Darley_Arabian

Decent video Jack. Good format and you seemed to keep pace with your explanations. Would really like to see some non-zoom videos as you mentioned you may be doing in the video.

Phil,

I have found this thread really interesting and am really happy with your choice to hide the actual hand you had and not initially give your thoughts.

In your original post you said that you had a page of thoughts written down which you planned to post after some people had given their thoughts. Any chance of you sharing that with us now?

Darley

I found this video to be the best one you have done so far. I like the format and your analysis.

you can increase the playback speed of the videos. I do that sometimes when rewatching some.

Tom Coldwell did a video

http://www.runitonce.com/pro-training/videos/calling-from-the-big-blind-in-plo/

Great to see a PLO HU video for essential members!

Really liked this format. I like to see reviews of hands with comments on all sorts of spots not just close or difficult ones so this video was great for that. Also really happy to see a non zoom review.

I think there are a lot of players out there, Ivey included, that put a lot of effort into not revealing how much maths/theory stuff they have studied (formally or informally). There is a high stakes poker or poker after dark episode where he tries to make out he doesn't know what EV is then some of the other players say he is talking crap. Brunson wrote about dealing out hundreds of sample hand match ups, pretty much running hot/cold equities. When Negreanu made his remark about being able to beat online 25/50 6 max, I remember in one of his responses he mentions how is actually a bit of a maths nerd and would enjoy doing all the study required.

All in all, I take much of what these high stakes pros say with a pinch of salt, that includes people in RIO like Galfond. I am not criticising them I just see it as their business decisions.

23rd December 2014

Conclusions from HEM

So I have looked at my HEM database and my suspicions are correct. I am playing way too loose. And given the rake, I should be playing tighter than usual. The sample size isn't massive about 8k hands but it is all I have to go on. Given the small number of tables I play and limited time I can put in, I won't be racking up loads of hands.

I am losing about £100 overall, pretty much all of it is at PLO20 so only 5 buy ins. I could scratch it up to variance but I know I am not playing well so I won't. On the plus side, I have £88 in rakeback so it is not all that bad.

Checked out my positional stats. I seem to be losing from the BTN which is not great! And losing most from BB. I am not sure whether this is normal so will post it up in the low stakes PLO forum and see if anyone can help.

I played a session earlier on. Trying to concentrate on playing solid. It went well. I also did something I do not usually do, which is that I added more tables. I usually play 2 or 3 tables. Today at one point I was playing 6. I am not sure whether this is a good thing though. Am I dealing with my loose play the right way by adding tables? One good thing though was that having gone down to 3 and 4 tables my solid tight play remained.

21st December 2014 Update

Been playing pretty badly recently. I have to be honest with myself which it what this blog is about for me. My patience is shot somewhat. I am playing too many hands especially with the high rake at the stakes I am playing.

I looked at all the equity videos I had planned to and intended to move onto some combinatorics stuff. However, I am going to go back to revising some fundamentals. Go through my HEM and find some leaks. I know where I am losing most. Basically, I am playing too many hands, 3 betting marginal hands and getting it in too light. I posted a hand which demonstrates this in the low stakes PLO forum.

A problem I am having, which is not something new, is trying too hard to get in pots with the really loose recreational players. I think I am widening my starting requirements too far with regard to this and determine to tighten up. I spoke for quite some time with a friend of mine on this topic which helped a lot. One thing I am lacking is PLO-friends. I have loads of poker friends from every part of the spectrum, but I do not have anyone that is specifically into PLO and wants to master PLO like I do. The RIO forums are great and I am trying to be more active, but it is not the same as having someone I can chat to on the phone, maybe meet up and discuss things with and share study notes etc.

Looking over my recent results I see that my showdown winnings have gone way up, but I am losing quite a bit my past 1k hands. Although this is a small sample size I know that my game has changed since those past 1k hands and I know my mindset has as well. Some things for the better and some for the worse.

My mindset has been too gambly and impatient. Although I have practiced good quitting at the right times so I have never suffered any one horrific session where I have been really unhappy with myself. I have lost sight of my initial goal; somewhere along the way, the idea of 'winning money' nudged its way to the fore and I forgot that I want to become great at this game first and foremost. I kept thinking about taking shots and moving up out of the micros...

This is something I want to do and with the rake on ipoker, where I usually play, this should be a priority for anyone looking to make money. However, I am not confident in my game yet. I asked myself, if i took a shot at PLO200 and won 5 buy ins would it be because of my skill level or because I ran hot? Which would be the most likely factor? There is no doubt in my mind that it would be run good. And that says it all for me. I need to work harder on my game, way harder.

I will be back later today with some conclusions from my HEM analysis.

Thanks guys for taking the time to reply. Really appreciate it and will be taking your advice on board going forward.

I think you meant to post this in your thread no?

12th December 2014 Update

This is my revised weekly tasks/aims:

Poker Stuff

1. Look at biggest pots won and lost of previous session, analyse them and write down mistakes made

2. Go through tagged hands and hands that went to showdown and make notes

3. Watch and study at least 2 videos a week.

4. Comment on or post a difficult hand in the forum at least twice a week

5. Record at least 1 hours of play a week with commentary on my thought processes

6. Go over recordings and make notes on difficult situations

7. Follow bankroll and stop loss plan

My other non poker aims are numerous and will likely bore you. So the ones that are somewhat relevant:

1. exercise 3 times a week

Since my last post I played a few sessions. The first few did not go great but losses were nothing significant. I went over some of my hands afterwards and found that although I was getting unlucky in a fair few spots, I had also been too agressive at times and too 'non-believing'.

Subsequently, I had a session where I played more solidly and felt much better afterwards. I still got unlucky in some hands but was really impressed with how I dealt with it. I stopped looking at my balance and expected to be down some but did not care as I was felt that I had played well and had got rather unlucky. In fact, having finished my session and looked over my session report, I was up. It was only a few BBs but still felt really good.

I have an overall plan set out for my PLO learning development. I plan to concentrate on equities at the moment so the materials I will be looking at will be focused on that. Next I will move on to combinatorics.

Yep I meant bet/call. i think we could use the count feature on PPT and work out his combos etc. i don't have time at the moment but will give it a go on the weekend. I will use the range you assigned for GII plus a bet folding range. Would have to set up some sort of decision tree I think. Really do not know how to go about this but I will try to work it out and post something in the next few days.

Other software: I use pokerstrategy.com EquilabOmaha. I find it really useful and easy to use and it is free! For some reason it is never mentioned though it seems everyone uses propokertools.com (also free). I use both. A good idea is to start learning the equities of hands especially on different flops. Use these programs and play arounbd with different hands and ranges. A beginning PLO player will often be shocked at how much or how little equity he actually has in many spots.

I guess you could just call the flop. The difficult turns are hearts and board pairs. At low stakes though I think so many opponents will be trying to get it in with really strong hands which you dominate. I am wondering though, is it likely that he would raise a hand like 66? If yes then I would reraise and hope he sticks it in. On a such a dynamic flop it is not uncommon for people to flat really strong made hands waiting for a safe turn.

I know it works for holdem at least it did. I wrote to HEM they said send some log files and they will check it out. I will post on here what they say. Thanks for getting back to me.

Could we have some essential PLO videos that are not Zoom. I want to watch some 6 max tables where some reads are developed over a session.

I don't have that much time so I will answer some of your questions now and then come back to your other ones if no one else gets back to you in the meantime.

I have holdem manager 2 (HEM2) however I am considering moving over to pokertracker 4. It may just be my laptop but recently I get a lot of lag with my graphics when the program is running. It can be really annoying (and costly) mid session.

Both of these are quite expensive though and I would suggest trying to get one through a deal online. I am not sure what the rules are for linking into other sites so I won't, but I am sure you can search online and find one.

There are videos on here that you should watch. I would recommend anything by Tom Coldwell for the games you are playing. He has a video on notetaking which you will be interested in.

As for stats on your HUD. Keep it simple until you actually play enough hands that other stats mean anything. Otherwise you are just filling your screen with unnecessary crap and likely to make decisions based on poor sample sizes. Instead have things like, VPIP, PFR, 3 bet stats and I always think PPA (preflop positional awareness) is good.

Concentrate on playing few tables and watching everything, In fact, for someone starting out I would say stay away from ZOOM and play a couple of normal tables.

As for marking players I have the following categories:
TAG
LAG
Maniac
Loose Passive
Loose/recreational (this is a category I often put obviously bad players into quickly until i can put them in a more specific category once I have seen them play for longer)
3 bet monkey
Multitabler
NIT

Then just assign colours for each one. In stars you can rename the colours to each category.

For someone with lots of categories check out one of Alien Slayer's videos, such as 'comparison between TAG and LAG'. When he right clicks to label a player you can see all his different labels come up. Pause the video and read through them.

First of all I would not be considering whether villain is thinking about my range given that I raised the flop i.e. therefore I cannot have KJ. Players like this are thinking about there own hands only most of the time.

I would say bet bigger on the turn and still value bet thin on the river. I usually find a fold here as I have to see some concrete evidence that a player is capable of check raise bluffing rivers before I come close making hero calls in these spots.

Another serious consideration though is whether he is new to the game or unaware of hand strengths and betting worse for value.

However, the game flow, table dynamics and timing should be taken into consideration. You said you had been raising his bets a few times before, how had he reacted? Is he only playing one table? If so then he probably would have noticed that you had been aggressive with him a number of times before. With regard to timing there is the timing of his initial check and the eventual raise which should be taken into consideration and his timing overall. By the latter i mean this; sometimes I find that when i have been beating up on one player (usually to my right) they take longer and longer to fold each time I bet or raise and they can eventually start playing back at me. Generally this is only applicable if the player is playing one or two tables.

i understand your thinking and agree to it to some extent. I would probably bet bigger on the river. Often in these situations when someone has position they check behind to pot control with overpair, one pair type hands. I doubt a really strong made hand is not betting this flop or raising the turn so he has weak made hands, some draws or is giving up.

I think it is important to know what kinds of hands people are calling 3bets with when they do fold to some 3 bets. I see some players always call with any JJxx, QQxx, KKxx to set mine. And then when they hit a flop like this where they have an overpair they take this pot controlling line.

I don't like calling flop and turn. I think when you make your hand it is pretty hard to get paid. What is his bluffing frequency on rivers though? Any reads in this regard? Does he bluff a lot when draws miss? Does he like to rep any draw that comes in?

I would not 4 bet here as reopening the betting allows him to re-pot and put a considerable percentage of the effective stacks in. I guess there could be an argument for 4 betting small to knock out the deep CO player. But multiway in a 3 bet pot this deep I expect people, even a lot of recreational players to be playing really straightforward. So you can just flat expecting the CO to call and see a flop 3 ways. The SB rates to have a really premium hand in my opinion, squeezing OOP this deep. I am wondering what kind of range you put him on preflop and on the turn?

The turn is a really good card for you, but I would like to run some simulations to work out equities on the turn. Would be interested in any estimations of ranges at these stakes.

Would I be right in saying that he is rarely ever check raising here light? So we can pretty much eliminate bluffs?

I think it has been played fine. I think calling the flop is best as you have position throughout the hand so can pot control a lot of the time if you need to.

I like the turn bet, could even bet more. You often have the best hand, but you want to go to the river heads up. In situations like this, I often think that I am only getting one more street of value, so better to bet the turn both for value and protection against draws. I can see myself betting around $10. Also although it happens rarely, a 9 or K on the river is quite deceptive and a bigger bet on the turn gives you a bigger pot to bet into on the river in these situations.

Often by the river with only an overpair you will not be comfortable betting again so with position you will elect to check behind and take it to showdown.

8th December 2014 Update

A lot has changed since my last update. This led to my extended break from the tables and a change in my priorities. I have new job which has completely changed the hours I am usually awake and the number of hours free to play. Despite that, I am still determined to put in a decent amount of time studying the game and improving and hopefully moving up.

I must remain realistic though, especially with the amount of time I will have to put aside for playing and studying. So I will come up with a set of aims and tasks which suit my new lifestyle. I am still confident that I can get a lot done though. As I have been easing myself back into PLO for the past month and managed to watch plenty of videos and read up on strategy. One place I want to increase my input though is in the forums on RIO, I want to comment on more hands and maybe try to analyse some with PPT or Equilab when possible.

So far my sessions have been going ok. Lost a little, but not too bothered, especially given the low volume. I am really enjoying being back at the tables knowing I can concentrate on improving my game. I am going to cut out Zoom. Moved over to ipoker with a good deal. Plan to play 2/3 tables taking notes and concentrating on each decision as much as possible.

I will update soon with what areas of study I have covered so far and what my next steps are.

I earn 2k a month; I want to spend 1k a month on partying and put 500 a
month away for savings, while my rent and bills cost 800 a month.

That is basically what your last sentence says.

You highlight three desires in the last sentence of your post. These three things are incompatible at these stakes. 

I am not trying to be rude or anything just saying it how I see it.

The question you want answered is not "How can I do all of the things I want?" First you have to answer what do you want most; win, barrel loads, play loads of hands, build a roll, gamble?

Then the question becomes what do you do to get that.