THISPLAYISBAD- PLO cash game journey
Hello all,
My Sn on GG is THISPLAYISBAD and I am starting this thread to document my journey of moving through the ranks
Made it to day 2 of the PLO Venom on ACR on first bullet, should be a good sweat!
Things are going very well in cash games still but disastrous in tournaments, just running below BB/chip ev, and getting screwed near the bubble in a lot of spots, although there were 2 questionable plays I made on the stone bubble in spots where the min cash was only 2X buy in but if I win I am in commanding lead which has value when it comes to closing out tournaments, especially in bounty formats. Nitting it up trying to min cash and having zero chips to fight with is not my style, could be a huge leak, not sure. The main thing is that i feel that I am playing very very well and focusing on what i can control so i am happy about that. I have accepted a spot in a CFP stable and had my first coaching session with their head coach which was pretty cool, he pointed out a couple of glaring leaks that I had in certain nodes and the coolest thing about it was that I could almost instantly fix them. Database analysis is super powerful and if you have someone who actually knows what they are doing there is a lot of value in that. CFP deals are not for everyone but I do think it is the best way to get the highest value coaching considering the coach wants to you to improve otherwise they are wasting their time. In a paid per hour agreement, the coach could care less how you perform. I just know I want to be one of the best players in the world one day and having a coach who coaches some of the best players in the world currently seems like a good investment considering what my future goals are. Updated cash and tournament graphs are below.
Hit a minor 5K downswing but quickly bounced back and I am happy to report that the upswing continues. I was most happy about not tilting or being mentally weak during this minor downswing. I definitely had thoughts of impending doom and the illusion/fear that a massive 50 buy downswing MUST occur because I have been upswinging so hard lately. I am very aware that these thought
just wow, that's some very honest stuff here Sir ... congrats on being so open, even being able to talk about it ... i'm sure this is mental strength that is showing, so keep up the good work, all is well and deserved.
just wow, that's some very honest stuff here Sir ... congrats on being so open, even being able to talk about it ... i'm sure this is mental strength that is showing, so keep up the good work, all is well and deserved.
Thank you very much from the kind words, definitely appreciated!
Running 40 BI below EV so far this year and just lost 25 buy ins straight over the last few 2 days. Still a profitable month so I can not really complain I suppose. The twisted side of me actually enjoys this part of poker, losing I mean. I enjoy the challenge of getting crushed and knowing that I have to maintain control or the downswing will only get worse. I truly feel I am getting more and more desensitized to the swings the longer I play and while I do feel emotions of anger, frustration and injustice while playing I am able to take a deep breath and make the right play and my game is effected very little. Granted, I am only human and every human has a breaking point, tilt control is not about perfection, it is about creating a mindset and environment that allows you to increase your threshold for tilt triggers as time goes on. The better you are at it, the less negative variance and others things outside of your control matter to you. I hate losing but I am looking at my graph and cashier balance and really not caring much, simply because I know I played great (by my standards and current capabilities) and that is the only thing that i can control and the only thing that matters. Graph for the month is below:
EV has not quite caught up with me for this year, currently running 45 buy ins and just north of 30K below EV so far. I was cheated a bunch at Ignition which is annoying so I am done with that site but I am still winning for the year so very grateful for that and I will not complain to much, the EV will always catch up eventually. I have been struggling a lot lately with ego at the tables. It seems like it was just yesterday I was struggling to beat 200 and beating 500 seemed nearly impossible and 1K was more of a pipe dream then anything. I now sit at the tables and find myself truly bored with the level of play I see at 500, and now even 1K. Very few players make it necessary to think very deeply in certain spots and I am amazed how almost every reg I come across only 4 bets AA...LOL It is becoming harder to get action so I do find myself playing a lot more reg battles, which I think is fine because if I truly want to be one of the best in the world one day I must get used to this notion. To be honest I enjoy the battling and seeing if I can figure out what the other guy is doing, it is the spirit of competition I love the most about poker, with the monetary gain being a close second. With all of this said, I do not like the fact my ego has gotten slightly out of control so I will work on reeling that in quite a bit. I do not think I am a great player by any means and I know I have a ton of leaks and there are much better players than me at my current stakes. When you have positive results for quite some time it can be dangerous as it has the ability to poison your mind and make you believe you are better than you actually are and I am sure that is what is going with me now. I will strive to be more humble and grateful moving forward. Another thing I need to work on is playing to many tables, this has been a huge leak of mine for a very long time. I do believe I am "talented" in the skill of multitabling, however, I know I am giving much away and tons of EV by playing to many tables. I have achieved double digit win rate for last 150K hands while playing 8-10 tables at a time, but I imagine if I lower my table count that will do wonders for my game and brain. I do often feel exhausted and drained after playing so much so this leak will be my primary focus going forward, along with keeping my ego in check. On a completely different note, I have decided to take back my former job in finance. This job is unique in the sense it still allows my loads of free time and is pretty laid back, but still pays well. I am taking the job back to supplement my bankroll as I want to move up the stakes as fast as possible, not to mention my wife and I are wanting to start a family and she just lost her job so the stable income will be appreciated. The job will not affect my poker so much, I plan to study during the day and play at night per usual, I will just have to work a little harder I suppose but it will be a temporary situation. The plan is to go right back to poker full time after wife finds another job. Anyways, ty for reading this post and following my journey, I hope you all do great things and are running well!
Graph since blog start:
Graph for year:
Results for year in dollars Actual/EV Difference:
1K Results:
Hey,
Your blog is quite inspiring, i do have similarities IRL with you. I'm playing PLO200 and aiming to move up. I'm very interested in CFP, if you have some time to chat about it could you please add me on discord ? (bobobowser.)
Hello everyone,
It’s been a while since my last update, and I wanted to share what I’ve been up to over the past few months. I recently signed on with a coaching/staking organization, and I can confidently say it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve made in my poker career.
When I joined, I was already a winning player up to 500 PLO. However, my approach had become somewhat stagnant—very robotic, heavily reliant on trying to replicate GTO as precisely as possible. It wasn’t until my first session with the head coach that I realized just how many leaks I had. More importantly, I was surprised by how simple many of them were to fix.
Working with someone who also coaches players at the highest online stakes has completely changed my perspective. Understanding that nearly every node in the game tree has multiple viable options has reawakened my creativity at the tables. Since joining the team, my win rate and overall success have seen a noticeable boost.
Lately, I’ve also been diving more into tournaments, and I’ve had encouraging results there. While I’ll continue exploring that format, cash games will remain my primary focus for income. I’ve also been dedicating more time to five-card PLO and have recently started experimenting with six-card. I’m still on the fence about six-card—it feels like there's potential for a larger edge against certain opponents due to the added complexity, but the equity distribution makes it tougher to crush. The variance is significant, but that doesn’t bother me; I’m more concerned with whether it’s worth the investment in terms of long-term profitability.
Thanks to everyone who continues to read and support this blog—it truly means a lot. I’ve attached my updated graph below for those interested in tracking the journey.
For now, I’ll keep grinding 1K and focus on sharpening my skills until I’m confident enough to take shots at 2K.
Wishing you all the best and good luck at the tables!
I'm very glad to hear that you're doing well. What sites do you play on?
Subscribed.
GL on your journey.
what were the biggest takeaways from your new coaches?
100%....GTO is just training wheels on a bike. At some point you have to take them off and learn how to balance various spots on your own based on what you're seeing. It's helpful for learning what the equilibrium is but if you need training wheels forever you suck as a bike rider or in this case as a poker player
100%....GTO is just training wheels on a bike. At some point you have to take them off and learn how to balance various spots on your own based on what you're seeing. It's helpful for learning what the equilibrium is but if you need training wheels forever you suck as a bike rider or in this case as a poker player
Agreed
which coaching/staking organization did you join?
Hey everyone,
It’s been a while since my last update, and a lot has happened over the past few months. I’ve been putting in serious work, especially on my PLO tournament game—and the results are starting to show. I’ve picked up several wins across different sites and have been making deep runs consistently.
What draws me to the PLO tournament format is how much softer the fields tend to be, and how much more dynamic the gameplay is compared to cash games. You simply get to play more hands and navigate spots that a lot of players aren’t comfortable with—like limped multiway pots, 2.5x opens, and so on. It’s been both profitable and fun, which is the sweet spot for me.
That said, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. I recently experienced the worst downswing of my poker career in cash games—down $55K over a couple of months. It was mentally and emotionally draining. There were moments where the frustration nearly pushed me to tears, which is rare for me. I’ve always taken pride in my ability to stay composed, not tilt, and focus on playing my best regardless of results. But I won’t lie—this stretch really tested that.
Even so, I’m proud of how I handled it overall. I genuinely believe most players would have lost significantly more under the same runout, so I take some confidence from that. And honestly, pushing through the downswing has only made me tougher. One of the silver linings of this kind of adversity is that it forces you to grow. The feeling of grinding it all back and getting back to even is something I won’t forget—it was a reminder of why I do this.
On a brighter note: I’m happy to share that I’ve joined the PLO Mastermind as a coach, and my first video has just been released. If you check it out, I hope you find it helpful or at least interesting. Coaching is something I’m leaning into more lately—not just because it helps others, but because I genuinely enjoy it.
Going forward, my focus will be on:
Taking on a few coaching students,
Grinding more PLO tournaments,
Continuing to work toward beating $1K cash games with a strong BB/100.
I’m winning at those stakes, but not quite at the win rate I’m aiming for. That said, much of the shortfall seems to be variance, and I’m confident the numbers will reflect the work I’m putting in over time.
I’ll leave an updated graph below, along with some recent GG tournament screenshots for those who are into that sort of thing.
Thanks for reading—and as always, I appreciate the support. Wishing you all the best at the tables and in life.
Amazing results! GJ
My second Mastermind video is up. I go over basic mulitway SRP strategies. I hope you all enjoy!
up
very interesting thread, so inspiring to see the progress and the effort you put, and very brave of doing it at a considerably age which shows that is just a number and you can be lucid and crush the game still quite consistenly.
I am myself on my journey made a transition from spins this year after been playing these professionaly for 2 years and i started PLO around february or march and i am playing some 200 now but mostly 100, i am finding the journey very exciting and dedicating myself to it, found a lot of similarities with yours.GLGL subbed.
(got myself a thread if you want to pass over for advices,help,questions etc.)
