Poker

okay guys. after being in vegas last weekend, my love affair with poker and busting internet players has increased. anyone? anyone? who wants to play?!

Drano wrote: How did you make out in Vegas?

not bad. I mostly play limit hold 'em in casinos. the no limit tables are populated by the under 27 male crowd, 90% of them wearing sunglasses and/or ipods, which is just irritating. I mean, do they really think they're going to make millions at a $1/$2 no limit table?

in any case, I turned $50 into about $170 at the Flamingo between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. not a ton of money, but it was a $2/$4 table and I was playing pretty cautiously because my table was totally populated by 50+ year old men who were fun table mates but had radically different styles of play. sadly, once I got to the point where I could intimidate them into folding (which isn't as easy as in no limit since there's no "all in" option unless you're busted), they all had to go to the lunch buffet with their wives. then the under 27 crowd showed up in their sunglasses and hats and visors and hangover tremors so I had to go. the old men advised me to go to O'Sheas and Harrah's, also.

the next day, though, I went to the Venitian. it was pretty nice - very sweet poker room. I had to step up, though, to a $3/$6 limit table (honestly the highest limits I've ever played - I have very little casino experience). I only played about an hour and a half - the style was completely different. my table started out with 4 men and 5 women. two of the guys were damn good, one was a cocky little shit (seated next to me) and one had just busted out of a no limit sit-n-go tournament, so he was on a massive tilt. all of the women except for me were obvious live poker newbies - they didn't know how to post blinds, when the action was on them, etc. two of them busted out pretty quickly - they both folded if you bet at the river, so it was easy to shove them out of a hand after milking them for quite a bit. the other two were very erratic, loose players. then I figured out that they liked to chase hands and really liked to see the river and what cards you were holding. this made it easy to beat them. I started with $100 and left with around $155 - I was playing extremely cautiously because I had never played such an erratic and loose table. every time someone busted out of our table, someone who'd busted out of the no limit tourneys would sit down, so we got a lot of people saying "we're playing low limit no fold 'em". that made it tough to bluff or play lousy hands. that said, before I got up, I'd figured out which players I could intimidate and probably could have walked away with significantly more. but I had other obligations, so yeah.

I have to go back to Vegas at the end of July so ....