It's been two weeks since I started playing mainly HU PLO, with some mixed games splashed in. So far it's going well, as I'm writing this i had a good sunday for cash games. I think game selection and patience are two of the most important things when it comes to HU. It's easy to get impatient or deviate from your game plan after losing a couple of buy-ins. Sticking with my game plan, and re-evaluating it if need be is something I need to work on. Also being more patient. It's sometimes frustrating when you know the player will leave right after he wins a pot, but it's part of HU, and in the long run we are likely making money from these types of players.

Things to work on:

1. Be more patient
2. Stick to my gameplan
3. Play within my bankroll
4. Pick my spots wisely if i'm playing the higher end of stakes

I've been studying when I can and watching videos, but I feel I can probably put more work into the game. I'm currently trying to find residency in Germany so that I can play full-time, instead of having to move somewhere every 3 months. Maybe when I settle more I'll be able to focus and put more energy into developing my game at a higher level. In the meantime I will try my best to put in solid sessions when I'm focused.

It's been a very swingy 4 days since i last updated. I have been mixing in zoom PLO and experiencing the variance that comes with it... A lot of people like to 3-bet and 4-bet weak hands, causing a lot of variance.

I feel my game is getting better every day, and I'm becoming more disciplined in how I go about constructing my ranges and c-betting etc.
I'd say I try and play a GTO style game, and through that try and find tendencies of players that I can exploit. IE. if they always pot turn when i check back flop, i start checking back flop with more equity that allows me to call turn and river.

It's a learning experience, and a fun one at that. The only thing I need to be wary of is being disciplined in having a relative stop loss, and not pick bad games. Zoom can be sometimes distracting as it's easy to go on autopilot, and when playing it, it's very important not to do that. I'd like to focus more on HU, so i've decided to mainly just sit HU across FTP and stars, across .50/1 and 1/2 and wait patiently. So far I believe this is the best way to get soft action and build my BR with PLO.

I've also been experimenting with HU PLO sngs. I think there is some very soft action to be had in these as well, but i'm not sure of my game in these, as i'm not familiar with shortstack PLO, and I feel i may be giving up an edge against any decent reg who knows how to properly play at all stack depths. I'm also not sure if it's really worth my time to put effort into, although it's nice to have my own table which forces people to play me if they want to play. We'll see how those develop.

Poker has been up and down a lot. I've been going back and forth between stud/mixed games and HU PLO. I think HU PLO is going well. I have a few things I need to address, as sometimes I feel like a lot of PLO is having patience for the right spots, and not overstepping an exploitive strategy, especially against decent players.

I've gotten my BR up to $5600 from grinding mostly .50/1 plo and 1/2 plo and 10/20 stud/mixed. 10/20 is a little high for the BR, but I have a lot of confidence in my stud/mixed games. I'd like to be playing 1/2-2/4 sometime in the near future, as playing .50/1 is very discouraging, however I need to take away the emotional aspect of it, and just remember it's a process.
I need to keep good BR management, or it will be easy to blowup this relatively small BR.

Nice to see you back ceegee
To which countrys did ya travel let you too?
Also whats actually up with all these chinese guys on the stud tables? TheY really scare me off man

Hey!
I did a europe trip to Liverpool, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Karlsruhe, Munich, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Zagreb, Split, Rome, Florence, and Gimmerwald (swiss alps). Before that I was in Australia, New Zealand, and Vancouver.

In PLO news I busted the account :/
I realized that I was under a lot of stress and not playing well. There were a lot of factors contributing to my stress, and It was almost inevitable the way I was handling the short amount of money I had online, that I'd eventually bust it. Starting again with a 2k deposit and grinding 100plo.
I've taken a lot of steps to work on my discipline and focus on the game, and i'm confident if I stick to my guns, i'll be able to make a profit and move up stakes again.

some guidelines i'll try and follow

• 1250 hands a day
• not checking account balance during play
• dividing up sessions so i'm playing focused
• quitting if not focused, no exceptions
• studying at least 15-20 minutes a day
• some form of exercise
• some form of relaxtion (spending time on hobbies)

I've been grinding 50 and 100 PLO back and forth. It feels gross to be grinding 50 PLO since i'm massively over-rolled, but it's a good lesson in practicing bankroll management, and gives me incentive to take 100 plo seriously so I don't have to drop down again. Of course variance is always a factor, and sometimes I can drop 10 buy-ins at zoom when playing great. The variance of zoom is high, which means the stress is high, so I've been looking into meditation and journaling to hopefully reduce it.

Currently I'm at 50 PLO after having a 11 buy-in downswing at 2k. When I reach back up to roughly 1300-1400 I will shot take at 100 plo again and hopefully not run as bad this time.

I find that having a large bankroll for the stakes you play is imperative if you don't want to move down, otherwise you eventually will have to move down if you have aggro bankroll management like me. I find 20 buy-ins is not even close to sufficient for zoom.

Dude, 2K is NOT a large bankroll for PLO100 ... I'd start taking shots w/ 3K if I wanted to move up quickly, else 5K is a mediocre BR for PLO100. Trust me. The swings will come!

Glad you're updating this thread again Ceegee! Glgl!

As an update...

I recently read a great article for achieving success.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...liver-burkeman

It promotes having a system in place instead of goals. Something that you can make a habit of doing daily, that will eventually lead to a goal essentially. And in poker I think it's perfect, since there are so many elements in poker you can't control, and it sometimes feels like you're failing if you aren't winning. Winning is the part you really can't control. You can only control how good you get, and how many hands you can put in. So lately I've decided to just grind as much as I can and study a decent amount.

I've just settled into Berlin and I'll be playing poker for the next 32 days as much as I can before Christmas. I'd like to stick to my system for that amount of time and see what happens.
I've been fluctuating at 50 and 100 plo. The variance is big and i'm not used to dropping down, but again it's great practice for me to be disciplined even if I have to grind 50 PLO. For example, today I had $1300 so I took a $300 shot at 100 plo, when I lost the $300 I dropped back down to 50PLO. I won $300 at 50 PLO and took another shot at 100 PLO. Lost again and dropped back down to 50 PLO. It's not as bad as I thought, but it's definitely a test of my discipline, and so far so good. I won't drop down to 25 PLO because in my mind that's just a waste of time since I'm already over-rolled for 200 PLO.

So here's to the next 32 days.

So I realized a few things.
Doing work on the game is the best way to increase your winrate.
Playing fewer tables is necessary for me in order to absorb all the work I do.
Learning while playing is not optimal.

I've been working on parts of my game I felt uncomfortable with before, and now I feel so much more comfortable playing. I think my game is at it's peak right now even tho my bankroll isn't which is a good feeling to at least feel like I'm doing well with my game. I hope that the two eventually meet and I'm able to climb out of the low stakes and into the Medium stakes!

I don't have any specific hands, but in the future I may save some and review them on my Cardrunners blog.

Long time no update. Since November, a lot has happened. After grinding .50/1 plo for a bit I moved up to 1/2 and then focused on mixed games a bit. After awhile I've built up a BR to play some bigger games, and I've been splashing around the 10/20 PLO games. I find them challenging at times, but worth the experience! I also am streaming from time to time on twitch with some PLO strat here

I think it's good to step back and re-evaluate... so...

I plan on continuing to play mixed as the games are good, and PLO as well. I generally think it's ok to play higher stakes as long as the games are good. It's a little new territory for me, so I need to tread carefully and be responsible with BRM. It's tempting to pretend to be a reg at higher stakes and play more hours, but really I think it's better to dip my toes in before jumping fully in.

The SCOOP is coming up as well, so I'll hopefully start preparing for that in April, which isn't too far away!

So to keep myself on the path:

• Study PLO/Mixed
• Put in hours when games are good
• Prepare for SCOOP
• Continue to work on fitness

Back in Vancouver from the WSOP. WSOP went well and I Had 3 final tables and a cash in the Main Event. So overall great summer. Now that I'm back I have to ease back into online, as it's a verrrrry different game. I think starting at low stakes PLO, and slowly think about hands/ranges again is the path i'm going to take. The mixed games look like they are getting tougher and tougher as the big bet players cross over and learn. I think the plan is to focus on PLO more so now and prepare next year to have it be more of my focus. I will still likely try and keep my HORSE game up to speed, but I think there is more value in learning the different formats of PLO, as the pools are bigger and there is way more game selection. I can play HU/Zoom/full-ring/HUSngs, where as I can only really play 40/80 and 100/200 8-game 6 max.
For now I'm taking it easy also as I learn how to gain residency in Vancouver, and find a more permanent place. After I do this, my mind will be much clearer to learn poker. In the mean time I think just playing a small amount and thinking about the game will keep me somewhat fresh.

• Play 200-500 PLO
• Review hands/sessions after
• Find routine again after WSOP
• Health focus

Playing a short session just now, I need to slow down and start thinking more about ranges. I've been playing so much limit, that I'm definitely a bit rusty about assessing ranges, and choosing my spots to get money in.

hey ceegee

i was a poster near the start of the thread a couple years ago.

havent checked into this thread for a while, but glad to see you kept it updated and good luck with everything

Nice! Thanks man, appreciate it!

Well I finally found an apartment and am able to settle down for the next 5-6 months. Now's a good time to start making some goals for the duration of this time. I'd like to really put in a lot of time into PLO and basically see how well I can do at the higher stakes. This means;

• studying
• playing a decent volume(4-6 hours a day)
• watching/reading whatever i can get my hands on.

Other than focusing on poker, i'm going to try and minimize my obligations/hobbies. I'd like to mainly focus on health. Lifting/stretching/eating well. If I can achieve these two goals I feel i'd be very happy.
I move into my new place tomorrow, and I'll take a day or two to fully settle in. Once I do so, It's grind time, just in time for WCOOP. Looking forward to putting my mind and energy into PLO and seeing how it turns out. Let's hope for a heater!

So It's been a bit since I've updated this.

After coming back from WSOP I was super rusty for online, and ended up getting a little too eager to jump back into things, and paid for it. I Went on a downswing August/September, and October was spent grinding lower stakes to build back my BR. Now I'm back to where I was when I first came back in August. I've been working on my game a lot with friends, and it's paying off. I feel more confident at the tables and am playing within my roll way more often, which makes a huge difference in being able to concentrate on my game, instead of worrying about how much money i'm winning or losing. I basically took shots at 5k plo with a 500 plo roll, which was way too stressful.

Going forward I plan to grind 500 and take shots at 1k when it's good. Studying as much as I can to improve my game also. My friend gave me good advice, he told me "you should learn to beat 5k before you move up, so that when I grind 500, I will naturally crush." That's paraphrased, but the sentiment is good.

Recently I've come across a realization. I lack the discipline and consistently to climb to the higher stakes. I come up with strategies to accomplish goals, but then get distracted. For example my goal is to play high stakes PLO. So to do that I feel i should focus on beating 500+ PLO. However I'll get sidetracked if there is a big fun player in the mixed games, and go on a mixed games bender for 2 weeks. Because I haven't been prepping for mixed games, it feels like sometimes i'm just clicking buttons. I also don't practice good game selection all the time. If there are no games running on a certain day, I may end up playing a not so great game, just for the sake of playing. I need to be disciplined and focused on my long term goal each day. I want to be beating 2k PLO, and to do so, I must first beat 500PLO, and study so that I can get better. Also my bankroll management has been very questionable. I play in games that I can lose 10k easily, when I really would only like to lose 5k max. So therefore I will try and set some rigid rules from now on.

• I'm starting with a 50k bankroll. ($54k to be exact)
  
• Play 500 PLO as my regular game.
  
• Take shots at 1k PLO if the game is good.
  
• Don't play 2k until I have at least 50 buy-ins for it. This way I can lose 20 buy-ins comfortably and still play 500 PLO. With the volatility of 2k (edges are smaller) it's easy to downswing I imagine.
  
• Playing mixed is fine, as long as it's 40/80 or 20/40. 100/200 mixed is too much variance to swing with a 50k bankroll. I need a lot more actually. Possibly 250k+.
  
• Implementing a stop loss of 5 buy-ins also may be a good idea. It's helped in the past. Generally I think it's fine to keep playing as long as I take a break, review the hands I lost and then see if I'm actually playing well or made mistakes.

So that's it.

I've started studying more again which is getting back on track for my goal. And I hope that by sometime next year I'll be able to beat 2k, whether it's regular games or zoom.

Lately i've been thirsting high stakes, and it's concerning me. I've been playing 1/2 quite a bit and ignoring my PLO progression. I think I need to get back on track to playing within my bankroll or I could easily swing 50k in one direction or the other. That being said my roll is up a decent bit from the starting point of 54k, and it feels nice to have a little more room to play higher. Still it's important I keep my mind level and my progress steady!

Happy New Year!
So I ended the year with a bang, having one of my better days I've had in awhile. New years is a great time to make new goals. I am aware that New Years is kind of cliche and arbitrary to start making goals, but I can't help but fall into the hype of it all, and follow suit (get it... poker... suits...)

So after reading a poker stars article on a few players talking about 2016 goals, I've decided to a a rendition of my own.

1. What goals would you suggest for a beginning player?
2. What goals to set yourself in order to grind a long tournament or poker session?
3. Thinking back to when you started playing poker, what goals do you think led you to becoming pro?
4. What percentage do you feel a beginning player should be playing poker compared to studying poker?
5. What should we avoid when setting our goals so that we have a realistic chance of achieving them

1. I would suggest coming up with a plan, and sticking to it. Be disciplined, and work on making good decisions. It's easy in poker to get distracted from your goals, and make poor decisions that don't align with your goals.

2. I generally try and focus on playing well in a tournament, and being patient. It's easy to get restless when playing 4-5 hours and card dead.

3. I think when I focused hard on making good decisions and working hard on my game, it advanced me further in my poker career every time.

4. For a beginner I think like 80/20 or 75/25 is a good split. When you're starting off, you do learn a lot by playing and observing what others are doing. It's hard to study if you have no vantage point of where to start.

5. always avoid monetary goals. it will mess with your overall progress, and it puts blinders on you when making other decisions.


So for my goals in 2016:

I. Health
Workout 3 days a week.
Meditate 1-2 times a week

II. Poker
20 hours playing a week (more of a focus of quality play rather than quantity)
2-4 hours studying a week

III. Misc
Increase giving by 50%
4 blog posts on meaningful topics
Eat healthy

Also my girlfriend, Grace, has a good idea for setting goals in the new year. She likes to set themes. I think a good theme for me for 2016 will be discipline.

So here's to a successful 2016 !

glgl, enjoyed the podcast.

thanks!

Thinking more about goals for this year, i talked with my friend and came up with some more solid things to do for 2016.

Focusing on improving my winrate at 2/5.
Sitting more at 2/4-5/10 regular/HU tables.
Getting in over 100k hands.

This will be my focus for the next few months, and I'll see how it goes.

hey ceegee

(reg poster in thread) i've some q's i hope you dont mind answering:

i) (I've not got a good way of measuring as i dont play) What's the rake like at PLO500 in general? Compared to higher stakes/other games?
ii) With regards to PLO, what no. of players would you prefer to be seated? (I remember d2 mentioning he wished 6max zoom was 4max)
iii) Of 20 hours per week play, how many hours play per day? Per session?
iv) Zoom PLO: how many tables simultaneously? How many hands does that work out per hour roughly?
v) Any ideas for improving your (and mine) w/r in the 500zoom games?

I am going to listen to joey's podcast again though liked it 1st time