looks like you need a little bit more luck with the starting of your session just to bring up the graph a little bit ♠_biggrin:
Notifications
Clear all
Dr. Rungood is in the house! Played 2 small sessions today while killing time:
Again started with a loss, and then bounced to rungood. But in the overall graph, no one even notices those minor bumbs:
As I mentioned, I busted my knee about a week ago. Finally today I got the answer from my insurance company about the MRI. They don't cover it, as they don't consider it as an accident. That is just bullshit, as it is as clear as an accident can be. But when I reported it, I have used such a wording that they can use against me. The company lady asked if there was any collision or torgue to my knee. I said that I don't know, I was busy playing the game. I don't know what happened to my knee, all I know that there was sudden major pain. So now they said that as there wasn't any hit or torgue, it's not considered as an accident. I am going to write a complain, but I doubt it's efficiency.
edit: And a little late night session for 800 hands, won $16 while EV was $4. Dr. Rungood in the house! 
Played small morning session with the regs, decent winrate... 
Here is a trick to get a beer in a bar/pub.
Get a deck of cards, and suggest a poker game with your friend. Rules are easy. The first player picks a card and keeps it hidden. Then the other player picks five cards (again keeps them hidden), and after that the first player picks remaining four. Your friend might be suspicious, so tell him that he can choose if he/she likes to be the first or the second.
I don't think there are that many non-pokerpro's that can beat this game. I am not going to reveal the trick yet, I will give you guys some time to think it. What would you pick if you are the first one? If you are the second one, your friend probably takes A:h or A:s. What would you pick then?
I told you about the trend of losing at the start of the sessions. So far I have just thought it's variance, I just get a setup or two in the beginning. Not a big deal. Or is it?
I concider myself a winning player at the stakes I play. So it should be over 50% probability to win at the start of the session. Still most of the sessions have started with a loss. Human brain is like an ex-gf: it tries to **** you up in every possible occasion. Instead of facing the facts, I kept believing that it's just variance. Easy way to think, as it doesn't reveal any leaks in me as a person and I don't have to do anything. Just let it be. But I realized that I have those losses in the beginning usually when no one is watching. If there are people watching (railing, coaching, making a video) I don't have that problem. And especially in PLO5 9 out of 10 sessions have started with a loss, and I should have a decent winrate with my A-game.
It all made sense when I read about warmups. I have read Jared's books, so the idea behind warmup is nothing new. But I haven't really done that, as I am too lazy. Could the early losses come from that? It would make sense, as the first 15 minutes of the session is kinda my warmup. In that period my brains and mind warms up, and I start to play my A-game.
To test things out, I am starting to make a short warmup before each session. It includes reviewing some goals, mental game leaks and activating brain with few puzzle-things.
I'm somewhat disappointed to see that you blamed the issue on the variance while not obeying Jared. Silly you! 
If you decide to use Erik Stenqvist's guided meditations, please make sure to listen to both the mindfulness and then the visualisation one as a part of the warmup. Last December, failing to visualise my A-game after exercising mindfulness led to me feeling empty during sessions (all the real-life mindset was erased by the mindfulness but nothing was input to substitute it) and eventually experiencing one of my most regretful sessions.
Nice signature Sir!
I am trying a light warmup, which includes going through my goals and common leaks (most of them mental). After that I warmup my brain cells with brain games. And I will implement a strict timer to my sessions. To be able to close the clients, it needs to be learned. And sometimes it's a lot harder than one might think. I have found myself playing a lot longer than I planned, and nearly always I have been in a losing session. We all know that it's a lot easier to stop playing while winning than when losing. And it would be stupid to think that I could play my A game when the reason for playing is purely emotional (getting even). Although when playing, my brain tries to justify it by ***** me up and saying "you play good, keep going!", "games are so fishy, keep going!", "just a little more to win some back, keep going!".
To time sessions, you need just some kind of minute minder. Even if you find sophisticated anti-tilt tools yet too expensive, there are free ones like the online mindfulness bell (popularised by Erik 
) or Workrave.
I am trying a warmup website, that has timer in itself. Too bad I don't have time to play poker for the next 2 weeks or so. 
Thought to send an update, I still don't have time to play poker. Looks like the next time to play some poker with volume is in June. 
Nothing new from the front.
Haven't had time to play poker, except couple of small sessions. I marked some hands where villains made amazing (in a bad way) plays, but the strategical or interest value is pretty small in those. Something like villain calling a pot sized check-raise ott to 3JJQ board with AAA8 and so on.
But I have some news, next week I will be hosting my first ever EN live coaching! Information about the coachings will be posted to Omaha section as soon as possible.
Finally I had time to play some Zoom. Was a horrible day, I lost almost 20 buyins in EV in one session. Luckily I lost only 6 buyins in real money, but still... It was like Mr. Murphy was in the house: when something goes bad, everything goes bad. Three times I flop the 2nd nuts in 3bet pot +200bb deep. Opponent had AAxx, where xx is the nuts. JTT board, he had AAJJ. T98 board, he had AAQJ. And creme de la creme, 3way 300bb deep in 3bet pot I hit the jackpot. T98ss flop, I have KT76 with the flushdraw. 3bettor has aces for sure, and he overplays them. I am on the button, 3bettor is SB and guy who cold called 3bet is on the BB. Aces guy pots, cold caller calls, and I repot with a victory dance. Aces guy goes allin with bare aces, and cold caller thinks for a while and goes allin too. Cold caller has AJ77 with the nut flush draw. Solid hand to cold call 3bet while sitting 300bb deep.
Also it was an avalanche of valuebetting flop and turn, and see on the river that villain has hit some backdoors. I am not complaining or whining, it is nice that people make mistakes. But even with good winrate the variance can be a bitch. This downswing is just a bump on a road, I managed to climb up for about 8buyins in EV in the evening.
I thought about writing an article about "How to crush PLO5", but I am too tired now (and my laptop battery is at 11%). A lot of people think that PLO5 is the same as PLO10 and PLO25, but it's not. PLO5 is VERY different from PLO10. What amazes me is that there are some regs that play a LOT in PLO5. And they are all losing money in my statistics. Why aren't they investing their time to learn how to play, instead of grinding many hours a day with negative winrate?
Here's the total graph from my PLO5 Zoom adventures:
I'm not sure if you plugged in the correct RB% - due to 8.5 VPPs given per $1 of PLO5 rake, and some small promos like Mission Weeks or Pokerstrategy Gold, it's rather 45-50% for Silver-Goldstars than the 28% usually cited, so 20 EV bb/100 instead of 16. Stars care a lot about us recreationals 
That 28% is what I have put to my stat, as I use it to all stakes. But here's the calculation for PLO5:
Milestones rewards: $50 for 5000VPP, which takes $588 to achieve, resulting 8,5% rakeback.
Playing FPP hypers with ROI 0%: value of FPP is $0,0157 in those. With Gold Star, $1 generates 17 FPP, which is 26,7% rakeback.
So overall the rakeback is actually around 35% which is really nice. I play pretty aggressively, and I rake around 19bb/100.
Thanks for noticing, here is the graph with up to date rakeback:
Originally posted by Kyyberi
Milestones rewards: $50 for 5000VPP, which takes $588 to achieve, resulting 8,5% rakeback.
Don't forget five $10 rewards for lower targets, making it $100 total, or 17% RB. It gets smaller past the 5K VPP mark, though.
The smallers are $10 for 1000 VPP, same as $50 for 5000 VPP. Of course you get a "bonus" everytime it jumps up a level.
After a month, my PLO5 Zoom adventure continues. Solid and normal session:
Can't really complain about bad run, as you can see below. Here is the project after 45K hands, rakeback included:
Almost posted some hands, but to be honest they hold little any value from PLO5.
Originally posted by tonypmm
Last December, failing to visualise my A-game after exercising mindfulness led to me feeling empty during sessions (all the real-life mindset was erased by the mindfulness but nothing was input to substitute it)
If a coach told you this then ask for your money back. This is the worst nonsense I've read in a long time.
What is nonsense, the whole thing or the part where tony did only half what the coach suggested him to do?
The whole idea of mindfulness as an eraser of "real-life mindset" and, more importantly, the idea of having to substitute that mindset. Mindfulness is not a tool and can be terribly misunderstood if not taught properly.
Visualization is also something that just doesn't belong in the arsenal of a serious mindfulness teacher (at least not in this way. There is a place for visualization, but it's merely for physiological benefits). Mindfulness means realizing how much noise your mind creates, visualizing is just more noise.
OK, I likely misinterpreted the concept, and it's my fault.
But what disturbs me is that Kyyberi knows so much about the percentage of the coaches' suggestions I did. They can hold to their opinions, but mine is that I did almost everything I was supposed to, albeit with delays at times.
Actually, it was the other way round - I had a complete warmup routine before that experience, but the coaches were introducing a bit different a routine, and were rolling it out gradually, so one of the halves went missing for a while.
Anyway, let's not recall that episode any longer.