Un-retiring - learning PLO
Hello,
I had quite a bit of success playing tournaments both live and online and I also used to coach a lot of MTT players. But even having great results during the last couple of years I was playing as professional, after playing tournaments over the course of 10 years I got tired of the game and of poker in general. In 2021 I decided to stop playing to follow other interest in live. I took a while but I am currently living a really balanced enjoyable life, doing lots of sports, have my investments, new business and help the community. Everything I was missing when I was a poker pro was achieved.
After I quit playing professionally, any time I was playing something that could last over 10min I would get anxious and would not be able to have an enjoyable moment playing. To see if I still enjoyed playing I even tried registering a big live tournament in a city abroad and after a couple of hours I was already searching for the next flight to buy tickets to go back home. Poker was not enjoyable for me anymore.
Everything changed since last month, I have been playing PLO cash and felt like I used to do when I started playing. Learning a new game, having to work to move up the ladder and having so many things to learn is great.
I will try do document my journey in this game and I hope this helps newer players get a sense of what is needed and should be done in order to play higher and move through the ranks. I moved from the micros to the highest stakes (I was playing everthing up to 25k online and the live) and helped others do the same so I believe I will be quite efficient in regards to what a new player should be doing when learning a new game.
Current State
Bankroll: 497.1€
Stakes: PLO10-PLO50 - I only play higher than PLO25 if there are no tables running on the site I am playing atm, will probably add a new site next week
Results:
Goals for this month
Hands: Reach 15k Hands
Study: Finish the PLO Launch Pad from Upswing and focus only on preflop decisions.
I will first focus on:
1. BB defense
2. BTN and CO opening ranges
3. SB opening ranges
4. EP and MP opens
5. SB and BTN 3bets
6. CO and MP 3bets
System: I believe much of the money you print in poker comes from a well designed system on everything that is not related to strategy. When I was playing poker I used to have everything that I would do during tournament breaks detailed by break, my day was perfectly planned from the moment I would wake up till the moment I finished doing my cooldown, my playing days, warm-up etc was all well defined, every mental energy was spent making decisions on the feld, everything else was previously chosen. Currently now I have nothing, I just play whenever I feel like and my HUD is the standard one from HM2. My current goal is to start by creating an HUD from scratch with the stats I use and feel that I can use to make decisions.
Hope you enjoy 😀
1 Reply
So, I failed the goals I've set before for reasons previously explained.
Had to buy HM3 so I have the HUD working regularly on Winamax when I play, I wanted to play there more because I wanted to have a feel for the site and how many hands I can play on non-zoom tables because I will have to play them if I reach higher stakes. I've found that for playing shorter sessions (10-30min) it's harder to put volume because I've got to start most tables or wait in the waiting list, I will have to organize my schedule in order to play longer sessions to optimize for volume.
Watched a bit more than 50% of the PLO Launch Pad and have been marking almost only pre-flop hands to analyze and warm-up before sessions. I've got to watch some live sessions of good players playing lower stakes PLO25-PLO50 because there are some spots that I have some doubts and can't get the answer on a solver. Like fish limps UTG, I have QQ63r CO, I know, my hand is not good enough to raise, but I limp +EV? What about on the BTN? These will be things that will only get answered by watching other good players play or playing tons of hands.
I was playing 50bb deep if PLO20 or higher and only rebuying if I lost my stack but I've come to find that playing multiple stack sizes is harder for me and I decided to drop the PLO20+ tables and play only PLO10 100bb deep and auto-refill if I fall below. Once I feel confident enough about my PF game I will learn to play shorter stacks and maybe not auto-rebuy if I find that is the strategy with the highest EV, as for now it may be but learning multiple things at once is probably not the most efficient thing.
The rules to move up and drop stakes are:
Shot take half tables - 3000bb - I normally play 2 tables of zoom and 3-4 regular tables
Move up - 5000bbs
Drop Stake - 2000bbs or only 5000bb of lower stake
I had this interesting hand:
https://www.weaktight.com/h/6597207fd390...
SB is a Reg and BB is a fish
At the time I had no idea if I was ahead of a Set on the turn but the SB is only leading good draws (Nut FD+GS at least) or Sets, maybe he has something like AcxcQT but I think that's about it. I found out that I am ahead of QQxx on the turn bet even then I see no point in shoving. It's pretty easy to play river, he has no bluffs on any flush completing river so I can fold any spade or club and valuebet any straight if checked to and valuebet clubs for a small size and straights, 8x for a smaller size and any other I can just pot and he will put me on any draw that missed. It's the biggest pot I've won since I started the thread in terms of BBs.
Goals for the month
Hands: 15k
Study: Finish the PLO Launch Pad
Bankroll:
588.72€
A good session and I can just start shot taking at PLO20, I've also spent around 28€ on PLO Manager. I will talk on a later post about what I think about being staked and how I would calculate if it was +EV for me if I had to make that decision.
