The past few weeks has seen plenty of high stakes action take place at partypoker. We have had the POWERFEST, WPT Online Series, and the Super High Roller Bowl, but poker isn’t only about grinding the highest stakes, it’s a game for everyone.
Canada’s Joel Musqua is a disabled 42-year-old hailing from Canora, Saskatchewan. A couple of weeks ago, Joel decided to hit the $0.01/$0.02 Pot-Limit Omaha cash game tables and it worked out fine with him as he ended up finishing second in the Cash Game Leaderboards for a $150 award. We caught up with Joel and asked him about his poker story.
“My first introduction to poker was about 15-years ago watching the World Poker Tour. I can still remember Tony G abusing Surinder Sunar at the Aviation Club and ultimately losing, but who cares because it was a show.
“Soon after, I discovered that some poker sites were offering generous bonus terms for new players. These were called 5x bonuses because you only had to play five-times the bonus in raked hands, meaning bonuses could be cleared in a couple of hours. At this time in my nascent poker career, I hit up every poker site I could and cleared their bonuses. I built up a bankroll to about $3,000 just playing No-Limit Hold’em tightly.”
Several changes in legislation and regulations made it more difficult for poker players in North America to move money around so Joel temporarily hung up his gloves and cashed out. It was watching some poker streams on Twitch that reignited Joel’s love for the game.
“About a year ago I discovered Twitch. Now I watch people stream poker. This has led me to pick it up again, but this time my game is PLO as I feel hold’em is significantly harder.”
Switching From NLHE to PLO
PLO is growing in popularity, which is one of the reasons we revamped out PLO tournament offering. It’s cash games for now for Joel, especially while the Cash Game Leaderboards are active.
“I think the Cash Game Leaderboard promotion is fantastic. It offers even more incentive and value than usual to play at partypoker. The fact there are 21 spots means you have a good chance to take home some extra money with just a modicum of effort. It’s just another feather in partypoker’s cap showing how much they respect their players unlike other sites which give maybe 3-5% rakeback.”
Joel says climbing his leaderboard only required a modicum of effort, but he certainly got his grind on.
“A typical day while coming second started around 05:00! The first day of the grind I started at 05:00 and saw my competition in the fastforward pool and thought that this is not going to be easy. It turned out I was right. Around 10:00 I stopped for a break and refocus. Actually, I took a break every 45-minutes or so just to break up the monotony. I would quit around 20:00. As the week progressed my start times became later until I was getting up at 06:30.”
A $150 boost is quite significant when you’re grinding $0.01/$0.02 games. Joel’s winnings have added 7,500 big blinds to his bankroll. He plans to use this extra money to climb the PLO stakes.
“I’m just starting at the bottom of PLO2 so my plans for the money are to use it for my bankroll for when I get enough for a shot at PLO5 ($0.02/$0.05). My poker goals for the rest of the year are to be playing PLO10 ($0.05/$0.10).”
We asked Joel if he had any advice people who have read his story. He claimed he wasn’t qualified to give tips because of the stakes he played, but his advice was one of the golden rules of poker.
“I can’t offer any tips because I’m not qualified, but I can offer some advice: don’t bet what you can’t afford to lose.”
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