A big thank you to Jeff Hwang

My chart on PTR is a V-shape and the bottom of the V is about 3 days after I bought Jeff Hwang's first book on PLO. I've raved about the Advanced book before but in truth it was beyond me at that time. In fact, it has been a while since I picked it up because the first one is so good for teaching you solid big play poker.

I think that I'm running good and my results are great. I even made it into the PTR Top Winners yesterday. The confidence has also spilled over into my live game where results in local pub chip chops, Friday night home games and even the casino have all been positive. My losing sessions would certainly be below 20%. It won't last so this is really just a note to myself for posterity. In the bad times, I'll be able to look back and think that I had one of the games nailed, if only for a fleeting week or two.

PLO variance is brutal

My interest in gambling dates back to primary school. Intuitively, I seemed to have a grasp of risk / reward. For example, we played marbles differently in the UK. Sitting with legs apart, we would line up the target, maybe 4 in a row and allow all comers to try to hit and win. First hit wins. I quickly worked out that by lining 6 or 7 with a slightly longer shot would still attract many takers – much more than 7. That was my earliest memory of free-rolling.

It wasn’t until we studied probability though that I got fascinated with the concept of convergence over a large number of trials. I still walk past roulette tables with a row or reds thinking that a black has to be very soon and that this is an opportunity. The wheel like the cards has no memory, but you know what, it always evens out.

And so it is that my run good came to an abrupt end with a sharp correction of fortune. Following another massive downswing, my AI EV line landed exactly on my $$$s won line for all Omaha hands played on FT, 21K of them. Amazingly, they both landed simultaneously on the x-axis – the ultimate break-even player, eh? Thank goodness for rake-back.

The inevitability of it all didn’t seem to make things feel any better, but I suspect that it did. Being aware in advance that I had run particularly well meant that I couldn’t take myself seriously if I grumbled too hard internally.
The good news is that I dipped down even further before going on another run to “test historical highs” as my charting mentor would say.

In short, PLO Variance is brutal. I’ve been lucky until now to avoid the wild swings of the last few weeks. I now know that the higher limits are much more volatile (betting the strong draws rather than waiting for the nuts). I’ve been getting all in more marginally knowing that the other guy is doing the same. My AI EV line confirms that those were positive plays for the most part. Fingers crossed for the week ahead. Ultimately though, I need to just get much better for which there is plenty of scope.

Friday Night Home Game
Another week, another profit. This week, exactly $500 to the good after 10 hours from 6pm. At 40 hands/hr (no way), that’s 400 hands max. With 25c/50c blinds, that’s an obscene 200BB/100, or more. I didn’t really get going until after midnight when we got shorthanded. I’m easy to push off pots, but when I’ve got the goods it is costly for the other guy. That’s where all of my profits came from. I played extremely passively all night. No risk, profitable poker.

The highlight of the evening came with poker Gods satisfying their penchant for irony. Early, one of our more active players got his AA cracked by T2o. Poker buddies have a warped sense of humour which comes to the fore in these situations. Anyway, a couple of hours later the same players were heads up for a big pot. The original winner pushed AI on the Turn and sure enough, the cracked guy had a flush draw with his T2 of hearts. There’s no way that he was getting the odds to call, but it would make for a great story. If you know the individual involved, he’s never getting away from the buzz of a good story and the required heart duly appeared on the river.

The epilogue was a lot less dramatic but in the early hours, I was dealt T2 when we were down to 4-handed. This was to be the very last hand. I raised and got heads up. C-bet, he wasn’t for shaking. Double barrelled the Turn and he still wasn’t budging. On the river, I had absolute air with $50 in the pot. Last hand, I over-bet the pot for $100 and he folded the winning pair. I’d never have gotten to the flop if it wasn’t for the irony in the timing. Needless to say, we were having so much fun that we played for another hour or so.

LAX on my way to LAS

My body thinks its nighttime but the clock says 8:00am, should I use the complimentary beverage voucher. Let me Google the Pope's religeon to decide. So there is only this Post between me and my first Sam Adams in a while, here goes.

First let me start by saying that around Feb time (I think) a number of us bloggers seemed a little flat with our games. With the exception of Jesse, who is a shoe in for a Limit Bracelet one day, we all seem to be doing a bit better of late. For my part here is an update "brag" post. Medium fish in a wee pond stuff.

Sydney Championships, $150 entry, 28 runners, 4th for $403. I'm glad that I didn't play the $770 event as I'm now 3 for 3 in cashes at biggish (for me) PLO Events. Another min cash could have been 2nd if my KK99ss had held up against the chip leader QQ64ss. Runner Runner 6-6 just felt bad. In reality the flop was all low and he had a few outs. My KKxx hit a K on the river AI against AAxx with 7 left, so I'm not complaining. As is usually the case with PLO, by the river I had a whopping 7 outs.

Before flying out at 6am on Sept 11 (I only realised when I got to America), I played our new game at the local Bowling Club. Over the 3 weeks, we've had 4, 5 and then 6 tables. I was packing so missed the Tourney, satisfying my poker craving with the S&G Chip Chop. Ran a double barrel bluff first hand to build my stack but managed to halve it. From there, I resorted to T/A against calling stations and scored a nice $50 on a 0.25c/.50c blind game. Obscene BB/100 if it was to count that way. In reality, its only a couple of big hands that make the difference. You just need to not get unlucky.

I've played every day of FT's Take Two promotion which should be an easy $50 and my redline is going really well. Showdown winnings are well down which is to be expected. Need to work on finding the optimal balance. I find that running the HEM graph along the bottom of the screen provides instant feedback on when my aggression is dropping off. My stats all of a sudden look really good alongside the winning regs, I think.

I got yesterday's game in at Sydney Airport. Was up a healthy amount when my plane was called. The final hand was K44 flop. A shorty raised the pot and I decided to min-raise my 4 to induce the shove with which he duly obliged. He had AAxx obviously and I logged off looking forward to Vegas even more.

And so to Vegas. I'm hoping to check in and go straight to bed with the Hard Rock Casino tonights choice of venue. If I'm feeling jetlaggy, I'm not going to play as I need to pace my finite BR. Hopefully I can win the early sessions and relax in that regard. I have no desire to move above the smaller stakes, just soak up the atmosphere.

OK ... Sam is beckoning ... gl all at the tables.

My first PLO8 MTT win and Sydney Champs

What a difference a day makes. The deck must have read my blog and resented my flippant lack of appreciation for running good. Exacting revenge, it has just slapped me about the face repeatedly. Not one for bad beat stories, let me share with you that the Winnings line has plummeted below my AI EV line, which rose significantly overnight. Good news is that I didn’t Tilt, for which I credit HEM with its visual confirmation that it was just variance.

I was four tabling, with 2 tournaments and 2 FR PLO100 cash games on the go. A tad ambitious or irresponsible perhaps. I almost got ITM with my PLO tourney and came first in the PLO8 one that I was playing in which had 128 runners. Being my first ever PLO8 100+ player tourney win, overall it was a very good evening and another step forward in my pursuit of being an all-round poker player.

My Poker Ranking for the year was 98.71% before last night so I’m keen to see what a small stakes win contributes as I’d like to poke my nose into the top 1%, if only for a day. Not sure of the formula for the rating system, but I know that my ranking has been flattered by running good in a couple of low buy-in events. Having had my fair share of being smacked around the face, I’ll take anything that’s going.

The Sydney Championships are on and there is a $770 PLO Tournament which I would have loved to have played in. In the end, I have decided not to. As I’m off to Vegas on Friday, my $$$s are being conserved to be invested in the cash games over there.

I estimate that I'd be close to neutral EV given the amount of dead money and was really torn between giving it a go or not. Unfortunately, $770 weeds out a lot of the casual dead money that even $550 would attract, so my expectation may well be lower depending on the field size. Less than 100 players would be a pretty strong field, I think. Over that, there just aren’t that many great Omaha players available in Sydney on a Tuesday night.

The deciding factor in the end was the realisation that, for those close to me that don't fully appreciate the variance of poker tournaments, the utility of losing which is the most likely outcome greatly exceeds the utility of a min-cash which is the next most likely scenario.

If I was single, I would give it a shot just to get a chance to pit my wits against The Croc and Eric Assadourian and gauge how far I still need to improve. I know that a lot of the bets that I made last night with the click of a “pot” button, I couldn’t have done live and even if I could, there would have been a million and one tells in the physical activity.

In the end, I'm pleased that I appear to lack the gamble to just throw bankroll requirements out the window and give it a go.

Another word for Passive ...

Jeff Hwang's book has paid for itself already 10 times over and I've only read 20 pages. If you have been following my PLO posts, you'll see that my solitary attempts at playing style analysis of winners over a much too small sample size threw up a surprisingly high number of passive players. Totally different to the 6-max aggression of NLHE. I've now discovered the correct term for it - Floating - thanks Jeff.

Winning players float and steal, float and steal at an alarming regularity. It's akin to Brunson stealing the blinds relentlessly when he wrote SuperSystem. Sure the games will change in the not too distant future, but for now an understanding of the game and that play is probably enough for you to stand a good chance of winning. Thankfully very few people visit my blog or the secret would be out.

Mini Hat-trick

Everything is perspective and at the minute, 1c/2c is reality to me and I'm winning and feeling good about it. Looking forward to moving up through the levels again soon.

My main focus this past 3 nights has been to try to bring my A-game to the $11 PLO Tourney on Stars. Compared to my microstakes, it is mega bucks; which is helping me take it seriously. Each night it has approximately 70 runners and I've cashed 3 out of 3, limping home near the bubble each time.

The secret? As Laff says, "Tight is right!"

Importance of Poker Buddies.

... or Sky City gets the better of me once again, this time with superior poker skills.

It's amazing when you hear stories from the professionals, how the met playing backgammon in New York or even Tennis in Scandanavia. Either, they're all leveraging the same connections to become famous or, as the results would indicate, their results are for the most part superior to the rest of us and they've learned quicker as a group. My recent experiences at the ANZPT and Sky City Auckland have reinforced this concept in my mind.

Recapping the ANZPT, I felt a sense of anticipation in the lead up and I wanted to do well, as reflected a few posts ago. I met or exceeded my expectations in terms of results and was suitably chuffed (you'll be pleased to know that my cockiness has been well and truly been knocked out of me coming back to earth at the felt which is a great leveller). Anyway, at the Sunday Deep Stack Event, it struck me that my anticipation was nothing to the excitement that a quarter of the field were enjoying having brought their partners along to share the experience. There was another quarter that it was just another day at the office. For me, I was in the middle which isn't a bad place to be because it means that you're still appreciating it. From a results and expectation perspective though, I have a long way to go yet and it's unlikely that I'd get there on my own.

Now what really struck me was that over the week where I played only 2 days, albeit 12 hours plus both times, you do get talking to a lot of other players. And by the Main Event where I turned up briefly to spectate, I was involved in conversations with a lot of the top Aussie Pros. People know people and just by being there, you get right in the middle of all sorts of hand analysis, comments on tells that were spotted, partnerships being formed for the upcoming teams event, media reporting, playing styles of specific individuals, who to watch out for and who to take advantage of, various home games that go on, etc. etc. It was really harder to avoid being in the middle of it all. How then can you not succeed?

And so to Sky City Auckland where I played all night. With the time difference, I can either leave in the afternoon to get a flight, or first thing the next morning. My preference is to do the latter, which means setting the alarm very early. If you stay out to midnight, it's hardly worth going to bed. And as someone who has been known to sleep under telephone booths in Euston Station, beaches in Greece etc, the thought of a hotel room lying essentially unoccupied seems like a waste. Extrapolating this line of thinking, I play to the poker room closes, get a cab to the airport in time for the opening of the Qantas Club at 5am. A couple of hours snooze there and then a 3 hour flight to Sydney where I manage to sleep the whole way - sweet.

Anyway, last night when I sat down, there were no recreational players, NONE! Hardly a +EV spot with a load of grinders. But you know what, the best players aren't grinders either, their gamblers at heart and that's who turned up for the most part. There were the long faces grinding out their $200 / night on the $60-$100 BI NLHE tables, where I started. But then a tournament started with $100 entry, 3000 starting stack and 20 minute blinds. Almost every one of the 50 competitors had been to Sydney and the ANZPT. I now understood all of their stories and could join in. I got respect at the table and actually started well, thanks to good cards. I didn't cash though and that wasn't the point of the story anyway. The point was, I was being accepted into this group and hearing stuff that I only get access to on PokerCasts. But this time it was current. The hand analysis was refining thinking that I'd only just experienced and drawn my own conclusions too. But these guys were noticing things that I hadn't really thought about.

For example, I had AA one time, with about 6000 in chips, blinds were 100/200. EP raiser made it 600 and MP limped. I was on the button, happy days. I thought about my betsize, and I was sure that 1500 would have got two aggressive callers. I made it 1850 to draw some attention to the bet. I nearly got the desired single caller but both folded which I wasn't too unhappy with as my stack was growing just nicely. But then a player not involved in the hand said "Nice squeeze play". I know that he was probably just fishing for confirmation, but it struck me that this was a squeeze play. I'd never really thought of it like that before the bet, but subconsciously that is what I was doing. And I hadn't even formalised it in my head after the action, but it was a genuine squeeze play. Just by drawing it to my attention, I thought about it more and it did crystalise my thinking on the move for similar situations in the future. A small example of how being in the community helps you improve.

I'm just not getting that to nearly the same extent online, on 2+2 or even to be truthful this blog. If this was a business, I'd have to say that the ROI just isn't there. That said, it isn't a business today, its a (sometimes very) challenging hobby that I really enjoy. In that regard, following the half dozen or so blogs that I do really does cheer me up, so it has got to be +EV. I just wish the LSG was back blogging again though. Those were the days.

So I was $100 after busting out and still a few hours to go before my flight (I didn't want to go busto on my kiwi dollars). I went to look at sitting at a table and there was a $1/$2 PLO game going. These were the very experienced online and live PLO specialists. Their home games also include Omaha/8. I was way out of my depth but if I bought in short stacked and played really tight preflop and picked my spots post flop, I should be able to do OK with not too much risk. Nice theory until I got it all in with a Turned A high Flush only to get sucked out on with a straight flush on the river. Ah well, there goes the first $100 chip. I took another out of my pocket and am pleased to report that this lasted me until the poker room closed. The education that I received though was second to none.

At the table was a German guy (I think) called Andy who could have come across as arrrogant to plenty and was commentating incessantly. He was by far the best LAG there. But he also analysed every hand after the pot. He'd also call (pretty accurately) the hands that people had, which I actualy think is easier in PLO as there is less bluffing and the range is narrowed by the flop betting a lot. He clashed with another guy who was a gambling NLHE LAG but very little clue about PLO. In the pursuit of all of his chips, he lost several BIs, but by cash out time, he'd way more than recovered them; nice work.

In the early hours, we got shorthanded, down to 6 but the banter continued and I got a whole new persective on how to play PLO. Spots where Andy would explain to the table that if you fire there he just can't call. I think that with a few more sessions like this, my game would come on in leaps and bounds, but I write this post back home and all alone in the absence of live poker buddies to discuss strategy with. I always have you guys though.

I'll leave it there, but without the opportunity to live amongst living, breathing poker players on a regular basis, I'm convinced that I'll never win a bracelet. Truth is that even if I did do it all day every day, it just isn't in me to be that bracelet winner anyway probably. Highest percentage of Cashing will do me just fine. If I could acquire a modicom of the BCG's discipline, I reckon that I can get that to 50%.

Well that is today's rant, but I'd certainly be interested to hear of anyone that has similar or contrary, thoughts and experiences.

PS The next Poker Cruise will be on Pittwater on May 15th if anyone can make it to Sydney for then, there are still 2 spots available.

Durrr Challenge update

Just listened to the 2+2 Pokercast where they mentioned an interesting point. With all of the variance inherent in HU PLO and after $33M invested (including blinds), Durrr and Patrik were within $15K. Pretty amazing really. Just checked and since then my man has pulled away again, including this cool hand exemplifying playing your big PLO draws fast ... http://www.highstakesdb.com/view-hand-history.aspx?GameID=311025.

Durrr v Antonious - anyone for a side bet?

Tom "durrrr" Dwan is facing Patrik Antonius in the first round of the Durrrr Challenge. Durrr is giving 3 to 1 and I'm happy to give the same odds to any takers as I really think that Durrrr will beat all-comers. For some reason, I think that Ivey is the only one capable of finding a new A-game to counter Durrr's strategies.

50k hands of 4-tabling 200/400 PLO Heads-up could break anyone. If you'd like to keep up to date with progress, check out the Graph updated every 250 hands (http://www.highstakesdb.com/challenge/durrrr-vs-antonius.aspx). Durrrr dipped initially but has been ahead pretty much since then.

When you see the size of the pots, it's amazing that there has been bigger swings yet. I particularly liked the finesse in this one ... http://www.highstakesdb.com/view-hand-history.aspx?GameID=294943.

Confidence is a wonderful thing

My father once asked me "What is the most important shot in golf?". My answer was "The first one", but he had a better one "the next one". That didn't make my answer wrong. If I don't get off that first tee well, I rarely have a great round. And so it is with poker. This hand came up last night. Just like AK v QQ is a classic holdem race, flopping the nut set v a big draw is a classic PLO race. Up against 2 opponents though, it's a nerve wrecking feeling when holding on.



This was only a couple of hands into a session where I was well aware that I was taking another shot that I wasn't necessarily bankrolled for and my intention was to play tight. Just too good a spot to miss out on. If you can't play right at a level, then don't play. This is close to my biggest PLO pot ever and thankfully it went my way. Consulting CardPlayer, my equity at the time of the shove was a generous 57% the way things fell.

From here, I found myself big stack and went from strength to strength as I ran hot. Left a couple of hours later with my biggest ever haul from a single PLO session, a profit of 5.5BIs, or $550 (and USD at that) - woo hoo! Had the 43% come in, it would have been a very different Post. I think we under-estimate confidence and the absence of it. In SuperSystem, Brunson states that regardless of what the maths guys say, "rushes" do occur and you should go with them. That that is where your profit comes from.

I'm a math guy and I can't put my finger on it but last night was a rush and I seemed to sense it as it was unfolding. Bed o'clock was when the big hand hit twelve and the little hand one. Do you believe in rushes?

Is PLO37.5 my level?

Poker is such a deceptive game in terms of short term results and false reinforcement. Last night I had a session of PLO50 where I probably broke every one of the Hutchison System starting requirements repeatedly. I had a little calculator running alongside for the first time and I kept ignoring its guidance which was 80% Fold and 20% Limp. I only seen 1 Raise advice the whole session and the flop missed on that hand. I on the other hand was fairly aggressive preflop. Still passivish after the flop. One area I did improve was my river value betting.

So after ignoring the Hutchison advice, I turned $50 into $200+ in a couple of hours. Did I run good? Was it the deception that my wide range provided that allowed me to win the big pots? Has my post flop play and board texture reading improved? Alas, I really don't know.

What I do know is that my results are PLO25 (+$337), PLO50 (+$220) and PLO100 (-$240). In BB/100, that appears to be +25, Zero and -7 respectively. It would appear that I am between a PLO25 and PLO50 player for now.

For the record, 6500 hands averaging 9.74PTBB/100.

So where to from here, grind it out at PLO25 for a profit and experience. Or continue to take shots with any excess until I crack the $100. As I have exceeded expectations already, turning a profit at PLO25, I think that I'll continue taking shots as long as I'm not getting too hurt.

Aggression / Discipline experiment

Last night I tried single tabling to try out a combination of never raising pre-flop no matter what I hold and increasing my post flop aggression.

This is an acknowledge PLO strategy as PLO is primarily a post flop game. I still tried to restrict myself to the better hands when limping and was positionally aware. The second part of the experiment was to work hard on not calling. Either raise or fold. (I think I failed this bit eventhough I tried really hard.)

Results went well early doubling my stack and then selectively picking small pots up post flop on raggeddy boards with a tight image and large stack. I must admit that I got bored with the single table and started a second. This provided the balance between being able to think about each decision and enough hands to provide a realistic range of situations.

I then got cold decked a little (I think) and found that my stack dwindled but not nearly as much as it may otherwise have done. In fact, my usual style may well have lost my stack a couple of times. Giving up less with smaller pots at stake, I was able to get away from a few draws that I would otherwise have gambled on with a smaller SPR. The final result was 1 BI profit over 400 hands.

The most interesting thing for me was that my Aggr Factor was still only 1.55 and that was me trying my very hardest to be aggressive. Looking closer at the calculation, I believe that it isn't that I am not aggressive enough, it is a case of bloating the denominator with crying calls. All comments on my stats welcome ...

Flop 4+20/13 = 1.88; Turn 6+18/17 = 1.41; River 2+13/14 = 1.09; Total 1.55

Hopefully, that can be my focus for the next couple of sessions, "fold earlier when I think I'm beaten or am chasing a coinflip that is probably a crooked coin".

More winners and fewer losers in PLO?

I've always been interested in the maths of poker. Short term variance can be very misleading when we rely on experiential learning. Plays that come off can seem right and those that don't we can shy away from. Maths can help us gain a more profitable understanding of the game quicker.

One stat that I read early and have since observed to be very true is that only 5% of poker players are long term winners, the other 95% feeding the economy. In my early Poker Office days I would scroll down the list of observed players overall results and eventually, sure enough, about 5% would play big volume as winners and there'd be a long tail of small users.

I also know that in NLH we can be presented with opportunities that represent large edges pre and post flop, maybe 80/20. In Omaha this is more rare, the norm being closer to 60/40 as an edge that you want to push. So what effect does this have on the distribution of winners and losers?

After a very small sample size, just over 5000 hands observed, the winner/loser split in my PokerTracker Omaha is exactly 40.06% and 59.94%. If anyone has a larger sample size, perhaps you can share with me if this phenomenon holds true. If so, inferior players can be fooled more by short term variance into thinking their strategy is good. Just look at my recent premature entries.

In terms of my recent PLO results, they have slowed down to 9BB/PTBB. Last nights session was very LAGGY and the variance massive. I dropped 2 BIs early and recovered by the end of the session.

PLO Strategy Primer

I love Google; it never fails to impress me. So when Laff asked for a Strategy Primer, off I went to look for one. The first suggestion for "Omaha Strategy" on Google was this post by NOFX PUNK on the Full Contact Poker Forum.

www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-forum/index.php?showtopic=66345

I must confess, I have stopped my search for a better primer. It's not perfect and statistically (like life on other planets) there is probably better out there but this is a great benchmark.

Having played for a couple of months here, this post is full of all of the things that I have been picking up through experiential learning. I'm convinced that if you follow this advice and play microstakes you will be a winning player almost immediately without any table selection. The micro stakes are full of competent Hold'em players regularly making the mistakes contained in this article.

I'd welcome any strategy questions that the article prompts to further my thinking process as I continue to learn.

Psst ... Don't tell anyone

Having purchased PT Omaha, I finally have an idea of how I'm going. With Badugi, HORSE and all sorts of other distractions that I allow myself, including a Tilt at NLH400 which was a disaster my bankroll just doesn't give me that view.

I've always watched risk of ruin and been happy to step down, but when I get a few extra dollars in the roll I tend to splash it about (invest it) trying different things.

The good news is that I have a broad understanding of the mechanics of a number of the games. Bad news is that I still can't retire and play full time. Hopefully I am incrementally better positioned to transition to Bobby's Big Game though. Can always dream.

So what did I discover ...

- Badugi I didn't enjoy;
- Stud potentially has the complexity I like but I can't see it ever having the $$$s to go professional;
- FLH I really enjoyed but reached levels that I outgrew my ability / potential / bankroll;
- My transition to NLH was incredibly hard but Harrigton sorted me out with a break even TAG style so I can hold my own online and in card rooms now at sociable stakes. Best case, it was only a matter of time before I hit my ceiling in a "solved" game.
- Split games I think I could get to like. Balancing scooping with nut lows is deceptively difficult. This is on hold for now.
- PLO8 combines a lot of concepts, is a lot of fun and is way too complex for me to transition to straight.

PL Omaha, I love! After only a short period I feel that I can hold my own at meaningful levels.

In September I had no real clue about PLO and had only just had my first shot at 4-tabling NLH100. Last night I 4-tabled PLO100, PLO50 and 2xPLO25 for a modest profit on all 4. How can that be? I know I'm making lots of mistakes.

I set up my PTO Categories last night - groupings of hands like Strong Aces. According to 2+2, you should be positive in all categories. I'm way off that. In fact the best hands Strong Aces I'm down almost $300. Clearly overplaying them post flop losing to flushes on co-ordinated boards and trips on uncoordinated. Like slowplaying AA in my early NLH days, I'm clearly making some very costly basic mistakes, yet after 4000+ hands I'm up over 8BB/100 - almost breakeven now on $$$s.

Now for the psst ... Online PLO must be really, really soft right now ... because I suck at that game compared to my 4 years of NLH study and experience ... or I've experienced a variance heater as a fish.

My prediction ... the games are only going to get softer. It is such a buzzy gambling game, I'm convinced that it is the game of the future.

Best of all ... it is a long way from being solved so it is intellectually stimulating.

PokerTracker Omaha

New Years are good for fresh starts. And one of mine was getting serious about PLO. I've been playing and really enjoying the game on and off for a few months now. I got the mechanics at micro stakes and quickly started playing way beyond my bankroll for the variance of the game. I decided to try and ramp up my learning curve even if it cost me a bit - which it did initially.

So I purchased PokerTracker for Omaha yesterday and instantly gained an insight. When I imported my Hand Histories I realised that I was a winning BB/100 player but a losing $ player. Needless to say that what I win at PLO25, I lose at PLO100. That said, my PLO100 is showing signs of breakeven. This is over 3000+ hands so isn't yet a statistically significant sample size.

Omaha is such a different game that I didn't know where to start looking for leaks. No starting hands dominate as much as Hold'em so your pushing smaller edges all the time. If you hate bad beats, you'll hate Omaha. If you realise that no poker beat is really that bad, you'll do well.

In my search for guidance for analysing my play, I stumbled across the best little website I've found in a while. Check this out! I wish I'd known this when I was playing NLH.

http://www.hand-histories.com/opp_prof.html

I'll write some more on PLO when I learn some more ... I really feel like I am only starting out as I now have the tool to study. I can't believe that I routinely push $$s in a single bet greater than the cost of PokerTracker and have never before purchased it.

Go figure ... or go buy!

A lesson at PLO100

Thankfully, I am not as results oriented as I once was because I took a hit Saturday and it has hardly affected me.

I was on the wrong side of a couple of PLO100 coinflips early and found myself down 2 BIs and onto my 3rd. I was also being outplayed, but learning. A more disciplined approach would have been to stand up but I made a conscious decision to battle through for the education of overcoming a tough game.

A mix of good cards and aggression seen me win back the BIs to the big stack at the table, on $340. Then came along "postmand" from Denmark (I googled him to find significant WCOOP cashes). He stood out with his exceptional selectively aggressive style. He won almost every hand at showdown. His stack grew rapidly to $290, none of it at my expense.

My focus was good as my stack was always under threat OOP. I felt like I was playing my A game and breaking even at a tough table with the big stack. A seat became vacant to postmand's left and I quickly moved into position. Several orbits later he left and I still had my stack intact.

Now for the bad news, the table got extremely fishy and I chased easy $$$s. The deck cooled and after a period of overly loose and surprisingly passive play for me (I knew I was narginal at best against calling stations), I found my stack whittled away to zero. In retrospect, this is perhaps where I should have left as I was playing far from optimally.

There is no doubt that the $300 retrospective educational budget would have been better spent on CardRunners, but I am convinced that my PLO game has gone to a new level as I had an awareness for the game that I have never experienced before.

As Stars is a new site for me, I must now work out how to retrieve and review the key hands more objectively with hindsight.

New Year resolutions?

I've finally come up with my goal for December. Come up with proper goals for January. I've realised that I'm not a goal oriented person. Partly because I've been fortunate in life not to need them and partly because targets can be restrictive and have an unnecessary adverse psychological effect if you're not trying to get anywhere in particular.

In my businesses, I've never had a business plan. I've known roughly where I've wanted to get to. It is often ambitious by other people's measures. Then I just try to get the important things right and avoid the big mistakes. Every so often when I arrive somewhere, I pause look around and 9 times out of 10 I'm happy with where I have arrived and set out again. A big downside is that employees often need targets and I sometimes feel like I fail them in that regards. Other times I think that I demonstrate not to get hung up on the result but concentrate on the decision making.

And so to poker. Dan Harrington wrote something along the lines of "NLH is the perfect game as it simulates life in a compressed way". Actually it was probably nothing like that but that is the impression that he left me with and the more I play the more I know it to be true.

The BCG shared with me how he would approach Badugi and there is no doubt that the blindman's rational man would agree 100% with that approach. Also, LaffyChappy wrote about his Flying Scot inspiration (I now need to watch the movie as I virtually know someone with first hand experience). But the good thing about meaningful goals is that they need to be personal.

I will learn Badugi, I'm sure. I'll probably not stick with it as it seems flawed but it will be a sound introduction to draw games. Winning a HORSE bracelet would be for me the pinnacle of success. I've been playing with O/8 as a split game and then I just need to master the stud variations and go for it in retirement.

Last night at PLO, which was a disaster for me this time last year, I sat on Stars at two PLO25 tables and stood up with $130 and $112 dollars. I got lucky cards, but I folded way more than usual with no regrets and got it all in the middle holding the nuts or close to it a few times. More right moves and less mistakes.

So as we near year end, it is time to pause and have a look around:
- I am a competent online player which is far from easy these days.
- Amongst my network of local friends I have an edge, but only one or two of them take poker anyway seriously.
- I have a healthy hobby that stimulates the brain and doesn't cost me anything other than my time.
- All my life I've been an above average all-rounder and this is showing through in my poker.

The massive downside is that it takes me away from my family and has consumed too many thinking cycles. I am less up to date with current affairs, get less exercise and have a skewed perception on the value of money in these turbulent economic times.

So, I will ponder goal setting for the New Year, I've never had resolutions. And hopefully they will have more to do with Laffs fitness regime and life balance that winning x dollars. As always, thanks to all of you who happen by this neck of the internet woods.

Enjoyable evening

If I were a professional sportsperson, I think the range of preferred sports would go from darts at one end to golf at the other. Triple twenty, Triple twenty has got to wear off surely. That said, I enjoyed my years of snooker. I'd like to say that it was red, black, red, black but it wasn't. (Aside, just watched Sullivan on Sky Sports get 4 out of 5 frames with century breaks one week after 5 out of 5 centuries in Belfast for a best of 9 win. How good must that be?)

So last night I must say that I had the most enjoyable session for some time. I checked emails while waiting for a phone call. Opened the lobby while still waiting and there was a $2 NL super turbo rebuy. I don't mind coin-flippling in these so they can be fun. Long and short, I bubbled 6th out of 30 something.

At the same time, I opened 2 full ring PLO games 1c/2c and 2c/4c. When you can buy in for $5 it is really deep stack which I thought that I could play tightish and run up a healthy profit. Problem is with that many callers, there are a lot of seemingly bad beats. In reality, if you ran the odds calculator, you're often not more than 30% or 40% even flopping the nuts. That's my excuse for losing both BIs quickly. Pleased to report that I more than doubled up the next 2 so left with a modest profit and a bit of experience for the Blindman's PLO game in Perth.

Realising I wasn't going to make a living there and feeling good, I found what looked to be an active 6-max table and vowed to play TAG with a max stack PLO50. The guy to my right was extremely fishy and donked off a couple of BIs. It got really interesting when 4 of us had $150+ at the table and this turned out to be great experience for me.

I'm still the fish amongst the regulars but starting to hold my own these days. Nice profit for the evening but most pleasing was the fact that I really enjoyed every moment and felt that I was learning a lot. Deep stacked, I slow played my AA a lot and got away from most losing hands and cleaned up when flopping an A. I was more aware of position than usual too.

It's funny that the casino just didn't hold any appeal relative to the table that I had online. I will try to get up tonight though which is my last night in Auckland for a while and score 2 goals to turn around the 1st leg deficit.

Winning feels so much better

Came home late from work after an hour drive from the city and decided to have a few hands before bed to unwind. I enjoy PLO most of all, even tho' I'm nowhere near an expert, barely competent.

The site I wanted to play on had virtually no tables going and I sat at 2 x 6-max PLO200 GBP (which is a lot of Aussie dollars for my wee bankroll). Anyway, careful not to tilt went out the window when I found myself playing very LAG and down 2 BIs of 80 each within a couple of orbits. Then it seemed to click a bit and I ran one table up to 374 GBP from 80 - treading water on the other. Profit +150 GBP and time for bed ... more ass than class for sure!