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Last two sessions of PLO haven't been the greatest. Not the worst, either, but not the greatest. I have lost value in a few key spots, but I've taken by share of rough beats as well, as evidenced from todays BB posts. The good news is, I'm still in the black at 25/50, still improving my game, and I did cash in the Turbo Takedown for $150.

Let's deal with the tournament first. It was very uneventful. I almost never picked up a hand, the blinds were ridiculously fast, and players dropped like flies. I won one crucial race with AQ vs. 66 that allowed me to cash, doubled up with KK right after the bubble, won another 60-40 with AJ against a guy's K9, but finally got ground down, and pushed 5 BB from the SB with [5d 4d], getting called by [Kc 6s] in the BB, flopping a pair and gutshot, but getting caught on the turn and failing to river a winner. Oh well. A few hours, 5000 FPP, and $150 in return. No complaints, and I look forward to the next one. A chance at a really big prize with...

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In Poker, on any given day, chances are that if you get a favorable run of cards, you will win, and if you get a bad run of cards, you will lose. People who don't understand Poker suffer from one of two misconceptions:

1. Poker is just gambling and there isn't much skill, or,
2. Poker is all about skill and cards really don't matter.

Cards matter a ton. When the betting goes down, the game is a matter of skill. But once the money goes in, the game is all luck, or more accurately, all probabilities. So obviously, it stands to reason that winning players maximize their expectation when probability is on their side, and minimize losses when it isn't.

This is a fancy way of saying that on any given day, a good player can lose and a bad player can win. BUT, given the same run of cards, a good player will always win more than the bad player with a favorable run of cards, and will always lose less than the bad player with an unfavorable run of cards. This is a lesson I have taken...

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I'm up about 2.5 buy-ins so far at 50PLO; as I noted before, the main difference so far is that players are more aggressive than at 25PLO. More pots are getting raised preflop (though still not a ton of 3-betting), and players are a little less prone to getting bullied when they have position. That said, the game is still fairly easy, as a lot of people are overplaying their hands (especially Aces), and overvaluing hands at the wrong time, drawing to straights and flushes on paired boards, etc.

Had a few good turns of luck today. On a T-9-7 board, I bet with a set of 9's after it got checked to me. One guy called, and I checked behind him when a 5 came on the turn. The river was the glorious 9, and he bet pot into me. We got all the money in, and I saw that I one outted his TTxx. Still, if the 9 doesn't come on the river, I probably don't get ALL the money in.

Also made a quads on two additional instances (though not needed either time), and I rivered a straight flush against...

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I passed my goal of making 20 BI at $0.10/$0.25 PLO (that's $500), so I decided that it's time to take a shot at $0.25/$0.50 PLO, and step down if I lose like 5-6 buy-ins there. So far so good though, as about the only differences I've seen at 50 PLO is that players are slightly more aggressive--however, they still play bad hands, still get sucked in when they shouldn't, and make some very transparent moves that cost them money. Was a bit of a slow day today hands-wise, but I did make a little more than half a buy-in.

As Stars is offering a deposit bonus for their 2X promotion, I plunked down the maximum $600, and I'm now going to play like crazy to claim that $240 bonus. The good news is, the points go up MUCH faster at 50 PLO than they did at 25 PLO, and I earned like 400 points today alone. At that rate, I should make Gold Star by Wednesday, and if I keep playing well for a few hours a day, I will get my bonus sometime next month (I need base 4800 VPP to get the $240, not too...

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Been playing more PLO and Triple Draw the last few days, grinding out small wins here and there, continuing my lastest streak of good online results. Up about $440 on Stars since my deposit last month, and I'm pretty happy about it.

Been thinking a lot about my game, and some of supafrey's criticism of my NL Hold'em advice. I trust his insight because he is a much better NL player than I am... I think my experience has been tainted somewhat because I have played at a lot of levels, mixed so much live and online, and gotten very odd feedback from the game on occasion. Somewhere in my development, I guess I decided I could just beat bad players with a weak-tight style (because that's what it is), and sort of regressed into that. Not sure how much effort I will put into changing it, because NL cash games are very boring to me now, although I would like to play some tournaments. I'm for sure playing in the Turbo Takedown a week from tomorrow. Come on, I deserve a win after all the...

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