Hi guys,
It’s finally time to make a 3k post for the PLO community. I hope you will enjoy reading my post and I apologize in advance for my bad language but I hope you will understand my key points. Since I start playing poker at 2006 and start reading in this forum my dream was always to make some kind of interesting story post for you guys out there.
I wish this post would be about a great poker success story, about how I finally crushed PLO100, for example and how I became a better PLO player, I really wish it…but its not!
All this is still a dream and I finally realize it, I have lived for a long time in this dream and its time to wake up and to realize the reality. So this is a story about why we fail and how to quit.

As I start playing poker, I didn’t even know what poker is all about, I didn’t see the whole picture but now more than ten years later, I see through…
At the beginning it was just a game of cards and it stays for a long time but than suddenly it become more and more interesting.
In the last couple of months, if I have played this game, I was struggling in it. It became a mental and physical challenge for me to master it and finally to realize I can’t make it.
I don’t even know why, but after a long break from 2011 to 2015, where I didn’t play one single hand, last year I came back to this game and was trying to prove something and now I know what it was.
Poker was teaching me a lesson. Something about my self about my abilities to let things go, if you are going to realize you can’t make it.
I lost about 5k in the whole last year (Its not about the money, I can handle it, because of my day job).
All my winnings came from PLO50 and I lost it all at PLO100. I get crushed so many time there. I have just enough to try it again.
I get hit hard and I can’t handle it, I don’t wont it anymore.
I can't handle the situation that I can't move to the next level. I just can't.

So finally I have to ask the question to my self, why I have failed in this game?
Why I can’t handle the variance, the swings, why I have a huge lack of discipline which is so important and why I have no emotional control-set to make the most rational decisions at the tables and to make +EV decisions the whole time.

The fact is: I have not the right character to master the game in the long run.
To be successful in the game, you have to have the right mindset, the right character, the right personality, the right passion and a massive work ethic to work on your skills everyday.
If you don’t have all of those things, you always struggling. Its just your big ego who still let your believe amd it is just a lie to say, if you really work hard you can make it. Maybe this is working in 5% of all cases, in the right environment and under the right circumstances, but many times we just fail and didn’t even realize it, because its more easy to believe in the illusion: if you work hard, you can still make it.
I am one of these guys who don’t make it and quit, but I am not one of these guys anymore who still believe you can make it, who try and fail and fail over and over again.
I am not this guy anymore!

I was just not suited for the game; my abilities were limited to become a better poker player from the beginning. I just had no chance but didn’t believe it for along time.
I was just only competitive enough to try it over and over again. But poker was the wrong area for me to put the energy.
Its time to quit. the most challenging time is to quit and let things go. I am still young and can achive more things in my life than became a good poker player..
There is a lot more things in life outside of poker and I will finally move forward to discover all those things and let the game behind me.

I always enjoy read here in 2p2 forum, but its time for me to move forward.
I have deleted all my poker stuff from my desktop already…
I will come to lurk sometimes here but not posting anymore. I am done with this game, it gives me some fun, but it was also an important lesson on my way: let things go and don’t try to force it.
This was my last post here guys.

Bye, have a good time and good luck.

IMO your biggest mistake was jumping into plo50 or 100 thinking you can beat it without any plo experience before that. also, using your "instincts" in a very mathematical game isn't going to work. you don't have to quit, go play plo5 or 10 (i'm serious), learn to properly beat that and move up. anyway, gl to you!

great post, happy for you that you were able to become self-aware enough that you didn't want to do it anymore. gl in your next adventure =)

This made me kinda sad for some reason

It gives me the same feeling. I doubt I could be man enough to make a post like that. Many people are proud people and can't admit something isn't cut out for yourself. It's the first step to becoming good in something else.

GL to you Martin. May your instincts propel you in future endeavors.

Fair play to the post - I'd say this year i'm about $20k in the hole. Some from variance but a lot from getting it in with bad equity situations after being so far ahead.

PLO is such a swingy game that you need an incredible mindset to take punch after punch after getting it in repeatedly with 87.5% equity on the flop and losing it all.

When you try the 12.5% play you (rightly) never get it. I too wonder what % of people make it in PLO in the long run.

I know i am a losing player but i love the game and the situations it creates. A lot of the times in deep stacked PLo it comes down to the mindset over the cards. Being willing to check raise with air and bet large pot rivers with air dont come to the light hearted. It took me a long time and i'm still learning the game.

As others say in the forum the game is about menmtal strength, equity and ranges. You need to nail all of this to be a winning player.

Good to see some honesty and GL

Hey Martin,
sorry but also happy to hear your story.
if you still enjoy the game there is nothing wrong with playing for pennies.
As you mentioned BRM is one key factor. loosing 10-20 buy ins is so common so playing with a aggressice BRM as you did is doomed to fail in >95% of the cases.
All the best to you!

Why do i have this feeling that there will be a "Im All In-Giving the Poker Dream Another Shot" post in the Challenge thread in about a month or two?

It takes strength of character to know your limits. I admire that. Many never really improve but delude themselves.

But charachter can be developed like any skill. I would work on that.

Why don't you play live poker? It's easier and more fun. Online poker is really not for everyone. You need to be a lot more math based and less people based. Poker was meant to be in front of people

You need to be math/theory based to be good at live poker too, you can just get away with being bad at math/theory at live a lot more easily because everyone else sucks as well. Look at veryjosie for perfect example. Doesn't know how to calculate pot odds but still thinks he/she is good at live.

Poker is ****ing allienating when taken as work, so don't think you are losing a great ****, I envy people who can stay balanced.

You can still play for fun and keep with your other work and projects

I'd like to rename this thread title for you:

"Why I failed and why I quit."

Good luck in the future, Martin.

Good post, thanks for sharing.

Realize you are not good enough to do something its a important thing. And this doesn't makes you a donkey... Diference inteligence. Theres smart people who are bad at poker and dumb people who are very good at poker.

Good luck!

Fair play for the honesty Martin and good post. Best of luck finding whatever it is you are a GOAT at.

"Poker was teaching me a lesson. Something about my self about my abilities to let things go, if you are going to realize you can’t make it. "

In my own poker journey, I've been shocked to realize how little I've learned about poker, but how much I've learned about life. These lessons can be far mor valuable than the few dollars we (sometimes) put in our pockets.

Great post Martin, and all the best.

Nice post. Good luck in the future

what are the odds that OP restarted within 48 hours?

Try to get a coach, you have a day job, so you are a amateur playing with professionals, what you here expecting?

Game over, I quit forever.
All my hands I have played in the last 2 years (Holdem+ Omaha).
https://imgur.com/a/xGZEB
This was my last graph I have posted.

Not making it all the way where one wants to get after all the necessary study and practice, I believe that it is the usual situation (many others don't, as they don't think there is any talent in this game).

I have not made the plo100 trip (nor tougher plo50), needing to work with the training materials first, although my skills are solid (books and two to three years of practice), but a little bit here and there have been added during the last month and more before the autumn, when I am also physically in a good shape after the summer; then is my turn to see if I make it or not. I don't think I lack any knowledge nor practise by then, just talent (if I fail) and some further experience.

I also play nlh and mtts, so not dependent on plo success. There are also the live possibilities, that seems easy if getting the online even to fail here. I think the mtts are the easiest, just trying to make the cash path first. There are also other forms of poker, but they are not popular, or there is lhe.

Experience is also valuable, as there are at least some players who turned into winners pretty fast after getting better educated.

Since you are not a poker pro, why take the game so seriously? Assuming you do not have a gambling problem that is affecting your life and that you can afford to lose those approximately 250-300 USD/month that your two-year losses amount to, why not treat poker as something fun and instead of grinding every day, choose certain days to play and after the day(s) is done withdraw your balance until next time?

For example, you can deposit a fixed amount - let´s say 200 USD - on Friday and play to Sunday if you are free for the weekend. Do not care about bankroll management etc, just play whatever you feel like. If you are winning, take a shot at a few bigger tournaments (also that will keep you busy for a while for a fixed price) or whatever. If you are bored, play some five-card Omaha. Or why not try Courchevel? Etc.

At the end of the weekend, cash out (otherwise you probably won´t be able to keep from playing and fall into old habits) and re-deposit next time you want to play. Try to play no more often than 1-2 days a week (or for example weekends only) and set a rule that you do not deposit more than this single deposit (you can, for example, set deposit limits on Stars - of course, nothing will stop you from playing on some other site, but still).

And have fun. If you are not a pro, why subject yourself to all the negativity of the grind? Treat poker as a hobby that will sometimes net you profits, sometimes give you losses, but stop obsessing about it and make the playing enjoyable.

What ever other game you want,just don`t play 5 card Omaha.Courchevel not

recommended also.If you can`t handle the variance in plo,and that was the

case here i think,these games wouldn`t help.

Well, I think OP:s big problem is a) lacking mental game and tilt issues, b) lacking poker skills compared to the pool at Zoom PLO50/100. How much of b) is compounded by a) is also an open question, however for the last two years OP has lost somewhere to the tune on 200-250/month on average. Which is not a lot, but still makes him a smallish loser overall.

OP has also mentioned that he has a regular job, so it is not like poker is his source of income. How much OP earns and if he can afford to lose this kind of money is an open question, but let us assume that 250 USD/month is money that OP can spend without negatively affecting other parts of his life.

In this case I think that the issue with a) would be solved by reducing boredom and volume, with this also comes playing ones A game more often since you play less and can concentrate more etc, which may solve problem b).

And in this case, if you play only for fun, why not try some 5C PLO or Courchevel for a change? Similar, but different. Haven't played much but 5C PLO on Stars seemed very soft at 0.25/0.50 level at least, much softer than PLO25 Zoom at least.

Damn I should really quit this game at the time I posted this. I was try to study, I really did!!
I was looking a lot of videos and trying to copy some concepts but no matter how hard I was trying I don't get any success. I have to accept the fact: there is something out there that is stronger than me and I just can't beat it.
To beat PLO was the hardest thing for me in my whole life and I just have to forget it and accept the fact I can't!
This year I lost more money than ever in the last 10 years since I start playing poker...I lost over 10k at smallstakes PLO game. Today I have closed my last account online and the game is really over.
Bye guys!!