Another PokerStars short film was released today-this time it was centered around Polish small-stakes professional Grzegorz Mikielewicz...or Greg, as I call him lol. I met Greg down in The Bahamas and we became friends quite quickly. I actually became friends with most of the people on Team Online during the trip but Greg was certainly one of the people that I spent the most time with and became closest to. We were both there to have a good time and spent most of our days by the pool and then later at the bar watching the Miami Heat play on TV. He's a great guy and although I haven't played with him on the felt (he plays 6max), I hear he's a fantastic poker player and is routinely amongst the top money winners at the limits that he plays. Anyways, if you haven't already, go ahead and check out the film...it's entertaining and even a bit educational. It's also inspiring and reiterates how lucky we all are to be able to play poker for a living. Without further adieu,

I've only been back in Canada for about 6-7 days now and have been pretty hard at work at the PLO tables since my return. I'm actually going on a 3 day fishing trip tomorrow, which I'm really looking forward to but also disrupts my flow a bit as I try to finally gain some traction and profit for the year. When I've been able to play poker this month, the results have not been good but have not been bad either. Basically, I got off to a bad start as my never-ending PLO downswing seemed to continue but then finally booked a few winning sessions to pull out a small profit over a near-meaningless sample size. I think that overall, my results are mainly being dictated by how well or poorly I'm running but I do feel like I've cleaned up my game a lot and am making less mistakes and staying more focused during each session. A lot of that has to do with strict discipline by playing only 8-9 tables instead of 12+ and also ending sessions after 1.5-2.5 hours. I'm really looking forward to putting the pedal to the medal when I return from fishing and look forward to clearing over 40K VPPs this month. Come September, it's going to be an all out attack on volume since I have NOTHING scheduled for the month (other than maybe house-hunting...) so I will be aiming for 75K+ VPPs if I choose to stick with PLO for another month. For now, I need to see if I can in fact break-even at this game or it won't be worth my time and effort when it's very possible to achieve a 10K month by playing hold'em (even with minimal VPPs).

For interest sake, here's the biggest pot that I've won and lost this month at PLO:

PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha, $1.00 BB (5 handed)

UTG ($139.36)
Hero (MP) ($273.14)
Button ($198.96)
SB ($62.88)
BB ($124.84)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A♦, A♣, 10♦, 9♦
UTG bets $3.50, Hero raises to $12, Button calls $12, 2 folds, UTG calls $8.50

Flop: ($37.50) 3♦, 8♠, J♦ (3 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $25, Button raises to $63, 1 fold, Hero raises to $224.81, Button calls $123.96 (All-In)

Turn: ($411.42) 5♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($411.42) 9♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $411.42 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Button had Q♣, J♠, Q♦, K♦ (one pair, Queens).
Hero had A♦, A♣, 10♦, 9♦ (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $408.62

Pretty nice to have nearly 83% equity on that flop!

PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha, $1.00 BB (6 handed)

BB ($50.88)
UTG ($30)
MP ($62.33)
CO ($190.68)
Hero (Button) ($113.04)
SB ($111.45)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Q♥, 10♣, Q♣, 5♥
2 folds, CO bets $3, Hero calls $3, 1 fold, BB calls $2

Flop: ($9.50) K♥, A♦, J♠ (3 players)
BB checks, CO bets $6.80, Hero raises to $18, 1 fold, CO calls $11.20

Turn: ($45.50) 9♦ (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $40, CO calls $40

River: ($125.50) 6♦ (2 players)
CO bets $122.70, Hero calls $52.04 (All-In)

Total pot: $229.58 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
Hero had Q♥, 10♣, Q♣, 5♥ (straight, Ace high).
CO had K♦, 5♦, J♥, A♥ (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: CO won $226.78

I think I played this hand pretty poorly...I think I should have started by betting bigger on the flop so that I could pot the turn larger as well. As played, I think I need to be folding this river...at the time I thought that the villain may have played QT this way to try to get me off the same hand but in hindsight that probably doesn't make any sense since they would likely just ship the turn with the flush draw out there :(

The reason why I'm dedicating so much effort to learn PLO right now is because I'm more focused on the longer term and specifically next year. If I can turn myself into a winner at PLO, then it's almost certainly going to be another Supernova Elite run in 2013...get ready!