It has been almost exactly a year (11.5 months) since my red pro status from FullTilt Poker was suspended and I was banned from PokerStars. I have to admit that last year at this time I was at the lowest point of my poker career. I couldn't win at PLO for the life of me. I had a breakeven year and before that breakeven strech I went on the biggest downswing of my life. As far as my poker career, I was at the lowest of the low. I must say I had some very good people around me who stood by when times were really tough. I was even a bit suprised by people who I thought would have turned there back on me when I wasn't doing well didn't and even more suprised by some good friends who really came through for me when times where tough.

What a diference a year can make. I set myself a challenge to grow my bankroll from 100k, just playing PLO. I did amazing, winning 2.5 million dollars in the last 11 months and over 2 million of that was in this year. I put in countless hours of work and feel like I am playing as well as anyone in PLO right now. The past 4-5 months I was playing the nosebleeds and did incredibly well, grinding from 25/50 up to 300/600. If my 2nd 1/2 of the year were to be as good as my 1st, I would have my best year ever.

I have learned a few things in the past year. One is that the diference between a good/great 10/20 or 25/50 player and the nosebleeds is incredibly small. I personally feel many of the best PLO players are playing 25/50 on stars and fulltilt. Obvously there are amazing players at the nosebleeds but there are a handful of guys just as good as them playing 25/50. The real diference between the two limits is that the random fish you have coming into the games is much much higher in the 25/50 games, but the best players are similar in skill and in many cases the 25/50 player can be better, just from sheer volume of hands played.

I am saying this not to make a point about who the best players are, but rather to say I learned that you aren't better than anyone because you are playing at a higher limit. Great players play everywhere. You can take that even further and don't think you are better than anyone else because you are a poker player. Or that your career path is more valid because it's more lucrative than say a teacher, firefighter or carpenter.

I grew up in a very judgemental household where people doing things in a diferent or unfamilar way were often looked down on. In the past few years I have learned to shed that and become a bit more accepting of diferent ways of doing things. When someone tells me they believe in the astrological signs, I no longer look at them like they are insane. I accept that this is the way they choose to look at the world and who am I to tell them diferently.

So where does this leave me? Well I have accomplished everything I set out to do in PLO. I am very confident I can beat pretty much any PLO game that runs and although I don't have a significant number of hands at 200/400 and 300/600 to be sure of this, my result so far point to this being true.

A week ago I decided to withdraw all my money online and start learning the mix games. I did this for a few reasons, but the main one is that I get bored once I feel like I have mastered a game and accomplished what I wanted to. I also realize that PLO is a very swingy game. The 300/600 with an ante games play so big that a winning player could easlily go on a 3 or 4 million dollar downswing. The thought of losing everything I made this year or in the past year on such a downswing sickens me. Although its unlikly with what I feel my edge is in those games, I still don't have a massive edge and no one really does. I would estimate the biggest winners long term are going to have a 2-3BB/100 winrate. This will cause massive fluctuations.

To be honest I guess I am getting a bit older and am not willing to take the risks that I once was. I used to not mind the thought of losing a lot and grinding back up, but now I have no desire to have those swings in my life as they are incredibly stressful.

The final reason I want to learn the mix games is that I want to be a more complete poker player. The best poker players in the world don't just play one form of poker HU and thats all they specialize in. They can play every game well HU or ring. I have always aspired to be this type of poker player and learn diferent games such as LHE and PLO. In the short run learning the mix games is going to hurt my hourly rate, but long term its going to really help me by making me able to play every game and thinking about poker in a bigger picuture. I also think the future of the nosebleeds is going to be in the mixed games and not PLO. I don't really have any good reasons for this, its just my intution. Worst case is I learn the mixed games for awhile, think about poker as a whole in a better way and end up playing mainly PLO.

Because of my desire to learn these mixed games I have withdrawn everything and have begun grinding the 20/40 and 40/80 games which in terms of big bet poker is playing 5/10 or 10/20 blinds. One of my friends asked me why I don't learn the mixed games on the side while playing PLO when good games where running. I replied that I felt like I couldn't play my best at the mixed games while playing so much larger at PLO. So I left myself 50k and want to grow this into enough to play the 1k/2k and 2k/4k mixed games.

Since doing this, my mixed game results have taken a great turn. I was losing very badly in them before the 11th when I took my money off and since then I have won almost 20k in 9k hands. I really think grinding up is the best way for me to learn these games and I have no chance of playing larger than I should be. I lost alot of money thinking I was better at poker games than I was and sitting in some big games.

Realistically, this is going to take me two years or more, athough I would like to think next year at this time I could be playing in those games. Thats just not realistic though as there are many games (Stud, Stud8, O8) which I have almost no experience with and they will take me a very long time to master. I think I will learn games much more quickly than in the past as I feel I have mastered two, PLO + NLH, and am very good at LHE.

Instead of diving in and grinding hands, I am thinking how I want to learn these games. In the past I learned completely by trial and error though grinding tons of hands. Although this is a reasonable way to learn and how most poker players improve their game, I want to take my learning to a step higher this time. Everytime I have learned a game I have become sucessively better and in turn it's taking me much less time with each game I learn as some concepts (Position, blind defence etc.) carry over between games. This time though I want to map out my learning process and be very exact with how I learn the games, so I don't have to grind countless hours. I want to think about situations so if I riase first to act in stud with KhKcks with two aces behind me and get repopped and call down only to be shown trip aces the first 10 times this situation comes up, I don't color my judgement and think that raiseing rolled up kings first to act is a bad decision.

I don't want to mindlessly be pressing buttons as I play and when good things happen I repeat them. That is a horribly way to learn. I want to always be asking myself the question "Why am I doing this?". If I can't answer this question then I need to spend some time away from the tables to answer it.

I am really looking forward to the challenge.

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