hey man nice blog, observe it since a few days !

currently playing the 15$ HT husng's and i'm planning to play some plo parallel, so i've got some question: what do you think which stake should i start playing (got more than 50 BI's for plo25) ? i read jeff hwang's books small ball and lag play and i really like plo, played plo2 years ago but i noticed that it's nearly unpossible to beat the rake.
which vip-status do you got on stars and how much rake do you get ? (i think the rake on plo100 is still very big isn't it ?
anything you recommend particularly for improving in plo ?

gl in future man and keep updating, i really like this!

Hey, Thanks.

Rake is extremely high on anything up till PLO200. The lower stakes are beatable on stars, and maybe beatable on other networks too... But the variance is so high that it may take a player capable of beating PLO50 a long time to beat PLO10 or below.

I'm almost supernova and I'm on pace for 2x supernova this year. I'll end up getting around 34% rakeback. The rake paid is pretty ridiculous. I've played 99 hours so far this month (mostly PLO100) and paid $4715 in rake. That's ~$31.43/hr I'm paying pokerstars to play online poker.

What stake you start at depends on your experience and comfort level. If your beating the games your playing now I would say starting at PLO25 or PLO50 (if you have the BR) is fine.

I've been playing these games for a few months and I think that the games have gotten tougher even over the past 8 months. There seems to be a notion on 2+2 that all the regs suck. I disagree. There are several good regs at PLO100 and most of the bad regs are just imbalanced/nitty-- which is not THAT bad. So, if your thinking PLO is a gold mine, you should probably stick to HUSNGs.

wow that's really a ridiculous amout of rake. i'm gold star atm and thought of giving plo25 a shot but i think i'll stick to husng's first and try to get a bigger roll and a higher vip-status, platinum-star at least.

I hope that stars will reduce the astronomically rake so that lower stakes player like me get to play the game profitably. it's a shame imo that only due to the rake this game isn't really "playable" for most of the players...

edit: forgot to thank you for your answer !

hollllllly fk

I really agree with your statement about regs sucking. It's very common in live play for people to say like "oh that guy, yea he's a grinder/pro but he sucks because xyz" but in reality xyz are all very minor leaks and you're not going to be able to noticeably crush him ever in any full ring setting.

Yeah, the exploitability of sub-par regs is even more (perhaps the most) difficult FR live.

I played a session earlier today and make a couple big mistakes. Took a 20 minute break and came back for a good-lengthed crushing session. Can you tell where I took the break??

Tyler when do you leave for Vegas?

Evening of June 5th. You gonna make it down anytime during WSOP?

Working on getting june 20th to 26th off work. Feel like playing live poker before you go? Potentially a montreal trip?

Monthly recap/June Goals time. TL;dr.. My overall impression of the month is average. I'm not disappointed or proud of my work. I haven't made too many leaps in my game, just small improvements. I improved my A-game consistently and I've got better at quitting my sessions on time and quitting when I may tilt.

I'm still a mental game fish. I'm going to have to continue disassociating results from performance. I think a daily log and weekly graph would be best moving forward.

Goals:

[x] 50k hands
[/] 30 hours live
[ ] 100 PLO/PLO8 MTTs

Live I logged 27 hours, profited $1028.00 after staking. Just short of my 30 hour volume goal for the month.

MTTs I logged 2 live (2 final tables!), 64 online. 2/3 of goal. Posted a few hands and reviewed some strat to brush up my tourney skills for WSOP. Major leak was playing tournaments like cash games when 50-80bb deep. I think this was mostly a result of playing cash game tables next to the tournaments. I tend to make pretty ambitious re-squeezes late stage.. I think with my standard nit image and profitability of the play its good.

Online play was average. I managed to get my 50k volume goal set at the start of the month and missed the revised 55k goal last week. There were sessions I played great, sessions I played well, and a couple spurts where I tilted. I want to figure out whats going on in my head when I play a great session. I'm getting better at recognizing when I'm tilting or on the verge of tilt and typically break or quit (the patterns are pretty reliable). I feel like my game is slowly improving from a technical stand-point, and that the biggest advances moving forward are mental game related.

giraffe:



As far as total profits go:

Live: $1028
Online: $3865.50 - $101.78
Rakeback: ($67.40 + $5139.39)*.34 = $1770.31

Net profit = $6562.03

June Goals:

[] 100 hours live cash
[] 10k hands
[] 10 MTTs, 50% ROI +
[] 10 phone #s

That's gonna end up being ~150hours of pokers. I have yoga membership/3 online courses/cold approaching girls/EDC. Gonna be a busy month...

very interesting blog to follow. I'm very excited about your future reports of the wsop and live play.

some questions from a beginning plo player:

- what improved your played the most at the beginning of your plo-journey? (books, articles, videos...)
- how many tables would you play retrospectively if you would start to learn plo and what is a good amount of hands to set as a goal ?

For 1:

I watched tons of stuff. I think its great to get as much perspective as possible. I enjoyed magicninja/Bugz guide on donkr.

For 2:

Highly dependent on the person. I think for most players its between 2-6.

My learning strategy was to play 6-10 tables, mark any unsure spots and review. I think this style fits me better because I'm more of a "feel" player.

When I say "feel" I mean that I listen to my gut (subconscious telling conscious). The best way to develop a solid subconscious is volume/focus. That's because the more I experience a scenario the more reliable my "Feel" is going to be..

Just touched base with a friend who made an investment buying and financing a mobile home. Looks like an awesome opportunity for someone like me with 5k-10k in capital. In mad-scramble research mode..

Ugh, so just reading tax implications of professional poker player. I'm almost considered taxable by Canadian law. My student status officially expires Dec 2013. If my sole source of income is poker and I play full-time and "Hold myself as a professional" to the community, I need to pay taxes. So yeah, this blog could be considered evidence, blah blah.

Basically, I need to find another income producing activity by then or discontinue the blog. If they audit me for 2013 and this is all I do and I document the entire thing, I have to pay taxes. Will re-evaluate this in August.

Hoping I can make a few mobile home deals, enough to consider it a business. I could write off expenses, pay taxes on <$25k income and make the CRA happy. I hate taxes, avoiding them is a big concern.

--

As far as pokers go, played a couple session yesterday. Played quite well, made a could turn cbets on dynamic boards OOP with bare overpairs. Felt like I c/fed river too frequently, redline got owned. Made a big mistake shipping over a committing turn cbet from a nitty reg with a gutshot/pair+nfd when it was clear he had the effective nuts.

Will be posting graphs less frequently as an attempt to take focus off short-term results. Shooting for 10k hands before I leave. This is unlikely, thought I had 6 days, but have 5!

Played 2.1k hands today. Played A-, happy overall. One bad river XF, couple spots marginal bad river XFs. I basically XF 95% vs passive fish if they pot the river when I check. Maybe being exploited... The times I call its always the nuts-- This is NOT to be confused with aggro fish...

Only played a bit today. Skipped out yesterday.. Played really auto-pilot-y. Not happy with play. Was on level 3 way too much. Kept betting small to induce when I was weak, and it worked every time. (As in, I induced) Lol, then I would chicken out on 3betting or float/c/r'ing. Sigh.

Yeah, C+ effort. Only 5.3k hands on this month thus far, will try and get another session in tomorrow before I leave for Vegas.

In Vegas!!

The house I'm in is pretty awesome. Host is accommodating-- good stuff.

Need to get phone and sort out staking.. I will get SIM for now and use my ****ty phone.. Staking 9 different players for ~$200 each, gonna try and meet up with 6 pf them today. Yay for diversification.

Hoping to get in a $1/3 or $2/5 "warm-up" session today. 100 live cash hours is gonna be tough considering I'm playing 8+ MTTs. Gonna have to stretch out average session time to 6.5-8 hours eventually.

Gogogogogo run good in vegas man. Ill be down on the 20th to come rail your final table of a bracelet event.

Im anticipating 30k profit month for you! Get crushing

Yeahh buddy-- sounds good!

Well, off to a slow start. Played some 1/2 and 1/3 today and lost ~$580 over 6.5 hours. Played fairly well, fairly snug. Made questionable float IP in 3bet pot. JT94 with BDFD on 965r vs 3bettor with SPR ~4.5 on the flop. He potted flop, may be a fold. I thought I could bluff 8 or 7 and win most of the times when I hit 2pairs.

Gonna do another 1/2 or 1/3 session before hitting up $5/5 / $2/5. For those that dont play live PLO.. $1/3 plays like $2/5 NLH, $5/5 plays like $10/20 NLH.

I think float seems fine given you block a lot of wraps that have 78, are more likely to hold 78, and a tonne of turn cards help improve your equity enough to be stacking off. Guess it depends on who 3b in the first place. If anything I'd say pre is a fold unless you know his range for 3b oop is purely AA which would actually make your flop play fine.

Yeah, It was mostly AA, I'd say 70-90%. Although, SPR was more like 3.5.. so I like the float less. Meh; it was marginal.


Today I played okay today and won lots of monies. 2 marginal hands;

Hand #1:

Limp, hero raises to $20 with AKQ3ss, 4 callers

Flop($105)

AdAc9d

check, check, Hero bets $60, fold, fold, call (fish), fold.

Turn ($225)

4s

check, hero bets $120, villain goes all-in for $230 more, hero calls.

So yeah, his range is ~50% A9/A4/99 here.. 50% he has AK/AQ.. So pretty close-- marginal call. Could have folded given a live read I had, but cawled. Spiked K on river (he had A9)

Hand #2:

Hero just sat down, 3b once, raised once, played ~6 hands.

straddle, limp, hero($700) raises to $50 with JT87ss, online looking asian grinder snap 3bets to $200, folds to hero who calls,

Flop($430)

KhQh6d
Hero(~$510) bets pot, villain folds.

Yeah, I don't like how I played this spot. I thought a good reg or nit may be capable of folding dry AA vs an unknown here.. but the chances are hes a bad spewwy reg.. + the fact I've played fairly aggro my first couple hands means he's ~never folding AA. And, I don't have 35% vs his range.

Played one hand badly. No point in posting.. burned 5-10% on 70bb.

Anywho, like I said, ran well;

Profit: $2222
Hours: 13.75

I really enjoy reading your thread, keep the updates coming.

Thx Viktor, I appreciate the support.


Summary of today;

Played some tennis today for the first time in ages.. felt good.

Got a phone #

Chilled with Aesah(Just quit my 6-figure job to play live poker) for lunch/breaks.

Played B-, 8 hours, +$1838.

Most interesting hand:

Button is older guy, just lost big pot and raised the last 3/3 hands. Got to showdown with A954ss in one of those hands. Decides to button straddle the max...


Button($1.5k) straddles to $25, SB(nit) calls, MP(whale) calls, hero($800) calls in CO with KK23ss, button makes it $105, SB calls, MP calls, hero ???

Anywho, pretty easy 4b here. I think button is pretty wide here (50%+?) SB probably ~20%, MP 10-50%. So I 4b pot, button rejams, mp calls.

MP had 78**, button had T764ds, hero held with KK23.

Profit: $4060
Hours: 21.75

wow you are crushing so far, how are the other guys in your house doing?

Good, Good, Average, Bad... I think.

Is the most recent graph a mix of 100 and 50 PLO ?

I love this blog ! Do you play 10-12 tables ?

gL in Vegas man !