So here we are.
Poker grind take 400.

Recently had my party account hacked. Lovely guy who did it spent about 6 hours trying to spin my roll off on slots after failing to withdraw. Kudos to his commitment. But thankfully we're back and have been refunded now.

For the backstory, I'm from the UK and have been teaching English in Korea for a little over a year now. Will be here until the end of summer 2021 when I'm hoping the whole corona thing might be slightly more under control. Currently the corona situation is a lot worse in Korea than it has been for a while (although still basically non-existent compared to the west, but different story), so other than work I have very little exciting I can do in my downtime.

The queens gambit hype got me inspired to learn chess for all of about 2 weeks. Then I realised that if I was going to commit time and energy to learning a game why not make my long anticipated (by who I don't know) return to the online felt. So the last few weeks, while waiting for partypoker to sort the account **** out, I've been dabbling in a little PLO study for the first time in a few months and splashing around with the last $10 on my Stars account.

Now we're finally back online and can grind. Not planning anything wild, starting at PLO5, when I've proved to myself that I'm actually a winner at these stakes I may go ahead and deposit enough to be rolled comfortably for PLO10.

Goals for this thread:
Update results & volume weekly
Share anything exciting I get upto in Korean and/or share some old stories of my shenanigans so they're written down somewhere for prosperity.
Find other people who are trying to learn PLO and willing to share hands/start a study group.

Currently re-reading the donkr PLO series articles just to get my head back in the game but would love any recommendations on good study material (likely not gonna invest in matrix/vision/monker until I'm at least half decent).

Not looking for massive volume, currently more focused on proving to myself I'm winning at these games (although I guess volume is necessary to create a big enough sample, but not in a rush).

Will share some Korea photos to get the blood circulating shortly.

Until then, lets go.

gl mctoady

Good luck op!

Cheers guys!

Small Poker update:

Decided to get the PLO matrix. Think I likely have a lot of leaks that I don't even have a clue are leaks so hopefully this should help tidy things up a bit preflop at least. My current situation is the opposite to my days grinding as a uni student where I had essentially unlimited time but very limited funds. So I'm seeing it as better to invest some disposable income into trying get better at the game rather than aimlessly grinding the micros making $2 an hour.

Plan is to play enough at PLO5 to feel confident enough that I'm beating the stake and then likely deposit enough for a nice PLO10 roll and go from there.

Korea Update
Not much going on to be honest. Still a lot of corona based restrictions going around giving me an excuse to sit at home studying PLO.

What’s up OP!

Glgl in your games. I am just starting grinding PLO myself, trying to become a winner as fast as possible! Was living in SEA myself until damn Corona and cant wait to get back as soon as I can fly. I was in Cambodia.

If you’d like to get a study session going one time I’d definitely be game! Using PLO matrix myself and Vision for postflop.

Stay well!

LeeFaeBlue

Nice PM me your discord if you fancy studying.

Also cracking username profile pic combo!

Sent from my SM-A305N using Tapatalk

Spent a few hours getting a feel for the matrix yesterday.

I remember the competence concept from the Mental Game of Poker book I read a few years ago. I felt somewhat trapped in the 'conscious incompetence' stage these last few weeks. I knew there was likely a whole heap of issues with my game but didn't really know where to begin to fix them. I feel the Matrix (at least for preflop) has given me that bit of structure I needed to improve. Now I just need to put the effort and time in myself.

Also made me realise just how much work I've got to do. Should probably get into the lab and stop writing here.

갑시다.

We are probably overdue a blog update and currently have 3 hours at an airport with literally nothing to do, so as Zack de la Rocha once said what better time than now? (I was almost certain that was Morrissey but that’s beside the point).

Have a bit of a break from work until the new year so going to Jeju Island for a few days to unwind. Packed the laptop and will likely manage a fair bit of poker on the evenings, just with a change of scenery. Chose the Airbnb based almost entirely on its ocean view. Will share some pics once I’m there.
As far as poker is concerned things have gone pretty well since I got the PLO Matrix. Learned a lot of stuff that I probably would never have picked up regardless of how many hands I grind so I’m happy with that. Still a ton of things I need to improve on but I think I’ve at least got a clear idea of what those things are now rather than flying blind.

Made the move to mainly last week PLO10 as I have ~50BI for the level and not too concerned with having to drop back to PLO5 to grind up a few more buyins if things go poorly. But so far, it’s been okay.

Probably time to grab some overpriced airport food and ask myself why I came to the airport 3 hours early for a domestic flight. Proper nit move, I am ashamed.

Also: Would update with interesting hands but the partypoker hand history thing is boom so you’re gonna have to make do with this. Next update will have lovely Jeju pictures & it’s forecast to snow while I’m there so that’ll be nice.

Leaving Jeju tomorrow. Been a really nice break. Rented a bike for the last two days and biked 90km. My body is a wreck, but it was a good experience. The weather was incredible yesterday considering its the middle of winter. Will attach a few photos at the end for anyone with a bit of pandemic induced wanderlust.

Had two reasonable online sessions crammed in there too and have been running pretty well, need to pick up the studying again when I return but happy with how things are going.

Random side note. I looked at my results from prior to my break and was confused how I had a decent win rate when up until recently I'd been really struggling despite being leaps and bounds better than I was then. I then sat at a few non zoom tables and quickly remembered where that winrate came from.

Home tomorrow & still off work until Monday, Will probably get some decent volume every day except new years day so we'll update at the end of the weekend.

Yess I am finding all the PLO blogs today. I hope I get to travel again soon, was hoping to visit Korea to be honest.

Glad to see PLO Matrix repped I'm friends with the crew. It's the way to start.

I'm personally a huge fan of playing zoom as a means of getting better as a poker player. All the arguments about table selecting I think is secondary to getting hands in and not thinking about other things and just focusing on playing, taking breaks whenever, and having hands to study. Basically I think gitgud first, grow roll second. If anything, I'd just get money from non poker sources, but idk, I guess I haven't worked a job so I don't know.

Thanks! Followed your stream and joined the matrix discord server too.

Have your study streams earmarked for when I have some free time this weekend.

Managed to get back from Jeju yesterday despite there being a bit of a blizzard. Played a little today but still tired. Will be back at the tables Saturday & Sunday.


End of the month update:
Hands ~15k (about 50:50 plo5lo10)
Bankroll +~£105 (about 140 dollars).

Notes
Running very week the last week or so, but game is also improving I think. EVbb/100 currently 5bb/100 since moving to PLO10. Wanna improve on that if possible.

Goals
Play
+20k hands in the next 6 weeks at PLO10 above 5EVbb/100. If I manage this I'm gonna contemplate depositing enough to get me to PLO25.

Study
Keep working with the matrix, both studying particular areas and making my own hand quizzes.

Happy new year everyone. Here's to a successful 2021.

Good luck!

Good job, but my advice is to not be too worried about evbb. Just focus on your play! The best players I know all have 100k hand break even stretches, even when they were playing well.

Really rough week.

Typical situation where you're running bad and just seems like every run out is the worst possible one, really pretty tilted tbh. Not because of the results, but just starting to doubt how much this is run bad vs me just not being able to beat these games.

Might look for coaching, or at least someone to do a few sweat sessions just to give me a bit of confidence in my play. Shitty week. Hopefully it goes better next week.

If you are a fan of training sites, Run It Once recently released a From the Ground Up course for PLO. I think it's $100 and gives you lifetime access. If you prefer Upswing, I believe they are coming out with something similar very soon.

How convenient that I do coaching sessions on my stream

Big this.

gl gl subbed

Gonna PM you too. Don't be afraid to post hands over on SSPLO either; we love it.

Thanks for letting me know about this, I think I was actually looking for training content like this about a week or so before it launched by the looks of things.

Might get the Upswing one as they're offering a free month of Matrix with it, we shall see.


Update
Had a good session today to recoup some of our recent losses which has been good for the confidence, but my play also needs to improve but I feel like I'm starting to pinpoint where a lot of the trouble lie rather than just scrambling aimlessly in the dark.

Going forward I'm setting myself some clearer study goals (spoiler: you'll likely be seeing more from me on here).

Some... interesting hands from recently:

#1 Really impressive work from Villain to manage to get 300bb in here in a single raised pot.

The Good



#2 This one made me very sad at the time. But if he'd have scooped it I may have retired, so lets look on the bright side.

The Sad




#3 WTF was this hand. Matrix agrees this is a raise/reraise... at 100bb. Purely a spew on that flop, think I tilt insta called and convinced myself I had some sort of straight draw. Lesson learned, hopefully won't do this again.

The Ugly



Thankfully these hands are in reverse chronological order or morale would be in a very different place right now.

lol@#1. I hope they wrote you a nice card to go with that gift :P

#2 I wouldn't be shocked if pre is actually a fold, especially with PLO10 rake. It's not the worst open (as I think we can get away with opening the button reeeeally wide in most games), but you may want to double check that in Matrix (though I think their rake sims only go as low as PLO50). Also, while I don't hate the flop bet, I think it's worth considering a check.

#3 Low SPR whiffs like that are frustrating.

Update time.

Better week this week. Not amazing but up about 4 buy ins on the week (maybe doubled with rakeback/party leaderboard scores), which is a vast improvement on last weeks sadness.

More importantly I think my play has made some good improvements. Previously I'd given almost no focus to postflop play, which was intentional as I really wanted to build a solid preflop foundation from the Matrix then move from there. But it was becoming a detriment as even when playing I wasn't really thinking when it went postflop. Still a lot of work to do but moving in the right direction.

Happy to have not given up and withdrawn after getting a spanking last week, as that's my usual response to running bad, but sticking it out this time.

Will post some hands when I have time to review later in the week.

Weekend update time.

Basically a wash at the tables this week I think. My orange line on the graph is going up thought so we'll take that as a positive sign.

Played only standard tables tonight and ran pretty well, but more importantly felt a lot more in control, and tables had sometimes 3 or 4 recs playing so at least for the next week I'm gonna play just regular tables. The fastforward tables on party are often infested with regs grinding max tables for 8 hours a day for Leaderboards. While that doesn't make them unbeatable by any stretch (especially including rakeback) I'm gonna give the reg tables a spin.

Away from the table I'm looking to make some reasonably big routine changes too, both for poker & life purposes. Like the majority of us I feel I spend too much time wasting time, be that on youtube, twitter, reddit wherever (don't say 2+2), so gonna try to ration my aimless internet surfing going forward. Also have a terrible FPL (fantasy premier league) addiction and being in Korea means the majority of games happen while I'm asleep so I'll end up waking up in the night and checking my phone then struggling to sleep again, which is a wonderful habit I've picked up.

So I've made an evening and morning routine plan which basically boils down to putting some distance between myself and my phone before bed (literally and figuratively) then getting up in the morning and getting going before checking my phone.

Hopefully this'll improve my sleep, leave me a bit less tired after coming home from work, which will be good for both the pokers and the being a human.

Keep it up OP! Pictures looked great!

Hi man,

I'm #in here too. I just started PLO, moved up to PLO5 the last days and shotting 10. This is my discord:

https://discord.gg/8ASdhJp

I started streaming sometimes, so maybe you wanna watch me go mental. I'm also a regular at Inkys stream.

Cheers!

Mildly amusing update after day 1 of my new routines.

Sunday night I slept at about 12, phone on my desk away from the bed. Slept well, got out of bed, went for a jog (become horrifically out of shape over the winter, hadn't realised), got home showered and made breakfast, then first checked my phone for the day. So far so good. Got a few minor things on my to-do list done before work.

Got to work with way more energy than recently which was great as trying to teach kids with no energy makes you want to dive out the window. So work was succcessful, went to pick up some groceries on the way home. Got home, made dinner. Then turned on the laptop, OH BOY WE'RE GONNA DO SOME GREAT STUDYING. nah.

As soon as I sat down the day caught up with me and I was exhausted, probably gonna blame the jog in the morning. But ended up sleeping at about 8:30 and woke up today at 4:30am. Not how I envisioned the start of my new routine but we'll work with it.