Probably the best plog in the world

PLO5, as my bankroll challenge is planned to be solely that stake.

I felt bad for most of this month, as I got nasty session and run about 16 buyins under EV. But that seems a bit silly when you look at the total graph from the first half of this year:

Running well over EV and the overall direction is pretty damn good. Volume wise I am a little bit behind, but I knew that I will play more on the summer. Yearly goal was around 150K hands if I remember right.

I think super nice marathon, I can't wait to do something like that, but recently I have found I like 1000+ bi brm, so it will be gradual climbing with support money from other sources. +40bb/100 at PLO5 is impressive, I would be very happy with +20bb/100.

First session of the month, and the tide did not turn.

Once again one of those sessions that gave very mixed feelings. On the other hand I read situations and opponents well, and managed to build big pots with better hands. The problem was that those opponents with worse hands managed to hit few outers quite often before all the money was in the pot. And also one pot with deep stacks where I got monster draw vs dry AA all-in on the flop, and I had 74% with my 7high drawing hand. Not enough. And of course top set vs bottom set, and opponent decided to call my re-raise instead of a shove, leaving 1/10 pot behind. Turned 1 outer and the rest went in. But in the end, as I got most of my stack in multiple times as a big favorite, that's all I can ask. But it would be nice to have at least one session where opponents won't hit their low equity hands all the time.

And sort of a bad beat also:

Instead of posting bad beats to Quads, I'm doing the opposite:

Got a minor boost to my Coin Poker roll from PokerStrategy freeroll, won around $40. On cash tables it was a day of good customers. Too bad they run quite well, making once again 1-2 outers on the river while I have them on the ropes. But overall a profitable day, I'll take it!

There was THE chance today, I had AAKJss on AQTss board 5way, 3bet pot. And I was 350bb deep with a really good customer. Too bad he didn't have anything and folded on the flop.

I also found out today that you need to manually transfer all the promotion money to your account. All my leaderboard wins (and is there a rakeback?) was waiting there.

This is common spot that I see at micros over and over again, even from the regs. If I see this from a reg, I usually think "that's what keeps you from progressing, you don't think".

Had funny spot today. So I defended BvB (or might have been BUvsCO) with KK78 with call. Flop comes JT9. Quickly recognising that this is funky hand to have. Villain bet and I call. Turn was blank, second barrel and I call. I am thinking here this is tough one to find fold on river. River comes Q, no flush or paired board. Villain check and I am now wondering if I should suddenly bluff with aim to get Q high and maybe even K high straight to fold. Though I think later is not happening often at all as I might be value betting same hand. With pot sizing that might not be true though.

In the end decided to check hoping he had some AQJJ type. Well he shows up with KKJ2 type so it was bluff with nut blockers and gs that completed on river. This hand would never x-fold with two K. Might be crazy idea to bluff on river but did think it for good while

Not crazy, as there is solid logic behind it. PLO is a funny game. Sometimes we turn really strong hands to a bluff and sometimes we don't even valuebet 2nd nuts on the river.

PS just published my video about PLO MTT basics. If you are interested in PLO tournaments, but not sure how they differ from HE MTT's, then that video is just for you! https://www.pokerstrategy.com/video/55603/

Found a new reg from the pool today. Preflop stats were quite solid, but he made these kind of mistakes quite a lot:

Massive mistake to stack off with plain top pair and oesd on that one. Seems like clear check back. With decent spade blocker I don't mind cbet-folding as this sort of flop is not supposed to hit SB that often. That said we seem to widen calling range but kinda reasonable if these sort of overplays happen.

Yeah lol I hate when they do that when I play at too high stakes, they still have 35% and can kick me down if lucky

Another quite common mistake I saw today multiple times is when regs call a pot sized bet on the flop with naked fd oop. Even if it's nfd, it's super hard to make it +EV. But it shows that even regs are often quite lost about EV, pot odds etc.

Example, REG faces pot sized bet (10bb) on K♥:9♥:7♠: board. If they play with only their fd, they will hit it 1/5 times (assuming opponent doesn't have a fd). So to call 10bb, they need to win at least 50bb to make the call break even. After the call, pot is 30bb. So they need at least 20bb in value to make the Flop call profitable. Now the problem is, how to get that value? If turn completes the flush, they often check it. Opponent can check back, and it's a free card to him. And if the river is a blank, they need to bet big (almost a pot sized bet to make it +EV) and assume that opponent calls it almost always.

If opponent has lower fd, there is some value to be gained. But that means 2 outs less, so they will hit the flush 1/6 times. Now even with pot sized value it's just break even call on the flop.

What if they lead the Turn? Well, if opponent has lower flush, they will get value. But as we just calculated, even pot sized valuebet is not enough, they need to get something more on the river. This happens when opponent has 2nd nut flush, but most of the time they won't get the value. So even if they get that max value sometimes, in the long run it's not even close to make the Flop call +EV.

If opponent has a set and they lead pot on the Turn? Opponent calls with 25% equity. So with a bet of 30bb, their value is 22bb. That is just 2bb more than breakeven, and with the rake it turns to -EV. They might get some value with a blank river and a small bet, but there's also reversed implied odds with pairing river and a small bet from opponent. So those cancel each other out.

So in the end, it's quite hard to make calling with naked fd +EV when facing a big bet oop. You should have some extra equity (couple of backdoors give nice boost to equity) and/or some plans to make bluffs on certain runouts. But I see regs making those calls with naked fd or even oesd (which is never +EV on itself against a big bet).

Today's session was a good one, although I run a bit under EV.

Sick variance! Good to see that PLO is beatable!

Lol, I got a bit of a problem with Coinpoker. Deposit was possible with normal debit card, but just found out that withdraw is possible only through crypto wallets. I am quite a noob with cryptos, I have used crypto wallet to receive payments some years ago and I remember how confusing it was to get crypto value to my normal bank account. But the initial $50 from PokerStrategy seems to bloat and bloat.

So the game is over and you have to trade with grown-ups 🤣🤣🤣

Probably going to lose some money in conversion when I withdraw crypto to my wallet, and then to my bank account. But that's the only option.

This month has been good volume wise, we are halfway there and I got a bit over 8K hands. When I started the bankroll challenge, I thought that 10K hands per month is the minimum that I'm aiming for.

This is another spot that some regs seem to do, and I just don't get it:

Essentially when betting this turn we say we have nut flush, boat, some trips and potentially some low equity holding like 7889. Trips are actually somewhat often barreling these spots theory wise (afaik) with idea of putting pressure on flushes. Not sure if that's the case on such low paired board though. But does require assumption opponent is capable of folding something.

When he raises most of weaker (if not all) is folding so it doesn't make much sense. Also he doesn't block any of your boats and 5 is potentially not clean. So personally if my assumption is hero is not overplaying weaker flushes I would not hate even folding turn. It's of course kinda stupid to fold after hitting flush but this is very strong turn barrel from most players. If calling turn we really pray seeing check on river and should likely just check behind. Though versus recreational betting small could be option.

Otherwise villain should just fold pre as 9 is kinda worst card for A55. Flop call I like as 55 is kinda nice on any straightening turn.

Have been playing at CoinPoker for a while now. PokerStrategy's initial free $50 is now $250, which is quite remarkable as I have been playing only PLO2 and PLO5. Idea was to use that $50 for streams, as otherwise I probably wouldn't have deposited to CoinPoker. You can deposit there with normal debit card, but all withdrawals are cryptos.

They have Anjouan license, which is somewhere in India. Here comes the minor trust issue with me. Few years ago I played in Indian games, somewhat closed network for mostly Indian players. They had forced run it twice, and I noticed quickly that the underdog won almost always the second run. It was a bit suspicious, as those one outers seemed to hit very often. Not just for my opponents, but for me too. I searched the internet for information, and found out a post where former employee told that the rng is rigged for RIT, to keep people playing longer. Of course, that is nowhere reliable info, but if there's enough smoke... I decided to quit playing there, as once you lose your trust it becomes mentally challenging to play.

With CoinPoker I am not sure how much I trust them. I have a feeling that I have received a lot of bad beats, but without a tracker it's hard to say the truth. They have their own metrics, and they show that I have been running a bit bad. For the whole month, winrate is quite close to EV winrate, if those numbers are accurate. And of course, when opponents make a lot of loose calls, they will hit their low-equity hands more often.

I just looked how much I have won from the promotions, and it's quite sick. $100 from leaderboards, rakeback and deposit bonus. That is more than my winrate, which is 22bb/100 atm. Not sure what the leaderboards and games are at higher stakes, but at least for micro players CoinPoker is definitely a valid option atm.

One of the weirdest hands of this summer: