thanks again for the comments man, I do really appreciate someone who's as experienced in PLO as you are taking the time.

A quick update re. my weekly goals: I've followed everything as outlined at the beginning of the week; playing a minimum of about 1k hands per day (~3 hours each day), working out for 1 hr, and eating well. I have however failed horribly on my sleeping habits, having not gotten up before 11:30 even once this week.

As for results, obviously the majority of my poker time has been spent grinding away, chasing silver star for no real reason other than the fact that I had literally no volume in this month and wanted to make something out of my July. This has, predictably, backfired on me somewhat. I think I am up about 1 BI over the 4-5k hands I've played this week.

This would have been 5 BIs except that in my last session I lost a 77/23 with a nut flush on the turn while 250bb deep against a fish who c/r/rr'd me with just trips and ultimately binked the river. Then I lost another similar spot where I had a nut straight on the turn, with flush redraws, and had to fold river in a gross spot where villain's range was exactly sets and the board fucking paired. Long story short I lost 4 BIs in short order, despite feeling like I played decently, at least as 'decently' as it takes to beat 5 PLO.

No one gives a shit about bad beat / runbad stories so I figure I'll just grind through it and hope to eventually put in enough hands so that everything balances the fuck out.

Once July is wrapped up I'll return to a more balanced schedule of study and play, and hopefully show some real progress in the month of August. My goal, as it stands, is to have at least beaten 5 PLO and hopefully be well on my way through 10 PLO by the end of next month.