Nemquin

Read this (by Joey Ingram, high stakes PLO pro):
http://onepokerlife.com/zoom/

This made my day. I genuinely smiled when I was told about this. #WhiteWednesday anyone?

The whole country license thing is going to be a pain. I'm interested to see how they will approach this. But, hopefully we get to play from Denmark. :)

Better call the fire department, someone just got burnt! :D

I think it depends on the individual. Poker may be simpler in its planning than in business. But I think they share many similarities. The reason for assigning a specific time to your time blocks, is that it helps avoid procrastination and laziness. You don't just have to do something at some point, you have set a specific time to do it. Plus, it gives you a nice overview of the rest of the day and how much time you have available for other things. :)

Interesting video, Leszek. You continue to provide good quality videos. A quick note, the quadrants of time management are actually known as Eisenhower's decision matrix, or at least based on it as far as I'm aware.

I couldn't agree more with the importance of planning your day. But I think it is important to stress the need to not just craft to-do lists, but assign time and deadlines for your tasks. In other words, instead of saying you need to do task A, B and C tomorrow. You would assign task A to 9-10 am, task B to 1-3pm etc. In fact, according to a Forbes article many successful people don't use to-do lists at all, but rely heavily on their calendars.

It's definitely an interesting topic. One that has been researched heavily within the field of business and organisation.

I almost forgot to add. Research indicates that the concept of multitasking is not actually possible for humans to do. When we are doing more things at one time, we actually shift between these tasks in short bursts of time. This continuous shift leads to quicker fatigue and is difficult to do for a longer period of time.

Check out this short video on this notion: http://bigthink.com/think-tank/dan-harris-multitasking-lies

I'm not a dietitian, but yes, drink lots of water. Tea (green tea, no sugars) is great as well. It provides natural energy similar to that of coffee without the "crashing" effect.

Also, there are many types of food that improve brain performance such as blueberries. Most important thing is to maintain steady blood sugar levels. This means NOT eating large meals. Eat small meals steadily throughout the day to avoid spikes and drops in blood sugar.

A quick example:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with fruits
Snack: Fruit and some nuts
Lunch: Salad with turkey, chicken or fish.
Snack: Carrots with unsweetened peanut butter.
Dinner: Salmon veggies and bulgur.

Try to eat something roughly every third hour, and limit high calorie carbs such as pasta and rice for days where you are very active (exercise/workouts).

Food is an advances science, and as consumers it's a dangerous jungle out there with a wealth of misguided, ungrounded information in the shape of fad diets and self-proclaimed fitness coaches with no real training.

One tip for steering around the less trustworthy, is to look for dietitians rather than nutritionists. A dietitian has gone through academic and practical training and is licensed. "A nutritionist is a non-accredited title that may apply to somebody who has done a short course in nutrition or who has given themselves this title. The term Nutritionist is not protected by law in almost all countries so people with different levels of and knowledge can call themselves a “Nutritionist”" (http://eatrightdc.org).

Well, this turned out to be a long post. Hope it was helpful.

Yes, I have to admit I had the same thoughts when I wrote it. :D

I think stats are of lesser importance at these stakes due to us playing an exploitable style rather than unexploitable. This causes our stats to vary due to the many different situations and players we encounter in these large playerpools. Some would say you're a little too tight, others would say it's fine, but the results are speaking for themselves. Even if the sample isn't huge, 40 BI upswings don't happen if you play bad, so you must be doing something right.

I don't think we can just forego 3b opportunities because we "feel like" it's not profitable, because it definitely is. On the other hand, 3betting something like 10-14% would be counterproductive in these games.

In my experience, good old solid TAG works quite well. The key factors are to work on the implications of SPR, board textures, and HU pots vs MW pots.

Hope this is of help to you. :)

I quite liked this video. At first the somewhat slow pace had my mind wandering. But as you got more into the material I started to fight that instinct and apply my focus. Being a musician for almost 11 years made it easy for me to relate to many of your points. Also, Leszek really seems like a fantastic signing. :)

It looks to me as if you have the same problem I've had for a long time. You expect too much too soon. Your expectations aren't met, so you try barking up a different tree for a while, until the cold hard truth hits you again.

Poker is tough, it is not as easy as it was in 2007, but it is still beatable. But most of all, it requires patience and discipline. Pick whichever type of poker you enjoy the most and find most interesting and then stick with it. Even if the hourly might be less, you will find it easy to put in the time and effort to learn and grind.

A classic piece of advice, is that people think they understand variance, but in reality they dont. Even a flawless destroyer with perfect work-ethics who is a 6bb/100 winner will have a winrate between -2bb to +12bb/100 winrate over 2 million hands. Standard deviation and variance my friend. (These numbers are based on the popular DC series "Tolerance").

Keep your head up, prepare yourself mentally, pick a battleground and do your best. Good luck!

This is an interesting spot. Player tendencies and stack sizes affect how we should play this hand quite a bit. Assuming we're up against a decent player, his BTN 3b range against CO open should be on the wider side, and not just AAxx heavy.

We have decent equity Holding an A blocker with the NFD and a pair. This is a pretty strong hand in a spot where ranges aren't as tight as some think they are.

His bet size is quite interesting, on the turn he could both be trying to get you to fold cheaply, or be trying to set up for a river shove. I think the turn is the key street in this hand. I think we should either go with it and shove, or give up. I think he has enough hands like AKKx, KQJT, JT98, QQTJ to justify getting it in with two pair and a NFD.

If he has AA, JJ or AJ that's just unfortunate.

I love how you go "oooh" when Aleks makes mistake, it's like your watching a movie in a theater. :D

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you trying to learn both PLO AND SNG as a beginner at the same time? If so, take a step back and consider which you'd like to learn first and focus on that.

The only PLO book that people really seem to recommend are Jeff Hwang's classics, but they are a bit out dated at this point but help you build a solid foundation.

You can find them on http://www.jeffhwang.com/the-books.html
Alternatively you should check out the article series by bugs, which is based on these books. It's completely free and can be found here: http://en.donkr.com/Articles/Category/PLO-from-scratch!-14

As analihilator points out, deciding on your hand in PLO can't be condensed into a chart. You need to look at your hand components and understand what makes each component good or bad and why. This is only one aspect of hand selection, but it's probably the one most beginning PLO players struggle with.

I think with your dedication and focus on quality over quantity, you should do fine :)

Good job. Friendly reminder though: sample size.

Both of these software products provide the basic functions you need to track and analyze poker. They each have some small features exclusive to them.

Holdem Manager 2
- Fast Import
- In-app software update
- More filters
- Possibility for third party app add-ons (tableninja, leakbuster, tablescanner etc.)

Poker Tracker 4
- Mac support
- Included leakbuster-like tool
- Custom filter/stat creator (requires some advanced knowledge)
- Import Database from HM1/HM2/PT3

Those are some of the key features I can think of. In the end it's up to personal preference. I lean towards Poker Tracker as I think it's visually better looking. Also, the note taking feature seems much more thought-through compared to HM2.

But as mentioned, they both provide the core features a poker player needs and the price is pretty much the same.

2 PLO Zoom tables comes out at about 360 hands/hour. This means you need to play just under 56 hours a month on average. As Tom says, that's about 2 hours pr day. This should be quite doable unless you are very busy with other things. :)

However, I do feel a stop loss of 4 BIs is possibly a bit too conservative. Losing 4 BIs in a session is very likely at PLO.

At any rate, best of luck to you.

Messi won it because he's Messi. He was not even in the top 5 for this tournament in my opinion. By the looks of it, he didn't agree with him winning it either. James, Robben, Zabaleta, Müller and Kroos were all better in my opinion.

I can't answer the actual question for you, but I can give you my own personal opinion. I'd rather Phil NOT put up a video than having him put up a mediocre video simply because he 'has to'. Quality over Quantity. I'm assuming he's been busy playing the WSOP and being awesome.

That is indeed a hard question. This is where self-analysis comes in. Some find coaches to help point out these areas while others are able to discover them on their own. However, I see many attribute their success to healthy study groups. However, one way to do it is to do as ZenFish suggests to look up specific situations in your database and see how well or how bad you are doing. Then critically analyse these areas and make sure to get feedback from others who's opinion you trust. Sometimes a simple hint at a way to view a hand can have a massive effect.

But all in all, there are no 'masters' of poker, there are too many variables and opinions to truly find a right answer in all situations. But a good start is definitely to look at hands where you lost and see why you lost, what could you have done differently? What do you think would have happened if you chose path C instead of path A, B or D? Maybe even set specific criteria as a topic for the day. An example could be low-medium wraps you 3b.

Please keep in mind that I am not a poker expert, I'm simply trying to apply basic academic theory and thought process to poker. There are probably others who are much more qualified than me to give you concrete suggestions.

Maybe it's not the fact that more tables tilt you easier, maybe it's because the timeframe you have to make your decisions with 4 tables is too short at the moment, so you end up making less optimal decisions. This is the typical paradox of how much of your winrate is worth sacrificing for the added volume since you're unlikely to have both a high winrate and volume. Just because you CAN play 24 tables doesn't necessarily mean you should. :)

I think this directly relates to the process of mastering a skill. As most of us probably know by now, it takes a long time to "master" something, some even say 10000 hours. But this doesn't mean that after spending 10000 hours you're automatically a master. It has to be dedicated quality studying/practice time. You need to know what to study, and test yourself.

I read an article about a week ago about learning, and according to a study, the most effective way to learn something properly, is by studying 33% of the time, and testing yourself critically 66% of the time.

They concluded this based on a study of students preparing for the exams. One group spent most of the time studying the material, where the second group also studied, but were given several tests. The second group outperformed the first group quite significantly. This is definitely relevant to studying poker.

Also, human beings have a tendency to do what we are good at, what comes easy or natural to us. Whether it's playing an instrument, doing excercise or playing poker. The skill to learning, is learning to learn properly. Dedicated, critical, quality time focusing on weaknesses and trouble areas while repeatedly testing yourself, preferably outside your comfort zone.

TL:DR - Quality studying with 33% studying/66% testing, focus on weaknesses, jump into the deep water to maximize experience.

Not to be captain buzzkill, but on your "bad graph" you are also up about 11 BIs after 11k hands. Both sample sizes are very small. Be careful not to put too much into it. Trust me, I've done this lots and lots and lots and lots of times. Just try not to focus on results at all, just focus on every individual hand. If you make good decisions, the rest will follow.

That being said, it's much easier to make good decisions while positive, so crack on mate!

Hi, I'll give it a shot despite failing one of the requirements. I'm 25 and from Denmark. I switched to PLO from NLHE not too long ago. I'm not incredible in any aspect, but I'm a fast learner. I'm working on a semester report at the moment, but when I'm done I will commence a bankroll builder project starting at 0.02/0.05 PLO.

I know I'm playing at smaller stakes, but if it proves to be a problem for the rest of the group, I'll respect that.

I PM'd you my skype ID Mathieu.

Great news! Guess the only way it would have been better is if he was an Essential pro :P