Hello, guys, I am a new player in poker, 5 months ago I got interested and decided to go full speed into it. Bought 18 books and quit my job, I decided that i could afford to give it 1 year of my life to see if I am any good at it.
I am fighting all my flaws and the stupidity that makes me make the same mistakes over and over, but in this occasion in particular I came to ask for advice regarding 1 particular spot.
Here we go:

Im playing PLO 25 on pokerstars.






This is a very common scenario for me. two hands before this one I had another where i turned 2nd nut flush on unpaired board when we were HU.
Eff stacks were 100bb and SPR like 15 or so. V bets turn and I hold 2nd nut hand. There are no particular reasons to believe he has the A of clubs, he is BB and called my raise PF, so his range is wide.
When he bets on the turn, I raise his bet and doom begins, he 3 bets pot and at this point I cant fold, because im not good enough.
Thinking in retrospective I realize that most players in my limits wont bet anything but the nuts on a flush board, they will call you down with any other flush. They wont fold 3 high flush but they wont raise K high flush either.
So I am pretty sure I made a clear mistake.


In this hand that im sharing here, I have KK and V is SB, When I raise, he chooses to play OOP against 2 possible opponents with AA. Honestly i am fairly sure that more than 80% would 3bet AA from SB. The flop comes A 9 5 rainbow and SB is too confident that the turn wont change anything.
Turn comes K and he bets 3/4 pot. I think that he just called PF and put him on AA or 99 or 9K. Basically I bite the hook. raise his bet and once again, my end begins.
He ships it and its time to disregard odds and decide whether or not he has the AA, the one hand that had me drawing dead. It makes much more sense now that I see that the flop was so dry that he could afford to check.
I made my mistake of the day, call and lose 100$ pot approx.

Tell me please guys. My worst mistake is in calling the all in or raising his turn bet?
I believe my mistake is calling the all in since my re raise would only be attacked by AA. He is not bluffing there, he is not going all in with 99 nor any other combination, so it was either straight up bluff or AA.
My brain somehow feels that the 40 seconds or so that pokerstars gives you to consider your move lasts actually 2 seconds. At the time I was playing the hand I just used 38 seconds to say to myself, it can only be AA and then in the 2 last seconds I thought: Ey , he didnt 3 bet preflop. Boom! Gone.

He didn't 3 bet preflop so he's less likely to have aces on the turn. As played it's fine totally fine he has worse made hands and turned draws and even some sophisticated bluffs there. I prefer to bet the flop. We open ourselves up to be bluffed on basically 100% of turns by checking and we can't call. However this seems a good flop to check back with nut hands as well sometimes like top and middle set if you're gonna check back kings Overall though I like betting better. One and done.

Make a note he flats AAss oop and move on.

What books did you buy

Go get a job

http://imgur.com/00zUxIf

"And then he told me... I bought some poker books that will help my poker game"

Thank you for your comment and advise, the fact that i didnt bet on the flop is probably influenced by the fact that Im on the worst downswing since I started and its affecting my confidence and my aggressiveness. I lost 11 bi in 25nl, No matter what % of winning I have at the moment of shipping the house I'll always lose. I lost with 90%, 70%, 47%, 75%.
I started with 20 dollars, took it to 700 and in the last 3 days lost 275 to end up with 425. I dont think I was great before but I dont think either that im all of the sudden the worst player ever.

Is this just plain trolling or you trully believe that books wont help a players game at all?

I think he just has AA 100% of the time

Not trolling
Maybe theory of poker is kinda useful
Also I would pick one game type and stick with it especially if you aren't having success in any

Hand doesn't look bad to me bit of a cooler considering BB flat called PF eliminating a lot of his AAxx combos and I can see some 2p+FD/SD like A9xxcc or set type hands taking the same line, unlucky buddy.

To be honest, I bought them when I knew literally nothing. Now I can tell you that books in general feel much less mind blowing than some analysis I read on this forum or hands breakdowns by Doug Polk, Jonathan Little, Alec Torrelli or Daniel Negreanu, to name some.
I love this game because I find it intellectually limitless, there is room for so much reasoning, and looking backwards everything fits, the problem is that sometimes I cant see it when im in the situation.
Out of all the books I read so far my favorite book so far is Online holdem 6max by Harrington. Its very good. Others are not as good.

Thank you man, I appreciate it!

Oh man. Good luck bro.

Looks standard. Sometimes you get coolered.

Make sure to analyze your hands after each session, especially 3b / 4b decisions and big pots, of course.

Thank you buddy. I'll make sure I do. I actually sit out after every big hand and analyze it. Even after some big hands where I am not involved, It also helps to take notes of their tendencies. Right now I am up $125, I came back a bit.
Noticed that I lose a lot of money in two types of scenarios. Big bluff misreading a hand, or refusing to just concede the pot, and calls.
I dont know about bigger limits but the bluff/value ratio in 25PLO is something like 5/95%.

Remember there is a ton of variance in PLO. Try not to be results oriented. You will play perfectly sometimes and lose many buyins. You will also play ****ty and win many buyins. Focus on playing your best at all times and improving your worst performance is the only way you will win many buyins over your lifetime.

You might be calling in the wrong spots lol

nh, sometimes its just your turn to die..

you cant fold 2nd nuts here...

I've long wondered what the hell is going through my opponents head when I get raised off a nut flush blocker bluff.

First hand is a cooler. 2nd hand is lighting money on fire.

Flush over flush is pretty common in PLO.

At the micros, I think people raise their 2nd NF to "see where they are at", and it also works to get people off the NF bluff. You will notice they don't raise full pot.

He had no particular reason to believe villain had the ace of clubs

Way you played is 99% correct. (rest 1%? I would shove on the turn)

Unless it is 300, 400, even deeper stack, I mean just below 200bb deep, it is EASY All-in on the turn. If you have specific read on the villan, which is his tendency of flatting AA, you could play cautiously. In very this hand, it is quite natural AAxx is excluded from his range. move on.

Even Phil Galfond, many other legends of PLO would say "Here, it is unlikely for him to have AA" if they are streaming/recording their session, and facing the same result for sure.

Get a RIO sub and watch Tom Chambers theory video series, very informative stuff on there and will improve your game 10x more than some ancient books.


Why you trolling him so much? Guy just wants some constructive input...

PLOL in 2017: Getting trolled by the PLO10-warriors tofurocks and horseofhell....