WatHpnsInVgs

February is in the books!

Private Discord Games (mainly 50PL): -$751
Didn't go so well this month after a big downswing at the start of the month. Definitely hit my confidence a bit but we ground back over the month and although we didn't get even, we reduced the deficit.

GG Poker (10PL): +$149.22
Games went pretty well. I feel like I'm ahead of the 10PL field and as the roll grows there I'll move up. I may even deposit some and just give it a go once I hit a decent sample at 10PL.

Live poker (1/2): +£3560 / $4495
Went well but a very small sample of 2 sessions, 1 PLO and 1 NLHE. The hold'em felt great after only playing PLO for most of the last 2 years. The PLO game felt like I was stealing money. Not going to lie, was pretty sauced in both games and no idea what my bar tab and tips which I pay out of my stack came to at the end...

Total for the month comes to +$3,893

2024 Total: +$8,026

Been a while since an update, very much my fault, been gallivanting around in the snow for a while.

January was my best month for poker in terms of buyins and work ethic that I think I've ever had. I played pretty much every day, worked through RIO videos and joined a PLO study group. I clearly ran very well too but I'm not going to complain.

I'm excited for February and the rest of the year but, spoiler alert, February has not started well....

I thought I'd make more money in a regular job and I can always play poker on the side. Just because you have a job, doesn't mean you can't crush poker too.

I worked a pretty intense finance job for a while before starting my own business and doing some contract work for investment firms.

Bit late with Week 3 as I took a couple days in the country with my dog, had an awesome time but I think he had an even better time than me.

Poker took a little bit of a back seat this week as my wife and son were leaving the country on Saturday so I was spending more time with them and getting them set up to travel. They're back in 3 weeks so I'll have some time to get more poker in and ski!

Results in the private game were a little tougher this week but as you can imagine the games are so swingy and trying to read into a weeks results is a pretty pointless exercise. Just got to keep getting the reps in and hopefully the results will come.

Excited for a couple more poker focused weeks but I'm also a fanatical skier and own a ski goggle/clothing company. I'll be heading out to the mountains soon so will be combining two loves of my life, skiing and poker. I got some new custom boots made which I've been holding off on for years and also got some new daily skis to keep in the UK for the trips to new places where you don't know what you'll find.

I watched HorseOfHell's great 10/20 play and explain on GG and I can't wait to see more from him. I've also signed up to join a study group so hopefully I get assigned to a great team to work with. I wasn't sure whether to say I play online or live as the games I play are typically much more like a live private game than a normal online game but the online game is probably where I'll get the fundamentals of my game down.

I am so excited about the next 3 weeks to get some deep focus work done on my game and kick off 2024 as I mean to continue.

Loved the video!

I think having a combination of live and post commentary is great, it show's the difference between thinking on the fly and what you can get to when you have more time to process the spot. The more we can close this gap in our own play the better.

Really enjoyed the video, especially the section where you broke down the 43252 board and looked at the effect of the blockers on your bluff frequencies. I'm not sure I'm going to be following GTO though here in the pools I play in as I'm not sure I'm going to be getting many folds...

I haven't had the chance to work in Visions much recently but do you complete/call more in the SB? I seem to remember in From The Ground Up, Thomas said this was something we do very rarely?

Really enjoyed the vid overall - jsut a point of preference for me and maybe some others, is there any chance you could use a 4 colour deck when recording for the videos? No worries if not as I'll watch anyway but just easier on the eyes.

Hey - great to see the start of the blog!

I was at a similar spot in my mid twenties but chose the path of a regular (ish) job and playing poker for fun on the side. I'm a recreational now but still take it seriously and want to win.

Whatever happens, just make sure you are enjoying it as well. Turning something from a hobby to a job is tough and the pressure can affect the desire to keep playing. I look forward to hearing how you deal with the mental side of things as well as the poker itself.

Wishing you all the best and looking forward to the ride.

I'll have to physically deal these hand out to follow them lol

Good luck! Nice introductory post, I'm looking forward to following along this year. Keep it consistent and work as much on the mental side of things as the technical and I'm sure you'll be fine.

Glad you're getting out and enjoying Scotland! I really believe it's one of the most beautiful places on Earth if you enjoy the wilderness. Good luck on the tables and keep up the grind, the big result will come!

I don't have any experience in this game but I'm going to have to go away and have a read so I can follow these better! Glad you've found a good mix to get stuck into and the study hours are going well.

It wouldn't be any fun if it was easy!

I don't have as much time to study as I'd like so I always try to learn more abnout how the coach thinks than just the specific area they're looking at. I'll enver get to where they are, but I think that'll help me think on the fly in other areas rather than rote learning what they're talking about.

Results good so far but games like this are super swingy. Lost 20BI in 2 days the week before New Year! Just going to keep my head down and work hard at it. Results will come.

100% I'll be in the PLO one, not sure I have time to dedicate to 2 because I'm sure the mixed game one will be great. Will drop you a message on Discord.

People are breaking off from forums and moving to things like Discord a lot more these days.

I like keeping a journal here for fun but it'll be as much for myself to go back and read in the future as it is for people now.

Week 2 in the books.

A quieter week on the study front, the only new PLO content was a great video from Volodymyr Sabanin drilling into facing flop 3-bets with sets. It's a reasonably specific spot but he broke it down really nicely and I found it really useful, especially getting an insight into how a good thinking player breaks down a spot. When I have weeks like this I should spend more time going over FTGU PLO which I didn't do this week unfortunately.

Results were good this week.

Private Game - 6 sessions, +$1340 / 27BI

I played a little on the app as well and lost a couple buyins at smaller stakes. Not sure what RB I'll get either but I'll prob just report back on these on a montly basis as I don't have a load of volume here.

No GG this week either, will try get back on there this week.

Goal for this week is to get some poker in but will be a bit reduced as have some family travel coming up that I need to get ready for. Will try prioritise study sessions but if the private online game is running, I'll jump into that for sure.

There's no rush to move up into the bigger games just yet. Build that foundation over a couple of months and then take it as it comes. I saw you in the Discord, I hope you find people to talk through these mixed games with.

Thanks Douglas! Very much in a family first, poker second situation still but hopefully can get a decent number of sessions in. He sleeps on a pretty decent schedule so fingers crossed.

I'll try weigh in on some mixed hands, been a while since I've played anything since PLO though. I worry this thread might get me back in the mixed games too...

I'm not really a NLHE player but looking forward to following some higher stakes action in this thread - good luck!

Really enjoyed this video, I've just come back to RIO so I'm going to have to work my way through your recent back catalogue too. I hope I can take away more of the thought process between splitting the decision tree for different groups of hands and use it in game.

Looking forward to what's next!

I love some of these mixed game mixes on the apps. Good luck with the games and hope you find enough content to get stuck into!

First week in the books and it's been good being back on the tables.

Studywise we watched Dhruv Bhargava's 'Get Good at Preflop Now' which was a fun video, biggest takeaway for me was the section on squeezing and looking for more spots to take a more aggreesive action. I also watched Hunter Cichy '25-25-50 PLO BestBet Live: Rapid Fire' - obviosuly the content here is well above where I am but I really enjoyed the video and I'm sure that if I keep watching and taking notes on these videos, positive changes in my game will occur.

Results have been ok, I've played in 3 places, our private online game ($0.5/0.5), on a public app game ($0.1/0.2) and 10PL on GG Poker.

Private Game - 6 Sessions, +$952 / 19BI

The games have jsut been crazy this week, not really what I expected for the week after the holidays but let's hope it continues!

GG - 1338 Hands - +$95ish

Running good on GG so far, I won't be playing here a ton but just getting some hands in for practice.

App games I barely played this week but up a buyin or so.

Happy with this week but it's early days, just happy to be back on the felt and grinding again.

Awesome thread, enjoyed catching up on it this morning, will subscribe and looking forward to reading more!

Thanks for this - love the live style videos where the play is a bit deeper and seeing what adjustments are made. Looking forward to more PLO from you!

Bit late to the party on this but I really enjoyed this video and will be working through the rest of your content over the next week or so. Welcome to RIO!

Thanks for the fast and honest feedback, it's much needed!

Slow pony, also playing 8game mix and would be interested in this, skype is Jakejenkz.