I’m starting this bankroll challenge to keep myself motivated and to improve my PLO game.
I’ll post regular updates here on my progress.
Start roll: $500
Hands played: 0
Let the ride begin!
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Today I ran pretty well — up 5 buy-ins. And then the only hand with the river of the day.
Hands: 1444
Bankroll: $525,83
Profit: $25,83
Day 2
Today started off dramatically. I was down a number of buy-ins. I noticed I was starting to get a bit tilted. Then I took a break, and in the end — even if it’s just a few cents — I managed to finish in the green after being deep in the red. But there’s still a long way to go.
Hands: 2535
Bankroll:$526,76
Profit: $0,73
Today I had another rough start. I began with PLO10, but thanks to the ThanksGG Flip tournament where I won some cash dollars — $18 — and another $3.50 because I placed on the Rush leaderboard, it helped keep me from tilting mentally. I went back to PLO5, and by the end of the session I still ended up in the green. I don’t count the ThanksGG Flip tournaments or other bonus cash prizes as part of my bankroll.
Hands:2661
Bankroll:$$529,02
Profit:$2.26
Hi upsssssss,
sorry that it took so long - but finally you got your challenger badge for the forum.
It is interesting to not count the GG Thanks tourneys into your BR - in the end poker rooms moved more of your EV into those random rewards whereas maybe in 2008 all your EV came from the games + 1 single reward system.
Anyways, good luck!
Originally posted by SvenBe
Hi upsssssss,
sorry that it took so long - but finally you got your challenger badge for the forum.
It is interesting to not count the GG Thanks tourneys into your BR - in the end poker rooms moved more of your EV into those random rewards whereas maybe in 2008 all your EV came from the games + 1 single reward system.Anyways, good luck!
No problem Sven, I’m not counting the bonus system from GGpoker. And I’ll go ahead and post an update as well.
After a period where I could only go up, suddenly the opposite happened. I went from $50 up to $50 down in just 2 days, but in the meantime the recovery has come and I’m now pretty much back to breakeven.
Hands played:18001
Bankroll: $$500.72
You should count all promotions, as it's all part of the reward system along with rakeback. The money you win from care or leaderboards is taken from you. The normal rakeback sucks as you probably get 10% or less in reality (due to non-transparent PVI factor). So those promotions are another form of rakeback. And to be fair, at high rake nitty micros rush the promotions are very significant portion of profits.
I’m not counting them towards the challenge, but in the end the money does end up in my poker account. But the way I’m reading it now, I should include them in the challenge as well? If so, I’ll start doing that from now on — including the rakeback bonuses?
Yeah I dont see reason to not account them. As said above they are part of your rakeback.
After reading your feedback, I’m making a change to my challenge. I’m switching from dollars to euros because it’s easier — no need to convert amounts anymore. Also, I’ll include my winnings from GGPoker thanks tournaments, rakeback, and other bonuses.
I’ve adjusted my GGPoker bankroll for the challenge
I’m unsure whether to play PLO5 or PLO10 rush now. I think 50 buy-ins is enough to play PLO10? Here are the samples from PLO5 (above) and PLO10 (below). If anyone has advice on where to start, I’d love to hear it.
Bankroll:€500
It's not easy to beat PLO10 Rush pre-rakeback and promotions. Rake is high and most opponents tight. Leaderboards give nice profit, if you have few hours to play per day. And play the happy hour.
Just a quick update
Let’s start with the positive: at the WSOP, Kassouf got banned — what an annoying guy he is. So that’s the good poker news. 😄
On top of that: Bitcoin and ETH are going through the roof again, which is very nice. BTC even hit a new ATH!
Now about me: after 4 weeks, I finally started training again. My back injury is finally starting to heal, and that feels great. Because honestly, when one thing in my habits is off, I tend to throw everything else off as well — at least, I do. So over those 4 weeks I’ve built up a little baby fat, but I definitely enjoyed the food. 😄
Diet-wise I’m still taking it a bit easy — after all, it’s vacation time. And speaking of vacation: in two weeks my littlest friend is coming back to the Netherlands. My granddaughter is spending her holiday here again. She’s now 16 months old and already just as crazy as her grandpa. Man, I’ve missed that little girl! Seeing her in person is so much better than just on FaceTime.
Now about my own poker results
Well, the screenshot of my bankroll says it all. I double-checked everything in the PLO Mastermind trainer — hardly any mistakes, just bad luck.
I could sit here and say (like you-know-who) Kassouf, about how pathetic everyone at my table was 😄 … but whining about that won’t win me any hands either. Lady Fortuna just isn’t on my side right now. The GGThanks Flipout keeps my bankroll somewhat on track 😊
That’s it for poker for now.
Have a great week!
By mistakes, do you mean preflop mistakes or also postflop?
I assume you are one of us dinosaurs, if you have a grand daughter? 
Also wanted to remind you that you can hop in to PLO Primetime livestream at 24th Thursday, and use that 90 minutes to ask me and other viewers anything you like about low stakes PLO. Or if you can't join live, you can just write it down and watch it later.
Most of the mistakes I make are postflop — especially with bet sizing. When to go half pot, when to go full pot, when to check and when to bet. I do make some mistakes preflop too, but that’s just a matter of practicing with a trainer; you’ll learn the ranges eventually.
And as for being an old-timer — that’s not so bad. I’m turning 48 this year, but I still feel like I’m in my twenties… just with a few grey hairs. 🤣
Class of 77 FTW!
Standard preflop sim 3bets a bit too much preflop, especially oop. Sim assumes decent fold equity, but in reality people rarely fold to 3bets at lower stakes. And people cold call 3bets too much too. In a sim where opener never folds to a bet, solver tightens up and drops Axxx hands with low "xxx" from 3betting range etc.
Tight is right, and you will learn why, how and to whom we should play wider as your journey continues.
About postflop sizings, it's once again good to understand that sim uses what sizings it's told to use. No sim is "perfect", and sim assumes that all opponents play perfect sim strategy too. Some things I have found out by making different sims (flop situations):
- if opponent doesn't have solid donking range (99,9% of opponents at low stakes), cbet should be lower than in normal sim.
- as default we can play 100% check to preflop raiser in HU/3way pots, and then have good check-raise range and it actually works probably better at low stakes instead of trying to have donk and c-r ranges. People in general cbet way yoo much versus check.
- In single raised pots we can use 3/4 sizing pretty much always, except monotone/paired boards (half a pot). I would argue that in the beginning having just 3/4 doesn't really cost EV that much. 1/3 small sizing should be used only in 3bet pots, for monotone and paired boards.
When you have just one option (cbet), it's somewhat easy to put balance to it (good ratio between bluffs and value). As soon as you add second option (two sizings), it becomes quite hard to make them both balanced. That's why I use single sizing on almost all situations as standard. Board dictates the sizing.
Same thing if you have lead and c-raise ranges. It's a pain trying to make both of them balanced, and usually what happens is that we don't even know the ranges ourselves, we just click the buttons.
Just think about this: of the flop is J94ss, most players can figure out a good c-raising range in 30secs (time bank). But not many can figure out good donking AND c-raise ranges, so that they are balanced together in 30sec.
Thanks for your reply!
I think I’m playing too tight with stats like 18 VPIP / 12 PFR / 4.5 3bet. And I really play quite close to the solver. In Rush I rarely get to open from CO or BTN — most of the time it’s just fold. I use the PLO Mastermind trainer (lite version) and I’ve learned a lot from it, but I don’t think it really works that well for Rush.
Ideally I’d just prefer to play on regular tables, but of course I also want to grind my Fish Buffet for some extra rakeback. And here in the Netherlands you’re limited to certain sites, so that’s also a factor.
So are normal cash tables not running or why you need to play rush? I have personally not played those but afaik pool tend to be relatively tight and that combined into high rake makes profit fairly hard to get.
In these games you don't need to play crap as fast fold is so quick. In normal tables though people might play stuff they shouldn't just because of getting bored.
What I notice at PLO5 and PLO10 is that players are either super tight or sitting short with 20bb just gambling. I’m playing it because I want to increase my Fish Buffet level. According to GGPoker’s Pokercraft I’m winning at PLO10, but after importing my hands into Hand2Note, it shows that I’m actually losing at PLO10. I’m glad that with all the bells and whistles like GGThanks flip outs, I get a decent amount back — otherwise it would hardly be playable.
Pokercraft doesn't include rake.
Even normal tables are often infested with tight regs who fight for leaserboards. Fish buffet is about 1/3 of promised rakeback due to PVI (player value index).
You might be amazed how different games at Unibet, afaik it's allowed there. Personally I would play any site over GG.
I made a small deposit because I had to raise my deposit limit. Still getting used to the software (I was on mobile), but I’ll definitely keep playing — I’ll also stick to GGPoker for the rest of this week. You’re right though — those leaderboard grinders take all the fun out of it. There were only about 23 people playing PLO €0.02/€0.04 on Unibet. I also liked CoinPoker actually, but there are barely any microstakes games there.