A Record of Lingson's Journey to Poker Success

Also, since I have already started playing few days ago, I'll just update my blog with those information.

Period: 10 Oct 2025 - 15 Oct 2025

Played Sessions & Hands: 15 Sessions - 1,249 Hands
Last/Previous Bankroll: $100
Bankroll Movement: + $16.89

Current Bankroll: $116.89

I'll post a graph from my pokertracker every 5k hands.

...

Originally posted by Lingson
Also, since I have already started playing few days ago, I'll just update my blog with those information.

Period: 10 Oct 2025 - 15 Oct 2025

Played Sessions & Hands: 15 Sessions - 1,249 Hands
Last/Previous Bankroll: $100
Bankroll Movement: + $16.89

Current Bankroll: $116.89

I'll post a graph from my pokertracker every 5k hands.

I just checked to be sure you were in the Bankroll Challenge — and I see you already are.

Best of luck on your quest!

VS

Period: 16 Oct 2025 - 20 Oct 2025

Played Sessions & Hands: 20 Sessions - 1,194 Hands
Last/Previous Bankroll: $116.89
Bankroll Movement: - $7.52

Current Bankroll: $109.37

During this period, I did pre-flop training using some free resources, and in the first 2 days, I tried to play more like how the trainer suggests (especially with raising pre-flop hands), but during this 2 days, in just 7 session of play, I was down almost 6 Buy-ins.

Some mistakes or points that I realized and learned during this period:

• I treated RFI with and without limpers as the same (which I think is the case in NLHE), but then I found out that with limpers, even if I'm the first one to raise, I need to tighten my hands further as if I'm playing some worse positions. Besides, I couldn't train those positions (with limpers) using trainers because they are more GTO optimized and assume that nobody limps in.
• One of the big lost I made was because I read my hands wrongly and thought I had the nut (full house) to bet a flush board to the max, and ended up only having two pairs. My hand was a pair AABx while the board was ABxxx. Stupid mistake, but I learned something from this mistake.
• Since my post-flop play is still not good, I followed Hwang's advice in his book to just play the hands cheaply by calling or limping only in the beginning to get myself more familiar with reading the hands etc. I know this isn't optimal, but by doing so, somehow the rest of the session were all okay. Maybe because I'm still playing at the very bottom, or I just made too many post-flop mistakes?

Period: 21 Oct 2025 - 26 Oct 2025

Played Sessions & Hands: 28 Sessions - 1,543 Hands
Last/Previous Bankroll: $109.37
Bankroll Movement: + $11.45

Current Bankroll: $120.82

Keypoints of the week:

• I tried playing like Hwang suggested: limping in or just calling a raise for the first 500 hands. What happened is I win small but lose big. So I tried to adjust my play again to find the best style for my current play, which obviously isn't optimal yet. But that's why we are learning, right? Since I notice that loose player will still call when raised, why should I waste the values of my good hands? So what I did is when there are many limpers, I will be more selective with the hands and choose hands that are better multi-ways and have nuts possibilities, RFI without limpers, and depending on the hand and position, just call a raise or even 3 betting. I might be playing too careful post-flop by surrendering a raised hand if I totally missed the flop. Although the swing is great, but the rest of the sessions turned out okay. Got some bad beats, but also some lucky or even great hands.
• Start watching some videos on YT (since I can't watch many videos here because of my member status).
• I'm considering to subscribe to RIO Essentials which should still be in the range of my budget. Another option is to buy the "Foundations: Learn Poker the Right Way" course from RIO for $49 which includes 1 month Essentials. I don't know if that course is too basic or not. If anyone has bought the course, please advice whether or not it's worth it.
• Tried multitabling more than 2 tables to increase my playing hands and resulting in a total success of ruining my play LOL.

Originally posted by Lingson

• I tried playing like Hwang suggested: limping in or just calling a raise for the first 500 hands. What happened is I win small but lose big. So I tried to adjust my play again to find the best style for my current play, which obviously isn't optimal yet. But that's why we are learning, right? Since I notice that loose player will still call when raised, why should I waste the values of my good hands? So what I did is when there are many limpers, I will be more selective with the hands and choose hands that are better multi-ways and have nuts possibilities, RFI without limpers, and depending on the hand and position, just call a raise or even 3 betting. I might be playing too careful post-flop by surrendering a raised hand if I totally missed the flop. Although the swing is great, but the rest of the sessions turned out okay. Got some bad beats, but also some lucky or even great hands.

I'm the opposite. The limp-and-call technique might work good for those with superb post-flop skills, but I'm not one of them. So I only ever 3Bet or fold if there is action before me. The exception is set mining with 22-99, and if the opener folds like 80% + to 3Bet I'll even 3Bet those. I will also just flat into family pots from the blinds with suited connectors and similar.

As for results, I have good days and bad days.

FYI for the readers, I changed the part of the title from "Poker" to "PLO" since this thread will be exclusive to report my PLO journey only.

Originally posted by Lingson
FYI for the readers, I changed the part of the title from "Poker" to "PLO" since this thread will be exclusive to report my PLO journey only.

Best of luck! To me, PLO is black magic.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Best of luck! To me, PLO is black magic.

Hahaha, yeah, I can relate to that as that was what I felt 15 years ago when I tried to play PLO. But maybe it was also because in the past, there wasn't enough PLO materials compared to holdem. Thanks.

If you refer to Hwang's small ball strategy, forget it. It was old-school nut peddling for full ring games decades ago. Modern 6max PLO is very different.

What comes to limpers, really good way to adjust is that you open pot over a limper with one position tighter RFI range. So if you are at MP and there is a limper, you pot with EP RFI range. If you are in BTN, you use CO range. The reason we need a stronger range is that the chance for pot being multiway (3+ players) is higher. And therefore we need more nut potential and stronger hands.

Originally posted by Kyyberi
If you refer to Hwang's small ball strategy, forget it. It was old-school nut peddling for full ring games decades ago. Modern 6max PLO is very different.

What comes to limpers, really good way to adjust is that you open pot over a limper with one position tighter RFI range. So if you are at MP and there is a limper, you pot with EP RFI range. If you are in BTN, you use CO range. The reason we need a stronger range is that the chance for pot being multiway (3+ players) is higher. And therefore we need more nut potential and stronger hands.

I'm not sure if it's also called small ball strategy, but I think he called it the big play strategy. I noticed many differences in the opening hands that he suggested with those from the PLO MM trainer, but also many similarities. I heard that it's outdated and more suitable for live play. But I feel like his book is easy to read, and since I'm still a beginner in PLO, I can quite understand it better compared to Jnandez book, which I think is still a bit too advance for me. But that book will be the next one that I'll read after finishing Hwang's book. And since I know Hwang's book is outdated, I try to filter it more carefully and not just following it blindly.

I forgot in which post, but I remember reading one of your post mentioning this when facing limpers. And if I'm not mistaken, you even said that with two or more limpers, we should even only open pot with premium hands. I didn't follow this part 100% though. Depending on their stats (aggressive or passive, tight or loose) I will adjust my play. But the part with tightening my hands, that one I do follow.

One thing that I still not do often is 3-betting, mostly because I'm not sure yet which hand to 3-bet and which to call (my preflop trainings are still mostly dealing with RFI, and I still need to train more about handling raises in or out of position). So, I still mostly just call a raise unless I'm holding a clear premium hand. I know I'm still losing EV doing this, but I'm learning to get better here.

BTW, I'm planning to buy a course/subscription in the near future, but I'm on a very limited budget. So things like PLO Mastermind paid subscription, or courses that cost hundreds of dollars are out of the question. Even though at the moment my winrate is quite okay, but considering I'm only playing PLO2, it's still only around $0.50 / hour. So I'm hoping that with the additional knowledge that I'll get from the course/subscription, I might be able to at least play good enough for PLO5 and hopefully PLO10 until the next 6 months.

The ones that I'm considering, which are (or still on the edge) on my budget are:

• PLO Launch Pad (Upswing): $99 (just on the edge of my budget)
• From the Ground Up: PLO Edition (RIO): $149 (a bit out of budget range)
• Essentials Subscription (RIO): $25/m
• Foundations: Learn Poker the Right Way (RIO), which includes 1 month access to Essentials subscription: $49

My considerations for PLO Launch Pad and From the Ground Up are the costs and the quality. I heard that these courses are already there from few years ago. Are they still relevant? Are the contents too basic/advance? Are they suitable for microstakes?

At the moment, I'm more inclined to get the Essentials subscription, whether by purchasing the Foundations course (which I'm not sure whether it's too basic or not) or just buying the monthly subscription. I heard that the videos organization are not quite good, but they have the learning path with suggested videos for the path. Another consideration is that with this subscription, I also get contents for other field (e.g. holdem SnG that I used to play intensively in the past, and I still play occasionally with another bankroll now). I also am still curious how people manage to play well in MTTs because I never manage to play well past a single table tournament. Of course, the main focus would still be PLO.

Any advice or suggestion would be really appreciated. Thanks.

P.S. I forgot to include PS silver subscription in the list. But I also heard that PS contents also quite outdated already? Also not sure whether the PLO contents are good.

Since we are in PS forum, maybe nobody is allowed to badmouth PS LOL.

But since the PLO experts here are not basic members, I really would like to know if the silver subscription is recommended for PLO content. Thanks again.

Originally posted by Lingson
Since we are in PS forum, maybe nobody is allowed to badmouth PS LOL.

But since the PLO experts here are not basic members, I really would like to know if the silver subscription is recommended for PLO content. Thanks again.

Hi Lingson,
Negative comments about PokerStrategy.com are allowed of course. There is even a forum for them: Feedback and Suggestions. Be mindful of your language though. For guidelines, see our forum principles.
There are quite a few ways to gain points without having to pay for them. Posting in the forums etc.
One of the best ways though, is to sign up with a partnered room and collect points by playing.

Big Play Strategy is for live full ring small ball, which was the way to go 20 years ago... ♦

Hwang has made newer book for short handed PLO, but that is a bit out of date too. Too passive, seeing monsters everywhere.

One free way to learn is our monthly PLO Primetime livestream, where you have 1,5-2 hours to discuss and ask questions/topics about PLO as much as you wish.

There are a lot of videos in our library, and the older they are the more out of date they are. At least when I am looking my old videos, I see that things were done a lot differently before solvers came and changed the game.

Period: 27 Oct 2025 - 2 Nov 2025

Played Sessions & Hands: 6 Sessions - 439 Hands
Last/Previous Bankroll: $120.82
Bankroll Movement: + $4.11

Current Bankroll: $124.93

Keypoints of the week:

• Multitabling at 2 tables brings the optimal result. Playing 1 table is too slow and boring, while playing more than 2 tables is too stressful, perhaps due to my monitor.
• Started to read Jared's "Mental Game of Poker" book. Very helpful for my mental state, and I would recommend it to everyone.
• Didn't play too much this week because of family and I also decided to "go into seclusion" to focus more on learning, training, and drilling.
• Tried to construct my own RFI range using MM and PPT, but ended up more confused than before because I have no way to visualize my range whether on an app or on paper LOL. So I decided to just stick with drilling using MM and try to play accordingly during session.
• Even in the past (15 yrs ago), I knew rake is a problem. But with the rakebacks and bonuses available at that time, it wasn't that much of a problem. And because currently I'm winning, I didn't consider the rake as big at first. But few days ago, I calculated all the numbers again from the data in my PT4 and realized that I'm paying about 17BB/100 for rake at the moment, which could have boost my winning even more if that wasn't the case. OMG. Would it become better when I finally manage to go up the stakes? I hope so.

Although I didn't play as much as normal, but I would still rate this week as a positive week considering everything I did for learning and training. I just hope I can internalize everything I learned and implement it on the games.

Originally posted by Lingson
Keypoints of the week:

• Started to read Jared's "Mental Game of Poker" book. Very helpful for my mental state, and I would recommend it to everyone.

Excellent! It helped me immeasurably. Remember that you can't just read it — it is more like a recipe, where you have to actually do stuff.

All the best,
VS

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Excellent! It helped me immeasurably. Remember that you can't just read it — it is more like a recipe, where you have to actually do stuff.

Agreed. There are many things in the book that needs to be practiced. But even just by reading it has already helped me changing some of my mindset, so I can imagine what changes it will bring when practicing it.

Yes, rake is a problem. At GG it's a problem always, as the rake is always 5%. At lower stakes the cap is at 3bb, middle stakes 2bb and higher 1,5bb.

But the level of competition is softer at lower stakes. If you beat the pool at 20bb/100 winrate rakeless (giving 3bb/100 after the rake), it might be just 10bb/100 at next stakes, making you a losing player after the rake. So just getting up in stakes requires getting up in skills too.

Originally posted by Kyyberi
Yes, rake is a problem. At GG it's a problem always, as the rake is always 5%. At lower stakes the cap is at 3bb, middle stakes 2bb and higher 1,5bb.

But the level of competition is softer at lower stakes. If you beat the pool at 20bb/100 winrate rakeless (giving 3bb/100 after the rake), it might be just 10bb/100 at next stakes, making you a losing player after the rake. So just getting up in stakes requires getting up in skills too.

The softer competition is offset by higher variance. If you have the skills for the next level, it is -EV to stay at lower stakes.
When you *do* take the shot, use tighter ranges to start.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Originally posted by Kyyberi
But the level of competition is softer at lower stakes. If you beat the pool at 20bb/100 winrate rakeless (giving 3bb/100 after the rake), it might be just 10bb/100 at next stakes, making you a losing player after the rake. So just getting up in stakes requires getting up in skills too.

The softer competition is offset by higher variance. If you have the skills for the next level, it is -EV to stay at lower stakes. When you *do* take the shot, use tighter ranges to start.

Thanks for the advices!!