The Ramblings of a Dad just trying to hold up on the river.

I don't remember what happened since my last update and between May 1, 2021 and Sept 1, 2022 but it likely wasn't a whole lot of awesome poker as I know I took a step away after some downswings. Wait, I do remember one event, we welcomed our 3rd daughter to the fold in July 2022 and had 3 kids under 4. Good times 😀

Fast forward to Septemberish 2022 and the Ontario poker market had started to take shape with most sites I want to play on stopping access for Ontario players. I moved most of my action to Stars, then when GGpoker came to the market as WSOP.ca I moved there to take advantage of the Welcome Bonus and had a pretty good run getting the bankroll back (had a downswing before moving to GG) to somewhere around 3K. I started cashing out a few bucks on a monthly basis to add to my vacation savings and rolled along pretty much even.

Enter August, 2023.

The girls were going crazy and I was up most of the evening but eventually they settled and I decided to log on for a late night session. I was still splitting some bankroll between Stars and WSOP (GG) but had most of it on GGpoker. I was shot taking 100 PLO on a 3K roll and ended up having a 4buyin down session that was just about to end when I ran in to one of those classic WTF moments. With minutes remaining on my session I called an EP raise in LP with a hand containing 98 of spades.

Flop QJT all spades. Bingo, lets go!

So I flop a straight flush and betting is fairly light up to the river with no improvements. Villain leads out the river, to which I raise and instantly get snapped shoved on. The first thought in my mind was are you kidding me, this is Omaha and he has a Royal Flush. I think I was on a $175 stack and being already $400 in the hole this type of thought really sucked. I trust my reads and actually contemplated hitting the fold button but I said to myself there is no way you can fold a straight flush, if he has it, he has it. Lots of people doing this with Ace high flushes, so we can't assume the doom switch is on.

We call, Villain shows the Royal Flush, scoops the pot and we are sufficiently crushed as another buyin ships to an opponent. Suddenly a graphic quickly flashes on the screen indicating we just won the bad beat jackpot for 7K and I nearly crap my pants. The graphic was gone as quickly as it showed and I checked my balance to confirm this unlikely event and there it was sitting just below 10K. Unreal. I take a moment to soak it all in, do some fist pumps and happy dances for no one in particular cause at this point its almost 3am. I go to bed still in disbelief of what happened.

The next day I come back and the money is still in my account and I decide to jump in to a mix of 200 and 100 PLO. I'm not unfamiliar with 200 tables and lots of the players in the 200 pool are part of the 100 pool so I wasn't too concerned. I have a good first few months cashing out some dollars and adding 3K to the roll to get to just over 13K. Well the fun didn't last too long and variance rears its ugly head and starts chipping away at my bankroll as do some uncertain spots, some needless aggression and bouts of tilt. I cash out some additional dollars before the end of the 2023 and then make a decision that will set me back a bit bankroll wise but feels like the right choice.

With right around 8K on my roll I was feeling a whirlwind of emotions. It was not a 5K downswing as I had cashed out a few K but it was definitely an emotional blow and some very swingy sessions. I don't rely on poker to pay the monthly bills but after moving to a new house in the summer and taking on a bigger mortgage I was definitely using a few bucks each month to offset some bigger costs. I had already withdrawn an amount equivalent to a few months of that "extra money" and decided to withdraw another 3K to set me up well into the year with some extra each month. There were a couple reasons I made this decision but one thing I had noticed at the time was that the once fishy $200 pool was starting to fill up with tighter regs and a lot of the players with higher VPIPs were sitting at the 100s, 50s or gone altogether. So I cashed out and started over again with a 5K bankroll.

Jan 2024 - 5K
Got off to a hot starting adding 15 buyins to the bankroll and thinking life was going to be easy. It was not. Roller coaster again, mostly due to a bit of a new more aggressive style I was working on. Still a positive month and I cashed out a bit again and ended the month with a 7 day self exclusion and a bankroll of 5.2K

Feb 2024 - 5.2K
Five days in to the month, sitting at 6.1K and feeling a lot better about my decision making, mental well being and daily play. Table selection is more of a focus and since I'm playing mostly on the mobile client I'm limited to 4 tables. We'll see if I can keep the momentum going and not let bad decisions or tilt affect my play. I scaled back the aggression factor and fixed a few spots that I was being overly or needlessly aggressive. The pool at $100 and $50 PLO seems very good right now which means i haven't had to fight the urge to jump up to the 200s and chase the fish.

It's been quite an interesting past few months and although some people may feel that I have given up potential profit by reducing my bankroll and moving down to the 100s it felt like the right decision so that I could continue to work on my game and be more mentally prepared for the ups and downs of higher buyin poker. Its been over a decade since I was playing regular at any stakes higher than 100s so I'm comfortable with taking the time to solidify some aspects of my game and get better battle tested at the 100s before I move up again.

Hopefully February continues to go well.

Momentum is a heck of a thing and it can turn in an instant or maybe that is PLO. Probably both lol.

Month did not end as well as it started, with a couple ups and downs, some looser than normal decisions and a tiny bit of tilt although fortunately not too much.

I did try mixing in the odd $200 table if that players were right and had ok results but have decided to stop this as it isn't worth the risk at this point.

Made a decision to purchase the RIO PLO from the Ground Up course to add a freshish (I know its not current) perspective to my lack of studying.

End the month at 5.3K with a $700 cashout for the fam and the above training.

Not a great month but any month where we end higher can't be all that bad. As much as we all want that fantasy of firing through the limits at top speed its just not a reality for most in the games these days and when you have other commitments like a job and a family.

Happy to be able to play a game I love, win a bit, learn a bit and stay with it.