I'll start by saying that I'm not sure if this should be in the PLO section or the psychology section but I'll post it here, because it has to do with PLO.

First off, I'm quite familiar with PLO8 and the only reason that I'd stopped playing that was because of Black Friday. I did ok with PLO8 on Full Tilt.

Recently, online poker because legal in my state and because it's inclusive to only players in state at the moment, PLO8 games are hard to find but there are plenty of PLO games going, so I decided to try to learn PLO about three weeks ago. Now, I don't think it's just me but if you're used to PLO8, PLO is a different animal and I'm thinking that it's the same vice versa.

I've started trying to educate myself with the nuances of the game by getting old books, reading posts and watching videos.

I'm playing micro stakes and surprisingly, aside from the first 4 days or so, I've become a winning player at PLO, both in cash and tournaments. My PT4 data backs this up as well. Oddly, my PLO8 game has suffered from this change.

Now, I'll start with my excuses. Between work and other things going on, I'd been up around 25-30 hours and was playing multiple tables of both PLO and PLO8. My draws weren't coming in and aside from a handful of bad beats, my decision making was poor, to say the least.

The losses started to pile up with both PLO and PLO8. I tried loosening up, then I tried tightening up and then, I guess you could say that I just tried forcing things. There are two extremely loose players (80 + VPIP / 50 + PFR) players that just seem to have my number. (BTW, my overall stats at PLO are 29/17).

Statistically, wouldn't you think that 80/50 + would be a losing player and isn't that exactly the type of player that I want to play against?

My thoughts, backed up by PT4 are that I fold too frequently on the turn and so, I'm trying to change that. Consequently, I'm in situations where I refuse to fold the turn, because I simply don't know where I'm at or bet and then get raised on the turn and get bluffed out, or call the turn raise and make a bad call on the river - only see my opponent hit his draw there. Sometimes, I'm even calling when I know that I'm beat, just to see that I'm right, I guess.

Anyway, I went full tilt and the total carnage was a loss of 10 buy-ins. This was by far my worst day ever, in any game, in terms of losses. Luckily, it's micro stakes and my bankroll can handle it but still, it's the psychology and mechanics of it that really has me bothered.

From a video I watched, the person said that even bad players are capable of going on insane heaters and I'm sure that I didn't help myself by being on full tilt.

Now that I've babbled all of that and written a mini novel, How much variance should I expect in PLO? What's the most you've lost in terms of total buy-ins in a single day? Are there any thoughts you have or suggestions you can make?

TL;DR: Experienced with PLO8, fairly new to PLO, went insane on full tilt.

Thanks to all in advance.

You're probably better off starting by learning fundamental preflop ranges and such, which I get the sense from your post that you haven't looked at solver outputs for.

Also, losing is very much a big part of the game. I have reasonably regular -10buyin swings despite being a 9.5evbb/100 winner. You can check variance calculators to see what's possible. This is something you should learn to get used to.

Thank you so much for your response!

While I'd like to say that I'm starting to get an idea of preflop ranges, you're absolutely right that I had no clue about solvers and didn't know they existed, until earlier today, after reading through some of the forum post. I've been looking at them and they're all kind of expensive and I don't know which would be best for me. If you have any suggestions about a good, inexpensive one, I'd welcome it. I'd like to buy one outright, rather than to pay a monthly fee for it.

Something else that's new to me is GTO. I'd seen the acronym mentioned a couple of times but i didn't know what it stood for, until I bought a PLO book today. It seems daunting but I'm trying hard to move through the book slowly and take good notes along the way.

You have no idea how much better I feel after reading that you, as an experienced player, have 10 buyin swings. I had no clue that there was that kind of variance in the game and was feeling pretty stunned and depressed by what happened. This must be the highest variance card game in existence.

Thanks for the suggestion about the variance calculator. I just googled it and found one, so I'll work with that.

I recommend using PLO Matrix and studying it checking hands against it thoroughly to learn preflop. They are probably the cheapest option.

After that, one of the upswing or mastermind courses would be pretty good to get you started on basic strategy.

There's a lot of misinformation and misuse of GTO out there, and I have some choice opinions about it all, just keep that in mind when you read about it. People will misapply it or make straw arguments against it both ways.

The thing about downswings is, I personally feel that mastering it is a form of self improvement. It's hard to say, but I genuinely feel like it has strengthened me against adversity in and outside of poker. Every time I run bad, I think to myself, hey, this is a chance for me to learn to deal with downswing and tilt and become stronger. Might not work for you, but it helps me feel like something good comes out of losing large chunks of money :P

Just want to agree that dealing with downswings is excellent practice for dealing with downswings. (If it sounds like I'm making fun of Inky, I'm not. It's just one of those deceptively obvious things.)

As a relatively new player myself, I want to double the recommendation of PLO Matrix. I suppose there's a danger of treating it like gospel, but it seems like the guys that made it know what they're talking about.

I've been particularly surprised by how much a difference the various suitednesses(?) of a hand makes, and also the aggression recommend for what I thought were weaker AKxx, AQxx and suited-Ace hands.

I would say it more like "recovering from downswings is excellent training for dealing with future downswings" ... to the point that eventually you'll just kind of internally understand that you'll recover, at least until you go 2x your previous biggest downswing or something, and the downswing is the price you pay for winning eventually.

I think the toughest part about downswings is trying to figure out how much of it is variance and how much of it is poor play. I guess reviewing hands is the best way to figure this out?

In a way, yes, but personally I feel like that's not the right way to think of it. Playing bad is also an inevitability as much as running bad is. We aren't perfect. Games get tougher.

It's important to have good self analytical abilities that are not too affected by our results, but I tend to think of them as things who happen to intersect. We're not improving our analytical abilities because we have downswings. We'd want that even if we played a really soft live game with a very low variance style with a big bankroll and we are not emotionally affected.

Maybe bit of a pointless nitpick, but I almost feel like that perspective would give downswings and variance too much power, like we're doing something just to manage downswings. My perspective is to train myself to feel the need to think about variance as little as possible. I think actively diminishing its emotional importance even through the way we talk or think about it is a crucial.

I know friends who post a lot of graphs and comment a lot on all in run good and bad etc. I mean I do on stream too for fun, but I generally try to attach as little emotional and analytical significance to it as I can. Not saying you should pretend you're not affected by it, but much like depression, the more you normalise toxic thoughts the more it can grow.

Uh hate to get super philosophical, but basically every time I notice that I am thinking of my play differently or I'm emotionally affected and being results oriented, I just think "ah that's a thing that happened... well, anyway, moving on..."

Oh and I should've said this earlier but like... you should be working on your game regardless if you're losing or not, so I guess it sort of doesn't make sense to me that you "need" to know whether you're running bad or playing bad? Like, does it matter? Your mental game IS part of your game.

I guess to me, when I hear this sort of sentiment, it almost sounds like someone is trying to feel better about themselves by saying "okay, so at least it wasn't my fault, it is variance's fault!" when really... sure maybe it's true, but does it matter? Like, are you trying to figure out how much you should blame yourself for losing and emotionally punish yourself? It's okay to not be a perfect player! And it's okay to run bad! Just... you know, play your best and try to feel your best! The more energy you put into figuring out if you "deserve" your downswing, the more you're reinforcing the idea that a person might deserve or not deserve to lose

and that, my friends, is the road to entitlement tilt.

Not exactly what's being asked but having been a pro for 10+ years I see this to be a key part of having a healthy relationship with poker.

Like don't get me wrong, a good player should and would be able to tell to some degree, how well they are playing and how well or poorly they are running, but that's the result of a) having good analytical skills b) having experienced and understand variance well. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to tell these things.

I just think it's not a good mindset to rely on results as a way to motivate yourself to improve, or to want to leak plug. You should be working on your game all the time even when you're running like god, you don't need to first lose money, then ascertain that you weren't just running poorly but also playing poorly, to then start working in your game. That step, then, seems to... have no benefit? Like either you feel bad for playing poorly, or you feel bad for running bad! Or either way, you're attaching emotional significance to whether you're playing well or not.

I say nah, sometimes you run bad sometimes you play bad, sometimes you do both. No big deal. Shrug your shoulders, and do your best. Knowing if you were playing poorly doesn't... actually (or shouldn't actually) affect whether you should or can work to improve your game. I mean, even if you're playing better than everyone else... you can still improve! Don't sweat pointless stuff like that.

I don't want to sound like a hippie, but, speaking as someone who literally had a 2 year downswing, if you don't want poker to mess up your life, I really recommend adopting this type of mindset.

oh also unrelated:

I'm friends with the whole PLO Matrix crew, so +1 to them being cool guys. Check out the discord, got some nice folks and some very strong players.

I saw you on their discord, I'm BruceDryzen over there.

Oh! Haha yeah, I even wrote another long rant to you there. Typical me.

Thanks again for the responses and I'm looking forward to more of them.

I'm finding the responses very interesting, especially the part about downswings being good experience for future downswings. Admittedly, the experience has taught me and I'm sure will continue to teach me about dealing with it.

As far as bad calls, even when I know that I'm beat, well, that's work in progress. Maybe calling when I know that I'm beat is just being stubborn? I have to think that sometimes happens at all levels of play.

I checked out PLO Matrix but it has a monthly fee and I didn't see any kind of trial offer. Since I plan to be playing this came for the foreseeable future, it seems more cost effective to pay $500-600 and not have to pay a monthly fee. Monkersolver or maybe another one?

PLO Matrix is a steal considering you probably won't need to pay for it indefinitely to get your head on straight preflop.

I think Monker is a bad investment for most players.

At different points in your development, don't you later go back and want to analyze positions and lines? If the PLO Matrix subscription is $49 / month and not on auto renew, you'd have to pay another $49 to use it a while?

Why is Monker a bad investment?

I enjoyed reading the entire post and the knowledge within but I especially love "entitlement tilt".

Honestly, that hits home and will stick with me. Essentially, "take responsibility for your own actions". I could have closed everything down and went to get some sleep, I could have admitted that I was on tilt and stopped myself. Logically, it's easily to say, execution while in progress is much harder - for me at least - but it's obviously something I need to work on.

Glad it helped, though I must give credit, it’d an idea I got from Jared Tendler’s book.

I should emphasise the importance of not beating yourself up on it. It’s ok to tilt and make mistakes, everyone does. Own it and learn from it. See it as an opportunity to grow.

This may be flawed advice, but I think that in most games as long as you're avoiding the big mistakes preflop you'll be okay. A short time spent with Matrix will have you avoiding a lot of the most expensive preflop mistakes you might make.

And keep in mind that, like, you're not stealing their product by taking notes on what you see: notes that you can refer to without a monthly subscription. (Being able to refer to combos/situations in specific detail is a privilege of having an active subscription, obv.) Taking these notes should help you retain the important contours of preflop play anyway (just as a study exercise).

WRT Monker:

I don't think you've disclosed which stakes you're playing, but if you are in the category of literally "most" online PLO players then you will not recoup your investment in Monker anytime soon and Monker would be total overkill for you as a tool for learning to beat your games.

Like, you don't need it and it won't pay for itself.

Furthermore, there are all sorts of hidden costs with Monker. PLO sims can be computationally expensive (which, hardware-wise, is financially expensive to meet the demenads of) and there is a time-cost learning curve to using Monker at all (it's a pretty clunky piece of software, imo, and solver study is also a skill in itself, regardless of particular software... you need to know that your assumptions are useful to the games you play, basically).

There are a few guys on stars MI that are rolling 85/50 and they never miss

Good times.

Excellent points and notes I can do. I'm waiting for a response from the PLO Matrix support now.

I had no idea that Monker was that complex and I doubt I have the hardware to support what it needs.

I'm very low in the micro stakes .05/.10 90% + of the time. Occasionally, I'll play .15/.30 but not often or long, so you might as well call me just a .05 / .10 player.

As I learn more about what I'm doing and gain confidence, I'll move to a more regular .15/.30 and ideally .25 / .50. I'm a recreational player with no dreams of professional glory. Really, my goal is to just enjoy playing the game and make a bit of spending money on the side while doing so.

Wouldn't you think that those are stats that should be unsustainable at the micro stakes? Again, I'm new to PLO but in the games I've played, I thought it was desirable to play in a game with people who play too many hands?

If I get all of my money in with the best hand and then get drawn out on, it's frustrating but it's much easier to deal with, knowing that I got it in good and that over time, it's EV+.

What frustrates me the most is when I find a loose player with stats like you describe who will hit the flop with nothing more than a backdoor flush draw, pick up a flush draw on the turn, stick with it and then end up beating me with something like a 7 high flush on the river. A scenario like that it what upsets me and maybe it shouldn't? Maybe that's exactly the type of player that we want to play against?

If you're playing PLO10 and have no intentions of playing in tough games, Monker could hardly be less appropriate for you.

Agreed.

It shouldn't, but it's common. It's just variance. Loose players will lose in the long run.

Thank you.

That actually gives me confidence that I'm going in the right direction.