...
Notifications
Clear all
Originally posted by Untiltable
There's pretty much always more variance at the higher stakes.
Hmmm, can you explain?
I've always found that players above NL 5 to be fairly predictable.
Mind you, I have not played much above NL 25 — at least not hold'em
Originally posted by Untiltable
Play with any variance calculator and see how much worse the variance and downswings get as your winrate goes down.
You're quite right.
Considering how many times I've posted this link, I should have known that.
https://www.primedope.com/poker-variance-calculator/
As I mentioned in the keypoints from my last update, I tried to create my own ranges, but ended up more confused. One of the problem is how to best visualize my range. For NLHE, it's easy to create a range table. But since PLO has 4 cards as starting hands, I find it difficult to find a way to write down and visualize my range on paper.
For all the Omaha players out there, do you have any advise regarding this? How do you do it yourself? Thanks for sharing!
First we should define what variance means here, before we discuss it. Cos actually winrate doesn't itself affect the variance, standard deviation of the games does. Higher EV winrate just means that it's harder to be a losing player. But swings are still the same. Better opponents and controlled aggression means that we need to stack off a bit more lightly. So instead of constantly getting it in with good equity we get it in more in flips or lesser equity. Those increase std dev. Variance simulator is a good tool, and you can check your std dev from your tracker. Own playing style also affects it.
For range visualization, PLO Matrix created that same chart that is used for holdem to PLO, it's really nice. Sad thing is that PLO Matrix is $50 a month.
In theory, if you have access to solver preflop you could do a similar thing even with Excel. Just takes a lot of work.
For variance conversation your winrate doesn't affect variance itself. How aggressive games are will change standard deviation which means more aggro more variance.
I think the idea winrates affect it comes from thinking with bigger EV chance of losing over decent sample is lower. E.g.:
-10000 hands, 10bb/100 EV and 160 deviation chance of losing run is 27%
- 10000 hands, 3bb/100 and 160 deviation chance of losing run is 42%
But yeah the spread from expected win is same for both.
Those are some interesting insights into the term of variance. Denk so laut guys and good luck to OP with his interesting blog!
Originally posted by Kyyberi
For range visualization, PLO Matrix created that same chart that is used for holdem to PLO, it's really nice. Sad thing is that PLO Matrix is $50 a month.
In theory, if you have access to solver preflop you could do a similar thing even with Excel. Just takes a lot of work.
Thanks for advice.
I reached 5k hands today and wanted to post the graph, but can't upload any pictures or post any links to image uploads. It says my current status doesn't allowed it. Sorry guys. I guess, I have to wait until one day I upgraded my status.
Originally posted by Lingson
As I mentioned in the keypoints from my last update, I tried to create my own ranges, but ended up more confused. One of the problem is how to best visualize my range. For NLHE, it's easy to create a range table. But since PLO has 4 cards as starting hands, I find it difficult to find a way to write down and visualize my range on paper.For all the Omaha players out there, do you have any advise regarding this? How do you do it yourself? Thanks for sharing!
Equilab Omaha might be of use:
It is free and available here: https://www.pokerstrategy.com/poker-software-tools/equilab-omaha/
Here is what the "range selection" tool looks like — you can also put in your own categories
There is a shorthand for describing Omaha ranges, but I couldn't find a link.
I'll bet Kyyberi or ghaleon can provide one though.
Period: 3 Nov 2025 - 9 Nov 2025 (Week 5)
Played Sessions & Hands: 22 Sessions - 2,050 Hands
Last/Previous Bankroll: $124.93
Bankroll Movement: + $1.62
Current Bankroll: $126.55
Keypoints of the week:
- Had a bad day few days ago where I lost 5 BIs in 1 session. I have a "tilt" where I tend to quit the game when winning, but staying and try to cut the losses when I have a losing session. I know that it should be the other way around where you should stay when the table seating is an advantage to you. And when I keep losing at a table, most likely the opponents seating is just not an advantage for me without me realizing this. Although I can keep myself calm with the losses, but forcing myself to stay in the game too long also tired me out, so I guess I didn't play my A game anymore after a while. So to "fix" this tilt, I'm changing my strategy by deciding a fixed amount of time for a session before I play, and quitting after that decided time whether I win or lose during that session. It might not be optimal, but until I can recognize a good/bad table, I'm training my discipline.
- Although I did drill training for preflops, but I also still tend to be too loose during play, and I have to keep reminding myself to play tighter and stick to what I have learned. I know math is always right, but sometimes it's not easy to control the urge, especially after seeing that a hand you folded preflop turned out to be the nuts after the flop comes out, which makes you think why you didn't call to play. Any advice for this "tilt" problem except discipline?
- When I only go through hands that I win/lose big during hand review, there might be a chance that I misplayed some hands. What I am doing right now is going through each hand and put in the trainer to see if I played it correctly preflop. Are there any tools where I can upload my hand history and it will flag the hands I misplayed? If there are not, since I myself am a programmer, I plan to create a simple program to check it. But for that I will still need a database of correct preflop play, which I don't have. If anyone is interested with this small project, maybe we can discuss it together.
Period: 10 Nov 2025 - 16 Nov 2025 (Week 6)
Played Sessions & Hands: 11 Sessions - 648 Hands
Last/Previous Bankroll: $126.55
Bankroll Movement: - $0.94
Bankroll: $125.61
Period: 17 Nov 2025 - 23 Nov 2025 (Week 7)
Played Sessions & Hands: 5 Sessions - 215 Hands
Last/Previous Bankroll: $125.61
Bankroll Movement: + $0.47
Current Bankroll: $126.08
Keypoints of the 2 weeks:
- Didn't play too much these two weeks. Had some problems at home (private life and also poker related dillema) and haven't found a balance for my playing schedule.
- Started to look back into NL and tournaments for other types of game (Draws, Razz, Stud etc.) since there are no cash games available for those type of games. I find them quite interesting, and even manage to win an 8-Game tournament with about 100 players. I don't list it in the above result for my bankroll challenge because I treat it as a separate bankroll.
- I used to play SNG in the past (that 15 yrs ago past), and tried to re-learning it. But I'm thinking to drop it totally now because the rakes for the SNGs are just too high compared to in the past.
Now, I'm starting to get confuse on whether to focus only on one type of game, or explore them all. My consideration are:
- I'm still on the early stage of my playing (having played for only about 1+ month) and I'm still trying to find what's best for me. At the moment, all of them (CG PLO, CG NLHE, other games tourney) look and feel interesting. So probably, I'm still on the exploration stage?
- Some said one should focus on only one type of game, but others said that learning those other type of games can help improving our overall play.
- I'm studying and practicing all of them right now, but because I'm doing them all, it also means that I'm dividing my time (whether for studying or playing), and can't spend too much time for a single game.
- Right now, I'm thinking to continue doing this first for another month or two and hopefully until then, I will be more sure on what to do. If anyone of you have gone through similar situation in the past and can share your experience and thoughts, that would be great. Any advices are of course welcome. Thanks.
I noticed that my status has been upgraded to bronze, so I'm able to post images now. Here's a graph for my 5k hands result. I don't know how to embed the image directly to the post. I tried using the 'img' tag, but it just showed the text, not any images.
You need to get actual image link. So I long pressed image on your link to open it on other tab and got link from that.
Originally posted by ghaleon
You need to get actual image link. So I long pressed image on your link to open it on other tab and got link from that.
Ah, okay. Thanks!
I've been looking everywhere to figure out why or from where I got that $75. Now that explains. Thanks for letting me know.
And I also need to update my blog. Will do soon.
Period: 24 Nov 2025 - 14 Dec 2025 (Week 8 - 10)
Played Sessions & Hands: 8 Sessions - 398 Hands
Last/Previous Bankroll: $126.08
Bankroll Movement: - $5.76
Current Bankroll: $120.32
Keypoints for the periods:
- I'm putting the 3 weeks together because I didn't play PLO a lot lately.
- As I mentioned during previous weeks, I've started to look into NL and mixed game tournaments.
- During black Friday, RIO did a promotion where we can access its essential videos for free for 3 days. And I watched Brian Hastings' video on 2-7 Triple Draw (Introduction to 2-7 Triple Draw), which I find very good, but I think is for general play and maybe more for cash games because at the time of the video recording, those games were still available at PokerStars.
- So lately, I also kind of focused on 2-7 Triple Draw, because I have quite a good result. Too bad I can only find this game on PokerStars, and only tournaments. I tried to look in party, GG, or coin, but couldn't find these draw/stud games. I tried to google without any luck. If anyone know where I can play these games online (micro stakes), please let me know. Thanks.
- Opened account in GG, and have been playing freerolls NLHE and collected a few dollars there. Was also quite lucky in one of the daily freeroll Raab poker night qualifier to get a seat for the 9th of Februar 2026 game.
- And now, GG has this 12 days of Christmas event where you can get a free ticket everyday, so I've been focusing there for a while.
So I think, for the next few weeks (or maybe months), I might not be playing PLO cash game a lot and might focus my study on tournaments for now. Maybe I'll be mixing it with PLO tournaments too, but I'm not too sure about this, because last time, I played a PLO tournament once, and was totally confused on how to play it since the dynamic is totally different compared to cash games.
Next, I'll be posting some tips for 2-7 Triple Draw that I learned from the video and my tournament play experience, if anyone might be interested to try the game but don't have access to that video.
P.S. I changed the title back from "PLO Success" to "Poker Success" because I'm not sure yet what game I might be focusing at, so I might be rambling about many other things beside PLO during my journey. And by changing the title back, I can also share all my thoughts and learning without any guilty feelings because they are not PLO related.