Georgina ‘GJ Reggie’ James is a former PokerStars Team Pro and mixed-game poker enthusiast from the UK who regularly streams poker and video games on her Twitch channel. This month, she’s looking to expand her poker repertoire…
When my ambassador deal with PokerStars ended towards the end of last year, I admit I had some doubts as to whether I would be able to keep working in the world of poker. I wasn’t sure I was good enough at the game itself to survive as a 'real pro', as I would call it.
It's really no wonder why so many people want to be sponsored: you get to play as much poker as you like, hopefully make a profit doing so and have a monthly salary on top of that, for some traditional financial stability in a profession that usually offers nothing of the sort.
The sponsorship also presented me with an opportunity to change my career trajectory, and take a step away from compiling reports in Excel and taking work trips to prisons in the UK. Talking to strangers on the internet whilst playing a card game, not to mention travelling to casinos and hotels across the globe, was a much more fun way to spend my time!
But even without a sponsorship, I'm not about to give up the poker grind just yet. I took a month off for some ‘life admin’, and am now feeling pretty fresh and ready to get back to playing. It was a month of decluttering, both physically throwing things out and tidying up my home, as well as mentally giving myself space and time to really think about what I wanted to do and plan how I was going to do it.
It's been quite therapeutic and made me realise how much I needed a break. But now I’m just excited to get back to playing and building a good daily routine.
And of course my main focus is going to be playing everything non-NLHE!
Taking a trip to Omaha
This wasn’t as easy a decision for me as you might think. I may have garnered a reputation for being a ’mixed-games specialist’ over the last few years, but it's really not that easy to play absolutely nothing else. There sadly just aren’t as many options, both live and online, for mixed games players as there are for the NLHE populous; something I would love to help change.
I began planning my ‘grind season’ by sorting through every single mixed game available on PokerStars, as that is currently where my bankroll sits and the place where I know I can play the most games.
I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to get in some decent volume I’d probably have to play a lot more Omaha Hi/Lo (O8). It’s the next most popular variant after NLHE and PLO, and actually has a lot of options at a variety of buy-in levels. It’s also the most commonly found mixed variant on other sites.
Unfortunately for me, O8 is one of the games I am least comfortable with, alongside my long-standing avoidance of PLO (which I only really play as part of the 8-Game rotation). So naturally I decided to tackle my poker demons head on and make O8 and PLO the immediate focus of my study, so that I could play them more confidently and have more tournaments to bulk out my daily schedule alongside the rest of the mixed shenanigans.
Always more to learn
In both of these games the equities of hands run much closer to each other and this dictates a lot of how you might play your hand and your range. Also, in the case of O8 there is a very big difference between playing the game fixed-limit, pot-limit or no-limit, and learning to adjust between these is crucial, not to mention if the variants add bounties into the mix too!
It’s going to be a lot for me to learn, so to start with I’m going back to basics and using some of the resources I already have at my disposal.
For O8 I’ve got the BBZ Mixed Games Bundle by Tobias Leknes and Mason Pye, as well as the book Mastering Mixed Games by Dylan Linde (below) to go through again. I’ve also got some hand histories saved from previous COOPs online that I can go through to find leaks in my game.
I’ve found that the easiest way for me to go through these hands is by uploading the full hand history into the website PokerStars Replayer. You can upload an entire tournament in one go and it will output a collection of hands that is easy to go through, much like you would using a NLHE tracker, except this website works with every game variant (though only for PokerStars hand histories).
Other than that, I’m pretty lucky I’ve got a good group of friends who I can ask questions and discuss hands with, too. And if I’m ever short of my own material I use the replays of COOP final tables and try to learn by watching some of the best players in the game.
As for PLO, given my lack of experience, I spoke to a friend. First I asked if he would be willing to do some basic coaching with me and secondly, what he recommended in terms of free resources for total beginners.
He pointed me to Luuk Botter on Youtube as well as the PLO Mastermind Preflop Trainer, and also recommended simply trying to play some low stakes tournaments to get some practice and have some hands to go over.
It’ll definitely be quite the change going forward in my sponsor-less poker life, but I’m excited to embrace the start of this new chapter.
If poker ever starts to seem like too much of a grind for you, I’d recommend doing some study and adding some new variants to your own mix.
How hard can it be, right? I’ll let you know…
You can follow GJ Reggie on Instagram and X, watch her streams on Twitch and more video content on her YouTube channel.
Images courtesy of Danny Maxwell Photography/Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd
