POT! 25K PLO Hands & Weed Detox, December '25

Just under 7K hands to go. Plenty of action on WPTGold this morning despite it being Christmas. About to head to my mom's to hang out for the day. My goal is to come home and grind some more... WPTGold announced a $100K cash drop for their cash game tables that starts at 6 PM today and lasts until the 28th, so reeeeally gonna try and get some heavy volume in from now through the weekend and close out the challenge.

Made my first and only deposit of $1K over 2 months ago when they added PLO to the site:

Now sitting on a couple hundred shy of $3K grinding out PLO10 and PLO20:

Let's finish strong!!

December Challenge
Hands: 18,040 / 25,000
Total Win/Loss: $1263

Club WPTGold Stats
Hands: 25,989
Total Win/Loss: $1809

Was way too tired to grind when I got home from my mom's yesterday; Christmas was a much longer day than expected. Woke up early to try and get volume in and the action was actually great at PLO10 and PLO20 between 4:45 AM C - 6:00 AM C, but the site suddenly went under maintenance. Apparently, the $100K chip dump promo that started yesterday had some pretty major bugs. Tables were shut down for periods of time. Seems like maintenance is still continuing into the morning... no hand count or roll total this post since I can't access it right now.

Makes sense. I had wondered if the pots starting larger with the 3rd blind and 2 more antes would make for larger EV than the 6 max tables, but the 6max tables are usually so wild that I could see how more hands would probably be better.

That's such an awesome gift!

It was a bit of a mess. The tables filled so damn fast and new tables were slow to spawn.

Grinded a bit more this afternoon. Wooooo - $1K -> $3K on WPTGold! $3003 to be exact. So I've tripled my roll since starting on the site in October and I've nearly doubled my roll since December.

Check this hand out that I played against a 20/11... I have been conflating tight stats with winning players while grinding these games but that clearly isn't always the case.

Forget the rest of the action, I lead turn with nuts + redraw and get jammed into. Bro has KT95, 2 pair, no fd. We hold. Figured we were freerolling or getting freerolled... certainly not against 2 pair.

Been awhile since I slowrolled someone. It felt oddly mandatory to do it with flopped quads. I also showed no aggression the entire hand - was just led into. Villain of course had a boat, right? Nope - KTT4r.

The search continues for the elusive 9642r that I have committed to raising/3betting preflop if I pick it up... I've only got 9642ss so far, though.

Under 5K hands to go with 5 days left after the grind this morning. Going to break for a couple of hours, eat lunch, and make a WalMart trip for some command hooks. I need one to hang my Christmas present and more to hang some paintings I haven't put up since moving into my house in August. Better late then never, eh?

I was going to grind for a bit longer but made a horrible calldown vs. an 80/50. Decided to call it then. Still a winning session, bankroll peaking again, yada yada...

Coming back to grind later, then going to a bar to watch the Packers game per my wife's request (she's from Wisconsin). We found an awesome sports bar that is clean and affordable that we've really enjoyed going to over the past couple of months. Shout-out to Boomerjacks in League City, TX.

December Challenge
Hands: 20,009 / 25,000
Win/Loss: $1498

Club WPTGold Stats
Hands: 27,958
Total Win/Loss: $2044

Under 3700 hands left to go and the bankroll is peaking again. Can't take an accurate bankroll screenshot right now because I'm still grinding. Remember, I started December with 7,949 hands, so the magic number is 32,949.

Just realized this morning I hadn't posted about weed much as of recent, but I was pretty open all month long on the blog and was sure to post here when there were moments that I was really struggling. There are still some moments here and there when weed sounds nice, but I don't consider acting on those thoughts like earlier in the challenge which I think is a good sign. It would have resulted in better content if I relapsed, so I'm happy this part of the blog was kinda boring :^D

The song linked below plays at the end of Red Dead Redemption 2, which is actually a prequel to Red Dead Redemption. I feel it resonating with me now... setting the foundations for poker success this month and going for something bigger moving forward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF22vaGL...

Finishing the month strong!

Breaking to walk dogs and get some lunch. Just wrote the below current results out and in a bit of disbelief but feeling motivated to keep going after this month and try to climb up stakes. The games will only get tougher, I will not always run so well, and I must be ready.

December Challenge
Hands: 21,393 / 25,000
Win/Loss: $1,671
Win rate: 20bb/100

Club WPTGold Stats
Hands: 29,342
Total Win/Loss: $2,217
Win rate: 19bb/100

Craziest session in a long while. Tons of action tonight on WPTGold. Huge all-ins did not go my way for the most part, and there were plenty of them. Looks like I'm definitely going to achieve my goals nearing the end of the month here which is great, but as mentioned earlier ITT, I know I could play more than 25K hands per month with more discipline. I need to start thinking about next month seriously because I'd hate for this momentum to die.

December Challenge
Hands: 22,224 / 25,000
Win/Loss: $1,536

30,000+ hands and no database or HH is really starting to piss me off. I know I chose to play on this site and the action is leaps and bounds better than elsewhere, but I would love to be able to reference... well, anything. And if I pursue staking/cfp, what then? I'm killing this pool but have nothing to show for it besides screenshots.

Whatever. 2,776 hands left to go, and 76 more hours of no weed. Cruising into the end of the challenge with a way fatter profit than I thought I'd ever make playing PLO10 and PLO20.

Hey Wilfram. I’ve been following your series with a lot of interest. Thanks for putting in the time to write these updates. They’re genuinely entertaining and useful.

Also, huge congrats on both the detox and the results at the tables.

I’m trying to build toward something similar, even if on a smaller scale at first: consistently making a few hundred dollars per month would already be meaningful for me, and if it ever gets north of $1,000/month, even better. The goal a side income stream that I can funnel into stock investing and hopefully build a portfolio that would let me chase other dreams.

Right now I’m on PLO2, but after about two months of studying and grinding I’m seeing a decent win rate, enough that I’m considering taking this more seriously and putting in more volume/structure.

I totally understand if you’d rather not share too much “know-how” publicly. But if you could go back and meet your past self when you were first getting into PLO, and you knew your goal was to crush PLO10 and PLO20, what parts of the game would you put the most attention into? And on the flip side, what do you think are common rabbit holes or “details” that people overfocus when try to crush these stakes?

Thanks in advance, and best of luck with the rest of the challenge, both personally and poker-wise. Hope you keep sharing the stories with the community.

Thank you for the kind words, and good luck with your own grind, my friend!

If your goal is to beat PLO10 and PLO20, I'd start with this:

- Get Vision or PLO Trainer and train all preflop spots until your dick falls off. RFI, cold calling, 3betting OOP/IP, cold calling 3b OOP/IP, 4betting... all of it.

- Get coaching or a course specific to lower stakes PLO ring games. A good example of a course is RunItOnce's "PLO From The Ground Up" by Thomas Emter. Thomas reviews the GTO framework and necessary exploits to beat lower stakes. In general, the course teaches that at low stakes, our ranges must be tighter than GTO suggests. We do this to combat higher rake, higher cold calling frequencies, and being involved in more multiway pots. Still, I would get the entire course, because there is still much to work on beyond preflop, and it is affordable compared to other courses.

Then lastly, just get volume in and keep grinding which you are already doing.

Just want to note that I am not a PLO Mastermind or RunItOnce shill... I prefer different things about each of them.

2,399 hands to go. Played about 375 hands this afternoon: a short session during my lunch break. Won a couple of BIs. Playing in a pickleball league tonight with my wife. It's a 16-team league and we made semi-finals last week. Looking at the roster tonight, I'd be satisfied with another semi-final finish. We've never won a league/tourney: just runners up so far. But I'm really proud of how far my wife has come in the pickleball sphere. She quit sports in 9th grade, so to come out now and beat tennis players and pickleball players who've been playing for years really speaks to how much she has taken it on, improved, and become healthier.

Will play at least 400 hands after pickleball later tonight to be on easy street for the final two days of the challenge, under 1K hands to complete per day. I wish I was getting invited to a big weed-related party for NYE or something to create some drama for the weed side of the challenge, but the truth is I will just easily coast into 1 month of weed sobriety with ease here in the next couple of days. As mentioned, not as big of a struggle as I was anticipating (although there were some moments), and I'm grateful for that. Will I smoke after the challenge? Probably, but not as often... we'll see.

December Challenge
Hands: 22,601/ 25,000
Win/Loss: $1,625

Nice job on the pickleball. My brother's been trying to get me to play but haven't yet. I DID find out that a local community center has ping the pong on Tuesday morning, so going to give that a shot tomorrow. Hopefully they're not way better or way worse than me, lol.

Hope it goes well, dude. That is one thing about ping pong especially here in the states... a lot of players are seasoned vets and newbies - not a lot of in-between. It can be tough when beginner is way too weak but the rest are just world-beaters.

Well, it took about a year and a half of playing together, but my wife and I finally won our 16-team pickleball league. When we started playing together, there were a group of gym members who didn't want to play with us because we sucked. We beat many of them last night on the way to 1st place. Awesome way to end the year.

That said... I did not grind last night afterward as planned. I was completely exhausted. 2399 hands to go and 39 hours to complete them. Still extremely doable! I may get 2K hands in today.

Bro is definitely making a Facebook post right now about the site being rigged:

Quick session during lunchbreak - won a BI at PLO20. At least 1K more hands this evening. Home stretch here!

December Challenge
Hands: 23,166 / 25,000
Win/Loss: $1,647

Ran poorly tonight and played even worse on top of it. I lost $500 at PLO20 within 1400 hands. Granted, the max is $40 but that's still 12.5 BIs. This was the first time in the challenge all 4 of my tables were PLO20 if I'm not mistaken (I've usually been doing 2 tables PLO10, 2 tables PLO20) and it was the biggest losing session by far. I was cold calling 3bets extremely light multiway for one... making light calldowns on turns and rivers against high VPIPers... just doing a lot of the crap my opponents are doing that make these games so great. There were some seriously terrible beats but the play was worse... very disappointed in myself. I haven't felt 100% since last night and I really shouldn't have put in all this volume feeling like crap. I should have rested and really grinded out the rest tomorrow. Excited that I'm close to finishing but this session should be considered a black eye on an otherwise successful venture. Last 359 hands tomorrow.

December Challenge
Hands: 24,641 / 25,000
Win/Loss: $1,135

Ugh rough break so close to the end. It has been an incredible run so far, and hopefully the cards are in your favor as you close out the challenge.

Thanks Ice. After the session last night, I kept reminding myself that thru 30K hands before the session, I was winning at 18bb/100. And that's with PLO10 tables in the mix yet using .4 as my bb for the calculation. Primedope had me at 99.5% running above EV. There were about 6-8 spots last night where we were all in and ahead, but they caught up. I definitely played my C game last night and that was the biggest problem, but I think it's also completely fair to mention I've rarely had losing sessions the entire month, which is wild. Def think I was a winner in the pool but acknowledging that I've been lucky.

WELP... we're done! Exactly 25,000 hands this month. 7,949 -> 32,949

My last 2000 hands were filled with weird spots (or spots that I'm not comfortable in) with 90% VPIPs and I just feel convicted to pay them off... like the one below.

Also, I just think I wasn't in tip-top shape these last 2K hands, perhaps low on Vitamin C from the colder winter days this past week. I'm really not sure, but I was definitely on my B and C game. However, I can say for the majority of the month, I definitely felt like I was on my A Game. I heard PR0DIGY on a podcast with Dan Cates say that he would judge his sessions by how aggressive he was: how thinly he would go for value and finding all the best bluffing spots... and I think I can say I feel this way about most of my sessions this month.

As the month went on and my brain became less dependent on cannabis for dopamine, it became easier to put in longer sessions. And now that I consider it, it made workouts and working in long stretches easier too. Further, I don't think it is a coincidence that I finally won a pickleball league with my wife after not smoking at all. I really appreciate what this break has done for me. I hope to continue to not use it or rarely use it. No plans to buy any for now.

December Challenge FINAL RESULTS
Hands: 25, 000
Win/Loss: $1, 076

ClubWPTGold Stats
Hands: 32, 949
Win/Loss: $1, 622

So figuring out my winrate for December... I think it is totally fair to use .4 as my big blind when calculating bb/100. At least 10, 000 of the 25K hands were played at PLO10, most of the rest were at PLO20, and then there were a few hundred hands at PLO50. Also, 200bb is the max. So .4 seems fair to me if not a handicap.

Dec Win Rate = 11bb/100, 25K hands

As for future plans, I really wanted to continue to grind into 2026 on WPTGold, but it was truly discouraging to perform so poorly last night and lose a bunch. I don't know if I'm cut out for these swings all year long which feels insane to type considering I won and lost thousands per month over the course of the last 4 years. I have half a mind to withdraw my cash and buy another vending machine. Definitely need to think on this for a while. I love this game so much but I don't know if now is the time in my life to start grinding PLO and try to move up. My wife wants to have a kid next year and I'm down, and I think foundationally, putting $ into my business is the best way to future-proof my life. I also think that this approach is the best way to afford a roll for the live games again within the next 5 years, and time to play in them. I refuse to grind live without a proper roll and plans to dedicate some hours.

As mentioned, definitely some thought to give to all of this. Thanks for following along, all! I am genuinely grateful for all of the interactions and well wishes. Have an awesome 2026!

For authenticity's sake, I wanted to add a ss of the original site deposit with no other transactions.

what was the action on the last hand w AA62?