Subscribed!

I'm in! Third time lucky man. Will be interesting to see a PLO poker journal develop for a change. GL, GL, GL!!!!!

I will subscribe as well, really interested in some high stakes action! :D
GL

Thanks a lot, guys. I can't guarantee frequent updates, but I will try to make this one count.

The longest breakeven stretch thus far

So today, I just got out of the longest downswing in my poker career (well, this is a mathematically ambiguous and not-so-rigorous statement but let's not dwell on it).

This downswing started in late October right after I jumped into a new site, so it lasted for a bit shy of 4 months and about 500 playing hours. I don't know the exact number of hands I played during this time, but it should be at least 100k hands if I had to guess. And this is the longest breakeven stretch I've had thus far in my poker career in every measure -- for the longest calendar months, longest playing hours, and the most amount of hands.

Actually, there's a bit more to it than that. I was playing my A-game nearly all the time and had confidence that I was beating the game. These games were also the highest stakes I've played in my career. Normally, this would mean that I was supposed to win a lot of money.

But the situation wasn't normal. And I often forget this, but there's no "supposed to" in poker. We're not supposed to think in that way. I very quickly lost $10k in the first few days and never could see the light of day for the next 100+ days. I lost the vast majority of all-ins and got coolered nonstop.

I think I understand poker variance better than most regs, but this was grotesquely horrendous. There were days where I would lose every 80-20 flips with the winning hand, or get 1- or 2-outered all the time in a pretty huge pot, so much so that I thought I forgot how to win all-ins. And it just wouldn't get any better.

Long story short, I didn't win any money that I was supposed to win. Instead, poker cost me a lot of money and confidence. Countlessly many times during this downswing, I just wanted to give up poker altogether and find a job. This idea has never occurred to me before, but I guess I was reaching my breaking point -- it was just too much to handle and everything felt so unfair.

Why do they keep cold calling my 4-bet with TT93r and hit top set every time? Why do their bottom sets spike 1 outer in a 20k+ pot? Why can't I win a single flip? And sometimes, why did I just get disconnected with the nuts on the river? The stress from these "whys" were piling up every session, and eventually I became to complain about it to my friends (especially to Lance) a few times a day, which is very rare for me (if you know me in person, you would know).

I came very close to quitting poker. At some point I was working on my CV and looking for post-doc positions and regular (i.e. non-poker) jobs. I started worrying about my finance and wondered if I should move to a cheaper place. And most importantly, I wasn't sure if I could enjoy playing poker anymore. It always used to be fun, but well.. I don't know, I just wasn't sure anymore.

But I didn't quit. Instead, I kept playing and losing even more. It wasn't so much that I didn't want to quit -- I'm sure as hell I did -- as that I couldn't quit just yet. Every time I talked to Lance about this, something became clearer and clearer: I haven't yet given my best shot at poker, and I'd regret it later if I quit now.

In retrospect, it shouldn't have mattered how bad I was running.

Here's an example. At some point I was down about 50 BI's, of which 40-45 was due to the bad run; there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. But it was also a classic misdirection. Focusing on it not only added to frustration and stress, but also eclipsed the fact that I was still bleeding 5-10 BI's by making suboptimal plays in other spots.

These were fixable mistakes that I really had to go after, yet I didn't bother to see them and left them kaput. In other words, those 5-10 BI's weren't just 10-20% of my total loss; they were 100% responsible for it.

I'm an avid boxer, and what I was doing is analogous (if not synonymous) to letting my guard down because well, lots of punches were already landing on me. That's usually not a good way to defend. If I were in the ring, I would have got knocked out almost instantly. So at this point, I really had two choices: keeping my guard up, or throwing in the towel if I can't.

I knew I was beat but not beaten, so I decided to keep my guard up. For the next however many hours or days or weeks, until I can't take it anymore. It was not simple at all, and I hate to break this to you, but poker doesn't start treating you nicely just because you changed your mind and kept your guard up. As they say, variance has no memory (although I felt like it did).

Still, I had to do something.

First, I decided to use all my focus on the hands that matter, the ones that I could have played differently. Once I really started focusing on them, I realised that I was screwing up lots of hands in many different (and usually incoherent) ways. Bluff catching very light in certain spots, while making ridiculously tight folds in others, and so on. Most of these pots were small to medium sized, but at this point, every penny counted and mattered to me. I would still lose lots of 5 BI+ flips, but I didn't give a damn anymore -- I just didn't have enough time for that. And this gradually helped me relieve stress.

And then I knew, I needed a better work-life balance and a routine. Throughout my poker career, I had never really kept any routine. I pretty much started playing when I wanted to, and quit when I no longer did (or could). I could still put in a decent volume because poker was fun and I had no problem putting in hours doing something fun, but it just didn't look right. Occasionally I would play long sessions, and the quality of my decision dropped by a lot. Other times I would play short sessions and feel like I have a lot of unused energy.

I thought this had to stop and made a new routine. The idea was to play 3-4 sessions a day, 2 hours each, with enough breaks in between. First hand in by 8-9 AM, and last hand out by 5 PM. Play each and every hand in the best way possible, and tag every hand where I was unsure of what to do. But when the clock hits 5, quit playing and do something else. Exercise, eat, and sleep well.

I can't say I did this to perfection, but I did my best for the next 200 or so hours. For example, I have been waking up in the morning everyday ever since, which I've never done since my freshman year. I have also been tagging 20+ hands (sometimes close to 50) a day, no matter how small the pots. Lots of these pots were pretty small and looked trivial, but I could still spot my mistakes and fix them to improve my game.

The results didn't immediately get better, but things started looking up and I almost got out of my downswing in mid January. But right then, again, I dropped another 30 BI's and hit the second rock bottom to see all my hard work end in vain in just a few sessions. Uhh, this was frustrating. Actually, I should modify this sentence. It was very, very frustrating. I wished it didn't happen. I wished poker were just a bit fairer to me. I just wanted to puke and sleep and never wake up.

But deep down in my heart, I knew I still have some strength left. And I also knew my methods were working for the most part. Once again, my choices were either to keep the guard up or give it all up. And once again, I stuck with the former for another 150 hours.

And just like that, I broke even today, for the first time in the last 500 hours. I was munching on the Emerald glazed walnuts when this happened. Actually, I did more than just breaking even. I made about $3k in the last 500 hours. $6/hour is a lot less than my expected hourly, but infinitely better than <$0/hour, so I'll take it. Also, I often forget this, but there is no such thing as "expected hourly" in poker. Last time I checked, Walmart didn't take my expected $$.

I am pretty happy to get out of this downswing, but not as much as I probably should be. And I think that's because I knew this was just gonna be a matter of time. Now, there are two caveats here. First, I could know I can do this -- that takes a lot of confidence. Gaining that confidence back was a huge challenge, but I managed to do it thanks to my friends. I can't thank Lance enough. I am also deeply grateful for Phil, Chae, and Sungil. Poker is a solo game but I couldn't have done any of this without their inspiration and support.

Second, I also know that another downswing, the next one, is just a matter of time, too. It will happen again for sure as hell, and who knows how horrendous it can be.

But next time, I won't look away or think of giving up -- I'll look straight into it and keep walking through it, eyes open, guards up, and focus on, until the next upswing.

And ditto, ditto with poker.

-- midori

Very interesting reading! If its possible post some hands as well.

$6/hour

Can I have fries with that? :P

Congrats on pulling through hard times!

Midori, I resonate a lot with your post on BE, even thought stakes are way different. GL and subbed

GL always, Subscribed!

Deep stacked poker is interesting for two reasons. First, it messes up people's range because they have to adjust to the high SPR. Second, it messes up people's range because they feel like they have to adjust to the high SPR.

In some cases there is hardly any reason for us to change your strategy, but most of us do. For example, when we are the check/caller in a single raised pot, it doesn't matter if we are 100bb deep or 1000bb deep. This is PLO, the pot isn't gonna snowball into 600bb, maybe not even 250bb.

But, most players seem to think differently, and I'll keep trying to exploit them until I figure out why.

update plz

It's been a while, guys. Life has been hectic, lots of things happened, and I was very busy and well, concerned.

I'm mostly playing HU PLO lately, with occasional 6max when there's no HU action. It's going all right I guess.. except that I'm probably running like 80-100 BI's below EV. :/ It is what it is, though.

I have been putting in 150+ playing hours every month on average, and probably something like 200-220 including studying. I didn't think poker will ever burn me out, but it actually did and still does. I'm still enjoying it, but sometimes I feel like it's a tad bit too much. Which is a sad feeling.. and I think the best way to unburn myself is writing about poker, as I once did.

Looking back, I wrote a TON about poker and really enjoyed it. These days, eh, all I write about poker is the 40-50 liner notes I write on my HU opponents, and that's more like a mere recording than writing. Bleh.

So yeah, I'll try to write more about poker. Not quite sure what I'll specifically write about, but there should be something I can ramble on because after all poker is taking up a lot of my time, a lot more than anything else in my life ever did (save for playing the piano and reading). It'll be really sad if I can't come up with anything.

This journal is mostly for myself and I won't really pay attention to the readers -- i.e. I'll write about whatever I want to write about and that'll be it. Still, I'd be honoured if my posts will make you think about a thing or two in poker. In the end I think we're all in the same boat, more or less.

-- midori

Can we get some giraffes?

Very interesting to read! And what great work ethics you have, but I guess that's what it takes to reach so high! Hope you run +ev soon both at the table and off the table!

I guess you play on asian sites so... I know collusion is pretty common there, but obv if you play in those sites you have a clue about what's going on. So my main question is, aren't you scared of getting cheated pretty much every single hand?

As far as I know, collusion is a big issue on pretty much every site, not just Asian ones. Which is unfortunate, but what can we do about it :/

Good thing for me is that most of my volume comes from HU and I don’t need to worry about collusion, unless the site itself is rigged.

If I were to play in a game where I can get cheated every single hand, yes that would be pretty scary and annoying, but I think I will be able to get by. In fact, I managed to rake in a decent profit for 6-7 months in these games against colluders, althought I didn’t know I was up against colluders back then.

Love your work ethic midori you are an inspiration.

Wow it's been so long I completely forgot about this thread.

I just read some of my old posts again and thought I should resume writing about poker.

So I'll do that from tomorrow on. Right now I'm a bit sleep deprived so I'll try to catch some sleep first.

Yawn.

Hoping to see you come back. You have a gift for writing.

Looking forward for update :)

Okay, so.. I've been taking a break off poker for about 10 days now. I was busy traveling and dealing with people, but I can't be like this forever.

Let's start with this -- somehow this almost always worked for me.

December Goal

I'll keep it simple. I will close out this year by:

Putting in 180 hours of playing poker
Studying 30 hands thoroughly
Studying 1 hour of Polish every day
Writing 4 posts in this journal
Working out 3 times a week
Having fun in general

And I'll also try to:

Play more 5 card PLO variants
Achieve 8bb/100 winrate
Get lucky I guess?

Good luck to everyone in this month.

-- midori

December Progress

Okay, I have two more days left in this month and year, but I won't count much on them. So here's how I did..

a) I played ~140 hours in this month. I will close out at 150-155, which is still a bit short of my goal of 180 but I guess I'm okay with it. I blew a few days trying to flip my sleeping schedule. My volume suffered a bit because of it, but I'm pretty happy with my daily routine these days.

b) I studied about 15 hands thoroughly, although I reviewed a ton more. Thanks to this, I improved a lot and became pretty strong in certain spots. I still think I should have studied more hands in depth.

c) I didn't put in 1 hour every day, but I spent 20-25 hours studying Polish in this month. And I feel like it's improving! Mam nadzieję, że znajdę więcej osób, z którymi mogę mówić po polsku.

d) I didn't write any post in this journal. :/

e) I also didn't work out too often. I'm getting back into climbing and it's a lot harder than I thought. Well, I can only blame myself.

f) I think I'm having a lot of fun playing poker, and also outside of poker.

g) I played some amount of 5 card PLO variants, but the games didn't run very often. I failed to achieve 8bb/100 winrate for this month. And I didn't get very lucky, I guess?

Well, I'll try hard for the next 2 days and maybe take a day off on Jan 1st.

Good luck to you all,

-- midori

Glad to see your new update

January Goal

In the increasing order of difficulty:

Play 60k hands, study 15 hands, and lose 5 pounds.

Hello. midori
i read some of your articles in RIO so i personally very respect you. i want to get coaching from you. can i have your email?