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Trouble is a-brewin' in Las Vegas. I walked back down the Strip at 2am this morning, and the feeling I had was very different from even a year or so ago. I passed two sets of mounted police and a considerable number of metro police cars. It also appeared to me that there were several "brothers" hanging about whose entrepreneurial skills were directed towards the pharmaceutical retail sector.
The problem is, you can't really say "I felt uncomfortable" without being accused of racism. Why should a collection of young black guys trying to sell CDs outside Bally's, or another collection of black kids practising nigga rap (their phrase, not mine) by the Harley Davidson cafe, or a considerably greater number of youngsters (probably sub-21) with gang-type clothing be of concern to me? I wasn't going to get mugged.
Well, I guess that, if I want this kind of atmosphere, I can go shopping in Lewisham Town Centre on a Saturday afternoon. It's more fun if everyone is completely relaxed. I didn't have that feeling last night.
++++++
English groups making a living out of their music being played in Las Vegas lavatories:
Snow Patrol (Excalibur)
Coldplay (Excalibur)
New Order (Flamingo)
++++++++++++
I continue to run nigglingly bad, despite winning three small sessions out of three yesterday.
While passing a couple of hours in the Excalibur before heading to the Mall, I went two hours without winning a hand, but then I won three in quick succession, to finish a few bucks up.
In a five-hour session at the Bellagio, I had to ask myself "did I run bad here?"
On the plus side, I flopped two sets and got paid off reasonably on both of them (in one, I limped in MP1 with 33, got raised by AA, and flopped the 3. Normally I would throw 33 away there, but perhaps, with six people seeing a single raise flop, limping is positive ev in this kind of game). in five hours, that's one more set than mathematically I have a right to expect.
On the down-side, I didn't see a flush or a straight on those five hours, and three times that I had AQ and raised I hit top pair, and three times I lost. I'm trying to work out how to minimize the damage with this kind of hand when they go wrong. For example, I don't continuation bet if I miss, unless I only have two opponents or fewer. But if I raise and I get two people calling me on a flop of QJx, all clubs, I don't see what else I can do but force the pace and hope that I don't get outdrawn (or that one of the opponents has QJ or the set).
I also managed to have AK and flop Kxx against KK. Incredibly, I got away from this on the turn, and the set of kings managed to lose to a diamond flush that hit on the river. What a game.
So, another very marginal win. Dispiriting, again. The quality of opponents wasn't laughably low, with most players in the session having some idea what to do. But it was still relatively loose.
And then I headed over to the Flamingo to wind down the night and, despite two hands in succession that cost me $100 pots with sickening rivers (note to self, if top pair top kicker is in front on the turn against two opponents, it will never be in front on the river), I still managed to get the best win of the day in a couple of hours' play. At this table the play was truly dreadful, and you can only take a couple of hours of it before you feel a desperate need to scream at someone who makes yet one more comment on a hand that is so laughably wrong that you wonder if you have walked into the land of No Idea. I mean, some of these people actually thought they knew what they were doing. It wasn't, "I'm just here to have fun". It was "I win in my home game. I wonder if I can win here?" They then promptly limp under the gun with something like Ace-Ten off, call a raise from behind them, call a flop of KQT rainbow (four players), call a turn of KQTx (four players), hit a jack on the river and scoop a $100 pot (I wasn't in that particular hand, btw). They then make some muttering about "I was getting the implied odds" without any concept that they were most likely pulling to a gutshot to tie the pot, that an Ace would quite likely do them no good, and that even a 10 might be beaten by a set of Queens or Kings. As far as they were concerned, an Ace or a 10 would be a "winner" and the top straight was a top straight.
"There's no such thing as a bad win", someone will say, just a few minutes before someone says "now, if it had been no-limit...."
Aargh.
The problem is, you can't really say "I felt uncomfortable" without being accused of racism. Why should a collection of young black guys trying to sell CDs outside Bally's, or another collection of black kids practising nigga rap (their phrase, not mine) by the Harley Davidson cafe, or a considerably greater number of youngsters (probably sub-21) with gang-type clothing be of concern to me? I wasn't going to get mugged.
Well, I guess that, if I want this kind of atmosphere, I can go shopping in Lewisham Town Centre on a Saturday afternoon. It's more fun if everyone is completely relaxed. I didn't have that feeling last night.
++++++
English groups making a living out of their music being played in Las Vegas lavatories:
Snow Patrol (Excalibur)
Coldplay (Excalibur)
New Order (Flamingo)
++++++++++++
I continue to run nigglingly bad, despite winning three small sessions out of three yesterday.
While passing a couple of hours in the Excalibur before heading to the Mall, I went two hours without winning a hand, but then I won three in quick succession, to finish a few bucks up.
In a five-hour session at the Bellagio, I had to ask myself "did I run bad here?"
On the plus side, I flopped two sets and got paid off reasonably on both of them (in one, I limped in MP1 with 33, got raised by AA, and flopped the 3. Normally I would throw 33 away there, but perhaps, with six people seeing a single raise flop, limping is positive ev in this kind of game). in five hours, that's one more set than mathematically I have a right to expect.
On the down-side, I didn't see a flush or a straight on those five hours, and three times that I had AQ and raised I hit top pair, and three times I lost. I'm trying to work out how to minimize the damage with this kind of hand when they go wrong. For example, I don't continuation bet if I miss, unless I only have two opponents or fewer. But if I raise and I get two people calling me on a flop of QJx, all clubs, I don't see what else I can do but force the pace and hope that I don't get outdrawn (or that one of the opponents has QJ or the set).
I also managed to have AK and flop Kxx against KK. Incredibly, I got away from this on the turn, and the set of kings managed to lose to a diamond flush that hit on the river. What a game.
So, another very marginal win. Dispiriting, again. The quality of opponents wasn't laughably low, with most players in the session having some idea what to do. But it was still relatively loose.
And then I headed over to the Flamingo to wind down the night and, despite two hands in succession that cost me $100 pots with sickening rivers (note to self, if top pair top kicker is in front on the turn against two opponents, it will never be in front on the river), I still managed to get the best win of the day in a couple of hours' play. At this table the play was truly dreadful, and you can only take a couple of hours of it before you feel a desperate need to scream at someone who makes yet one more comment on a hand that is so laughably wrong that you wonder if you have walked into the land of No Idea. I mean, some of these people actually thought they knew what they were doing. It wasn't, "I'm just here to have fun". It was "I win in my home game. I wonder if I can win here?" They then promptly limp under the gun with something like Ace-Ten off, call a raise from behind them, call a flop of KQT rainbow (four players), call a turn of KQTx (four players), hit a jack on the river and scoop a $100 pot (I wasn't in that particular hand, btw). They then make some muttering about "I was getting the implied odds" without any concept that they were most likely pulling to a gutshot to tie the pot, that an Ace would quite likely do them no good, and that even a 10 might be beaten by a set of Queens or Kings. As far as they were concerned, an Ace or a 10 would be a "winner" and the top straight was a top straight.
"There's no such thing as a bad win", someone will say, just a few minutes before someone says "now, if it had been no-limit...."
Aargh.
