Road back to HS PLO
ABOUT ME:
My screenname is portemilio. I've been playing Poker since I was 16. I started off playing poker on Runescape gambling sites where you'd buy coins ingame which had a $ value and deposit them on runescape poker sites. I found myself obsessed with the game since I was young. I specifically loved the HU format. At 16 i ran up 100$ to 20k when BTC was around 1.4k playing 6 max and 9max nlhe but ultimately got destroyed headsup because i lacked a lot of discipline and had major ego issues wanting to be the best. I always wanted to be the best and would get extremely angry when dealing with variance on top of the fact that I was an unstudied player. In college I transitioned to PLO. I got staked and coached but I wasn't winning no matter how hard I tried because of my serious BRM issues. I'd run up a couple of thousand dollars then instantly shot take 5/10 and lose it all and then go back to the lowest stakes to rebuild, rinse, and repeat. My senior year of college I decided I really wanted to give it my all. In class I'd bring my laptop and drill spots and this was the first form of studying I'd ever experienced (other than hundreds of hours of youtube videos and poker content that I consume). I significantly saw a change in my game. I've always been a highly intuitive player but with the baseline theory I developed I quickly skyrocketed though the ranks. I still had really poor mental game and not great BRM but I was able to run up my first 30k ish month in April of 2022. Unfortunately, I lost it all back shot taking 10/20 on ACR (very commend trend in my poker career). I had to take6 a fifth year of college because of a couple of other reasons but I always knew I was going to end up being a poker player. I dreaded school and felt it was the reason I wasn't succeeding because I still had to commit so many hours to school (studying Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Fluid Mechanics). I come from an Arab household and poker was not accepted at all but that didn't deter me. My fifth year I had the same routine where I'd study in class and play countless hours when I was back. I was also gaming a lot (League) so i decided to cut that out because I figured it was a waste of time if I really wanted to succeed. After I graduated (May 2022) I moved to Lebanon where my parents lived. I finally had no obligations, nothing holding me back and barely any expenses. I devoted all my time to poker (literally 15h days). After 6 months playing 1/2 - 10/20 on mainly bovada and BOL I made roughly 170k in profits. My mental health really suffered. I longed for social interaction; I had none of my friends in Lebanon and I started to not care about poker anymore. My health declined heavily and I felt despite the fact that I was winning that there was a constant judgement surrounding what I was doing. Once I showed my parents how much money I was making they couldn't complain about the journey I was decided to take ( as much anyways) but they were still greatly against it. My biggest mistake came when I decided to shot take 10/20 on Bovada. I was absolutely crushing Betonline and Bovada midstakes for atleast 8bb/100 over a sample of 400k+ hands, but when I played 10/20 nothing I did worked. I got absolutely crushed. My mental game was very strong at this point and I wasn't disheartened, I just figured it was variance. I ended up losing 45 ish buy ins (90k) running 70k below EV. This was almost 2/3 of my roll. I had heard rumors about collusion and cheating rings going on at 10/20 Bovada but I just figured that was bad regs crying about losing because the same was being said about every stake that I was consistently beating. I will never know if I actually got cheated as I have no definitive proof but I highly highly suspect that I did. At this point despite convincing myself that the loss of the money didn't affect me in reality my play began to change because nothing I did was working so I thought i had to deviate. I ended up going to EPT Barcelona in 2023 because I felt the need to prove to myself and everyone that what I was doing was a real job. I had around 50k to my name. I ended up losing 20k there playing 25/50 live (brm issues started coming back I really began to chase what I lost). Once I returned back to the US, started paying rent I prolonged into a 4 month period of break even/losing. I really thought at the time I was playing well I dont know maybe it was variance but looking back at it I had basically given up. I was playing 3h a day max and not putting in any volume at all (20k hands/month max). I'm using this 2+2 thread to hold myself accountable. I'm not going to give up on poker because I know I truly have a talent. I'm at a crossroads right now because im 24 and have little to no job experience so If I want to get a real 9-5 I'd really have to start looking now. I have a couple interviews with some investment banks just to appease my parents but it isn't something I'm taking seriously. On top of that it's really hard to explain to friends and family the journey I've been on because they don't understand variance at all. I'm not saying I didn't make any mistakes I definetly did, but to lose that amount of money is definetly gut wrenching I finally made it and saw it gone at the blink of an eye. I have a lot of fuel in me now and I'm ready to play atleast 50k hands/month. I'm not going to let anyone pressure me or feel the need to prove to anyone (online or IRL) that what I'm doing is valid, I'm just going to do it. It may get lonely but this is truly what I love and I know i will get rewarded.
I'm going to attach this month's results. I had very little money to my name, I moved to my uncles house where I'm paying no rent and felt a lot less pressure on my bankroll. I started at .5/1 and 1/2 and slowly started to shot take 2/5 and very little 5/10 volume. I played almost 72k hands this month, which is the most volume I've ever put in in a month in my life. Attached is the graph. Eventually when I fix my old computer I'll export the DB to my new one and merge them. I will be posting interesting hands and lines I play here as well as weekly-monthly updates. I want to hold myself accountable no matter what and am interested to hear people's thoughts. I only have the last two months of my play tracked I'll post them shortly as I had to buy a new computer
GL ME!
if its any comfort
such non technical mistakes have happened to me dozens of times and it took many years before i became good with it even though it would be exstremely painful every time. Running bad and losing is one thing, but losing more because of your own additional screw up feels unforgiveabl
i always end up forgiving myself. but in the moment i hate myself i literally rage quit like 3 sessions the other day and broke a keyboard. again its not about losing - its about making technical errors that i know are caused by tilt/losing. those are the things that get under my skin, i get so mad at myself. i dont gaf if i run bad and lost 50 bis or when the whale levels u with his stupid size. like that **** kills me lol
ok we finally won one of them. almost 1k bb pot at 2/5 . utg opens utg + 1 3b i 4b from sb , utg cold calls (kek) and utg + 1 calls. i just pot flop 1.3-1.5 spr w/e not trapping here fk gto. even tho i prob shud. 3 way all in!
i always end up forgiving myself. but in the moment i hate myself i literally rage quit like 3 sessions the other day and broke a keyboard. again its not about losing - its about making technical errors that i know are caused by tilt/losing. those are the things that get under my skin, i get so mad
woops just reread what u wrote. no literally exactly what u said. what do u do to combat it / get better at it? im usally not the type to let it affect me but when downswings go on for long it def gets the better of me sometimes
type of hand that really tilts me. sb vs bb 3b pot q92 2t board. i didnt lead which i shouldve so that already tilted me in hand, i checked too fast . and now bc i checked flop i fk up the turn too by not betting too so he goes ahead and bets 3/4 ip and i call. and river i xc pot. the way it played out def destroyed my mental esp that river is like the only one he makes money on (and a T). on turn i just felt like my hand was good based on game and that he was weak idk just a weird one
4b pot 110bb ish to start co vs btn. he pots flop at 1 spr. i know at .8 spr its a call with 2 bdfd i wonder how much it changes at 1 spr vs a range of only aces since i dont think he bluffs enuf pre
6k left to go on the regrind from being down 33k. also some of the losses were on bol and the tracker wasnt working ( i depo'd 5k ran it up to 10 then lost the 10) so ya probs like 4k of that untracked but oh well
some aggression that went wrong:
this hand is just really ****ing bad absolutely massive punt i should always check river. 3b pot he b 1/2 flop snap pots turn and xc river with jt78. idk i probably can jam turn too its 3 handed and his timing felt bluffy but given action i can just check i honetsly just thought hed fold range here in game but very bad assumption .
i xr flop barrel turn and jam river. its a punt 1 ) its a fish that isnt capable of folding trips and 2 ) just bad combo (he called with aa56)
last one: i dont have the hh screenshot but basically btn vs sb 3b 130bb ish. flop ak5 rb he cb 1/2 i call with kqt8 BDFD. turn is a q he x i b 1/2 (230 into 460) he calls. river 1 spr i jam he actually slowrolls me with ajjt lol . idk these might not be good but i tend to take the agro approach when i have good blockers + weak showdown + spots hard to find bluffs in. like id have to bluff ajj ig which i do have.
there are obv a lot of hands that right im just posting my punts for review - and im working on taking them out of my game once i do my wr will skyrocket.
herse one hand that went right:
i open in MP, CO calls and BB calls, flop checks around. turn checks to the CO who bets 1/2 BB calls and i raise CO folds and BB tank calls. river i jam he folds pretty fast. this is also i guy i marked as a station who called me earlier in a similar spot and was right, so i like going for these spots continuously and get in their head, especially in spots where theyre capped. it worked this time
with that being said- im out of the hole made the 33k back 😃
so close! but its bed time :(
Holy **** that’s sick gj
How many hands is that?
Congrats, super impressive results and volume. How do you play so much without getting burnt out? My brain gets fried after a 2hour session lol
Congrats, super impressive results and volume. How do you play so much without getting burnt out? My brain gets fried after a 2hour session lol
you can go back a couple of posts, when i got back to poker after my break playing for longer than 2h genuinely hurt. I kind of forced myself to just sit and endure the pain until it became a habit. Also just the competitiveness and losing motivates me, once i started losing a little there was a fire in me that compelled me to make it back and improve every day. It's really just dedication and consistency. Also making money is nice obv
Im still running good but im genuinely playing peak poker rn really nice to be back to good form I fixed up a bunch of my leaks and noticed improvements in results almost instantly. It took a lot of reflecting and honestly just reviewing hands. I review like 40 hands a day, during the session i note the hand number and input them to pt4 the next day. Also studying hard off-table as well just drilling a bunch of MW spots, esp 3b spots. and some deeper spots as well
Anyways,
we did it 😃
Nice
impressive stuff! think we played a bit at aria this summer 😀
haha no way? dm me your instagram curious to see who you are! Vegas was a sunrun for me
funny hand. i dont like how on chico when im typing somewhere it auto bets for me. thats basically what happened i was on youtube looking up some **** and when i clicked enter, it auto 3bet me on chico. anyways we got it all, the guy called me a fish and asked if i was high. (he had aj9t with 3 clubs kek)
anyways small update - i adopted a cat. i was fostering a cat named magenta bc i love cats and the day i had to give her back i couldnt do it i literally got depressed. so now shes mine forever. so that's taken up a bunch of my time. still getting my hours in just a lot less and not much to report pretty stagnant days still on the upwards trend though. also BTC is at 98k which is insane
Someone in this thread messaged me about coaching earlier this week. He's a reg that's been breakeven for a while so looking forward to work with him. I definetly want to incorporate some form of coaching into my routine when I'm not playing- so if anyone is interested DM me. More for advanced players that want to push their edge, spot their leaks, and identify population tendencies
100K in one month, nice! GG! Can we see an updated graph for your journey? I love me some graph porn 😀
Also was finally able to export my hands from my old broken computer to my new one, so now i have my full years results (and other years).
But here are this years results by month. You can tell i was really going through it in my jan-march stretch, mostly bc i was apt hopping in nyc.
Sick results well played. What are your thoughts on your red line tanking? Do you even care? Curious as to how you have a 47% wwsf but tanking redline. I’ve been making a lot of adjustments to my game in the last few months to where my redline is breakevenish/slightly losing with a similar wwsf to yours. My red line was tanking before that and after my adjustments, in a lot of spots it honestly does feel like I’m simply trading blue line for a red line so not even sure it matters that much.
Sick results well played. What are your thoughts on your red line tanking? Do you even care? Curious as to how you have a 47% wwsf but tanking redline. I’ve been making a lot of adjustments to my game in the last few months to where my redline is breakevenish/slightly losing with a similar wwsf to y
prob from not vb enough in theory (bc they dont call enough in certain thin spots where they either have air or nuts), and from not bluffing enough in spots they overcall. i try to pick my spots well value betting thin in spots they overcall and bluffing in spots theyll over fold. thats what im guessing
I've unfortunately been going through a lot of health issues with my neck. It's The point where every morning I wake up with a stiff neck and I can't feel my pinky anymore because I compressed my ulnar nerve .
5 months ago I moved to my uncles and was working from his office. I bought a chair because the chair in his office didn't have neck support but he wouldn't let me switch it out because it wasn't professional enough even though he had no workers in his office. So from May to June when I was grinding 12 hour days I basically was in a chair with no neck support. One morning I woke up with an extremely stiff neck. I honestly didn't think much of it I just thought it would go away but it hurt pretty bad and I could barely move it. Anyways I've had this pain for the last five months and it's progressively gotten pretty bad I did some PT over the summer but it was short lived I think I have some nerve problem from bad ergonomics and sitting in the chair for too long. I ordered a bunch of **** to try to correct my posture but honestly a lot of nights I could barely sleep I just started Get a chiropractor for it and after one session it helps a little bit so I'm hoping to get this result soon . Basically didn't have any insurance that's why I couldn't see any PT in the US since they charged like $500 a session which is insane but I finally On my own insurance it was kind of a pain to do. Anyone has any tips for this sort of stuff let me know I have a standing desk and a bunch of wrist support and keyboard support items i've even bought like 15 pillows but none of them are comfortable No matter what I do during the day I wake up with a stiff neck in the morning ( I do A lot of stretches)
I am a former professional fighter and my neck is destroyed from it so I can relate, try neck traction, you can order inexpensive device to your home.
I've unfortunately been going through a lot of health issues with my neck. It's The point where every morning I wake up with a stiff neck and I can't feel my pinky anymore because I compressed my ulnar nerve .
5 months ago I moved to my uncles and was working from his office. I bought a chair becaus
You could do much worst than having a long conversation with ChatGPT about your condition and try to narrow down root cause and ask it to create a plan for you to fix it. It's probably 80% as good as going to a physio and 0% of the cost. Alternatively it might just be cheaper to go to mexico or somewhere with decent health care, things like physiotherapists are really cheap. However a lot of time they are also 80% as good as good sports physio in US/Canada at 10% the cost. It just depends if you need physical treatment done in person. $500/session is insane, it's between 100-150 in Canada, with a discount on exchange rate. I generally buy into the line of the belief that having all these **** to support you just end up making your body weak and doesn't fix the root cause.
