This is just a quick blog entry, to inform that I decided to concentrate on No Limit 6max cash in 2010, with small amounts of PLO being played, some short-stacking to get VPP’s other time full stacking.

From the time the challenge started on Dec 16th, until now just over a month later, I was up about $3.4k having progressed from 25nl to 50nl to 100nl. However this past week was a bad week for me and I dropped over $1k back.

I may now play 50nl again, especially during the week, with weekend shots at 100nl as I rebuild.

I’ll mostly be updating in my EMS thread which can be viewed here

Since my last blog entry as most readers of this blog will know, I managed to ship £13.8k by finishing 6th in the GUKPT Blackpool Leg which has set me up nicely bankroll wise. I’ve banked 90% of it and paid off a few bills with the rest, and am running off my original roll.

I was going to write a report of the GUKPT but never got round to it, due to a 2 week cruise holiday in the Caribean straight afterwards. Cliffnotes where that I thought I played really well and more than held my own at that level, but had some tricky spots particualy on the final table where if I run better situation wise I could have finished much higher. So was disapointed not to win it/score bigger, but I can’t be too down about shipping my biggest ever score.

Since then I’ve flitted around with not much motivation to be honest and not playing all that much due to being ill with flu. I had a go at 40bb stacking PLO, which worked out well and the system works. I’m a winner over a small sample at 200PLO using this, but then had a go at 400PLO and ran bad EV wise which happens, which negated all the 200PLO profit.

I’m still sure, if I stick to 200PLO I can grind out the VPP’s and be a small winner and maybe go for 400-500K VPP’s in 2010 to get a few milestone bonuses etc which could be worth around $15-30K for the year in Pokerstars VIP program. I did consider going for SNE using this method, but 1 million hands a year using this short-stack method would have killed me, so going for the less glam 400/500k vpp’s could be an option.

Pro’s of doing this is the $$$, con’s would be the huge effort needed and going insane + lack of progress as a player maybe too a factor.

Other options for 2010;

Concentrate on PLO HU - I could be a small winner here, but would need to really learn it and watch vids, tilt control is a big factor that I would need to work on as hand values are so close together and the swings huge, and when whales bink on you it’s disheartening.

PLO 6max - I could be a winner at 25PLO here, and look to move up to 50/100PLO by year end. Cons are you can’t get as many hands in as NL, and again you can have big’ish swings.

NL 6max - I had a bref return to 25NL in November and was a winner over 10k hands, I’m sure I could get back on this horse if needed. I’d have to catch up on Vids and work hard to reach higher levels though.

2009 was a good year and I reached 2 of my 3 goals, #1 winning the EMS league, #2 Get a 4 figure score (managed this online + live), but failed in my #3 goal of reaching 100NL/PLO level.

In 2010, I really need to concentrate at one form of the game and buckle down and stop being a jack of all trades. I’ve said this to myself before. In 2010, I’m going to play one form of the game and stick to it. Which one it will be is undecided for now…

I’ve had an interesting couple of nights of poker. I sometimes do this when I’m bored and see how high I can go. I started off by grinding some 10PLO for about 600 hands and won a couple of BI, but the games seemed bad and nitty and I decided I felt like a change so decided to use the BI I won and see what I could spin it up to.

So started off with some 2NL in which I ran like poo for 800 or so hands and lost 4BI fml lol, so I switch to some FL 0.25/50 and ran pretty well.  Used this money and moved up to FL 0.50/1 and won another $35. I then decided to play some Heads-Up. So I played a few sessions of NL50/100 HU and PLO50/100 HU and ran really awesome winning about $180. I started to see what people mean by it’s full of bum-hunting, I’d raise the first hand, then the villian would raise the next hand and sit out immediately when I folded. Or sometimes they would stay and as soon as I 3bet them once, they’d sit out.

Anyway, I eventually found some 40bb stack bums and took them out for a total of $70 or so. See here.  Then a reg sat down in the PLO game I had up and I immediately stacked him 3rd hand, which seemed to tilt him a little and he stayed to play. I lost a bit back but then stacked him again with this hand for set-over-set, unfortunately he then won back another 250bb pot just after I had given him 2 min warning I was going to quit, when he got it in with a pair and a gutshot vs my AAK9ss and took some back. My play isn’t optimal, but he was tilting by this stage fair badly so went with it having the pair of 9s to go with it and BDNFD. I was about $60 up on him total though and decided to quit as the stacks had gotten deep and I didn’t want to get involved in ego-wars above my stakes whilst doing a lil spin-up.

So I left the HU scene and saw some fishy $2/$4 FL tables going, so decided to jump into 4 of them. Was immediately down about $70, but soon started to hit some hands and ended this 400 hand session about $30 up. Of note was $2/$4 seemed to be quite beatable but more agro than lower limit levels, I’d back myself to be a winner at those stakes over a large sample but I don’t play limit as my main game.

In total after all of this finished up just under $350 for the night, which pushed my online stars roll up to just below the magic $1k mark after the little spin-up.

Tonight I decided to use the $350 I won and sit down in a $400 NL game, after table selected fair well (apart from couple of donk shorties). nothing major happened here over the 100 or so hands, was down $70 or so early on, but left a small $70 winner after this hand.

Anyways after that hand decided to bank some of the profit from the spin up and sat down at 2 $200 NL tables with the rest. Won just over a buy-in and took 2 pots off ‘Mr. Mihau’ if any of the 200nl guys know him. Stacked him here. Small river call here.

Don’t think my spin up was particualry degen (or impressive) - I was only ever risking the initial $20 from the 2 buy-ins won at10 PLO (maybe $50 tonight when sitting at the 400nl game) but as long as I don’t stay in the games when I get stacked and lose more when doing spin-ups then I don’t think it’s too bad.

So I’m now rolled for $25 PLO anyway but will finish the month out at 10PLO and hopefully reach 15k hands. I’m unsure if I should stay on Stars though when I hit 25 PLO after reading this thread. I did some quick cals and the rake is horrendous. At 10 PLO I don’t seem to be badly affected, but the rake increases as you move from 25plo, to 50plo and 100plo.

I worked out as a Supernova I’d be on circa 21% rakeback inc bonuses you can buy at Stars at 100plo, while Full Tilt you can get 27% for example. I do like Stars though, and know and have stats on alot of the players so I’d be reluctant to move but the rake seems like I’d be burning money so might consider it.

Sorry if this post sounds like a brag, well it is, but thought I’d document my little spin-up

Well tonight I experimented with vol. and had two 14 tabling 10PLO sessions, and managed to get in over 2k hands to reach 10k hands for the month as I push for more vol.

I made some changes to the scripts I use and finally got a new mouse, after having to put up with the laptop scrollpad for the last week after it went bust on me, which included a bet pot key and a fold key and didn’t find it too bad 14 tabling. However, I did have a slightly break-even evening, only winning 1 BI over the 2k hands and I did notice my red-line drop, although I’m not sure how much of a factor this is in PLO compared to no limit.

I think on my next session I’ll try 10 tables and see if I can find a comfortable medium in terms of the amount of tables I’m playing. Cleared a couple of $50 bonuses so technically I’m rolled for 25PLO now using my stars roll. But I’m going to wait a while and finish the month up at 10PLO at least. See how it goes but I feel like I’m learning a bunch lately.

Well I got just over 3k hands in this week, which matches the vol. I’ve put in for the month so far, so it’s not great but a bit of a step-up and not bad since I’m only playing 1.30hr sessions of about 500 hands each time, about4 or 5 days a week.

This put’s me on just over 6k hands, hopefully I’ll hit 10k hands for the month before October finishes. Here’s my garf so far;

I think I’m making decent progress at 10 PLO, once my online bankroll hit’s about $700-750 I’ll hit 25 PLO, well thats the plan anyway.

In other PLO news, I decide to try an organise an EMS PLO Home Game, 6 of us took over a 10PLO table on Stars and had some good fun, at one point we had the highest average pot for any 10PLO table going. I recorded the HH in a replayer and although not everyones cards could be seen, it was enough for an entertaining video. Click here if for the thread with the EMS PLO Home Game video download contained within.

I also added a bit to my ‘roll thanks to cashing in the Stars Supernova freeroll,  118/2117 for $97 summat, TT beaten by AK for the exit, but still a nice little boost.

There was also this funny hand against a fellow EMS’er in that tourney, I think both actions are totally standard, given the odds but still funny that Jack hi ended up good on that board.

I know everyone says this, but I’m going to start updating my blog more often. I’ve decided to use my blog more as a journal. I’ll be updating a couple of times a week, just short posts documenting my progress in PLO and pointing out what I’ve learned and what problems I’ve been having.

Might be useful for me to later look back on and reflect.

Well, I didn’t end up playing 25PLO, I dropped a level lower to PLO10 to start from the bottom up with a dedicated roll of $500 that I will not touch and withdraw like I normally do.

http://www.eatmystack.co.uk/forum/personal-challenges/10plo-october-challenge-19834.html

Vol hasn’t been great on my side so far, as I was initially only 3/4 tabling for sessions of 300 hands or so a time, 3/4 days a week. I’ve recently stepped up to 6-8 tables and am now at around 7k hands for the month up about 10 BI so the hands should pick up, but vol isn’t a huge consideration while I’m rebuilding my game and learning.

I’ve learned I’m almost auto-calling 4bets too much which is bad, the hand below in particular;

http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/27-Pot-Limit-Omaha/30719-3bet-vs-BTN-open-A872ds 

I’ve decided coaching won’t be worth it while at 10PLO, so will revist that option once I’m up to 50PLO+. In the meantime I need to start watching more vids and posting hands, and reading more of the 2+2 & DC PLO forums.

So September has been pretty much a diaster. I made a move up to 100PLO and didn’t run very well at all losing circa ~ $1k.  Most of the hands where 60/40’s which I was on the losing end of or coolers. I only ID’d 2 stackings that was bad play.

After hitting my 10 BI allowance I moved back down to 50PLO, but continued losing.  I forgot what a winning session was to be honest. So quickly moved down further to 25PLO where I am in profit by a matter of pennies which is a bit demorailisng.  I also failed to turn a profit in my SAS stake which I was gutted about.

Further to this I have been unable to find the time to work on my game due to my social life getting busier recently and have just been milling about playing the odd bit of 25PLO and 25NL with no real direction and not even having the time to watch vids etc.

I’ve also had to withdraw some of my roll to pay the bills which has set me back even further from the stakes I want to play and know in the long term I am profitable at.  I just don’t have the motivation to work on my game and even play much recently, I’m not sure if I’m losing my love of the game or what.

This needs to change. I’ve decided to stick to PLO, but for the rest of the month I will be barely playing. I intend to study more hours than I will be playing that is for sure at 25PLO.

Next month I’m setting up some lessons with Nowhereman from DC and in the meantime will be watching a shed load of vids, reading HH and finishing off a couple of PLO books I have.

This sounds like a really depressive post reading it through, but I’m not tilting at all, just running like crap and playing my B or C game for whatever reason.

If anyone has any tips for motivation let me know

In October, I might look to take a prop bet from someone from EMS or DC and start a mini 25PLO challenge.

August so far has been a pretty good month for me $$$ wise, I ran super-hot at the begining of the month but then typically nose-dived dramatically after as soon as I posted about my run-good on EMS, standard doomswitch activation imo.

Since that short period of running absolutely terribly which included at one time being $400 below my expected EV in HEM in 2 days play, things have picked back up and been running normally and I’m having a decent month, learning more about PLO including the expected swongs every day as we go.

I’ve been playing 95% soley PLO now for the last 2 months and have improved greatly in my understanding. I’ve watched a few Deuces Cracked vids which brought me on alot, but more importantly joined a DC secret HQ group. Just talking to these PLO players on Skype and MSN in meetings and general chat sessions has improved my play and understanding on concepts and various spots alot and I highly recommend these sort of study groups to everyone who has ambitions to seriously improve as a player.

It’s just good to have poker friends who play similar stakes/games to hit up on msn or skype whenever you have a hand to discuss or some concept your having trouble understanding. I’ve also increased my posting over on DC on the PLO boards and reading the HH’s there definately helps too.

In other news, my prize for winning the EMS Freezeout league has been confirmed with Blue Sq, I’ll be playing Day1B of the Blackpool GUKPT on a very apt day, Friday The 13th, which I hope isnt an omen I’m stoked to have this great opportunity and will try my best to do EMS proud. Also this coming week is the APAT World Champ at Dusk Till Dawn, I’ll be playing the PLO on the Thursday and Day 1B on the NLHE Main Event on the saturday. I’ll prolly just book an hotel for saturday night, being a hotel cost nit.

I also advertised a BAP on stakeashark.com for a series of Omaha tourneys, both PLO and PLO8, as well as a couple of NL ones. I was amazed how fast shares was bought up and can only hope to repair their faith. The first event was the FTOPS PLO8 on Full Tilt in which I played really really well imo and just missed out on cashing. I baically lost a HUGE pot that would have seen me with a top 5 stack when I was rivered, but thats Omaha and donkaments for you and at least I recouped half the buy-in with KO bounties.

So for the rest of August I will be continuing to study the game and will begin taking small shots at PLO100 on Full Tilt as I have a bonus to clear, I’ll be playing mostly PLO50 on Stars though, but if all goes well I want to be playing PLO100 by the end of the year.

 Since I’ve not updated this in a crazy amount of time, I thought it was time for an update while I have a few spare minutes.

I guess my 100K hand challenge is at a standstill, or technically completed, depends on your viewpoint

I got in aprox 90K hands of 50nl (8k hands of 25nl, and 3k hands 100ml) and despite starting off good, I nose-dived quite badly over the last 40K hands and took a bit of a beating both in terms of quote, unquote ‘running bad’ and eventually playing bad, and then spewing and tilting like a mofo.

I then dropped down to 25nl and did reasonably well turning a profit and a short stint back at 50nl with good results saw me have a bit of a brainfart one sunday night, that saw me take a crack at 100nl and lose 9 or 10 buy-ins or so.

Since then I’ve been on a hold’em cash game sabatical, sulking, but mostly ‘working on my game’ and taking mental stock of things and how I want to proceed.

Although it has been my worst month in cash games circa around $1.2k down, it has been one of my best months too in other ways as I finished 4th in the Cake $100 guaranteed tourney, to score a near $3.8K and also finally wrapped up the EMS Freezeout League with one week to spare, scooping me a £1,000 worth GUKPT seat which is pretty amazing - and I thank Eat My Stack and Blue Square very much for this sweet prize.

I was really focussed this season to win the EMS league after finishing runner-up to Stanters last season. Alot of good players have won the EMS league previously like Stants, Ram, Bayliss and so I made it one of my goals to win the league and I’m really pleased to have fulfilled this goal and hope to do my best and perform well when I play the seat, which is looking like it might be at Blackpool at the EMS meet-up in November.

My 3 main goals at the start of the year was;
1) To Win the EMS league
2) To score a 4 figure sum in an online MTT (I dont play many donkaments at all)
3) To be playing 100nl 6max and be comfortable at that level by the end of the year.

So I have achieved 2 of my 3 main goals thus far, which is pleasing. The fact I took a hasty shot at 100nl was a disapointment and something that I am really annoyed about.

At present my goals are open and still under consideration, as to whether to continue with NL 6max or not, or learn a new game like PLO and make it my new main game.

I have been taking in a few videos of PLO during my ‘downtime and reflection’ period and have playing a little PLO-50 to some success, and feel like I’m learning and coming on in leaps and bounds as I was a bit of an Omaha noob before this week having never played it seriously bar a few tournaments and having a general grasp of the game.

At the moment, I’m leaning towards having a spell of continueing the PLO adventure for a little while and see if I can play this profitably. I may still play some 25 or 50nl depending on how my mood takes me next month, but my general focus in July I feel will be PLO right now, but of course that is subject to change

100k hands of 50nl challenge thread

 On march the 11th, I posted on EMS about starting a new challenge.

The mission if I choose to accept it, was to play 100K hands of 50NL on Stars.

I finally cleared my bonus over at Cake at 100nl, and ended up losing in actual play over ~18k hands but rakeback/deposit bonus pulled me almost level. About $150 down total.

I ran really bad, ten BI’s below equity in EV from the 10K hands that managed to convert and import into HEM - I know everyone says they run bad, but I ran into some real sickness.

I needed a new target to keep me on the straight and narrow. I know I’m good enough for 100nl and have confidence in my game, but mentally wasnt ready to run bad at the higher level, and want a bigger BR to cushion such things for when I next step up (looking for a super conservative 60 BI BR before I hit 100nl seriously again)

Thus, set myself a target of playing 100K hands at 50nl. And as a side project to learn a new game. It was originally going to be me working on my limit game some more, but I decided to try my hand at PLO. I dont have a hands target for the PLO, just playing little bits here and there learning the game and watching videos. I’ve been playing a few PLO tournaments as well and doing quite well, as I signed up to play at the live APAT PLO tourney at the WCOAP at Dusk Till Dawn in August.

I’m not a mega grinder cos I work and stuff, so this will take me about 4 months, so far I’ve played about 17K hands but am about to kick up the volume.