this is something huge for me...I saw myself playing for 8 hours straight, not wanting to stop the session, being in a parallel universe, the one where you take your computer to go to the toilets...I'm a grown up man so I always realize this is a terrible idea but it s often too late.

So this is it, I decided to cut the ****! I'm a grown up man and I want to put some structure to this grind.

11:22....hope I won't miss the 11:30 deadline

Good Self-Awareness, keep it up. I do sessions- 1h to 1h 30min and the idea that I'm gonna take 30min and come back feeling better helped me. Now it's a Must for me. Come back and still have a chance to compete, no need to use it all on one 3h session.

Another set of hands in the books...so far so good...

It hasn't been a smooth ride, I got stuck for a while before being having a serious heater. I'm happy the way I handled those sessions where nothing seemed to go my way.

I identified some frustration but no tilt, allowing me to control the damages. Not playing my A-game at all time but not diving to my D-game either.

Games are really soft at PLO10, I'm still amazed at how bad/crazy/brainless some players are, and that's perfectly fine because some of them maybe just want to gamble for a cheap prize...I must admit I struggle sometimes not to think of those desperate souls endlessly bleeding buy-ins, I prefer to think they can afford to lose this money. This may sound a bit cheesy but this is the way I'm built...but that said this is the last time I will mention this because at the end of the day I'm part of the system.

I often open tables and there are 3/4 recreational players identified (they are in RED for me, I know this is of high importance - I go for GREEN for regs / and RED for Whales). I have to improve a lot on taking notes, I often limit the process to: "big whale, CS, don't bluff" or "3Bet = 100% AAxx". I think this is a leak but I often don't have time to carefully make a good note. If you have any tips...

Now for the results:





Recap:





As the Pixies would have sung: "Where is my rakeback?" (well that doesn't really match but I love this song)

GJ Bro ! Awesome thread and y got a new Follower.


I would like to see your "Money Won Without Showdown Line" just becose it would tell me much more than just winning graph by itself. Need Both to analyze..



Gl HF and keep writing

Thanks for the kind words and for the tip, I will add this in my next post.

It feels great to run good...hope it would last for ever...

It says it all, I had an incredible run the last sessions I played. However I don't know how to interpret the All In ev graph as I use the cash out options....bouuuuuuuuuh....I know it's not what you are used to read here but it does help me. It reduced the variance a lot and even if I know I'm loosing EV in the process, I'm also avoiding a lot of frustration and tilt..and in my case this is a game changer.

Understand me well, I'm aware this is not an optimal strategy but I'm far from playing my A game 100% of the time and unfortunately my decisions aren't always the right ones( surprise?) so I believe "cash outs" can be useful to avoid being in a gambling situation too many times in the session. I'm interested in knowing opinions on this topic.

Anyway, obviously happy with the way things are going but very much aware it can go upside down quickly. I trying to be self cautious, I know this feeling of being unbeatable and it is the most destructive feeling. I must fight the over confidence given by several winning sessions but also find the right balance not be scared of loosing.

I realize all those thought may sound trivial and describe myself as a player with weak mental but this is exactly why I started this blog, to put all those mental leaks on paper and reflect on them.

Don't judge me

Here for the graphs:





Recap:





And the graph with the money won without showdown, happy to have your comments:



May the run continue!