PLO is definitely swingy. Two days ago, I lost and won back 2.5 BI, and the last two days I'm down another 1.5 BI. Hardly anything to worry about, but there was definite bad play on my part that cost me; in fact, it might have cost me this entire amount. So, true to my new self, rather than fester over it, I'm going to record these mistakes and try and learn from them, so I don't repeat them.

1. Play in position, and don't reraise out of position. I know some guys say you should be reraising AAxx as long as you have at least a suit or some other decent combo because you have an equity edge, but I really disagree. For me to consider reraising OOP, I'd want a really strong hand that has 5-6 nut hand combos, not just 2-3. And even then, in my experience, it's almost never necessary to 3-bet preflop when people are only playing 100 BB stacks. For one thing, you have so much more deception when you flop a set of Aces, and for another, you aren't put in awkward positions when you miss...

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Short blog, just a reminder to me: stick to PLO please. The games are much easier, and you have a much bigger edge than in the HORSE or worse, Triple Draw, games. Today, you were up almost $100, and then you blew it playing bad games. Still up $12.50 for the day, but that isn't the point.

Only play good games, please. You can play the mixed games when you're better rolled and the rake won't kill you.

Yeah, actually kinda surprising to me, too, since I feel like I've been doing pretty well since about mid-June and assumed I was further ahead. A closer inspection of my records, however, revealed that I wasn't as far ahead as I thought.

Jan/Feb were abysmal, down $1400. Whatever, those were bad months, as I was still working, stressed, whatever. March was huge, as I won big playing live. The another huge downswong in April through JUNE actually, as I had several big live losses before recouping online in late June. July was a good month, positive, but it was interrupted by my losses in Vegas, which were still quite large relative to the stakes I'm playing online at this point. But it wasn't until yesterday that I actually got positive for the year (actually I was positive at beginning of April before downswing started again).

In terms of buy-ins relative to stakes, I am doing great, though. Up 20 BI at 25 PLO, and now up 12 BI at 50PLO (good day today, +4 BI). I plan to keep...

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This will probably be somewhat short, not a lot of specifics to discuss.

Friday night I absolutely ran like God except in one or two key spots. I won about 6 BI in 2 hours, my best session of PLO (probably of any big bet Poker online) to date, and I felt great. This was despite losing with an overfull to quads twice (once I got in good, the other time the guy had flopped it and I got unlucky to turn 8's full).

In usual style, however, that momentum didn't carry into my next day, and I lost about half of it back, mostly in PLO, the rest in $2/$4 HORSE, both of which I ran terribly in, although I'm sure I lost a few bucks I didn't have to in PLO thanks to some loose play. Lost once again with an overfull to quads (how does that happen three times in a two day span?), and had some sick beats in the other games. In Stud-8, I ended up calling down with Kings up against a guy showing 8's, just because I couldn't believe he would call my opening raise with two eights (and I didn't think...

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Haven't played much PLO the last two days, in part because my ISP has been ultra-unreliable (I hate DSL, but it is free for the time being), and I don't like getting disconnected in the middle of 300 BB pots.

I have been playing some more HORSE in recent days, and really been enjoying it. The tables on Stars have been somewhat rejuvinated at the lower limits, perhaps because it is being publicized more, which is great for Poker. Also good for me, because it seems like in every game I sit down, in each round there seem to be one or two players who are just terrible (and it's not the same players in each variant). I am by no means an expert at ALL the games, and there is probably a better player than me in almost every round of every game I sit. But, I would wager that I am probably the second or third best player in every variant, which means I can make money in pretty much every round, which I like. Mixed games are so much more fun to me, although I wish they could throw in Triple Draw...

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