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The Vegas Grinder
Dec. 16th, 2014 09:32 amThere's a massive tournament going on over at the Bellagio at the moment. $10k entry; attracting the best tournament players in Vegas like flies to a honeypot.
And the interest being shown in this event in the casinos just over the road (Bally's, Flamingo, Linq, Harrah's, Caesar's)? None. The poker players here are not flocking to the rail to watch top tournament players ignore anyone over the age of 40. In fact, the grinders in these rooms either do not think about such players or, if they do, they do so with a certain contempt.
There is no single "poker world", not even in a small geographical section of Las Vegas. I am never going to cross swords with a 20-something pro tournament player or, indeed, with a 20-something $10-$20 no limit player. My only opinion of such a person would be that they are probably playing too high for their bankroll and that it's a near-certainty that they will either be broke or burnt-out by the time they are 30.
In the film "Rounders" there is a character played by the marvellous John Turturro, who grinds away the profit while Matt Damon shoots for the dream. These are the people I mix with. These are, indeed, the people who occupy a niche in Vegas to which I aspire.
Part of the weekly grind in Vegas is to "get in your hours" in each of the casinos that offers a weekly freeroll. The "headline" rakeback on Total Rewards loyalty card is a buck an hour, but this is a woeful understatement. The real earner is the weekly freeroll, currently worth $6k in Bally's (12 hours' play), $5k in the Flamingo (10 hours' play), $2k in the Linq (10 hours' play) and $6k in Harrah's (12 hours' play).
These tournaments get about 90 entries apiece (Bally's just cancelled its twice-a-week version, which only generated about 40 entries for the Thursday to Saturday qualifying period) and so have an EV for your "average" player of about $50-$75. That's an equivalent rakeback of at least $5 an hour, or roughly 50%.
But it gets better. Because the payout is on a "top 20" basis, the tournament functions like a satellite with 20 qualifiers. Of the 90 players, probably 60 are regulars. Of those 60, I suspect at least 40 have "swap" agreements. That is to say, they pool their winnings and share them out amongst themselves. It is only a small step from here to see that it's no in the interest of one pool member to eliminate another pool member. If you have five players per "team", plus a fast structure and only nine tables to start with, you can see that home players have quite a significant advantage.
It's no use moaning about this; the casinos know that it happens and turn a blind eye. As Barry Greenstein observed in his autobiography, when talking about his younger days playing in the Stardust, it was ever thus. Even today there's talk of collusion in the $2-$5 PLO and possibly Hold'em games in the Venetian. I know that I would not be sitting down in such a game with three or more young Asians in them.
So, this trip I have been playing the local game – ensuring that I qualify for at least three of the freerolls. Sure, I am on my own, which puts me at a bit of a disadvantage. But I now know the structures, and I also know a fair few of the players. I'm no longer below average EV.
After 9 days' playing, I'm already seeing what pushes so many good poker players into negative EV games. The way I play the game is a grind. It's not boring, but it is tiring. You can't do anything "for fun". The entire game is about process and about making as few mistakes as possible. And, if you do make a mistake (which you will), you have to shrug it off and carry on playing as properly as you can, hopefully learning from your error and never repeating it.
How tempting must be something less intellectually taxing, such as a craps game, or Blackjack! How nice it would be to have a (free) Bailey's in your coffee, or (free) Tequila Sunrise!
This is the perpetual danger in LV. As I have written many times, there's no shortage of players who are technically superior to me, but there are very few players who have fewer chinks in their armour than I have. I play and I play. If I am tired, I stop. If something goes wrong early on, I don't change my game to try to "get it back". That money is no longer mine. As Caro wrote, stop worrying about getting even, because at the start of every hand, you are even.
What Caro means is that, although games have a "dynamic", that money which you lost to another guy at the table hasn't been "loaned" to him. It's now his money, not yours. There is no money to "get back". It's gone. If you win $100 from another player rather than from the player you just lost $100 to, it's worth just the same as if you won $100 from another player just after winning $100 from the first player.
I mention this because I have adopted another psychological strategy for reducing the threat of tilt. If I lose a buy-in, I now write it to book as if it were a session. I put out my new stack, record the loss (and the time it took) and, according to my spreadsheet, I start a new session. I am not trying to get the previous buy-in back. That was an old session. This is a new one. That's a neat trick that helps keep me on an even keel. So many players carry on playing when "stuck" for the simple reason that they do not see a loss as a realized loss until they get up from the table. I am now "realizing" my losses on a buy-in by buy-in system.
After a strong first week (peaked at $1277 up on Friday afternoon) I have struggled for a few days. I am now about $900 up. The target for the whole holiday was about $2,000 profit, and it's still possible. Then again, so is a net loss. That's how poker works and is one of the reasons to keep a sizeable bankroll.
I could list various hands (I might still do so – I have kept a note of all sessions and the "big" hands therein) but I'm not sure that there is much to be learnt from them. So much depends on stack sizes and the nature of one's opponent.
And the interest being shown in this event in the casinos just over the road (Bally's, Flamingo, Linq, Harrah's, Caesar's)? None. The poker players here are not flocking to the rail to watch top tournament players ignore anyone over the age of 40. In fact, the grinders in these rooms either do not think about such players or, if they do, they do so with a certain contempt.
There is no single "poker world", not even in a small geographical section of Las Vegas. I am never going to cross swords with a 20-something pro tournament player or, indeed, with a 20-something $10-$20 no limit player. My only opinion of such a person would be that they are probably playing too high for their bankroll and that it's a near-certainty that they will either be broke or burnt-out by the time they are 30.
In the film "Rounders" there is a character played by the marvellous John Turturro, who grinds away the profit while Matt Damon shoots for the dream. These are the people I mix with. These are, indeed, the people who occupy a niche in Vegas to which I aspire.
Part of the weekly grind in Vegas is to "get in your hours" in each of the casinos that offers a weekly freeroll. The "headline" rakeback on Total Rewards loyalty card is a buck an hour, but this is a woeful understatement. The real earner is the weekly freeroll, currently worth $6k in Bally's (12 hours' play), $5k in the Flamingo (10 hours' play), $2k in the Linq (10 hours' play) and $6k in Harrah's (12 hours' play).
These tournaments get about 90 entries apiece (Bally's just cancelled its twice-a-week version, which only generated about 40 entries for the Thursday to Saturday qualifying period) and so have an EV for your "average" player of about $50-$75. That's an equivalent rakeback of at least $5 an hour, or roughly 50%.
But it gets better. Because the payout is on a "top 20" basis, the tournament functions like a satellite with 20 qualifiers. Of the 90 players, probably 60 are regulars. Of those 60, I suspect at least 40 have "swap" agreements. That is to say, they pool their winnings and share them out amongst themselves. It is only a small step from here to see that it's no in the interest of one pool member to eliminate another pool member. If you have five players per "team", plus a fast structure and only nine tables to start with, you can see that home players have quite a significant advantage.
It's no use moaning about this; the casinos know that it happens and turn a blind eye. As Barry Greenstein observed in his autobiography, when talking about his younger days playing in the Stardust, it was ever thus. Even today there's talk of collusion in the $2-$5 PLO and possibly Hold'em games in the Venetian. I know that I would not be sitting down in such a game with three or more young Asians in them.
So, this trip I have been playing the local game – ensuring that I qualify for at least three of the freerolls. Sure, I am on my own, which puts me at a bit of a disadvantage. But I now know the structures, and I also know a fair few of the players. I'm no longer below average EV.
After 9 days' playing, I'm already seeing what pushes so many good poker players into negative EV games. The way I play the game is a grind. It's not boring, but it is tiring. You can't do anything "for fun". The entire game is about process and about making as few mistakes as possible. And, if you do make a mistake (which you will), you have to shrug it off and carry on playing as properly as you can, hopefully learning from your error and never repeating it.
How tempting must be something less intellectually taxing, such as a craps game, or Blackjack! How nice it would be to have a (free) Bailey's in your coffee, or (free) Tequila Sunrise!
This is the perpetual danger in LV. As I have written many times, there's no shortage of players who are technically superior to me, but there are very few players who have fewer chinks in their armour than I have. I play and I play. If I am tired, I stop. If something goes wrong early on, I don't change my game to try to "get it back". That money is no longer mine. As Caro wrote, stop worrying about getting even, because at the start of every hand, you are even.
What Caro means is that, although games have a "dynamic", that money which you lost to another guy at the table hasn't been "loaned" to him. It's now his money, not yours. There is no money to "get back". It's gone. If you win $100 from another player rather than from the player you just lost $100 to, it's worth just the same as if you won $100 from another player just after winning $100 from the first player.
I mention this because I have adopted another psychological strategy for reducing the threat of tilt. If I lose a buy-in, I now write it to book as if it were a session. I put out my new stack, record the loss (and the time it took) and, according to my spreadsheet, I start a new session. I am not trying to get the previous buy-in back. That was an old session. This is a new one. That's a neat trick that helps keep me on an even keel. So many players carry on playing when "stuck" for the simple reason that they do not see a loss as a realized loss until they get up from the table. I am now "realizing" my losses on a buy-in by buy-in system.
After a strong first week (peaked at $1277 up on Friday afternoon) I have struggled for a few days. I am now about $900 up. The target for the whole holiday was about $2,000 profit, and it's still possible. Then again, so is a net loss. That's how poker works and is one of the reasons to keep a sizeable bankroll.
I could list various hands (I might still do so – I have kept a note of all sessions and the "big" hands therein) but I'm not sure that there is much to be learnt from them. So much depends on stack sizes and the nature of one's opponent.
