PLO-Challenge

Gl, have fun!

Best of luck -- I'll be following your progress in https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3164872#post3164872 as well.

Best of luck :gl:,
VS

Good luck for your project!

These monthly cashouts. Will the first already be for September or do you a grace period till October?

in, gl

Subbed, GL Sir

GL mate, sounds like a very stress full start. Get that mega heater going

I understand that it is a challenge, but given your cashgame graph (I don't know which limit)...
Don't you think it is a waste of time to start almost at the bottom?

Thank you all very much, I appreciate you support. It means a lot to me.

Originally posted by Rhodriguez
... Will the first already be for September or do you a grace period till October?

I´ll have a period of grace till October. Gladly.

Originally posted by najtreg12
I understand that it is a challenge, but given your cashgame graph (I don't know which limit)...
Don't you think it is a waste of time to start almost at the bottom?

The limits are mixed from PLO5, PLO10, PLO20 up to PLO50. The thing is, there is lack of traffic especially on PLO10 so I have to mix tables to get more volume. My winrate on PLO5 is awesome, but I spent way too much time there due to the cashouts:

But I tried to get up to PLO50 too hastily and crushed it. But my impression was that competition there is still incredible soft, so I am pretty confident, that I might be up again quickly by starting again from the bottom.

Nice upswing Week 1 so far. Managed it to climb up over € 100,- to grind PLO10 this week with relatively few hands (4 x 40min sessions per day), gonna have to mix it with PLO5 tables now though. I hope I can reach the € 200,- mark in like 5-10 days. Time pressure is really high. If I don´t get it to the 500,- by the end of the month, I will need some luck in September.

Now let´s come to my first theoretical case-study: Preflop-Play

Since I am studying the Jnandez preflop starting hand-charts for a long time now without making considerable progress, I once more started to make my own hand-charts. They are sorted by rank and are marked by their type of suitedness. In the left column I have a notation to memorize and at the right side I wrote in the syntax I can use for the ppt4-macros. I finished the first template. I will make them available to you guys if you are interested, those ranges are tighter and not congruent to GTO but they have a systematic approach in the way how hand components have been chosen.

It´s important to remind yourself to be aware what´s going on at the tables and avoid falling into an auto-pilot mode. Probably well known, I´d like to repeat some steps of my preflop thought-process, that improved my game:

Any limpers before us?

They might force us to tighten up our raising-range. Contrary to NLHE, where we usually brainlessly just iso-raise to steal the pot now or later on, in PLO it is more likely that multiple players will come along with close preflop Equities involved. Here we don´t want to build too many big pots with marginal starting hands and over-limping hands can be an option.

Who raised or reraised?

Loose open-raises are a source of considerable profit since they often call oop vs 3-bets and continue a weak playing style postflop. Villains´3-bets could be loose too and we might alter our 4-betting range. It is important to have an eye on those dynamics that might go on and which players fall out of line.

What stack-sizes are involved?

When there is no more or not much money left behind to play postflop raw -equity becomes more important and Short-stackers often force the money in which increases variance. We have to take care that in general big cards have better raw-equity so we prefer to play high pairs and abstain from low- to middling rundown-type of hands unless they are well connected and suited. If there are deep-stacked players around, we will have to take care even more of what our position on the flop will be and be more selective with our (re-)reraising ranges.

What is our position?

Different starting positions will define players´opening ranges. This basic fact will accompany us from begin to the showdown. Be aware in which position we will end up on the flop and which is our relative position in multiway pots that can be different from our absolute position. Position is a key information advantage on every street.

What might be the outcome of my preflop decision?

There might be blinds, that come along often, or weak players, that might come along in a flatted pot that´d otherwise fold against a 3-bet. Also be careful how aggressive players are 3-betting behind you, often there are opportunities you can trap-4bet or make some unconventional plays with the information you have about preflop tendencies.

CO is an insanely loose-aggressive player (95/75) that is basically openraising every hand. Furthermore we have an insanely loose-passive button (70/5) that is going to call many hands until there is a flop. Bare KKxx´s are actually not a 4-bet probably not even a 3-bet but here I decided to push as it turned out a 40% Equity Edge. The ranges involved could be loose enough that I still stacked off on a dangerous flop.

iPoker - €0.05 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 53.2 BB
SB: 308.2 BB
BB: 167.2 BB
Hero (UTG): 100 BB
CO: 184.2 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has K:club: 9:club: K:spade: 4:club:

Hero raises to 3.4 BB, CO raises to 11.6 BB, BTN calls 11.6 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 47.8 BB, CO calls 36.2 BB, BTN calls 36.2 BB

With plenty of action preflop I was able to leverage nearly my whole stack into the pot preflop by 4-betting crap AAxx against 2 shortstackers. 50% Equity this time. Lucky runout postflop btw. ♦

iPoker - €0.05 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BB): 100 BB
UTG: 310.8 BB
CO: 102.2 BB
BTN: 38.6 BB
SB: 37.8 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J:club: A:heart: 8:spade: A:diamond:

UTG raises to 3.4 BB, CO calls 3.4 BB, BTN raises to 15 BB, SB calls 14.6 BB, Hero raises to 66.8 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 23.6 BB, SB calls 22.8 BB

In this hand, villain is making first a mistake by taking a crippled 3-bet sizing. His stats (50/5 0% 3bet) furthermore indicates, he is an AAxx-only 3-bettor. With this information, I have an easy play over several flop textures. The juicy odds he gave me turn a marginal fold into a profitable set-mining opportunity.

iPoker - €0.05 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 43.4 BB
BTN: 526.6 BB
SB: 152.4 BB
BB: 93 BB
Hero (UTG): 64 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J:diamond: 9:diamond: J:spade: 8:club:

Hero raises to 3.4 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB raises to 5.8 BB, Hero calls 2.4 BB

Double-suited Broadways are really strong hands. They hit quite the top of made-hands and also hit quite well on a lot of flops. Preflop it´s almost a coinflip against non-premium AAxx and KKxx equitywise but some flop provide nice domination match-ups against the single-pairs. This time it´s one more coinflip vs KKxx but I am still happy to get it in first.

iPoker - €0.05 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 57 BB
SB: 560.4 BB
Hero (BB): 132.2 BB
UTG: 65.4 BB
CO: 112.2 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J:diamond: Q:heart: K:heart: A:diamond:

UTG raises to 3.4 BB, CO calls 3.4 BB, fold, SB calls 3 BB, Hero raises to 17 BB, UTG calls 13.6 BB, CO calls 13.6 BB, fold

When 3betting KK 3ways, Axx is not the flop you want to see

You mean 4betting;)

Always find this hot cold equity spots annoying when I know its going mw.
How would you think w BT cc and SB complete. Just ch fold when BT stab?
Great challenge btw. Any thoughts about skipping the micro challenge like JNandez advocate
and building your br w a regular job and then going for plo50-100? glgl

Originally posted by Mascherano95
Now let´s come to my first theoretical case-study: Preflop-Play

I'm going to have to set aside some time to read that thoroughly

Congrats on the upswing...
VS

Originally posted by Kyyberi
When 3betting KK 3ways, Axx is not the flop you want to see

But I´m committed no? I have pot odds of about 4:1. The likelyhood nobody has an Ace or better is still around 40% that makes 10-20% FE + 12% from K♦:, K♥: and bd :club:-:club:.

Originally posted by nidorino
Great challenge btw. Any thoughts about skipping the micro challenge like JNandez advocate
and building your br w a regular job and then going for plo50-100? glgl

Thx. Yes that would be plan B. If I mess up, I have to go to work anyways. Well let´s see, maybe I can skip that part.

I think, one benefit of going to work is that you appreciate money more and you wouldn´t splash around with it like a student that gets everything paid. You become more careful when it comes to BRM. But as soon as your hourly leaves the working hourly far behind you´ll lose that emotional grounding once more anyways and you´ll have to find new ways handling money responsibly. For this purpose it may be clever to set a (monetary) goal and then committ to it until u made it.

I have the impression, Jnandez gives that advise to sell his Mastermind sub which doesn´t make sense for the vast hordes of amateurs and micro-stakes players out there. So he subliminally conveys the message, after u subbed his vids you´d turn into a crusher by night, which ain´t true. It takes a lot of time to study and internalize his material, it´s tons of theory confusions and GTO-numbers rashly packed together. Don´t get me wrong his content is high quality stuff and ofc a job is a reasonable way to set up a solid bankroll which is the required working tool in poker but it´s no replacement for experience and longterm acquired skill.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

I'm going to have to set aside some time to read that thoroughly

Congrats on the upswing...
VS

Yep, I found some theory quite useful for my game. It´s a little bit of a challenge too, to sum up all those concepts into something understandable and applicable at the tables.

Thank you!

Rake at PLO100 is lower, but the level of competition is tougher. If someone thinks that it's easy to just jump to PLO100 and start printing, it doesn't work that way.

That being said, to beat the rake at PLO25/PLO50 is not a walk in the park either, as the rake is high. Versus decent regs it's really hard, so you need to understand game and table selection.

Thing ia, if you want to jump to PLO100 with 100bin bankroll, it would require 10K in money. And to test and practise at PLO100 it could be costly.

My advice is to play at stakes your bankroll supports, and then take shots aggressively once you feel that you beat the field. Or once you reach the stakes you are happy to grind.

Originally posted by Kyyberi

My advice is to play at stakes your bankroll supports, and then take shots aggressively once you feel that you beat the field. Or once you reach the stakes you are happy to grind.

Agreed. I have no idea what competition looks like on PLO100. So I should get a decent sample on PLO50 first, cant say anything about my WR with a 2k hands sample. But it should not be too bad neither: I can remember when I was shotting, the tables still were incredibly soft. So I am hoping for sth around 15bb/100. And I hope I won´t have to stay at PLO50 longer than 80k hands. If I fail at this challenge, those ideas become obsolete, obviously doesnt make sense to kill the margins at PLO20.

Btw I might have the option to work part-time and grind in some hours on comfortable stakes on evenings and weekends. Problem here would be that it´d be hard to find time for studies.

As suggested, I decided that am going to work now. After 2 shots in vain on PLO20, I lost too much buyins afterwards so there is no way to finish in time. Yesterday I took the train and I´m back in Austria now and Looking for a job.

However I´m going to continue this blog to keep you up-to-date how it is going with my Poker-efforts.

Best of luck in your job search!

Hi everyone.

I wanted to follow up my Bankroll-Challenge but there did not happen anything since I left. Is this still up to date? Anyways
I am back on the tables with the same Bankroll I left with after week 1. I have a little income now where I can fuel my Bankroll. Especially for the Micros now again this will be very helpful. So there is not such a urge to rush moving up anymore.

Then again good luck and a lot, A LOT of staminia from me!