[Adelaney]

Hey @mastermind365

Firstly, welcome to the PLO Mastermind and the community 🙂

Love the mindset that you have right off the bat in you wanting to become THE MASTERMIND, even with what appears to be an already intense weekly schedule with school and consulting, how do you plan to juggle all of this?

Let’s crush these milestones!

Best of luck and if you ever have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out.

Ash

[Mastermind365]

Update to the last 2 weeks

I have been tracking all my play and study sessions since the 21th of November. Today it has been about 2 weeks:

Total hours studied: 22

Total hours played: 76

Study:

In the last 2 weeks i realized i knew absolutely nothing about how to play PLO. Before continuing with the 10 week transformation i realized i need to work on my fundamentals. I have now went through the entire PLO Launchpad, and i have also finished the preflop part of the Crushing Small Stakes course.

The study theme for the last 2 weeks has been preflop obviously.

I have been grinding a lot of preflop ranges with the preflop trainer in many different spots. RFI in all positions and all these different spots, and i have attached a picture of my first training session. I also did these spots: BB vs. BTN, BB vs CO, BB vs CO+BTN, BB VS SB, SB VS BTN, SB VS BTN & CO, BTN VS CO, MP VS EP, BTN VS SB 3 BET, EP VS SB 3 BET.

I have been tracking my sessions, and i trained a total of 4150 “hands” with and average accuracy overall of 84%.

I have learn a lot about what hands to raise and call 3 bets with, and also i have been focusing alot on my cold calling.

In the last 2 days i played some hands on stars so that i would be able to analyze my preflop frequencies, as i cannot get hand histories from party poker (this is so annoying!!!). Anyways, i played 3000 hands of which half were regular tables PLO10 and half were zoom.

Looking at my stats today, i am actually pretty satisfied, but i also see some things to work on. Overall, it looks like i am pretty nitty, my VPIP is 18.8% and PFR 15.4%. I am happy to see that i am not cold calling a lot, because that has been a big theme in a lot of the videos.

My RFI frequencies i am super happy about as EP, MP and CO are all quite close to the GTO. I need to play more hands on the Button. My overall fold to 3bet is 44,7% which i think is not terrible, but i am not 100% sure. I am not paying to much attention to the fold to 3bet in each position, as the sample is only about 50-60 hands in each position.

I watched the first few videos on postflop today and i am going to start studying more postflop. In the next few weeks i will be grinding a lot of post flop spots cbetting spots in the PLO trainer. At a first glance, my cbetting frequency of 28.8% seems low to me, and delayed cbet of 21%. This will be the focus for the weeks to come. I have made a slide for myself on cbetting, that i am going to have open while playing my next session, to remind myself of some things to think about.

Playing

I have realized that i think playing Zoom really sucks. The games are tougher, and i make worse decisions overall because of the speed. From now on i am only playing regular tables.

I think i found my sweet spot which is 3-4 regular tables. This is what i am going to be playing from now on, with a maximum of 6 tables as a rule.

The value of having a huge fish on the table is insane. Yesterday i took a shot at PLO50 and i found a guy playing 100% hands and i took 5 or 6 stacks of him.

Thats it for now. Ill be updating when i know more about postflop.

[Ploripper69]

Looks like a pretty good study plan 🙂

Just in case you didn’t know, Pokerstars randomly gives players 40% rakeback challenges that you can complete up to 3 times. Can really be worth checking in on your challenges every week, but may take a while til you get one

The foldto3bet is a bit high if you’re looking at IP and OOP, should be about 20% IP and 40% OOP if you are playing 50PL without rakeback. If you’re getting a good amount of RB on party those should definitely be lower.

VPIP and PFR do seem a bit tight, I would guess that you’re CC a bit too little IP, but I think generally it’s good that you are approaching the game a bit tighter in the beginning since you can easily open up your range once you’re comfortable with the ‘easier’ hands.

[Mastermind365]

Quick update here regarding my milestones looking at the past 24 days:

Milestones:

– Spend 30 minutes or more studying PLO everyday

Its been 24 days and ive logged 27 hours in my study log. This is an average of more than 1 hour per day, so im very satisfied.

– Complete the 10 week transformation program

I have only completed week 1 & 2, but i am also working through the crushing small stakes course. Satisfied.

– Beat small stakes PLO over a large sample, winning $1000 or more in a month

Now i only have still a very small sample, but in the last month i am + more than 1k. This is nice but obviously variance is freaking insane. I had a pretty insane session today, +16 stacks in one session.

This does however mean that i have a decent bankroll now, with more than 100 buyins for plo 25 and i feel pretty comfortable playing PLO50 aswell, it does not seem that different from plo 25. The regs seem more solid but they are still making clear mistakes and there are more fish it seems. Maybe its because playing PLO 25 is not fun enough for a fish to sit and play on a weekend evening.

– Win a tournament

2 weeks ago i chopped a tournament HU and finished first afterways, i guess that counts 🙂

I am putting my focus on the cash games, but i guess the dream of a big MTT score is just kind of thrilling.

Thats it for now.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Mastermind365.

[Mastermind365]

This update is mostly for own sake to write down some thoughts while i review some of my hands

Study session: calling vs. a turn cbet

One thing i noticed while playing is that i tend to have problems on the turn, where i dont know if i should call or not. Also i noticed that my overall Turn Fold vs Cbet is 26.2%. This leads me to believe i am probaly calling too many turns.

I am gonna look at all my hands where i called vs a turn cbet using the PLO trainer to review the flop and an equity calculator to think about my turn decision when no turns are available.

Hand 1: Hero in BB vs SB, SRP: JsTc5s5c on KhJd5dAc

Flop: Bottom set no flush or backdoor flush, I call a 2/3 pot bet – GTO approved. Not raising bottom set here without a flush draw.

Turn: Ac. The turn completes the straight. SB bets full pot – I call. I need 33% equity. If my opponent only has QTxx here i have 24,5% equity. If i widen his range to include some bluffs, so its something like QT, AKQT, AQhh, AK, KQQx i have 48% equity. I am not sure if he would bet AA, KK and JJ here, if they are included i have 40%.

I think overall this call is ok.

Hand 2: Hero in BB vs SB, SRP: As7d7sQc on Js4h3s2d.

Flop: NFD + middle pair in my hand, i call a 2/3 pot bet – GTO approved.

Turn: 2d. The turn completes the wheel. SB bets 2/3 pot and i call – I need 29% equity to call. If my opponent only has 56xx i have 20%. If i widen his range his range to something like 56, JJ, 44, 33, J4, J3, A235, ss i have 33.5%. It could be even wider than this.

Overall i think this call is ok.

[At this point in the session i realized it was a waste of time to look at all hands this much in depth, and instead focus on questionable decisions]

Hand 3: Hero in BB vs BTN, SRP: Ac6c5d3d on As4sQd6h.

Flop: Top pair bad kicker + BD low FD + BD straight draw, i check call vs 90% pot bet – i was unsure about the call but i have a lot of backdoors on the flop, GTO approved. Even with the low bd fd and no club blockers this is 100% call.

Turn: 6h. Opponent bets pot and i call – I need 33% equity to call. If my opponent has only value and made hands AA, 44, QQ, AQ i have 23% equity. If i widen his range to include obvious bluffs like the NFD and a WRAP something like AA, 44, QQ, AQ, KQss, KJTx then i have 35.7% equity.

Overall i think this call is ok, and when i did call the flop with all these backdoors its seems like ofcourse i cant fold, so it was good to see that its probaly ok. It was more the flop i was unsure of.

—

After reviewing 39 hands in this spot, i honestly couldnt find any clear mistakes. Only this hand that i thought was pretty bad:

I RFI in EP with KJT9ds and i get 3bet by 40BB stack in the CO and i call – seems fine

The SPR is only a litte above 1 on the flop: Jd4h5h. I need about 33% equity to stack off. He bets half pot and i dont think i have fold equity, so i dont want to check-raise all in. If i give him a range of 5%:(AA,KK,JJ, hh) i have 30.5% so against the half pot bet the call is actually ok.

I call, and the turn is a 2s, he bets all in for 1/3 pot and i need 19,8% equity to call. Against the same range i have 19.5%. I called again.

It seems like my turn calling hands are not as bad as i had feared.

Maybe the reason why my Turn Fold vs Cbet is so low, is because my Flop Fold vs Cbet is 60%.

Flop Fold vs Cbet will be the focus of my next study session.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Mastermind365.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Mastermind365.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Mastermind365.

[Ploripper69]

‘Maybe the reason why my Turn Fold vs Cbet is so low, is because my Flop Fold vs Cbet is 60%.’

Yeah, you’re overfolding by about 20%, so naturally your range is gonna be pretty strong on the turn and the low fold % makes sense. I would recommend looking at your player pools average flop cbet%, if they are cbetting less than GTO it could be ok to overfold a little (although not that much).

[Mastermind365]

Thank you!. I looked into it and i have improved a lot on this in the last few days, so my overall flop fold vs. cbet has fallen to 40% in the last 2000 hands.

[Mastermind365]

So its been about a month since i started this PLO project and i just want to give a quick status update on my results.

About half or two thirds of the hands which i have played in the last months has been on Partypoker where i have not been able to track my results. On Pokerstars, i have played 22.8k hands with -2.5 all-in adj. bb/100. About 14k of these hands have been on PLO50 regular tables.

I am down 740$ on pokerstars, but at the same time i am up 1050$ on Partypoker. Most of my loses on pokerstars has been this week, as im down 650$ the last 1500 hands. This sucks because i have played what i felt was the best overall. I just need to power through and keep improving.

I have attached a pic of my stars results for the month, and to comparison this week.

What i am very happy to see when i look at this week vs. the whole month is my overall cbet % which is a lot higher, and this is something that i have been doing a lot of work on in the PLO trainer. I do need to be mindfull that i am not cbetting too much, but ill have to play some more hands. I also notice that my 3bet % is slightly higher, which is something that i have been focusing on aswell.

Other than that, all there is to say is that i need to keep studying and improving. Its still a small sample and the results dont matter that much.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by  Mastermind365.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by  Mastermind365.

[Mastermind365]

I watched a video recently somewhere in the mastermind where Jnandez recommends to specialize, especially when you are new.

I have decided to focus on short-stacking, because there seem to be so many big advantages to the strategy. High achievable winrates, lesser variance compared to deep stacks, etc. Additionally, i really like to play PLO tournaments. In the last week or two i have been focusing on short stack play and also improving my tournament play, to prepare for the coming weekend where there will be some nice PLO tournaments on stars.

I have had quite decent results playing the daily deepstack PLO tournaments on party, while griding PLO50 on the side. I am also taking shots at PLO100.

with regards to the studying, i have gone through most of the tournament course and also working on the short stack bootcamp. I have been grinding 50bb-preflop spots in the PLO trainer aswell.

[Mastermind365]

I really want to reach 90%+ accuracy in all the preflop spots, and i am getting closer but damm, it is quite difficult!

This is from todays training session: 50BB, SB vs BTN RFI: 89,3% in 999 hands

The hands that i am having the most trouble with is the DS 2broadway + 2low connectors and then the DS double pairs. But i am getting closer!

[Stevemacpherson]

Have you considered doing a little more focused training with the buckets? Like you could probably remove all the Aces categories, and then just really focus in on the ones you have the most problems with? Just target 1-2 buckets at a time, and get the preflop ranges dialed in for thousands and thousands of hands, then move onto another category?

[Mastermind365]

Thank you, I had not realized you could do that, but that makes a lot of sence ofcourse!

Quick update:

I really need to update my milestones and goals, but i need to think about it first. I think i will make a new post about it maybe after this weekend.

I have been absolutely crushing PLO50 and my shots at PLO100 have been going super well. Today i reached a 5k$ bankroll, which is a huge step because i feel that i can comfortably play PLO100 short stacking with this roll. My total deposits for this project is 1500$, so im up about 3k-3,5k overall!

Its honestly insane how many mistakes people are making vs. the short stack play. I can feel the POWER

Additionally today i withdrew some money (200$) and purchased 2 posters, these are the first things i purchase with my profits and it feels sooo good!

[Fox]

Hi there!

I’m in here too. I wanted to start at PLO5 this year, have a blog here too, just started PLO in October.

Your progress is crazy, good job.

[Mastermind365]

So if i am going to specialize in the short stack strategy i need to increase my preflop accuraccy to as close to 100% as possible for both 50 and 30 big blinds.

To do this, i am going to start with start with 50 BB RFI ranges and just take it one position at a time. Starting with the early position.

Steve suggested above to do a little more focused training with the buckets and this has proven very helpfull i think. Today i worked with the early position. First i started going through every bucket individually, doing 100-200 hands in each bucket and then i did a test with all buckets included (except AA) to see where i had the most mistakes. Then i did some more hands in those buckets and then finally i did a test again with all buckets included, to see my overall result:

I attached a picture of my test result with 50 big blinds EP after training for around 1,5 hours: 93% accuraccy. I really wanted 95%+ and i think i could have reached it, there was a few mistakes in there where i was just going to fast. The most “mistakes” are made with ds double paired hands, where i was probaly a bit too nitty, and with some of the ds rundowns where i fold anything that has more than 1 gap.

One adjustment iwill make is definetly folding some of the very marginal opens that rely on fold equity or have bad playability such as AhQd8d7s, AJ54hh or AT98r. Also, if i have a doubt about a hand i will fold instead of just opening it anyway, as i think that will lead to less mistakes overall. I feel like i have a much better understanding now about which hands are marginal, and this will also help me know which hands to fold/call vs 3bets.

[Mastermind365]

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by  Mastermind365.

[Mastermind365]

Its been a while since my last update. Since then my results have not been at the cash tables, but im up about 2k$ on MTTs. I think playing short stack really has also improved my MTT game a lot. Overall i have gained a much better unstanding of how to play at LOW spr, what hands to RFI, 3Bet at which stack sizes etc.

With regards to the cash games, im going back to playing 100bb for a while atleast. I played about 45k hands on stars to get a feel of my stats and i think my RFI ranges are doing good, mostly i need to work on 3Betting still, as my overall 3B is only about 4,7%.

But, my biggest leak is definetly playing the bigblind and small blind. My winrates in the blinds are just absolutely terrible. This is something i need to work on a ALOT!. In a way, its not so suprising because i have not worked on this area at all almost.

Just to give you guys an idea, i compared to my stats in the big blind to GTO (plo 50 rake structure, pic attached) and identified some obvious leaks in my game:

– Playing almost the same calling range vs every position on the table, 20-27%. This one is huge as it shows a fundamental lack of understanding and adjusting based on position.

– Calling too much against EP, and calling too little against BU and SB.

– Not 3betting and squeezing enough against late positions.

– Calling slightly too much against EP+MP

With regards to studying, i have been playing too much recently compared to studying. So i have made a big change on this area. I need to study more, as this will make me much more money in the long run than grinding as a bad/mediocre player.

This means that i have implemented the following rutine:

– on weekdays, i am only allowed to play 1 hour max and only in the time between 20:00 and 22:00. AND ONLY IF i have studied for atleast 1 hour that day. This is because the games arent that good on weekdays anyway, and i need to just study instead. And i am not playing my A-game if i come home from work/school and put in a long session.

– on weekends, the games are good and this is where i will try to put it all my playing time.