Omaha rollercoaster

Hey guys, I decided I'm going to start a new blog.

I'm 34 years old, from Belgium but have been living in Budapest, Hungary for the past 6 years. I used to play highstakes spins but have been playing PLO since 2022.

I've been playing poker professionally since 2016, so it's my 9th year being a pro now. As expected in this profession, I've had to go through several hurdles and swings. And tbh basically every year since I've started I've took at least 3 months off the year from poker. My longest break was actually in 2021, where I took a full year off from grinding. Poker has been a rollercoaster, and taught me a lot of life lessons. And I wish to share all this with you.

The exception to this pattern of taking long breaks from poker has been these past 12 months. I'm happy to say that in the past 12 months I haven't took any long (over a couple weeks long) breaks from poker. I attribute one of the biggest reasons for this to my current girlfriend, who brings me a lot of balance in life, love and support.

Goals, logistics and the future:

This year's poker goals:
- I want to perfect 12-tabling and possibly 15 table: Adding more tables is a skill and one that anyone can work on. At 12 tables I find a slight lack of performance and it gets hard to keep up with the action but if I keep practicing I'm sure it will get better. Perhaps I could move up to 15 tables. Although perhaps if I move up higher there won't be enough tables running and there wouldn't be much point in playing more tables.
- I want to move up to PLO1k: By the end of this year I'd like to at least take a shot PLO1k. TBH according to some bankroll calculators using the Kelly criterion I may already have the required roll. However as a human I'd like to be a bit less risky, I'm not really in any rush.

Long-term poker goals:
- I want to be a regular in PLO2k+ games: Quite a vague goal, and how I want to move is quite questionable for now. Currently I'd be more than happy if I could play 10/20 as my main stake, but perhaps in the future that would change. Honestly I'm quite focused on reaching PLO2k and then after that it's kind of see where things take us. Perhaps I'd want to keep moving higher, perhaps I'd want to learn a new game such as 5-card or heads up, perhaps I'd want to start coaching again, perhaps I'd want to play live, perhaps I'd want to play on multiple sites rather than only GG. All I know is until I'm playing 10/20+ all of these are kind of just vague ideas of future possibilities.

Tbh poker wise there aren't so many other goals. I have a lot of systems in place to reach these goals, and I guess later in the blog I could explain some of these systems. But my actual goals are not too defined and as the journey continues, some of them are prone to change.

Why I started this blog:
Firstly I enjoy writing. Writing is a form of self-expression and as an introvert I find writing to be one of best forms of it. I'd like to share my poker journey.

It's also about my motivation for poker. If you read my blog, you'll notice that I'm not motivated much by money unless it's simply to get out of a hole. I've done some soul-searching and looked for what truly motivates me. And I've found that my biggest motivation is actually social in addition to the learning aspect.

I love to grow and learn. And this is one of the reasons I chose PLO as my main game. It's such a complex game where I feel I could study it for a lifetime and still find new things in the game.

But loving to learn is not enough. I'm a human with social needs. I got some social outlets. I got my lovely significant other, I got a dog, I got a few good friends I communicate with regularly. But it could be more. This is one of the reasons I started my study group actually. Not only to study poker, but to make studying more fun with others, to learn together with others and share our combined knowledge, combining 2 of my biggest motivations. But I still see there could be more. This is one of my reasons to start this blog now, to share the journey.

In addition it is to set myself up for better opportunities in the future. If i want to play live poker more, perhaps putting my name out there could get me some invites, or perhaps to some apps (I am NOT interested in playing on apps currently). Perhaps I want to start coaching in the future and having a blog could help get some recognition. Regardless, I'm sure until I'm playing PLO2k+ I wouldn't want to do any coaching. If I wanted to coach, I'd want to prove not only to others but also to myself that I'm a solid top reg and in my mind this requires me to be at least beating PLO2k online.

Let's start the blog off with a summary of last month, May 2024.

It was my first month shotting some 500 and it went very well. The volume was quite low, however I was game selecting a bit harder than usual considering it was my first time shotting 500. Also during such a big upswing I kind of lost a bit of motivation to grind. Actually it was my best month in PLO I had so far. My previous best was $11k, so after I hit that amount I kind of wanted to chill a bit. Not exactly the best mindset, but I kind of wanted to book my best month in PLO fearing the upswing may come to an end. Which it kind of did as you will see later this month is a lot tougher.

May 2024: GG PLO200 and PLO500
Hands played: 28782
Hours played: 48
Hands per Hour: 600
Hours studied: 108
Hours worked: 156
Net Won: $8560
Net won + RB: $13,000
Net Won $/hour: $270
EV: $5792
EV+RB: $10,292
EV $/hour: $214

By far my highest $/hour, and I'm sure I couldn't sustain this at PLO500 but I can't complain.

Anyways in my next few posts I'd like to give a bit of background on my poker history, I'll be uploading one post a day until we are up to date. After that, not sure how often I'll update. Definitely monthly updates, but more than that not sure yet. We'll see how much time I have for this.