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BOOM, am now in (tiny) profit since my return, & have got the Games Won % above 56% at last. 55% is the minimum target.
My concentration levels were much better, but still a long way from where I want them to be.
I have I-pad "Message", & chat to my young lady a lot in the evenings (she lives a long way from me, so we don't see much of each other), but that does not help my focus on the poker
Won 8 from 9 @ £5.50, but really ruined what might have been a great day by losing both £11 games, for a negative swing of over £40. Was unlucky in the first, & in the 2nd, I just never found anything to go to war with.
Can't complain though, & the £5.50 Games ensured a good night. £17.80 in a night is fine, just fine, & if I could average that every night, I'd be very happy indeed, it'd be all I need, & would pay for Vegas next year. Can't believe I'm thinking Vegas 2015 already, though it is long odds against I'll ever get there again.
Am playing a NLH Tourney tonight, the nice people @ Pokler Player Magazine gave me a seat for tonights Poker Player Magazine Freeroll, so I'll have to cut down my PLO8 DYM Tables for the 10 minutes I expect to last. I so suck @ NLH these days, though I suppose half of it is in my mind, I'm beaten before I start. And I SO love the nuances & subtleties of PLO & PLO8.
See some of you later, I hope.
Oh, forgot to say, we were graced by a visit from Jac35 last night. Beat us all up proper good, too.
Not seen MOTHER since I came back, I miss her. (Like I miss Orford). Hope she is OK, & The Daughter.
Traffis is holding up remarkably well all things considered, but the £11-ers are not running much yet, I've only managed 9 in the 165 games I've played since returning. There are generally 2 or 3 players Registered, but they are not filling much at the moment. I'm sure if you Registered, wd get a few going.
Vegas was wonderful, abso wonderful, but I knocked it in a treat, my first losing trip to Vegas ever, I could not do a thing right, made a few unforced errors at crucial stages, & never really played as well as I can really. 2 cashes from about 15 efforts I think. So I lost a good few bob I'm afraid. Traditionally, a bunch of friends buy half my action in Vegas every year, just for the vicarious thing, so they knocked it in too, which I felt bad about. What a mean woman Lady Variance is.
How are you running, in the HU stuff? Still beating the game handsomely?
That's great news, well done.
Its amazing how luck means we swing & swong, but in truth, if our fundamentals are correct, over time we should beat the game.
You were dead right to quit that night when you were not playing at your best, or feeling right, though.
Those nights do bring a tear to the eye, they hurt, but that makes the bounceback all the sweeter.
No matter who we are, or how good we are, nobody on earth wins every session. That's the sheer beauty of the game, we never know what is going to happen.
And thank you for editing your original Post, I'd have had trouble replying to that.
1) Go to Mount Charlston Lodge, its only 35 miles from The Strip. It's simply breathraking. Try & have a meal on the verandah, in the mountain air, best meal ever.
2) Grand Canyon, everyone should see it once. Too far to drive really, best to get a helicopter. Maverick Helicopters are far & away the best outfit.
3) Go see a Baseball Game @ Nashman Field, home of the 51-ers. It's "small-town America", at its very best.
Oh, & I know you said 3, but The Fremont Street Experience is awesome, especially at night, when they do the light display on the canopy.
See you at UKPC, less than a month away now, & I'm sooooo excited!
Of 5,278 listed hands, the worst possible hand was said to be.......no, not, as you might expect, 2-2-2-2, but K-K-K-K.
I've no idea why 4 Kings is worse (very very marginally) than 2-2-2-2, but thats what the stats say.
I'm going to write some stuff in the Strategy Section shortly, explaining how hands are ranked, which hands are good, & which to avoid. I'll also explain that there are some statistical quirks to the Rankings, based on how they are measured.
For now, however, the "Quad" hands are ranked as.....
(Highest Rank is worst, & 5,278 hands were assessed, based on how many times they will win at least PART of the pot. Their "SCOOP" %'s are obviously even lower).
Note how A-A-A-A falls in the middle of these. I've no idea why.
K-K-K-K - 5,278
Q-Q-Q-Q - 5,277
J-J-J-J - 5,276
10-10-10-10 - 5,275
8-8-8-8 - 5,274
9-9-9-9 - 5,273
A-A-A-A - 5,272
7-7-7-7 - 5,271
6-6-6-6 - 5,250
5-5-5-5 - 5,219
4-4-4-4 - 5,185
3-3-3-3 - 5,138
2-2-2-2 - 5,111
So, of the quad starting hands, 2-2-2-2 is deemed the best.
We can challenge these stats of course, & we should, but it matters not really.
Quads, pre, in PLO8 should be mucked every single time.
Some of the best & worst ranked starting hands are really quite surprising. We should only view the Rankings with narrowed eyes, but they do tell us what hands to avoid, & you'll find the answers very revealing & possibly surprising. Helpful, hopefully, though.
I'll do it shortly, & link it from here.
*Edit
Not even worthy of being called spanners!
Loving this diary btw, I have only really had the odd attempt at PLO8 and tbh I have never had a clue what I am doing (still don't) so it is good to see yours and others views on certain hands etc. I agree with your point in an earlier post about holdem becoming increasingly difficult to beat, so would like to try and learn this format of the game. This thread is a good starting point.
Dive in - there's only one way to learn !
Best thing i ever did.
GL
Would just like to have a proper study on good/bad starting hands before I have a dabble. So far all I really know is that quads are garbage and double suited hands such as AA23 are good?? I don't wanna jump in at the deep end knowing so little.
Just brush up on PLO8 starting hands and you'll soon get there.
The biggest challenge i had/have is the lo end of the board, but im still learning.
Maybe set aside a few quid and practice on 60p tables?
No chatter tonight but fun anyway
nick
I have been playing PLO8 for the last 4-5 months and do not play NLHE at all anymore. I was very lucky to find that the PLO8 gang were always ready to talk and offer advice and even more fortunate that "the master" went out of his way to help as well. I can offer some advice that was given to me if you like just send me a pm and we can talk. I will say that the fun bit has got better in the last five weeks as I have finally started to win more than I lose. I still have the odd bad night but the bankroll is going up again which is good.
I find the game and the people friendly relaxing and fun and hope you will to. Nick
I know I'm a pork pie short of being a picnic, but can someone please explain how 2222 is a better hand than KKKK?
I mean, if two players are heads up and those two hands are dealt, KKKK has won the pot, regardless of what the board brings. That's obvious.
ps. I clearly need an explanation which uses little words only, as I must be daft. I don't get this at all. And yes I know it's not important, as anyone would have to be dafter than me to play quads. Especially at a WSOP event.
There's no hand that the twos (I refuse to call them deuces) beats that the Kings don't (whereas the other way around Kings beat any other one pair hand except aces), and neither of them can make a low hand, a straight or a flush
I agree as to the 2-2-2-2 v K-K-K-K thing, but, after some lengthy deliberation, I think I have found the answer, based on how the stats were arrived at.
There is a sort of curve ball in how the stats were constructed, not that it matters really, as we all know the answer, & we all know we'd not play quads anyway.
I'll explain it in a bit.
As it happens, I've played quads a few times in certain situations. If we can be pretty sure we won't get called - & there are a number of situations where we can reasonably predict that - it's fine. It's not so fine if we get a caller though. I always type "sorry, misclick"......
Three Aces is another spot where we should fold, unless we have either a 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 kicker. If the kicker is higher than 6, it will rank very badly, amongst the worst 25% of hands. But.......the thing is, most regular & semi-competent PLO8 players don't like to call a raise or play a big pot unless they have an Ace in their hand, as Aces are immensely powerful in PLO8.
So, knowing this, in certain spots we can pot it pre with A-A-A-bad because we know the probability of our oppo holding an ace is a bit slim, as we have "the blockers".
I've never done that of course, oh no. Except last night, when I got caught with fingers in the till when I tried to nick it pre with A-A-A-K. (Ranked 2,802 of 5,283).
9th July Numbers & Stuff
Played 30
Won 13
Lost 17
£3.30, P 18, W 5, L 13
£5.50, P 11, W 7 L 4
£11, P1, W 1, L 0
Opening Balance - £1,304.80
Closing Balance = £1,297.65
Profit Loss on Night - £7.15
Profit Loss on Month = £3.95
REWARD POINTS on night = 119
REWARD POINTS IN MONTH = 731 (= £7.31)
GAMES PLAYED IN MONTH = 181
GAMES WON IN MONTH = 98
WIN % = 54.1%
Well what happened there?
Won 10 of the first 15, lovely, all set for another good night, & then BANG, could not win a hand, and only won 3 of the next 15.
The £3ers were the real problem, losing 13 of 18, luckily I won 7 from 11 @ £5.50, & the only £11-er that ran, which deffo helped a lot.
How do these things happen?
What a great game this is, just when you think you've got it sussed, along comes Miss Variance & gives us a slap round the chops.
Incidentally, I fudged the overall numbers a little bit today, as I had a "sundry" cash in the Poker Player GP Freeroll thing, & I use the Closing balance each night to produce the daily numbers. It was only £3.75, so does not really mess the numbers up.
Playing that NLH MTT was a bit of a challenge, too. I don't play NLH these days, & the mindset is COMPLETELY differernt to PLO8, so it was a bit of a challenge, but I folded my way to 22nd of 323, so pretty pleased really.
The Traffic profile was a bit odd last night, too, as folks were trying to get their games in before the football, so lots of games running early, & at one time I had 9 PLO8 DYM's plus the Poker Player NLH thing on the go. Come 9pm, it quietened down though.
Seen in the chatbox last night.
"Typical Sky fraud, it was a perfect flip & yet I lost"
When someone's mind works like that, there's not much you can say really.
Later, against a very good player who must have played over 10,000 DYM's on Sky, I got lucky in a hand, & the chap went proper loopy, chased me from table to table making toxic comments. You'd think after 10,000 games they would have sussed the deal, & learned to take a beat like a grown-up. It's not like anyone, ever, deliberately gets it in bad.
That apart, the chat & banter was good as always last night. Very much different to the NLH MTT, where the folks were a little more, well, serious.
I opened up the site last night, & regged for all my games, then I'm all set for a nice relaxing evening, hassle-free.
At 6.19pm, the first table opened, off we go for a nice evening session.
Before the first hand had even been dealt, this came up in the chatbox......
"Can you tell me the Password for tonight's Freeoll please?"
Marv.
Well done.
That £11er was the only one that ran last night, & that sucks a bit, as it does not give you the chance to restore the damage if no more run.
I was the opposite last night, cruising to a nice profit after 15 games, & then, one by agonising one, the losses kept coming, no matter how hard I tried. In the end I was grateful to get away with a £7 loss.
Have you seen MOTHER (amarie) lately? Maybe she's on holiday, but I miss her. (Money).
I hope her absence is not connected to my return.
Come to think of it, the day I returned YOU left, too......
Altostratus and all that
Gotta love a good cloud !
It's funny, the MOMENT I busted him, the whole table sort of held it's breath, "watch out, incoming rant", & right on cue, there it was.
I really wish I could help him understand how poker works, he does not seem to derive much pleasure from the game, which is rather sad.
I did applaud the uniqueness of the comment though!
He should try camomile tea I guess.
It does not seem to trouble the regulars, they know he says these things every time - without exception - that he loses a hand, so most seem to almost laugh it off.
If only we could help him understand how poker works.