A Reddit user called "heim36" who plays in Ohio posted some gold for PLO players:
I Made $250k Playing Poker in 2025 – Here's My Advice (Part 1)
1 - Focus on a game that recreationals play for high stakes around the clock. The end goal is to make your ideal poker schedule that fits your LIFE, not the other way around.
2 - Study theory/GTO REGARDLESS of how bad your opponents play. Studying and understanding theory is a prerequisite to exploiting bad opponents, you can’t understand an “exploit” without knowing theory first. Studying solvers does NOT mean copying their play against weak opponents.
3 - Play some volume online and use a tracker to improve your stats before playing live. You want to be confident your VPIP/RFI/3b/coldcall, postflop aggression, and river call efficiency are reasonable before playing live where you lose all ability to track stats or gauge winrate reliably.
4 - Understand the variance of your game BEFORE you start playing. This will naturally sway you to cash games over tournaments. You can sprinkle in some tourneys in good spots, but unless you’re already rich, tournaments are not a reliable way to make money no matter how good you are. Variance calculators and session tracking at bankrollcoach.com and primedope.com are super helpful here.
5 - Don’t trust anyone, don’t loan or borrow money. People you would expect steal and disappear all the time. Includes staking arrangements and games/clubs involving credit or slow paying.
6 - Learn the great game of PLO. Everywhere except vegas PLO games are unbelievably soft. I (and many players in my pool) average $200/hr across thousands of hours playing 5/5/10 and 10/25 PLO. While the variance is technically higher, win rates are so much higher too that the extent and durations of downswings PLO i’ve experienced as much lesser than playing NLH cash similar blinds.
7 - HAVE SOME DISCIPLINE. When your income fluctuates and is uncertain, you need to save money, not gamble on bullshit, not spend sporadically when you’re on a heater, invest and save just like someone with a normal career. This is the only way to have poker serve you and your life.
8 - Some resources/sites I recommend. GTOWizard, Hungry Horse YouTube/IG, PLO Mastermind Trainer, Monkersolver via gorilla servers, bankrollcoach.com for variance estimates and session tracking
Best of luck in ‘26🤝
Comments of appreciation, admiration, and a bit of sarcasm flooded in.
Moonbeam_Maker:
"Focus on a game that recreationals play for high stakes around the clock."
Damn, why didn’t I think of that?! I had been playing low-stakes games filled with expert players at inconvenient times.
The gist is play PLO, recreationals like it. The timing thing is more about choosing where you live so that you can play the games you want and make your schedule, rather than staying put and being forced into a schedule and smaller stakes than you can afford.
Pinna1:
Did you play mainly in casinos, or is getting invites to private games a part of the grind?
A little bit of private games, but most volume in card clubs and a little bit in casinos.
FirstTimePlayer:
"Studying solvers does NOT mean copying their play against weak opponents."
Sacrilege!
In all seriousness, it baffles me how many people don't understand that solvers are a tool and not an answer, let alone understand what the tool is actually doing.
100%. Truthfully, I think many players avoid solvers out of laziness, confusion, not wanting to adopt a new way of thinking.
Odd_Fortune500:
How would you recommend going about learning and adjusting for PLO as someone who has only taken Hold'em seriously? I've wanted to get into it, but it feels like I'm starting over, and that has kept me from making the switch.
Yessir, I promise the new effort will be worth it. I’d watch JNandez YouTube, then get a PLO trainer subscription once you’re ready for the commitment. Study preflop breaking hands down into categories and use the trainer to train your intuition.
longhorntrades:
What was your biggest downswing, and how long did it last?
I had a $50k downswing in the middle of the year, but it was mostly from playing tournaments, including WSOP. In PLO cash games, my biggest is only $25k, lasting about 150 hours. BankrollCoach is helpful for seeing what size/length downswings to expect.
Part 2 from the quarter-million-dollar live PLO player came a little later.
Part 2
The first one did well and feels good to help people out. Keep in mind, these assume you want a poker CAREER, not a hobby.
1 - Play your hand in a vacuum. Do NOT say "If I fold here I'm exploitable," "if I bluff here I'm overbluffing," etc, and use that to justify your decision. All of that is bullshit in-game. Understanding theory matters for your intuition, but this line of thinking assumes your opponents play a repeated/iterated game against you, but you only play ONE hand of this spot vs this player in your lifetime, play it maximally profitable.
If you say "but I play with the same opponents all the time", then yes, to some degree, you need to bluff, and bluff catch well to be able to compete, but your theory knowledge should inform how you exploit THEM. Worrying about being "exploitable" in a spot that's never gonna come up again is a good way to lose EV now and never gain it back.
2 - Quitting your session is an ART. As a professional, you need to be in tune with how you're feeling, your level of focus, how good the game is, and most of all, your willingness to "gamble". The BIGGEST mistakes I've made in my career were not because I didn't know what to do, but because I was playing scared. Other players get stuck and gamble too much. You need to understand how your feelings influence your play, and QUIT when those emotions, combined with game conditions yield a poor, or negative, hourly rate.
Especially toward the end of your sessions, you need to think, "Do I want to sit here for another hour to earn $X on average, when earning that much requires me to risk $Y?" where Y is your ENTIRE stack.3 - Get up and move your body throughout your session. First off, your health is more important than making money. Sitting playing cards all day is a great way to make money, but a terrible way to stay healthy. Go for a walk, do some lunges and push ups, don't turn into a lazy bag because poker is your job or side hustle. If your hourly is $X, doesn't matter what it is, taking 30 min to get some movement in is worth it. Its also proven to be good for focus and mental clarity so it may not cost you as much EV as you think.
4 - Talked about it in the first one, bankroll management is the most important part of being a professional, or for-profit player. Know your winrate and the standard deviation of the game before you play, and know what swings to expect and bankroll requirements BEFOREHAND. Bankrollcoach.com is a great resource for this. I did make this website so I'm biased, but truth is all players need it, or at least that information in some form.
5 - ZERO non-poker gambling. This one will be controversial. When we get used to dusting thousands at poker and having to move on quickly, too many pro players justify doing similar things at blackjack, sports, etc. Doing the right thing for you requires knowing yourself. If you don't NEED to gamble and only do to play poker, playing some small blackjack a few times a year on vacation prob okay. But once you catch yourself having a -EV gambling habit (couple times a month) it'll only grow from there until you go cold turkey anyway.
6 - Goes along with #3, SLEEP. For gods sake, please sleep like a normal human, don't fall into degen habits just because you're around degens. If you want to be a professional poker player, actually be PROFESSIONAL first. Professionals have a schedule are focused, and treat their body and their minds well. Your poker brain is an asset worth MILLIONS, show it respect.
This does not mean you can't/shouldn't stay up late, if you're a night owl thats advantageous for poker anyway. But you should try to go to bed and get up same time everyday.As you can tell, to me this is a lot about discipline. So many poker players are more than good enough at poker to make a shit load of money, but fizzle out and shoot themselves in the foot.
follow me on ig and tiktok @moneymitchpoker for more poker advice and hand breakdowns. Check out BankrollCoach.com for results tracking and variance calcs (all 100% free, just register with Google or email). iOS app coming soon.
GOOD LUCK
HTOWNHUSTLR:
Where do you play and what stakes?
Ohio, $5/$5/$10 and $10/$25 PLO cash games and some NLH MTTs.
One_Cycle_5296:
Great follow-up. The mental game advice is underrated — most people focus only on strategy but tilt management and bankroll discipline are what separate winning players from break-even ones long term. One thing I'd add: studying away from the table is huge. Even 30 minutes a day reviewing hands in a solver or tracking software compounds massively over months.
"The point is to focus more on PLO, since amateurs enjoy it. And I mentioned time because a professional can choose where to live. For the sake of good and consistent play, you can move to a new place. Very often, players are forced to play stifling games with poor lineups simply because they're afraid of change."
Yeah definitely. I talked more about studying in the first one, but prob shouldn’t leave it out of any post.
Early in a poker career, I’d recommend spending more time studying than playing and gradually shifting toward 90% play 10% study, only once someone’s happy with their earnings level.
Agreeable_Cat_6900:
#5 is not controversial at all to anyone rational lol. I've gambled <10 times in my life, and people are always shocked when I say I never do. And despite having a brother who was a DFS world champion, I've never even played DraftKings or FanDuel. I exclusively sports bet on MMA, because i know I have a proven edge over a large sample.
Yeah, the no-gambling thing should be more common among poker players.
ProductAdventurous32:
The quitting discipline part is so real. I used to have this rule where I'd leave after losing 2 buy-ins, but I'd always find an excuse to stay "because the game is so good right now." Spoiler: the game was never that good, I was just tilted and couldn't see it. Now I set a hard stop loss, and when I hit it, I rack up no matter what. Win rate went up pretty much immediately just from not donating those last 2 hours of a session.
Yeah, and the X buy-ins part is all individual. For you or someone who notices their level of play dropping after losing X, you gotta reflect and be honest with yourself and have the discipline to quit when you say you’re going to.
If you’re not changing your play though, sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone and grind through it, but most people play too many hours in a bad emotional state.
trollfreak:
Don’t play double board PLO 💣 pots 😂 bad for bankroll management.
Disagree actually. The key is to play them well, and that’s actually the most lucrative game type in my opinion. I’ll prob make a future post about this.
Another recent post from a Reddit success story didn't receive nearly as much praise. Perhaps it's because their winnings had one less zero?
Read ReadDouble board Bomb Pot games are on two main poker rooms right now.
- Phenom Poker:
Play PLO, PLO5, and PLO6 double board Bomb Pots
- CoinPoker:
Play PLO, PLO5, and PLO6 double board Bomb Pots
If poker sites are not soft enough for you, give PokerBros a try. This club app also has bomb pots, but you'll want to be more careful with club selection (our Support team can help with that).