The PLO8 MTT Experiment

This December, I decided to put my science degree to some use and conduct an experiment, albeit a poker related one. Since this is an experiment, I'll write it out as a mini-report.

Just to reiterate: I am not a MTT or SitnGo player, usually I might play 1 or 2 tournaments a month depending on how I'm feeling.

The PLO8 MTT Experiment

Abstract

 This study concentrates on the amount of profits generated from Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) cash games compared with the amount of profits generated from Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo (PLO8) Multi-Table Tournaments (MTTs). This experiment was conducted purely for me to observe how well I performed in PLO8 MTTs and whether or not I should continue to play them. One MTT was played daily over a 30 day period. Five cash games tables were generally played simultaneously to the MTT and ended when I busted in it. The MTTs' buy-ins ranged from $1.10 to $4.40 and on average took about 3 hours to complete. After all the MTTs were played, it was found that In The Money (ITM) was 33.3% while Return On Investment (ROI) was 53.34% with total profits of $134.94 and net winnings of $46.94. Winnings for the cash games were $124.27.

Introduction/Method

This experiment will compare the amount of money made from 5 PLO cash game tables compared with the amount of money made from 1 PLO8 MTT each day over a 30 day period. The buy-in amount of the MTT was chosen from whatever Pokerstars had on offer at the time of starting my session. My laziness would somewhat hinder my progress and cause havok for consistency. Five cash game tables were chosen because thats the amount needed to prevent boredom and the spewing of my chips in the MTT. All of the MTTs were 'Guarantees' ranging from $500 to $1000.

Results

The PLO8 MTT Results:
I cashed in 10 of the MTTs and bubbling or finishing just outside of the money on about 5 occasions. I did manage to make the final table 3 times and bubble/almost bubble the final table twice with a 10th place and 15th place finish. My highest finishes were 7th, 9th and 9th which is extremely frustrating as 1st sometimes paid over $300.

Total In The Money (ITM) was 33% which was not too bad but my aim was to get that number to at least 50%. Total Return On Investment (ROI) was 53.34%. Total won was $134.94 and net winnings were $46.94

I got somewhat flustered towards the end. I felt extremely unwell all throughout the last week. That could explain the poor results towards the last 2 weeks but who knows.

The Cash Game results:
Total number of hands played 20,305 and total profit made from ring games was $124.27. The trend of running below EV is standard for me and perhaps everybody who plays PLO as you can notice towards the last half of the graph.

I was playing well and even had enough time and profits for a flip with a former regular. (For those who do not know what a flip is. Its mutually agreeing to go all in preflop with another player without knowing what your cards are). Fun times~~

Conclusion

There isn't much to say really. There are way too many variables and inconsistencies to make this a fair test but that wasn't really my intention. I made more money in cash games which is what I had expected so no surprise there. Although if I did bink one of the tournaments then that would've been a different story. So in conclusion, I'm good at PLO8 MTTs but I'm better at PLO cash games.

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That was a pretty fun experiment and I hope you enjoyed reading up on it. I may continue to play the PLO8 MTTs once I understand all of the differences between PLO8 MTTs and ring games (i.e. whether or not to raise or limp preflop (and at what stage in the MTT), bet sizing with a bluff and with the nuts (would you need to compensate for balancing your play?), to bet, check or raise with the one-way nuts in a multiway pot (For example A24Q on a board of 346J7 with 3 other players), hand selection in relation to position (I need to find out if this is actually that important because any hand you choose to play would be miles ahead of the 90/0/30 donks) etc, etc)

So this is it. My last post of 2012.
Happy New Year Everybody~ I hope you all run good and avoid those bad beats in 2013,
BluffTwice

Life Tilt & Full Tilt

I was planning on making a blog post reviewing all of the 40~ poker books in my collection but it was taking a long time and I decided against it.

I'll just say, if you're just starting out in PLO and want to read some good books then I recommend the following:

1) Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy by Jeff Hwang
- The best book on PLO in my opinion. If you want to play PLO for real money then you have to read this book.

2) Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha 1: Small Ball & Short Handed Play by Jeff Hwang
3) Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha 2: LAG Play by Jeff Hwang
4) Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha 3: The Workbook by Jeff Hwang
- These are considered the Harrington On Hold'em of PLO books. Although don't try some of the stuff in these books as microstakes players would tend to call you down lightly on your most sophisticated of bluffs.

5) Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha: How to Win Big, Both Live and Online by Rolf Slotboom
- This book is the complete opposite to what Jeff Hwang teaches. Rolf Slotboom's strategy involves short stacking and waiting for premium hands to get most of the money in Pre-flop. Its not a bad book by any means but its not really how I like to play. It is good however to understand the underlying concept and to try and exploit this 'unexploitable' play and those who choose to employ it.

6) Pot Limit Omaha 8 Revealed by Dan Deppen
- This book in my opinion is the best PLO8 book out there.

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Since my last post I've had to re-learn a few things such as... When you're running bad and when you feel yourself tilting then STOP playing. Don't move up stakes, don't up your aggression to the point where you want to get it all in on every hand, don't chase loses, don't assume every player is a donk and most of all, stop bluffing so often.

So, why did I need to re-learn this lesson you might ask? To answer this question, I need to go back to the beginning of August. I went out with some friends to the beach and I may have had a few too many drinks. I'm not going to go into too many details but.....I almost drowned. After this near-death experience I felt I was freerolling life.

This had a profound effect on my PLO game as I wasn't afraid to make big bluffs or big call downs when I needed to and felt myself thinking much more clearly through certain situations. I know most people reading this are thinking.. "This is the microstakes, it doesn't matter, anybody can beat the microstakes" Sure they can but most don't and if you can't beat that then what chance do you have at any other game?

Anyway, back to my story. Eventually, I felt that I was better than everybody at my level and soon became bored with it. I took to playing the 8-game ring games on PokerStars, I've played all of these games and I feel that I had an edge over most of the other players, especially at 2-7 triple draw and Razz. For those who do not know what 8-game is, heres a breakdown with the limits I played at (It rotates through each game every 6 hands):

Limit Razz - $0.20/$0.40
Limit Stud - $0.20/$0.40
Limit Stud H/L - $0.20/$0.40
No Limit Hold'em - $0.05/$0.10
Pot Limit Omaha - $0.05/$0.10
Limit Triple Draw 2-7 Lowball - $0.20/$0.40
Limit Hold'em - $0.20/$0.40
Limit Omaha H/L - $0.20/$0.40

So there I was, sitting with $10 at each of the 2-4 tables I chose to sit at. For a while, I was doing well winning a couple of buy-ins each session. There was this pretty sick Razz hand that I played. My opponent was betting and raising me on each street and by 5th, I knew I had the best hand with my smooth 8 low and when he bricks on 6th, I knew I almost had him board-locked but he still didn't stop betting and raising! We got lots of bets in and on 7th, the same thing. I hit my 6 which meant that I now had a 6-5 low and with his board of X-X-2-3-9-T-X you have to think you have the best hand but NO he hit his 3-outer on 7th to make the wheel. ~91% to win and then lose on 7th for a big pot.... no wonder they say Razz is for people who enjoy pain.

The most interesting thing about these sessions was that I would win at 7 of the 8 games but there was one which would completely destroy my profits and that game was PLO. Here are some examples:

8 Game PLO Hand 1:

 The hand speaks for itself, 3-Bet preflop, flop a wrap, hit on the turn and get it all in while I have 70% to win. Only to lose.

8 Game Hand PLO 2:

 The big blind 3-Bets me preflop, I call and we see a flop. I flop top 2 pairs and am fairly confident I have the best hand. I hoped and prayed that my opponent had AAXX and not a draw. But as it turned out, it was a coinflip 51% to 49% and of course no waiting as the turn made his straight...and to add insult to injury, the river made him a 6 card straight.

8 Game PLO 3:

I remember this hand. I decided this was my last hand before the session. I pretty much wanted to create a low SPR situation and have about 1 pot size bet to be made post-flop. BastiKiefer was a pretty good player from what I had observed but the other guy....The other guy was terrible, I knew I had his whole range crushed. 2Q4 seemed fairly safe to get my chips in with other than the obvious 2 flush out there. Seriously who the hell calls a bet and a raise preflop with K622?

8 Game PLO 4:

Around the time I played this hand, I had just watched a training video by Daleroxxu where he picked up AAXX and made a small reraise to open the action and when his opponent reraised him back, he went all in preflop. This is pretty much the same concept. I think if I raised any bigger then my opponent would just flat and I'll have to play a bigger pot out of position. Luckily, my opponent clicks it back and I then get to come over the top of everybody with a monster reraise. I raised to over 60% of his stack preflop why didn't he just shove and get it all in preflop? was he seriously going to fold postflop for his remaining 40% when he doesn't hit a nice flop??

PLO Hand 1:

 Heres a hand I played at PLO2. The villain in this example was running something stupidly crazy like 95/95/70 or something ridiculously like that. This guy was ULTRA Aggressive, probably the most aggressive I've ever played with. I knew my hand was crushing his range 100% of the time and that his 4-bets and 6-bets preflop didn't always mean AAXX. Anyway, I get it in as a 62% favourite and then lose.. Good game.

 PLO Hand 2:

This is a pretty standard hand I suppose. I 3-bet preflop with 9TQKds and get 3 callers. I flop my pivot card and a small flush draw. Some guy donks out into me, call, call. Turn makes my wrap, I choose to raise on the turn to try and knock out the other guy if he had a higher flush draw. He was probably too invested though.. Ahh well it didn't work,  I was 47% to win in a 3-way pot, it seems +EV to me.

PLO Hand 3:

Lets see... Ah yes, I love playing on the button which is why I called, although I could do with the ace being suited. Anyhoo~ I flop the nuts, with my 8T with a re-draw to a higher straight if the Q hit + a backdoor flush draw. I was really hoping to be freerolling this guy but no.. He has a set and obviously he hits on the turn and I'm drawing dead. 60% ---> 0% no waiting.

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Session after session it seemed like I couldn't win no matter what I did, granted I did tilt off quite abit but in the end, I ended up something like 20 buy ins below EV, which is something like $100.

 I'm not too proud of it but here is a graph of September/October results. I feel a little bit sick of looking at it. I guess you could call it the unholy love-child of impatience and tilt mixed with a splash of run bad.

With my losses in hand I decided to venture into a different field of poker with what remained of my bankroll. I started staking other players in poker tournaments on the site ChipMeUp.com so far I've invested about $400 and have made a small loss but everybody there is really friendly and I'm enjoying my time as a member. Some of the guys on that website are absolute beasts when it comes to NLH MTTs and I'm learning a lot just by railing them, if you enjoy poker and making money without playing then I highly recommend it.

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I am getting really sleepy now. I'll talk about Full Tilt Poker and then I'll finish this post there.  I'm sure everybody knows that FTP is open again, one thing I love about it, is that you can transfer between Pokerstars and FTP so if you bust your roll on PS, don't worry, you can instantly transfer some funds over for DOUBLE the bad beats!!! Awesome~~ Yeah, I've gotten my funds back but I'd transferred most of it over to Pokerstars to supplement my badbeats and run bad and now.. Theres not much left except a few tournament tickets and about $50 worth of points.

I'm not sure when I'll make a new post so if I don't write one before the beginning of 2013 then I wish everybody a happy new year and all that good stuff~

August Update

I started working on a big blog update but I realised its going to take me longer than I thought. In the meantime, I'll just post the update for August and the other months I missed while I was playing on the other poker sites.

I don't know why but since I started playing again at Pokerstars, I understand PLO much better. I can recognise stealing spots, when people are bluffing, when I can 3 barrel with air, when I can check-raise without a hand, how to bluff more effectively and so much more.

I've turned up my aggression as you can see from my graph but there is still room for improvement.

Below is profit by months. I took a few months off to play on those Euro sites. Thats the reason for the lack of volume during the last few months.

and heres the total I've won from Pokerstars up to now:

Goodbye 888 Poker

Dear 888 Poker,

It was a good run while it lasted but you just didn't fulfill my needs as a poker player. Sure, it was fun in the beginning with your initial deposit bonuses but after those were cleared you quickly became stale. I still remember the times we spent staying up all night, it was just bad beat after bad beat with the inevitable tilt that followed.

You introduced me to many new donkeys, fishes and elephants. For that I am grateful. I still remember the "f u", "moron" and "idiot" comments left in the chat box after I'd stacked somebody.Those were truly the fun times.

You stood by me while I won and lost the biggest pots in my life. I'm still not sure why I decided to play 100PLO8 with only 2 buy-ins but its something I shall not forget. The racing of my heart when a huge pot was brewing, the uncertainty which filled my thoughts when an aggressive LAGtard potted into me, the feeling of utter invincibility after running a successful bluff. All these things now etched into my mind like a beautiful dream.

The swings may not be large compared with other players, nor the amounts in the pot significant to some but I take pride in the fact that they were mine. It was my decision to play in 50 and 100PLO8 games under-rolled. It was my decision to check, bet, fold, call and raise on each flop, turn and river. It truly was a liberating feeling of having that self-imposed onus on yourself. Its up to you to make the right decision and if you're correct, more often than not you'll be rewarded with the pot. By playing higher-stakes than I'm used to, 888 Poker you helped me remember that.

You might ask 'Why did I choose to leave you now?'. The answer to that is because I've already withdrawn my initial deposited amount several times over and that I feel its not worth it for me to deposit again and feed you anymore rake. I've left the amount equal to several buy-ins at the micro-limits on there just in case we decide to get back together again but don't get your hopes up. The bankroll which I was once slightly proud of is now just a remnant of its former self.

Goodbye 888 Poker and possibly goodbye PLO8.
I think I'm going to concentrate more on Pokerstars and PLO now.

I'll leave you with these hand histories of our times together.


Winning Hand 1 - Freeroll city

I like my raise on the turn with a no-bust low + a wheel wrap in this $33 pot. An awesome river card falls giving me nut-nut. I get paid off in 2 places after betting half pot on the river.

Winning Hand 2 - The underfull is good for once

This is the biggest pot I've won. The flop came to give me an under-full. I put Mr Preflop Raiser on AA-Low rather than a J after better so small on the flop. It turns out he didn't have AA and so I had the high locked up and was freerolling him.

Winning Hand 3 - Bulldozing my way to victory

This was one of my biggest bluffs....or I think it was a bluff. Perhaps I had the best hand with my AT but I didn't want to check behind to find him holding JJ, QQ or AA. I did put him on AA but I also think that I represented a K well. He only had $10 behind when we reached the river and when I went all in, he tanked....and mucked. Easy game.

Winning Hand 4 - Playing with my whole roll

This is one of the hands at 100PLO8. I'd just lost a big pot prior to this hand and was playing with my whole bankroll on the table. I was in desperation mode trying to chase losses. Luckily I stacked one of the guys and accomplished my task.

Winning Hand 5 - No possible low bluff

I missed my no-bust low draw + gut shot draw and so resorted to bluffing on the river. I'm successful in my endeavor and win the pot. I put him on a low-draw/flush draw, even if he did have nothing, was it better than my nothing? I didn't want to risk it.

Winning Hand 6 - Self-leveling cooler wars

Ah, this was a lovely $84 pot. It was a 50PLO8 HU match. My opponent was VERY aggressive, raising with lots of marginal hands. I elected to play passively preflop because of his tendency to pot re-raise alot before the flop. I notice he may have been tilting after losing some previous hands.

As it played out, the min-bets of his was new. He would usually bet the pot whenever he wanted to bet. I suspected they were vacuum bets trying to induce me to bluff him off his 'weak' holdings. Unfortunately he leveled himself and got caught in his own trap. The thoughts that were going through my mind was.... I seriously hope you don't have a set and please don't have a better low draw than mine.

Fortunately lady luck was on my side and I picked up the better low on the river, scooping the $84 pot.

 Losing Hand 1 - Check Raise bluffing at the wrong moment

I got to look at the flop for free with my mediocre hand. I flopped bottom 2 pairs and with no low-draw out there would probably be the best hand. I get one caller after betting 3/4 of the pot. The turn comes a Kd. I check, he bets which I consider a float bet. So I basically decided to turn my hand into a bluff by check-raise bluffing the K, representing the nut straight with AJ. If he did anything other than raise there, I was 100% going to bet the river. This bet was designed to make him fold his two pair hands, flush draw or maybe even J9. Unfortunately he re-pops me, tell me he means business. I fold but I think it was a good attempt.


Losing Hand 2 - Uncomfortable nuts

Play sets like drawing hands.... I partially took Dan Deppen's advice to heart but at the same time I wanted to price out random drawing hands (25, 56, (A2 probably won't fold but it might)) while wanting to make sure the turn didn't bring a low card. I suppose I didn't follow my game-plan and with no low possibility, I probably should've folded my hand preflop. Either way, I got it in with somebody with AA, the no-bust nut low draw/wheel wrap and a backdoor flush draw. Sickness was soon to follow as the turn brought a 6 and the river no help.

Losing Hand 3 - Hoping to hit the runner, runner Royal Flush ahaha

This hand pretty much speaks for itself. Even though my opponent had a set, I still had 43% equality with my nut flush draw, gut shot straight draw, backdoor flush draw and backdoor low draw.

Losing Hand 4 - Semi-bluffing a semi-bluffing hand

This particular opponent was very aggressive, I'd seen him show down with complete junk hands in previous hands. I really did not expect him to show up with a premium hand there. I was about 90% sure at least my 23 low was good there, let alone my low wrap. But I guess I was wrong.

 Losing Hand 5 - An uneducated bluff

Ah, this was a failed bluff attempt. I honestly wasn't betting my pair of Ks for value. Since no low came in, I was kinda hoping he would put me on TJ (A long shot I know) and would be willing to fold some flukey 2 pairs (3s + 6s, 9s + 3s). But the possible missed flush draw on the board didn't help my cause and he snapped me off.

Losing Hand 6 - Set over set over set
Last hand!
This was abit of a cooler. I flopped bottom set and was against, not only top set but middle set too. The funny thing is, I had more equity in the hand than the middle set person due to my nut low draw.

Heres the graph of the awesome swings.

May Update

I apologise that I haven't updated in awhile. I would like to say that I've been busy but the truth is that I just didn't have anything to report. There have been a few changes to my poker game I'll like to report. For example I stopped playing PLO (With the exception of juicy HU PLO games) and I'm playing at 4 different poker sites simultaneously.

Oh I forgot to mention, I'm exclusively playing PLO8 nowadays. Once I feel that I've developed my skills in that game, I'll go back to PLO or another game.

I have a feeling this is going to be a long post so...lets get started:

Titan Poker (iPoker Network)

I already received my poker books from twoplustwo which were High-Low Split Poker by Ray Zee, Heads Up No-Limit Hold 'em by Collin Moshman and Poker Essays 1, 2 and 3 by Mason Malmuth. I've almost cleared the 1st deposit bonus but even after I clear it, I have a feeling I'll still play on this site. For some reason I really like the software and the play has been quite soft.

Here are my results so far from Titan Poker.

Haha! I'm such a luck-box-en, running above EV.

All of these numbers don't add up and I'm really not sure why. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm playing in 3 different currencies (£ Pounds, $ Dollars and € Euros) and as you can see from the above graph, I'm not doing so good in the Euro games but I'm doing ok in the others.

I've been on a downswing at the moment, why you might ask? Its probably because I'm shoving slight edges. I'll post some hand examples.

Titan Poker - Hand 1

Lets see:

I remember at the time I wish I'd raised preflop to knock out such a junky hand. So yeah, I flop top and bottom pairs, the nut flush draw and a mediocre backdoor low draw. Unfortunately my opponent had top 2 + the K flush draw with no possible low draw.

The opponent was pretty aggressive and I had a feeling he might be shipping it with an wrap + a minor flush draw and I was kind of hoping thats what he had. If he did have a hand such as A(JQ)9 then I would've been an almost 70% favourite. But as it turns out I was a 53% favorite but it wasn't enough to secure me the win. I kinda liked the turn as it gave me the low draw but the river counterfeited me, so sick.

Titan Poker - Hand 2

 Ah yes, this was a hand I wanted to get all in on the flop . I flopped a small flush draw + the nut low draw (with counterfeit protection). I think I chose to check raise preflop because this particular opponent was opening alot of pots with such junk (as with this hand (JQ)(3K) isn't such a great hand in PLO8). I think I played it fine up until the turn. Should I have folded the turn? I was getting better than 2:1  so if I thought my hand had better than 33% chance to win then I should've called. As it turned out, it was a borderline decision.

Titan Poker - Hand 3

My opponent made 3 huge mistakes in this hand.
1) Not reraising more preflop. I'll call that min reraise all day every day.
2) Not c-betting on the flop. A pair of Aces + the nut low/wheel draw is an awesome hand.
3) Donk pot betting the turn. really?.....seriously? I really dislike this play. I may have folded if I had for example a naked flush (with no low) or a set or a low draw that just got counterfeited but anything else, he was dead. I would've preferred a smaller bet + fold to a raise on his part.
I really had the feeling that we'll be splitting this pot when he pot bet the turn but I guess we didn't, I'm happy with the result.

Titan Poker - Hand 4

This hand was interesting, I remember that I was on tilt against this particular opponent. I'm not sure what he did but I think he made me fold the nut low on the river in a large multi-way pot where I would've won half.

Back to the hand, as sense came flooding back to me I'd already clicked pot on the river and just said "ah well, if he has me beat then good for him", I did have the jack blockers though which made it less likely he had made the straight. But no, he snap called with a pair of 9s maybe he thought he had the straight? or that I was bluffing such that his 9s were good?

888 Poker (Pacific Poker Network)

To be honest, I don't really like the 888 software. Some of the gimmicks they have for games are interesting until the novelty wears off. As soon as I finish the twoplustwo bonus, I don't think I'll be paying there that often.

Here are my results for 888:

AND.....again running above EV. As Jeff Hwang and Dan Deppen say, the expected values of hands run so closely in omaha that you're never going to be a huge favourite against another hand. So take whatever edges you can. This is especially true in PLO8 where its split between the high and the low.

I didn't realise that I'd been running so hot, Its only been 2 days in June and I've already made double of what I did in May LOL!

I'll put up some hand examples:

888 Poker - Hand 1

I did well to not bet in position on the flop, as I usually would have and thats probably what my opponent was hoping for. I decided to flat call the bet and raise on the turn as I had an open ended straight draw (on a rainbow board) and a good low draw.

PKgrower certainly did make a mistake in slow playing his top set in a multi-way pot. I suppose thats one problem with trying to play tricky.

888 Poker - Hand 2

The extra 3 in my hand pretty much hurts it, I would've preferred a 5 or another low card to protect it against being counterfeited. But I flopped the nut low draw/wheel draw and good flush draw.

Let's calculate my outs.
For Low: (9 cards)
Any of the 9 Low Cards (6c, 6s, 6d, 7c, 7s, 7d, 8c, 8s, 8d)

For High: (3 cards)
Any of the 3 Heart Card (9h, Th, Kh)

For Scoop: (7 cards)
Any 5 or Low Heart: (5h, 6h, 7h, 8h, 5c, 5d, 5s)

I had 19 cards to win at least half of the pot. Even against his set, I was 51% to win and considering how well I've been running, I hit a lovely 8 of hearts on the river to scoop the pot.

I think I'll finish off my post here. Theres only William Hill Poker (iPoker network) to report but that one isn't really that exciting. But for a quick summary, £35 initial deposit -----> £17. I lost half of my bankroll! lol

April Update

Pokertableratings.com (PTR) no longer supports PS! This is such a shame seeing as I used it frequently to check all sorts of stats. I did however manage to find some interesting information on there before they discontinued tracking PS hand histories.

According to PTR around mid-april, I was the 3rd biggest winner at $0.01/0.02 PLO with an impressive win rate of 21.15BB/100 hands. Its still missing about $150~ worth of winnings though.

What I don't understand though is the person below me played 42 hands and won $298. At the microstakes that is unbelievably crazy. Even if he did win 1 max buy in for every hand that he played (42x$5 = $210), he still wouldn't make how much he made. He must have been on some mad heater!

As far as April's results are concerned, I hadn't really put much volume into playing at PS and when I did play, it was usually just short sessions. I think thats maybe why my winnings aren't that high compared to other months. I'm also playing more and more PLO H/L or PLO8. I'm starting to really enjoy split pot games, they're fun to play and much more complex as opposed to their high-only counterparts.

I also started playing at Titan Poker, solely because I signed up with twoplustwo and if I manage to accumulate 1,250 Titan Points, I can get 5 free twoplustwo books. This is my main objective at the moment.

I've played about 1,000 hands of PLO and after some sick coolers and bad beats, I almost busted my bankroll. Afterwards, I decided to concentrate on PLO8 due to the split pot nature of the game and the huge amount of rake it can generate (rake = points). I've played about 3,000 hands of PLO8 and have managed to slip into a nice profit margin. I've made half of my target number of points so the books should be mine soon.

Tilty Session - Some NLH and PLO Hands

I just played a session of 5 PLO tables and 1 NLH table. I felt pretty tired but didn't feel like sleeping and had nothing else to do. I lost about 4Buy-ins (~$20), 1 Buy in at NLH and 3 in PLO. Even though I've lost more before, I felt this particular session I couldn't do anything right. In the end, I made alot of speculative calls and even more bizarre bets and raises.

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This is the hand that tilted me the most. It was on the NLH table I was playing and it reminded me of why I chose to focus on PLO rather than NLH.

A background of the players: Most of the players at the table played in a standard tight aggressive (TAG) fashion but with some easily recognisable leaks (As expected). There was however one ultra aggressive player who would make 50BB raises preflop into a 4BB pot and all sorts of other weird plays. He didn't really allow players to see many flops so I decided to wait for a premium hand. I picked up AA in the SB, as you can see below.

 After watching alot of poker videos on youtube. I decided to emulate the play of Chris Ferguson when he was playing in the million dollar cash game. The one where he raises with AA UTG and flat calls a 3-bet and Mike Matusow with QQ goes all in and he snap calls after the 3-bettor folds. Unfortunately in this case he didn't go all in but made a 3-Bet, I put in a 4th, him a 5th and finally me a final 6-Bet.

I did this because I felt that if I had 3-Bet in the SB then he would have just flat called and so would the button. But regardless of whether this was a bad decision, I still got more money in preflop. Looking back at the hand now though I think I could've 6-bet a little big bigger (not that he would've folded anyway)

I decided to check raise all in on the flop because I knew he wouldn't have been able to resist taking a stab at a nice looking pot regardless of what he had. I was hoping he was thinking I had AKs or a similar hand in my range which didn't connect with the flop.

Him on the other hand was looser than my ex-girlfriend and more aggressive than Isildur1. I wouldn't be surprised if he showed up with 27o in that spot.

When his hand was revealed it was... lol wut J4o. I was pretty confident but obviously PS had other plans with my 95%~ hand. Runner, runner straight. Ughhh... I felt pretty sick but in a weird way, I was happy. I knew once in a while the 5% would win. It still tilted me slightly though.

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The next hand, It wasn't a big pot nor was I a massive favourite (~65%) but it was the hand which made me remember why I dislike NLH.

I picked up on the fact that he was shoving wide after a couple of the other players kept using him as an ATM. I decided that if I was going to play a hand, I had to be prepared to call an all in. A6s was miles ahead of anything he was shoving in my mind.

But still... J3o? Seriously? and to hit a Jack on the flop. He obviously lost his stack after that but decided not to reload. I lost my chance to withdraw from the bank of donkeytown.

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I'll move on to some of the PLO hands I played.

The first hand was 3/4 through the session.

The SB decides to pot 3-Bet my initial raise. This to me at this level screamed out AAXX, what the other 2 cards were, I had no idea. I decided to call because I hate folding to 3-bets even if my hand was abit speculative.

I flopped a nice looking wrap and a backdoor flush draw. There wasn't really any point in calling since he was so short stacked at that point after betting pot and making it clear he was pot committed. If he did indeed have naked aces, I would've been about a 60% favourite. I had 20 immediate outs if he did have naked aces, any 7, 8, J, Q or K would have won it for me. Of course there are other runner runner possibilities, 2 pairs, trips, flush etc

If by some chance he did have a hand like KQJTds I would have been in ALOT of trouble and would have had only 4 nut outs (4 7s).

His hand however was a sexy looking AAJQds which was bad news as he had a similar straight draw as me. 

According to these odds. We were splitting the pot about 25% of the time and I only had about 28% to win (Backdoor flush, running 6s, any 7 or any Q).

As it was, the turn and the river were in the hands of the poker gods and in the theme of tonight's session, I missed my draws. Nothing I can do about it but concentrate on the other hands.

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The 2nd and last PLO was very interesting after analysing it later. It was practically one of the last hands I played for the session as it made me realise that I wouldn't be able to hit ANY draws no matter what. Its just one of those nights.


While playing PLO and reading strategy books. I've always known that a 4 card wrap was a slight favourite over a set on the flop, add a flush draw and practically its a bad beat if you lose. This next hand however taught me something else.

What it taught me was top set + a flush draw is a favourite against the nut straight on the flop. At the time, I thought I was a slight underdog but I was tilting abit and hadn't flopped anything good in awhile, so I got pretty excited with my hand and what I flopped.

In this case:
Tilt + wrong decision = right decision + bad outcome

Heres the hand:

When my opponent check raises me on the flop, it instantly tells me he has a straight. Most players at this level aren't tricky enough to check raise on lock-down boards without the goods.

Two thoughts were going through my head when he raised.
1) I could simply call his raise and try to hit one of my 16 outs or 3 for a chop but I simply don't have the patience to get to the river and fold when I miss everything.
2) I wonder, would he really get all the money in on the flop with the nut straight without a re-draw???? I know I wouldn't, I hate being freerolled.

From this, I concluded he must have at least 2 of my flush outs as well at least one of my chop outs.

As it turns out, the only reason he was confident his hand was best at the flop was because he had the T blockers and with only two Ts left, its much less likely for me to have one for the same straight.

I had 14 outs (1A, 3K, 2Q and 8 Clubs) on the flop and 2 for a chop. On the turn if I didn't make my hand, the number of outs would've gone up to 17 (If it wasn't a 9 or a J).

According to these odds, I was a 60% favourite on the flop with about 6% to chop the pot. Whereas my opponent was only 34% to win.

Eventhough I was only a slight favourite, it still boggles my mind that I was ahead. I know the stuff about the rule of 4 and 2 when it comes to calculating your outs and what percentage of the time you'll hit on the turn or river but still.

I still haven't slept so maybe this is the reason why my mind is retardedly slow in comprehending this concept.

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I'll just leave this following example for your viewing pleasure and if you do decide to play PLO then remember one of the most important things to know:

Sometimes, the best hand isn't always the best hand!

Swingy March

March! What can I say about March? It was an exciting month, not only in terms of Poker but in my private life too.

Whenever I can, I work as an extra in movies,TV Shows and commercials. The payments for these jobs can take up to 4/6 weeks but for one of my jobs, its been about 3 months. This sucks MAJOR balls! I'm running out of money so I decided to withdraw $200 from my PS account.

As soon as I withdrew, I had about $40 left! and 4 tabling $0.01/$0.02 with max buy ins ($20). I had half of my bankroll on the table! That is such bad bankroll management and I do not recommend it but screw it, I didn't have much choice unless I wanted to play less tables. I played my usual game and now my PS bankroll currently sits at $85.

 PokerStars MicroMillions Tournaments


March was also a great month for micro stakes tournament grinders. Pokerstars hosted a series of (100) tournaments with small buy-ins but with huge guaranteed prizes. I choose to play in a number of these tournaments even though I hadn't played many tournaments recently.

Prior to the Micromillions (MM), my biggest score in a poker tournament was $20 in a razz tournament (7th) and my highest finish was 3rd in a PLO tournament. These were both on FTP about 2 years ago and were both freerolls. The razz tournament was a WSOP special freeroll and the PLO tournament was a regular freeroll with 7,500 participants.

I initially wanted to play in 57 of these events but ended up playing in only 5. This is because the tournaments I wanted to play in (mostly non-NLH) were running at such awkward times and for the most part, I was sleeping through them!

Micromillions -01: $0.11+R NL Hold'em [6-Max, Turbo, Rebuy Madness], $25K Gtd
I busted out in 1,931 out of 71,420. It was a pretty deep finish. Unfortunately with the extremely tiny buy-in, the payout wasn't as much as I wanted. I received $8.07 for my 1931st place finish! Its pretty terrible for 3-4 hours of playing but hey, its still about 8000% of the buy in.

 I think I played pretty solid until my final hand. I had AJo in early position and made my usual 2.5xBB raise. SB 3-Bet me (which he did often). I thought about it for awhile and I wanted to fold but because I hadn't 4-Bet before, I thought that I would get more credit for having a big hand. With this read-dependent fold equity and the fact that we were about even stacks. I decided to 4-Bet to about x2.25~ of their 3-Bet amount. It didn't work, they tanked and decided to shove. I was pot committed and called. They tabled AKo and Bam! Just like that, I was out and had a huge dislike for AJo.

Micromillions -02 $1+R NL Hold'em [3xTurbo]. $75K Gtd (30,372/44,741)
Micromillions -12 $1+R NL Hold'em [3xTurbo]. $75K Gtd (16,511/2,8185)

I'll group these 2 tournaments together because well.... to be honest, I didn't cash and I only remember what happened in one of them although I'm not sure which one. 


This hyper aggressive omega class super fish was open shoving every hand! When he busted, he just re-brought and kept re-shoving. This is so hard to play against when you don't pick up any hands. So I waited for a premium hand and for them to give me their stack. I picked up AKo in early position, I made my standard raise and them, like clockwork shoved for 3000 in a pot containing ~100 chips. I instantly called and they showed 59s. They hit a 5 on the river without me hitting anything and just like that, I was out, I was annoyed but hey, its poker and if the fish don't win once in awhile then there wouldn't be any ;)

Micromillions -04 $3.30+R PL Omaha [6xMax]. $25K Gtd (4,433/6,936)

This is the only Omaha tournament I played in. I think I played well... apparently, not well enough. All in all, final hand. I got most of my chips in the pot with AAJ4s and had less than a pot size bet on the flop of T73 rainbow. I shoved and they called with KKQTs, they called and hit a Q on the turn.

Micromillions -34 $5.50 NL Hold'em [Knockout, Turbo, Pro Special]. $25K Gtd (4,875/26,439)

I had a free ticket for this tournament for a small deposit on PS. I think the amount was something like $30 and you get a free ticket for a $5.50 tournament. You received $1 for everybody you knockout except Pros for which you received $50. I never had any pros at my table but I did manage to bust one person. That's it really. I had about 4M on the button with JQo, it was folded around to me so I shoved all in on the SB and BB who both had similar stacks to me. BB Picked up a real hand and called with AKo. Nothing hit, Out. But I was happy with my play.

Micromillions 50K Gtd Freeroll

I didn't realise I qualified for this tournament, heck I didn't even remember they had this promotion. But I got an E-mail from PS and because I had played in at least 5 MM tournaments I got a free ticket to enter this tournament.

I think I played awesome and of course with tournaments, getting lucky in the right spots. I finished in 228/26,500 for a win of $20.50! my highest in any poker tournament! :D

Theres not much to say about the final hand. I lost a coin flip (66>AQo) all in preflop on the previous hand and had about 2BB left. I got it in with A6o and lost to QQ. Not much of a bad beat but it would have been nice if I could've sucked out.

The March Grind

Anyway, back to March. It has been one of the most swing-est months while playing poker. It was pretty sick but I stayed focused and concentrated on the hands. Heres a graph of March

PS also launched Zoom poker. This is similar to FTP's Rush poker. I was kinda addicted to Rush poker, I remember once I lost $50 while trying to get enough Full Tilt Points to achieve their Rush week's silver $50 cash bonus haha..I did manage to persevere though and I did get my money back. Anyway, back to March's winnings.

I managed to make $113 but considering the intersecting dance the Amount won and EV lines are doing in the above graph, I think it was an okay month. Plus the amount I won in tournaments which haven't been added here.

 So now comes the April grind!