It’s my first ever post on 2p2 and it’s to announce that I’m opening this thread. Never been the one for sharing much. Just doing my thing. So, this is not just a big step for me, it feels more like jumping off the cliff tbh (hopefully jumping into water).

I’ve been playing poker for the last 10 years or so. Mostly PLO. Playing pretty much all the major sites. Whenever I’m not travelling for live games, you’ll see me on PokerStars PLO tables as Runchuks. Most of my volume online is at 500-5k PLO, with occasional sessions at 10k PLO. Live it’s mostly 10k-20k PLO games and my poker goal is to keep improving my game and become a more all-round player.

So why this thread?

We’ve launched PLO coaching product on BluffTheSpot about half a year ago and the guys from the team were constantly trying to persuade me to start a thread on 2p2. Clearly, I finally gave in 😊 My goal this year was to play more hours and eliminate non-essential tasks from my routine. And yet I’ve agreed to this.!? But here's why...

This year I’ve started regularly streaming some live play on Twitch and that has been a lot of fun so far. Recently I’ve been mixing it up on stream and I’ve been surprised by how interested people are in some of the stories about my experience in live trips and online world. It’s encouraging to see that some can learn from and get inspired by what I have to say. Enabling others to achieve their goals in poker and beyond is quite a rewarding experience. And it feels great to see that all the hard work I’ve put in my own game can go beyond just achieving my own goals. So now I’m quite excited to reach out to a wider poker community and hopefully share some cool stuff with you.

I’m planning to share occasional details about my progress in attaining nosebleed glory 😉 Also expect some fun stories and some random thoughts.

the plo version of artur. glgl

LMFG

Subscribe now . Good luck

A really toxic comment floating by

Had a nice day off yesterday. Well kind of day off, coz’ I still streamed for 1.5h. But anyway, came back to the tables well rested today. Morning session went pretty well.

Yesterday during the stream I asked if anyone has any suggestions as to what ppl want to see in this thread. By popular vote - posting a graph apparently. Oh well, but I said that I don't like the idea of posting my graphs and that I'm not planning to do it. Probably rambled around 5 minutes on the subject. So here's a graph

https://gyazo.com/7e7c43e7fb17113ea2e107397bb364dc


Anyway, on a serious note... It's gonna be a short week at the tables for me, got a lot of plans and my mini-vacation travels are coming up end of the week. I’d say I’m enjoying the summer if it wasn’t so bloody hot 😊

Hoping to play at least 3k hands this week. Obviously, a miniscule goal, but I’d be lucky to put in 8h of poker this week. Anyway, now that it’s out there, I feel committed might as well go back to the tables right now. Who would've known that this thread might just turn out to be a nice way to motivate myself

$ graphs, we don't care about bb

glgl!

Subscribed!

Question: have you ever misread your hand live? Or prematurely mucked a winning hand?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Please post some hands if you're up to it.

It says in the lore you're a high stakes regular cash player

Did you ever play micros? Did you ever struggle at the 'low' limits, not even getting to medium in the past? Or did you just start at the golden era and everything advanced as it should and you've been upper medium to high stakes forever

glgl mate

gl

Oh yeah, I sure have And there were probably times where I didn't realize I did one of those things. Never in a big pot though (I hope ). Except I remember one where it was maybe around 60bb pot at showdown and I was bluffing the river with the bottom pair. The guy tank called and I say: 'You're good.' Then look at my cards before mucking (a good habit to have) and find that I have a set, not just the bottom pair. Turned it over quickly, but still was a bit of a slowroll anyway. The guy took it well though, it was obvious that I've made a honest mistake.

Sure, why not. I'll try to find an interesting hand to post once a month or something like that.

The first one that comes to mind is this one:

$50/$100 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
PokerStars
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by WeakTight Poker Hand History Converter

Stacks:
UTG ($3,212.50) 32bb
UTG+1 ($10,861.55) 109bb
CO ($9,527) 95bb
BTN ($3,840) 38bb
SB ($10,813.65) 108bb
BB Hero ($7,878.75) 79bb

Pre-Flop: (150, 6 players) Hero is BB K A K A
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $350, CO calls $350, 2 folds, Hero raises to $1,450, UTG+1 raises to $2,550, CO folds, Hero goes all-in $7,878.75, UTG+1 calls $5,328.75
Flop: 9 10 Q ($16,157.50, 2 players), 1 all-in

Turn: 6 ($16,157.50, 2), 1 all-in
River: 10 ($16,157.50, 2), 1 all-in

Final Pot: $16,157.50
UTG+1 shows a pair of Tens
2 A J 3
Hero shows two pair, Aces and Tens
K A K A

Hero wins $16,152.50 (net +$8,273.75)

UTG+1 lost $7,878.75
CO lost $350

Played it last month. Just amusing that stuff like this still happens in 2019

I've started around 10 years ago. So yeah.. the golden era (or thereabouts), so I moved up very quickly. Started with Hold'em though. Was up to mid / mid-high stakes quite quickly. Transitioned to PLO some 7 years ago. So basically I've never played the micros. Nowadays I would occasionally play 1 table of zoom as low as PLO25 for the BluffTheSpot Twitch stream. That's usually a lot of fun where I get to see others doing some bizarre plays once in a while

First good luck with this mate.
Second, what do you think about the future of plo online especially micro/small stakes ? I play mostly NL and wonder if its worth my while to switch over.
Third, if you play live plo you must have a good Degen story.

Thanks Billy.

Thanks for posting that hand. You see certain things that players do and just know it's going to be a great summer.

I've read that you're a coach for BTS? Do you work with sims for your students?

I am right at the beginning of my learning with solvers and gto in general. Do you have any tips on how to begin your approach and how to digest the results from sims? It seems very complicated and I'm not sure how to start.

Thanks.

Thanks man!

Future of PLO online is alright I recon. Games will be there. Imo player fields at the lower stakes are weaker in PLO compared to NLHE since it's much easier to find good study material, good advice and good coaches in NLHE compared to PLO. And hence most likely it's easier for a novice to progress to a higher winrate in PLO if you get good guidance and/or material at the start.

As to if it's worth your while switching over... You should be having fun while playing and studying whatever game you choose, otherwise it's hard to stick to it and keep the motivation. Also, it depends on how much work you've put in to get where you are in your NLHE game. I personally play several different games and I'm happy to jump into the mixed games, but I specialize in PLO as that's the game I'm enjoying the most.

And tbh choosing the 'right' game for the future is probably less important than putting in the hard work to improve at whatever game you choose. And table selection is hugely important. If you are decent in more than one game - you've got more opportunities to get into a good game.

And finally, sure I've got a lot of degen stories from live games. But that's for another time. I'm packing for my flight already

exactly! #greatsummer

I do work a lot with solvers myself and obv our whole team works a lot with solvers when creating material for our students. But I'd only introduce solver coaching sessions to students once they reach a good fundamental understanding of the game. Otherwise I try to present the material in a condensed form, simplifying the concepts in order to build solid foundation. I find that simple is usually best when it comes to working with students. Simple ideas are easier to remember and easier to follow. And also, if I can't present a concept in a simple enough form - I probably don't fully understand it myself... In which case - back to the drawing board

Digesting the data from the solvers (and getting GOOD data in the first place) is not easy. And a lot of people are trying to pile what they 'learn' from the solvers on top of leaky preflop game. Imo for a lot of micros players directly working with solvers should be a very low priority as there usually are so many basic things that need to be fixed first. And fixing those often can often yield quick improvement of winrate.

Tell me what you plan to achieve by working with solvers, then it'd be easier for me to give you some specific advice and I'd be happy to help.

Anyway guys, I'm off for a short vacation. And btw I did manage to reach my micro goal of 3k hands this week. But a big chunk (almost half) of those came from PLO500 which is not exactly what I was hoping for.

You all have a good weekend! I'll be back in the forum next week

What tips do you have for learning pre-flop?

Subbed. Nice to see some high stakes action in Here

That's a great question.


Here's my situation. I play with a lot of recreationals and I beat them. Then the better regulars come and beat me up and the circle of life is complete.

I know regulars are playing spots much better than me and I've somehow gotten it in my mind that studying sims will help me whenever I am over folding, not bluffing enough, or stationing too often, etc.

Can sims help me compete with the regulars?

Will playing like the solver help me be more efficient at playing recreationals?

Or is my time better spent studying something else I am not thinking of?

Thanks again for answering my previous questions.

Have a good rest!

this is off to a good start! however, i'd like to see more interesting hand histories in the future

results for the 3k hand micro goal?

Find good material (I don’t have specific suggestion as to where). Our students work with material that we’ve prepared ourselves and it’s all based on solver solutions. Keep in mind that it’s important to factor in the rake structure into your preflop ranges with a basic rule – the higher the rake – the tighter the ranges. If you don’t have access to good material, you can start with exploring the ranges using propokertools OddsOracle or similar app. Anyway, the type of material you can get your hands on and the kind of tools you can get for studies depends on your budget for studies.

Moreover, since there’s a vast number of possible preflop combinations in PLO, I’d suggest marking all the hands that you’re not sure of while playing and looking up their equities vs potential villain’s ranges with the propokertools (that you can do for free).

Good questions. Let’s start with the big one. ‘Playing like a solver’ WON’T help you to be more efficient vs recs. Anyone who thinks they play very close to GTO strategy in PLO are fooling themselves. Either way, solver is supposed to approach a GTO solution (whether it does, depends on the kind of sims you run and how you structure them). GTO solution is supposed to yield the least exploitable strategy. It means that your opponents won’t be able to increase their winrate by deviating from optimal strategy, they can only decrease it by deviating. So that’s cool, except NOBODY is playing very close to GTO in PLO. The way to increase your winrate vs weaker player is by exploiting their weaknesses. Exploitative strategy and GTO strategy are not the same at all. That’s why ‘feel players’ usually do very well vs recreational players.

That all being said, sims can help you get a better understanding of the fundamentals of the game and crystalize your baseline strategy. Unless you’re playing high stakes already, it’s very likely that most/all regs have some leaks in their game, so your time would be well spent studying their leaks and learning how to exploit them. Imo the higher you climb on the ‘stakes ladder’, the more useful solver studies become. That’s because your opponents will have less leaks, and the player pool becomes smaller, hence being less exploitable yourself matters a lot. However, there are still several highstakes players with high winrates who don’t do any solver work at all.
Thanks man! Don’t remember the exact result of the 3k hand goal. Was nothing to write home about – won about 1k usd.

Btw I’m still on vacation. Getting back home Friday night. I’m enjoying the time off so much that I booked another trip for Sunday morning for another 2 weeks. I guess that’s one of the best parts about playing poker for a living – no boss, no obligations, just do what you want. Anyway, I’m at home only for one day this week – Saturday and I’m planning to stream some live ZOOM play at 2pm CEST on the BluffTheSpot twitch channel – tune in!

Thanks for your answer, I look forward to your Degen story in the future.

I appreciate your response, Runchuks. Have a nice second trip.

I just want to quickly address the innacurate choice of words. When I said 'playing like a solver won't help you be more efficient vs recs', I mean it won't help you maximize your winrate vs recreational players as exploitative strategy will yield better results vs recreationals. It doesn't mean that working with solvers wouldn't help you increase your winrate vs recreational players, just that there are ways to increase it even more.

Just thought I'd post it now, since I won't be online till Saturday.

The pitchforks were coming, you could feel it in your peter-tingle