A New Direction for 2018 - Ash's Blog

Posted 5 years ago

Figured it's time to start a new one of these... Was going to a few weeks ago ahead of a big couple of poker weeks but decided to hold off, though I will recap the two events I went to over the next couple of days.

Some of you will know from previous blogs that I'm primarily a tournament player. Though from September last year until February this year I was playing 'Spin & Goes' full-time after being backed. This was decent, I learnt a LOT from the twice weekly coaching and I feel that my game has hugely benefited from it. I quit pretty much just because I missed playing tournaments too much, and the backing company have said the door is open if I want to come back in the future, so that's good!

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I kind of knew this in the past but, I do prefer Omaha over NLHE. 4, 5, 6, more cards, just give me more than 2! So since quitting spins my focus has mainly been on PLO, both cash and tournaments and PLO and PLO hi/lo though I am still playing NLHE as well.

The purpose of this blog is basically to keep me honest. In the past I've had monetary goals or 'number of cashes' goals but I no longer feel these are the best way to keep track as you can start focusing on trying to achieve a set goal rather than just playing the best you can.

I will be recapping each session I play, both live and online, and keeping a thorough profit and loss 'account' on here. Obviously I would hope to be in decent profit by the end of the year but it isn't the main thing as long as I feel I am learning ,especially embarking on a new journey primarily in PLO which I am still relatively new to.

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Currently Playing:

PLO4 cash on Unibet
PLO/NLHE/Horse MTT's on Pokerstars (micro up to $5.50 buy-in)
Live PLO/NLHE tournaments

My main online grind will be on the PLO4 tables on Unibet, joining @Ovi8fan in hopefully moving up to PLO10 and higher as the year goes on! One goal I am going to give myself for this is see 2500 flops this month (starting late this month obviously) and then 5000 for May!

I'm planning to grind 2 MTT sessions a week, of which I will be selling action to hopefully regular backers on a monthly basis. I need to finalise the days and schedule then will be offering this in The Marketplace. This will allow me to play more and bigger tournaments, with the idea that each month I will be able to increase the amount of tournaments or buy-ins and still pull a profit!

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I did actually play a live PLO tournament this evening, which will be the official start of this blog, but I will update that tomorrow once I have bored you all with pics from the 2 festivals that I attended over the past month!

Thanks for popping by, please say hello and let me know what you think!
daveo

Last Post 5 years ago by

daveo

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Posted 5 years ago
Seems like a pretty good idea! Would imagine the skill level for PLO especially at the micros is incredibly low. So if you study more than most you should be able to print.

I am actually tempted to jump into these games just to see how it all looks and feels!

GL
Posted 5 years ago
As promised, a few piccies and info from the past month.

First up was a trip to Dublin, Ireland for the Norwegian Poker Championships at the CityWest Hotel

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I only played 1 tournament at the actual hotel where the festival was taking place. This was "Binglao", basically PLO but whoever is on the button rolls a dice and the number determines how many cards (4/5/6 and whether it's PLO Hi or Hi/Lo)!

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I didn't do any good in that comp, but I did alright in a local €65 tournament in a small place called the "Village Green Card Club", was a pretty cool setup, around 10 tables, mainly just poker. It got around 40 entries, managed to get the final table and then chopped it 4 ways for €300 each. I also won a last man standing turning €10 into €120 so a good night all round!

Final table stack:

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The hotel itself was extremely busy, was a decent atmosphere, but playing there was a bit... odd. Every time I sat at a table I got asked "Are you Nord?" and speaking to dealers and players afterwards I got told that the Norwegians don't like 'foreigners' playing their tournaments as it's THEIR festival. Not all were like that but I did get that vibe.

This guy was friendly though!
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This was my favourite moment from the trip though, at the Village Green Card Club. I had my reasons (!) but I called 3 all in's preflop with 72ss! I was up against AKos, AQos and AJcc. Huge pot! Great reactions from 4 tables full of Irish guys! Had a lot of fun in that card room.






All in all it was a great trip, my first poker holiday and I managed to get a flag and ended in profit!
Posted 5 years ago
The official START of this blog was Monday, where I played my now-usual Monday night 5 card omaha tournament up in Bolton, Greater Manchester.

Since quitting spins and returning to tournaments, I have played this competition 6 times, and have either cashed or won it 5 of those times! It usually gets between 16-20 entries, it's only a local £20+7 tournament but I really do feel like it is printing money when I play. The one time I didn't cash, I made a big mistake and I know what I did wrong (With 5 players left and 4 paid), if it wasn't for that I would have a 100% record. A couple of the players are solid but most are SOOO bad at Omaha, and take the highest variance routes possible, which does result in them building stacks sometimes but they soon lose them.

I'm not a great Omaha player or even a 'very good' one, I'd place myself at Good or above average but the important thing in poker isn't being the best or playing perfect, it's about capitalising on the mistakes of your opponents, and they make a lot in this game. Of the 255,000 chips in play, I had over 70.000 of them after the first 2 hours with still 14 players left and didn't let up the rest of the night.

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Fast forward a few hours. 3 of us left (4 were paid) and the other 2 offered a chop. I was chip leader but only by around 10,000 chips. The other guy had about 30,000 less than me. Payouts were 3rd - £65 / 2nd - £105 / 1st - £145 and they wanted to chop for £105 each, equivalent to 2nd place each. I refused saying that I wanted £120. They offered £110 I refused again so we played on. This tilted the guy who was currently second and he ended up spewing his chips, giving most of them to the other guy so we were soon heads up. I lost a big pot and he had me covered by more than 2-1 then offered me £115 to end it. I agreed with my 7bb as the blinds were now huge as they get in these local comps.

So a nice start anyway, decent profit for the first night though I do expect to hit a bad run in this tournament at some point!

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Wouldn't mind hearing some opinions on the chop refusal... was it a dick move? Can easily lose 2 hands and be out third for £65
Posted 5 years ago
Don't know the math and I wouldn't say its a dick move but I'm personally taking the £110 with that payout structure and the high variance involved.
Posted 5 years ago
Not a great first night on the online side of things!

Took to Unibet for a few hours, play some PLO4 and also some MTTs and STTs in order to complete the "missions" which award points and tournament/cash game tickets. Busted a €2 MTT with no bounties, won 1 out of 3 €1 STTs for €1.94 and won a €1 satellite for a €5 MTT ticket!

Down around 2 buy-ins altogether on the cash, generally run like shit, in particular against one guy who stacked me twice which accounted for a lot of the loss, first time was KK against QQ pretty much, the second was all in on the turn with the nut straight on a rainbow board and he rivers quads, can't really be helped. I faced a LOT of aggression tonight and found myself playing too passive because of it, I went more into trapping mode but it didn't really work out.

I have earned a few tournament tickets though so they count for something I guess! Just need to turn it into real €€ when I use them! The points can also be turned into MTT and cash game tickets when the time comes but I am just going to save them up.

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So to recap for my very basic profit and loss sheet! Cash wise it's a loss but with the tickets it's around break even?

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Away from the tables, I'm created a playlist of around 4 hours worth of JNandez's PLO videos which I'm aiming to watch/study by the end of this weekend

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Tomorrow will be a tournament night on Pokerstars! 9 comps in total valuing $35, this is part of the backing package I've put together for the rest of April, can see more info or to get involved HERE

Thanks for reading, good luck!
Posted 5 years ago
I'll be following you, best of luck! Those chip stacks kinda make me what to go play live again. Maybe we'll end up sitting at the same tables.
Posted 5 years ago*
Thanks Ovi!

Kind of had a "quiet" session at the tables yesterday. Played PLO4 for a couple hours, but literally wasn't getting much, played small ball most of the time, won a few pots, lost a few pots. Only really got involved in 1 big pot, stacking off with 98A10 on a 998 flop and losing It wasn't me!Laugh but genuinely didn't get much going at all, the most I did was get hands that clear the challenges! Ended up €1.54 down for the session seeing 164 flops.

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Yet to book a profitable session this week, but lets see what the weekend brings!
Posted 5 years ago
Didn't have chance to play at the weekend really.

Monday was up to Bolton for the cash machine Omaha comp, unfortunately things didn't work out this week! The second time I've played it and not cashed - jinxed myself I think! Finished 6th with 3 getting paid. I had a decent enough stack, but took a punt in a hand when I just shouldn't have had. I gave too much value to my ace blocker to go with my second set but of course he had the top set (Aces) he had to really the way it played, but I paid him off. Was annoyed at myself because I knew it but just have to move on!

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Tonight, I had a $109 ticket I won in a satellite freebie on PartyPoker last week so played a $109 bounty builder turbo. Things were going REALLY well, decent stack, had won a couple of bounties. Should have been a few more, got 3 outered a number of times for bounties and decent stacks. The worst one was for a Top 10 stack 20 away from the bubble ($129 min cash) against a guy who decided to 3-bet Jam his monster hand K9 with 30 big blinds (And a $100 bounty) against my AK and just binks the 9. That took me to less than 20 bigs, had to raise fold a couple and then got it in with KQss against the same guy from above who just holds with his 66 Sad That stung, though the $50 in bounties did help a little.

I wasn't really playing on partypoker but I've now got a $50 bankroll from a freebie so will see what happens with that

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Onto Unibet, played some PLO4 for a couple hours, and ended in profit for once! Started off well going nearly 2 buy-ins up after the first 40 mins, but then lost it all to be down a bit before crawling back into a 1 buy-in profit for the session. Only had "the nuts" once all night but managed to get a full double up from it which was nice.

Played a few MTTs as well, to clear 'missions' and used my €10 ticket in a bounty hunter. Again I started off well but just couldn't finish anyone off for bounties and ended up not cashing and not taking any bounties. Earned a €1 mtt ticket in the process though. Played a €2 PLO MTT as well, stone cold bubbling that one! Only 21 runners, but got onto the final table and shoved aces on the bubble but couldn't hold so that was that! Overall a night of close calls!

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Tomorrow (Thursday) I'll play a couple of hours PLO4 again on Unibet and then evening time will be an MTT session on Pokerstars!

See yas soon
Posted 5 years ago
Time to review last week! Overall it went well!

Played the MTT session Pokerstars as above, with a nice run in the $7.50 Five Card Omaha Progressive Knock Out, finishing 4th out of 156 for around $66 (including bounties), sucks to come close to the win but it was a decent final table, and my first one since starting these Omaha MTT sessions (2nd session) so good for my confidence and to build on over the next couple of weeks

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Unibet was going well, with a nice few sessions in the green, including 2nd place in a €4 sit and go (from a ticket) and a win on the cash tables. We did hit a blip though, losing 1.5BI very quickly on the PLO4 tables, and I was tilted so quit the session early! I rarely get tilted like that but it was one of those guys who just pots it EVERY single street, no matter what he has, and he couldn't miss. He stacked me twice, I was on 3 tables and he was on each one and just doing the same thing every hand so it was just boring as well.

I was away at the weekend, but have some free time this week so will be grinding to get to my target of 2,500 flops seen at PLO4 this month!

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Onto live poker, and I wasn't going to play as I was away in Barnsley Saturday night but was able to get in back in time to register at my local Grosvenor casino for a reg-fee (£7) only comp which has unlimited £10 rebuys. I only took 1 rebuy and then added on so was in for a total of £27. There were 25 entries with around £600 in the pot, and I ended up chopping it heads-up. I took £150 and he took £170. So another half-decent result to add, so not doing too bad there! 3 live comps, and 2 second places (After finishing 6th in the Omaha comp last week, just short of the money)

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Plans for this week:

- See 1000+ flops at PLO4
- 2x MTT sessions
- Finish watching JNandez videos (from list above - 2 left to watch)
Posted 5 years ago
Small update for this week, played a bit over the last few nights. Some green in there for sure which is always nice and the bankroll back up in to the €70+

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I'm currently on 1359 flops seen for this month, and though I will be playing over the weekend I know that I won't be hitting the target I set of 2500. This is due to basically having to play Sit and Go's and MTT's to complete the "missions", you earn cash and tickets etc for these so I do think they have to be done but it does restrict me to 2-tabling the Omaha cash and playing them as well when I would rather be just playing 4 tables of cash.

I will be upping my hours in May so I think I will stick with my target of 5000 flops seen.
Posted 5 years ago
nice blog, il be following I do like to punt at PLO Wink