[JNandez]

Hey Unlucker1,

Thanks for sharing your milestones. I’m looking forward to read more about your progress in the next following weeks.

Good luck at the tables!

[Adelaney]

Hey Aleksandr, welcome to the community and welcome back again to the PLO Mastermind 🙂 great to have you back on board.

Thanks for sharing your story and best of luck with your goals and milestones.

How did you find the leaderboard grind overall vs just the normal grind?

Best of luck and look forward to following along!

[Unlucker1]

Thank You, JNandez and Adelaney, for motivating words. Great to see you in my pretty humble blog.

Today I will try to explain in which progression point I am standing. Of course, things are liquid, and that is hard to evaluate player’s skill just in moment, but I know some milestones of my journey, so I will try to make some conclusions.

There is a long period, about 1.5-2 years, of playing o Microgaming room, which I loved. Yes, I chose poker room for microlimits critically, with advice from Tom Smeetss site. I do not think my game was extremely bad or such good for climbing higher mountains, but there was worthful experience and so much time of learning, including Mastermind, RIO Poker, Russian community players’ videos and so on. That was time, where I got so much information of different situations. I think, that period was period of basics.

I was learning many different spots, but carefully: mistakes in strategy, that could be strengthened in initial, would be harder to fixed. I think, I evade a lot of potential problems by painstaking work, and I’m proud of that. But, for sure, not all mistakes were dodged.

There is an all-time stats for my play on Microgaming on picture below.

I marked a huge problem that You can see in my play: postflop aggression. For example, flop c-bet was about 35, which is absolutely unacceptable. You can see, that on PLO20, which includes more competent players, I was loser, and I think my opponents used my leaks.

Logical conclusion of that is game changing, by extending flop c-betting range. I tried implement that in my game in first approach, but that wasn’t changed drastically, and, after some days of working at other aspects of play, agression drops to initial. On second approach, I’ve spend a lot of time in solver simulations in practice mode to found out what types of hands are c-bet and how to react versus x-r. It was huge work with many flops, but my flop cbetting frequency was increased to actual 44. Yes, that is below optimal range, and there is room to grow, but changes in that area of my game created problems in another aspects.

Such example of this: my flop c-bet range was very strong, and if I was stabbed on turn, that was no problem to fold marginal hand or continue with equity shifted hand. Now (some weeks ago, to be accurate), when I bet more to use blockers (or stacking blockers, or protection bets), and opponent continues, I am playing more pots with marginal hands, with, essentialy, I don’t know what to do later, on turn. That was problem #1 in my strategy, and there was so much uncomfortable situations I’ve tried to figure out Russian sacramental “who is guilty? what to do?”.

I was on that way about 2 months, and, I think, I’m on the finish line of changing my game that way. I attach graph of my PartyPoker play last 3-4 months, and you can see in which point I’ve started to implement changes in my game and how it worked out.

In the end, I want to attach stats of my game of last 100.000 hands in general, and 20.000 hands later red line, in which, I think, I made decent results of strategy changing. That is not the end, there are points to improve, and I will work at my game. I will, because (as slogan on my regular job), “Qui non proficit, deficit”.

Thank You for reading.

[Unlucker1]

[1/2] I thought I got it

After my previous post, I’ve continued watching PLO Mastermind lessons and playing poker at mix 10/90. The concepts from videos made my game better at situations of topic, but another game suffered so much because of “terra incognita” of such spots.

Let me explain those thoughts in example:

My cbet in SRP IP on flop was about 35. I worked so hard to increase this number by expanding my bet-calling and, much complicated for my mind, bet-folding range. I’ve started making more bets (for bet/fold f.e.), my opponents continued at some percentage (no surprise) and flop turned blanc/straight/flush/paired. What to do next? Pretty good question. Yes, I had some plan to play on somewhat turns, but what to do on exact turn with exact hand? And how high am I in my range? How high is my opponent in his range?

All those questions, that were more clear to answer in my previous scenarious (flop cbet 35), become SO complicated multiplied by raised average size of pot.

But all that questions were in work yet, and I thought I’ve got answers for them, and, as final of that huge work, I wrote previous post.

That was not huge mistake to assume that finally I got some sacramental knowledge, but that was NOT the end for this chapter. I felt I was missing something, something very important.

The final point was at the end of this graph. I have stopped and made a decision: “I will watch all Crushing PLO 500 course and will return to game only after this”.

I have closed all poker rooms and started watching. As always, after my regular job.

Every evening, as my poker time starts, but without any practice.

[Unlucker1]

[2/2] I think I got it

I have watched 12 videos of course (I saw about half of them in past) and my subscription for Mastermind expired.

That would be lie to say that I was not fully charged to start my best game after watching, understanding and verified that understanding by PLO TRainer.

I have some Excel file I made for myself about two years ago. I could share it in Mastermind Discord channel if you want to. That is only spreadsheet of some columns for stream/video watching, when I wrote line of streamer/author and my line (how could I play in this spot?).

I attach photo with this spreadsheet to this post. Type – type of spot, Fm – my flop decision, Fj – JNandez’s flop decision (this spreadsheet is somehow not updated), the same for turn and river, Corr? – points of correct answers, Max? – maximum points for answers. Points system: 1 for correct line and sizing, 0.5 for correct line but missed sizing, 0 for missed line. Also I am making notes to paractice this spot in PLO Trainer. Entshuldigung (sorry), that sheet has watermark, that’s printer of my job made that.

By the way, I was sicked by COVID-19 and after 1-2 days of hard pain, that was about 7-10 next days of slight temperature and total weakness. I have found those days, that I can play some poker, not so much in time, 1 table of fast or 2 of regular poker, even in bed.

Finaly, I have started my game veeeeery carefully. I have started from PLO 10, because my bankroll was very lifeless.

And, I think, I played very well. Also, I’ ve got upstreak. My overall feelings become more better, I started including PLO25. Only with good rakeback program (3 personal challenges on Pokerstars with 80$ each and PartyPoker leaderbords) I have started to include PLO50 last days.

In this post I want to share that:

1) good work brings good results, sooner or later. Do not be afraid of flexing your game, if you do it right way, may be after period of adaptation, you become better at this.

2) Variance in PLO is HUUUUUGE, just another reminder for that stuff. Just look at this graph! I am LUCKIEST ONE. Enough of celebrating… Let’s work next!

3) Learn and study in your personal most comfort way. All the instruments you can find at “Downloads” on this site helped me a lot, some charts, some PLO Trainer files. Use it if you feel that you need it. Sometimes you can ask yourself “for what should I know RFI range of shortstacker?”, and when some similar action happens at poker table (you are facing 3-bet preflop from BBvsBTN from shortstacker) this knowledge can make you play more correct.

4) I want to thank all the PLO Mastermind Members team for such intensive and hard work of making content, instruments, explaining solver concepts, sharing personal way of play.

5) I think that I’ve got last piece of puzzle for this chapter of story, I don’t feel so weak in spots on tirns and rivers, my overall cbet flop was increased to about 50 and I am really happy to this. I will attach my overall stats. to this spot.

Thank You for reading. That is not the end of journey, so much work must be done in different spots, I know some of my weaknesses and will work with them, but that is another story.

[Adelaney]

Hey Aleksandr,

I’m sorry to hear that you had COVID, I hope that you are feeling back to 100% now and are able to get back to your normal (well 2020 normal anyway) day to day life.

Congrats on moving up to PLO 50 already that’s great to hear and i’m glad things are going in the right direction for you poker wise. What are the goals for the final months of this year?

Keep up the great work and putting in those hours!

Look forward to continue reading about your progress,

Ash

[Unlucker1]

Ash, thank You for cordial words!

The goal for last month was to play stable, trying not to go crazy at spots. I think, I did well. Month was good.

I want to make snapshot of my 2020 poker year. For me, it is BEFORE (10 months) and AFTER (2 months).

In money it is -200$ on EV (without rakeback) and about 4500$ at fact (with rakeback). I think, I achieved main goal: became more professional at poker. My stats are much better, my winrate is good, my thought process is more complicated and theoretcally improved.

My goals for this year:

1) study at least 4month of subscribing to Mastermind with high efficiency

2) succesfully shot PLO100 and achieve at least 6bb/100 over 100k hands

3) show stable improvement of skill