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Postcard from a poker whore in Las Vegas
Mar. 22nd, 2005 07:52 pmOne thing that you do not really expect of Atlanta is that the weather is going to be crap. But when I landed it was all of 46 degrees, rainy and windy. More reminiscent of Luton than Georgia. I’d flown in with Delta on the simple grounds that it was the cheapest. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. This time it didn’t. The flight had no screens in the seatbacks, and the 767 plane (laid out 2-3-2) is not my favourite. I read 300 pages of And Quiet Flows The Don.
In the flight over there was one great view of Canada -- almost bleached black & white. And there were no hassles at the airport. Do I now have an honest face?
I had to stay downtown for the first four days because Las Vegas was full. “Conexpo” is a construction convention that gets more than 100,000 attendees. Imagine a convention where some of the exhibits way 100 tons and take many months to get to the site, and you have some concept of Conexpo. Add to that, it was the first week of the NCAA Basketball knockout, which, for some obscure reason, also attracts lots of people to Vegas so that they can bet on the games! Actually, college basketball is much better fun to watch than Pro basketball, and quite a few underdogs won in the early rounds.
Anyway, because of all this, I was stuck inthe El Cortez. Getting buses from downtown to the Strip is a slow process at the moment, wince the Wynn Hotel is in the final stages of construction, meaning that part of the strip north of the Venetian is narrowed to two lanes in either direction.
I forced myself to catch a bus aywa and to play a couple of hours in the Flamingo. No 4-8 game running. So I just said hello to a few old frends and won $12. I got up early on Thursday and trundled through the day until about 5pm. Cards were dry. $70. That was followed by a long session on Friday starting at 1am, where I got $78 up and also picked up four Aces for a $200 high hand bonus.
That was about the end of the good news so far. Saturday I lost $230 in a very depressing session. And as I left to go and see Bob Dylan, it started raining. Could it get any worse? Well, thankfully, no. Dylan was far better than I expected him to be, and his encore of “Don’t Think Twice” and “All Along The Watchtower” brought home to me how much this man’s songs had been part of my life. Curiously, a profoundly moving moment.
Since I was moving on the Sunday I decided to get in a few hands at the Plaza downtown. I had played there on the Friday and picked up $59 in a very lively $3-$6 game, but that was clearly the exception rather tan the rule. In the only available $2-$4 game I managed to lose $90 by making one of the common errors of “good” players – playing too many hands in the belief that you can outplay the opposition post-flop. This is moronic and I deserved to end up $90 down.
Whether I was tired or jet-lagged, I crashed out after moving to the Stardust (courtesy of a Serbian taxi-driver who rather unsubtly tried to lead me in the direction of Las Vegas’s more exoctic attractions) and slept from 5pm to 5am.
I decided that with a new week and new hotel would come a new beginning. I was only $110 down, and with $4-$8 dying a death in the Flamingo, I hit the $8-$16 at the Bellagio. Well, it might be a new beginning, but the cards retained their coldness. There is little more tiring and testing of the spirit than a long run of bad cards. I gradually sunk to over $300 down, even though I knew that I was better than the game (in fact, I was sure that if this was an average $8-$16 game, then I could probably hold my own in the $15-$30). I was also playing quite well and when the cards started running (after about 8 hours!) I got back to $180 down. I quit at 4pm because playing too long just because you have recovered some losses is often a bad move. I reckon I made about $64-worth of errors, which is good going in nine hours, especially since a couple of those were marginal ones where I failed to maximize my earnings from the pot “as it turned out”.
I walked back to my room, showered and canged, and went to relax in the Flamingo game. And now, of course, the cards came! I zoomed to an $80 profit in a couple of hours, but this was brought back to $60 after a hysterical hand. I was only going to play a couple more rounds, so I straddled for $4. This was called round and I looked down to see KK. So I made it $6. The flop came KQT with two diamonds. Subtlety had no place in this game, so I bet. A player two to my left then raised. Had he flopped the AJ straight? Probably, I thought. Then a Korean youngster reraised! So here I am, with top set, almost certainly behind. I decided to slow down and just flat call. Player on my left called. This game was so bad that it did not necessarily rule out AJ.
Turn brought a Jack. Well, if I wasn’t behind before, I certainly was now! I checked, player on my left checked, and Korean guy bets. Has HE got the AJ? I flat call and the guy on my left calls. It’s now about a $70 or $80 pot, quite sizeable for a $2-$4 game. Then the river brought a diamond. Well, I’ve definitely lost it now. But thankfully the betting went check check check. I turn over my set of kings. Player 1 turns over J9 for a King-high straight (flopped, but not the nuts, hence his timidity) and player 2 turns over KQ for top two pair. So, I straddled, flopped top set, and still managed to lose. Interesting.
Which brings us up to date to Tuesday morning. I should be playing in a Stan James tournament this morning (evening, UK time) as part of the Hendon Mob League. With a fifth place under my belt I feel obliged to attempt to win the trip to Vegas in December, despite the fact that I am here already.
Figures to date:
Wed +$12, 2 hrs.
Thur sess 1 -$70, 8 hrs.
Thur sess 2. +$78. 8 hrs, 4aces for +$200
Fri sess 1. +$59 at the Plaza in 2 hrs
Fri sess 2. -$70 in 2 hrs at Flamingo. Too loose. Bad play
Sat 12 hours 7am to 7pm. -$230. Bad play near end after your judgement begins to go.
Sun 7 hours Plaza -$90. Too loose! However, cards were bad as well.
Mon sess 1, 9 hours Bellagio -$178 @ $8-$16. But I played well.
Mon sess 2+$56 @ 2-4 @ Flamingo.
Total so far for trip, minus $233. One could argue that this is really minus $433 if the four aces bonus is excluded. Contrariwise, one could argue that, since I have paid my dollar a hand (where pot exceeds $20) towards the bonus, it all cancels out.
I’m not particularly disturbed by this negative figure. My poor play has been in stakes too low rather than from playing in games where the stakes are too high. And I have had some fairly horrible cards. And bad runs can last a long time. Only on the Saturday did I begin to play poorly as a result of a long bad run in a single session, and I got away from that game without horrific damage (a few years ago I would probably have lost $400 rather than $230). I need a few more sessions at the Bellagio to get completely into the swing of it, and one would expect the first few sessions in a new game at a new level to be negative, because, as a player, you are getting into the “zone” of the game.
In the flight over there was one great view of Canada -- almost bleached black & white. And there were no hassles at the airport. Do I now have an honest face?
I had to stay downtown for the first four days because Las Vegas was full. “Conexpo” is a construction convention that gets more than 100,000 attendees. Imagine a convention where some of the exhibits way 100 tons and take many months to get to the site, and you have some concept of Conexpo. Add to that, it was the first week of the NCAA Basketball knockout, which, for some obscure reason, also attracts lots of people to Vegas so that they can bet on the games! Actually, college basketball is much better fun to watch than Pro basketball, and quite a few underdogs won in the early rounds.
Anyway, because of all this, I was stuck inthe El Cortez. Getting buses from downtown to the Strip is a slow process at the moment, wince the Wynn Hotel is in the final stages of construction, meaning that part of the strip north of the Venetian is narrowed to two lanes in either direction.
I forced myself to catch a bus aywa and to play a couple of hours in the Flamingo. No 4-8 game running. So I just said hello to a few old frends and won $12. I got up early on Thursday and trundled through the day until about 5pm. Cards were dry. $70. That was followed by a long session on Friday starting at 1am, where I got $78 up and also picked up four Aces for a $200 high hand bonus.
That was about the end of the good news so far. Saturday I lost $230 in a very depressing session. And as I left to go and see Bob Dylan, it started raining. Could it get any worse? Well, thankfully, no. Dylan was far better than I expected him to be, and his encore of “Don’t Think Twice” and “All Along The Watchtower” brought home to me how much this man’s songs had been part of my life. Curiously, a profoundly moving moment.
Since I was moving on the Sunday I decided to get in a few hands at the Plaza downtown. I had played there on the Friday and picked up $59 in a very lively $3-$6 game, but that was clearly the exception rather tan the rule. In the only available $2-$4 game I managed to lose $90 by making one of the common errors of “good” players – playing too many hands in the belief that you can outplay the opposition post-flop. This is moronic and I deserved to end up $90 down.
Whether I was tired or jet-lagged, I crashed out after moving to the Stardust (courtesy of a Serbian taxi-driver who rather unsubtly tried to lead me in the direction of Las Vegas’s more exoctic attractions) and slept from 5pm to 5am.
I decided that with a new week and new hotel would come a new beginning. I was only $110 down, and with $4-$8 dying a death in the Flamingo, I hit the $8-$16 at the Bellagio. Well, it might be a new beginning, but the cards retained their coldness. There is little more tiring and testing of the spirit than a long run of bad cards. I gradually sunk to over $300 down, even though I knew that I was better than the game (in fact, I was sure that if this was an average $8-$16 game, then I could probably hold my own in the $15-$30). I was also playing quite well and when the cards started running (after about 8 hours!) I got back to $180 down. I quit at 4pm because playing too long just because you have recovered some losses is often a bad move. I reckon I made about $64-worth of errors, which is good going in nine hours, especially since a couple of those were marginal ones where I failed to maximize my earnings from the pot “as it turned out”.
I walked back to my room, showered and canged, and went to relax in the Flamingo game. And now, of course, the cards came! I zoomed to an $80 profit in a couple of hours, but this was brought back to $60 after a hysterical hand. I was only going to play a couple more rounds, so I straddled for $4. This was called round and I looked down to see KK. So I made it $6. The flop came KQT with two diamonds. Subtlety had no place in this game, so I bet. A player two to my left then raised. Had he flopped the AJ straight? Probably, I thought. Then a Korean youngster reraised! So here I am, with top set, almost certainly behind. I decided to slow down and just flat call. Player on my left called. This game was so bad that it did not necessarily rule out AJ.
Turn brought a Jack. Well, if I wasn’t behind before, I certainly was now! I checked, player on my left checked, and Korean guy bets. Has HE got the AJ? I flat call and the guy on my left calls. It’s now about a $70 or $80 pot, quite sizeable for a $2-$4 game. Then the river brought a diamond. Well, I’ve definitely lost it now. But thankfully the betting went check check check. I turn over my set of kings. Player 1 turns over J9 for a King-high straight (flopped, but not the nuts, hence his timidity) and player 2 turns over KQ for top two pair. So, I straddled, flopped top set, and still managed to lose. Interesting.
Which brings us up to date to Tuesday morning. I should be playing in a Stan James tournament this morning (evening, UK time) as part of the Hendon Mob League. With a fifth place under my belt I feel obliged to attempt to win the trip to Vegas in December, despite the fact that I am here already.
Figures to date:
Wed +$12, 2 hrs.
Thur sess 1 -$70, 8 hrs.
Thur sess 2. +$78. 8 hrs, 4aces for +$200
Fri sess 1. +$59 at the Plaza in 2 hrs
Fri sess 2. -$70 in 2 hrs at Flamingo. Too loose. Bad play
Sat 12 hours 7am to 7pm. -$230. Bad play near end after your judgement begins to go.
Sun 7 hours Plaza -$90. Too loose! However, cards were bad as well.
Mon sess 1, 9 hours Bellagio -$178 @ $8-$16. But I played well.
Mon sess 2+$56 @ 2-4 @ Flamingo.
Total so far for trip, minus $233. One could argue that this is really minus $433 if the four aces bonus is excluded. Contrariwise, one could argue that, since I have paid my dollar a hand (where pot exceeds $20) towards the bonus, it all cancels out.
I’m not particularly disturbed by this negative figure. My poor play has been in stakes too low rather than from playing in games where the stakes are too high. And I have had some fairly horrible cards. And bad runs can last a long time. Only on the Saturday did I begin to play poorly as a result of a long bad run in a single session, and I got away from that game without horrific damage (a few years ago I would probably have lost $400 rather than $230). I need a few more sessions at the Bellagio to get completely into the swing of it, and one would expect the first few sessions in a new game at a new level to be negative, because, as a player, you are getting into the “zone” of the game.
