Everything Has A Limit

As a troll might put it, "for someone grinding a profit at Las Vegas, you don't seem to be doing a very good job".
A point which, it must be said, is hard to deny, ameliorated only by the fact that I'm still a long way ahead of the troll in terms of money in the bank and that he's got a tedious job and a bedsit in Kensal Green, and is really just jealous.

A couple of Monday sessions, both at Harrah's and both grim.

1) I sat down in a very lively game (that had clearly been running all night) where, if luck is with you, a big amount of money can be made. Having had a four-day Aces drought (about 1,000 hands, roughly a 1% chance) I got it all in with Ac Ah. Early raises to $10. Japanese iPhone addict raises to $40 and I raise to $80. First raiser folds and Japanese kid goes all in. I call for my remaining $30. Flop comes Qc 3d 8c and he shows QQ, just like my loss with AA on day one. Turn brings Jc and river brings 3c, giving me the flush. Unfortunately it also gave him a full house.
The Japanese kid would later go broke in a $1,000 pot with QQ as an overpair on a T 8 5 board. Opponent had T8.

2) The next loss with Ah As saw a limp UTG and a raise to $13 from me in UTG+1. Five callers, mega-non-lolz.
Flop is Qd Jd 3s. I bet $65. Get two callers. Turn is 3d. I shove. Player on my left raises all in and third guy folds. I call for my remaining $40. He has Qc Kd. River is, of course, a diamond. Down two stacks.

3) Get a stack back from the same guy who hit me with the KQ when I limp re-raise all in preflop with Ad Kd. Board runs out Axxxx and my hand is good. I was either 47/53 or 76/24 on the hand. Probably the former.

End up one stack down after three hours.

I came home and had a nap and drove back in for my final five hours to reach the 80 needed for the freeroll on Wednesday. It was a grim time.
Cliff notes. I busted off three stacks, got a single stack back and then lost most of it again when I and made a hero fold that might have been a stupid fold.

4) The first of the stack-offs was a drift down to $50 and then picking up 9c 8c under the gun. I think that I raised to $7 and decided that the remaining $43 was going in if I had any of the flop.
I was to lose all three of my stacks to the same guy, who was probably better than me. So let's think of it as a learning experience.
The flop came 8d 2d Jd.
This guy bet and I shoved. He called for not much extra and looked worried when a diamond came on the turn. But river was a blank spade. He had As 8h, and his kicker was good.

5) Second stack-off was the one I think that I should have got away from, even if tired, playing badly, and not thinking straight. I had As 9s and called a smallish raise because six players were in. Board came 5h 5s 3s, giving me a four-card-flush and overcards. There's a good chance that someone has trip fives, but it isn't in anyway a certainty.
I lead out for $11 into a $40 pot from early and everyone folds to tricky player who raises me $19 to $30. This is the point at which I should get away. Opponent is capable of raising without a five, but the size of the raise smells. And if he HAS got a five, he can reasonably safely read my hand for what it is, spade overcards.
Turn is a blank. I check and he bets another $30, about half my stack. River is a very irritating nine, giving me two pairs Aces and Nines. I bet and he puts me in for my remaining $30 or so and I call. He has something like 85-off. I played this hand badly and I knew it.
But the point is, one is bound to play some hands badly. You read this in isolation, but over 1000s of hands you make 1000s of decisions. You can't always bring your 'A' game. The trick to winning at poker is not to play perfectly, but to minimize your losses when you aren't playing perfectly. Even if I wasn't on top form, I think I could have got away from this. But the other guy (and he was quite capable of playing the same way without the five, except that I think he would have raised more than $19 on the flop if he hadn't had it) was just a good player and he lulled me into stacking myself off. Well played him.

6) The second stack-off to the same guy was not so bad. I picked up AQ off in mid and reraised an early loose raiser. Tricky guy flatted for about $20, equal to about a sixth of my stack. One other caller.
Board comes Q 4 4 rainbow. I bet $25. Tricky guy calls and other guy folds. Turn is a blank. I check, tricky opponent bets about $20 and I raise all in. He has the four (five four off this time I think).
I was unlucky flopping TPTK and he was lucky flopping the four. There was $20 of my money in there already. So I will always play this hand this way because in the long run it is a profitable line. And this was not a case of me being able to sense whether opponent had hit his hand or not. So, $360 down for the evening.

7) I got a buy-in back with QQ, check-raising all-in on the turn on a board of 8h 5s 2s. Opponent had As 8s. No help for him on river, and I am back to $240 down, $360 down on day.

Unfortunately that left me with $250 or so in front of me, and then a rich old Texan guy with $700 (won at table games) and a big drink in his hand sits down at the game. He is told that the maximum is $300.

8) He looks clueless, so when I put in a raise with Ad Td and he calls, I'm not unhappy to see a flop of Th 5s 4d. He bets $12 (with some help from the dealer) and I raise to $25. He calls (once again with some help from the dealer). Turn is a deuce. He bets $12 again. This time I raise to $35. Only in retrospect is this an error and only in retrospect might my subsequent line have been wrong. Old guy suddenly wakes up and says "let's make it $50". Is told that he cannot underraise and that he has to make it $60. Which he does.

Bleaaaggh. I should have cold-called him down.
And if I only had $120 in front of me my decision wouldd also be easy. All of it goes in.
But I have $250 in front of me. I am out of my comfort zone. In retrospect (I saw how the guy played later hands) I should shove all in, even though if I lose I am $480 down for the night. If he folds I am back to about $50 down and if he calls and I win, I am about $100 up for thenight and level for the day.
But, and this is also a factor, it is "only" $25 to call, and there is no certainty he will bet the river. I might also improve on the river with an Ace or a Ten. If he does bet the river, he might bet small.
So I call.

River is a Jack and he bets $60. I know that in normal circumstances a $60 bet into you when you have second-pair is an autofold, I knew that it was far from the case here. My instincts were telling me that the deuce on the turn gave him two-pair. The $60 was just a bit too big. Many bad, players can be worked out by their bet-sizing, which matches uncannily the strength of their hand.
BUT, this guy was no good. Maybe he had JT, maybe he had QT. I tanked for a minute (very unusual for me) and decided to fold.
Back to $360 down for the night and $480 down for the day.

It is here that we come across some of the few positive aspects of the evening. I didn't tilt, I didn't get annoyed. I kept playing as I normally play, for perhaps another 90 minutes. I got AJ in mid, raised, got three callers, continuation betted an Axx flop (two callers) and had the courage to go all-in on a blank turn (about a pot-sized bet) which was enough to take it down. Proper play played properly.

And I left when I felt that I was getting tired, even though the rich guy was still around. In other words, I learnt my lesson from the previous Friday.
(The madness of this guy, whose bets were randomly sized and whose hands were equally random to match, was illustrated by a huge multi-way all-in with a couple of $70 stacks, one $200 stack and the rich guy. The $200 stack scooped the lot with KT on a bouard of Txxxx.)
These games can be profitable (albet volatile) but they are not games in which I have played a lot and they are not therefore games where, through experience, I have worked out the best lines. I have to play them to work out the best lines, and I have to accept the volatility. But for the moment I am sure I have a higher EV in the tighter day games where there are fewer multi-wayers, lower volatility, and pots can be won through reasonably intelligent play.

If we take poker "levels" as being 0 to 10, with me being something like a level four player, I reckon that the tricky guy I was up against in the evening was a level six or something. I can cope with level five players, steering clear of them. My ideal opponents are level two and level three, because I can get inside their heads. But level 0 and level 1 players are difficult for me. I have to "unlearn" stuff in my head such as "he can't have this because he did this" sort of thinking.
I also have to completely restrategize because there are so many multi-way pots. Much of poker is learnt behaviour. You see something happen again and again and again, and you know what to do. This is why Londoners can walk London's streets so much more confidently than tourists.
Just because a game is weaker that does not mean it is easier, at least, not until you have had lots of practice. The harmonica is an "easier" instrument to play than a sitar, but that didn't mean that Ravi Shankar could put down his sitar and outperform Larry Adler.
It's the same in these "softer" games. A level two player who is used to playing these games will outperform a level four player who is used to playing a different type of game.

Now $410 down for the trip.

Losing $450 in a day is, of course, less enjoyable than winning it. And poker is a game that seems incredibly easy when things are going right, and very difficult when things are going wrong. And, when things ARE going wrong, it is immeasurably harder to continue to play well. In that sense, yesterday was not that downheartening. Despite getting Aces cracked twice (I'm now 0 for 3 in Aces all in pre-flop, and yesterday I was 0 for 2 with Aces when I was 80% both times – although in the second case the final money went in on the turn. If I had won all four of these, I would be up about $900 rather than down $410) and not getting the rub of the green for most of the day, I kept my cool.

But, eventually, you have to look at the bottom line because that is the only way of keeping score. You have to decide whether you are good enough, but are being unlucky, or whether you aren't good enough. This is not a cut-and-drieg decision, and there are many players out there carrying on playing because they are deluded in thinking that they are unlucky, rather than bad.
It's almost a Phil Dickian problem. Is my perception correct, or am I in fact not good enough?
Unlike most players, I have spent 15 years being racked by this self-doubt. That's an advantage rather than a disadvantage, in that I suspect my grasp on reality is greater than that of most poker players, which should in turn mean that I am more likely to spot that it's time to call it a day.

The last time I had a losing trip to LV was in April 2007, and then I didn't come back for more than four years. And I didn't really miss it.
And, of course, the trip isn't over. I might end up breaking even. I might end up $1,000 down. Neither is that significant in the grand scheme of things. I'm never going to be in the situation where I am playing poker and having to win to eat.
When I get back to London I am thinking of doing a version of the bonus-hunting circuit in the London casinos, although I am not sure that I will be able to stand the company. If I don't enjoy it, I will quit fairly sharpish. But it would be an interesting experiment.

Online, I also need to re-evaluate, but that's a topic for another day!

Not sure what I am going to do today. The apartment is cleaned on Mondays, else I might have just sat around. This is the kind of day when the hot weather is such bad news, because I would love to go for a long walk. That's not feasible when it 106f out there.

Onwards!

Another good day yesterday. Nothing spectacular, just a steady accumulation of chips. indeed, the best performance by me was one in which I minimized my loss, rather than maximized my gain. It's an important tenet in poker; a dollar not lost is as valuable as a dollar won.
I didn't have a single double-through, but I won five or six "reasonable" sized pots through bets on the turn, and a few more of a reasonable size when I adopted the sound strategy of having the best hand at showdown (this is intrinsically linked with another sound strategy – improving your hand on the flop).
Hands worth commenting upon:

1) 7d6d in cutoff. I throw in small raise of a couple of limpers (a) to build pot (b) to make it a multi-wayer and (c) to make any inveterate larger raisers behind me or in the blind have second thoughts. Flop comes Kd Qd Jd. I put in a pot-sized bet (a) because I'm happy to win a $40 here and now and (b) I can't see the bare Ad or Td having the courage to fold. No callers. Said to dealer. "Wrong straight flush!" (There's a $100 bonus for a straight flush and a $500 bonus for a Royal Flush - using two cards in hand).

2) Ah4h in late. Same strategy of a small raise to build pot. Five callers. This time, the flop is the less generous 4s5hJd. I fire a $16 continuation and get two callers (button and big blind). Turn brings 9h, giving me bottom pair and a nut flush draw. I push in a $37 bet and, rather disappointingly, I get a caller – the button. River is As, making a board of 4s 5h Jd 9h As. There's about $120 in pot and I have about $100 behind. Opponent has about $80. I bottle it and check, intending to evaluate whether I call opponent's bet on how big the bet is. TBH he doesn't look like a bluffer. Unfortunately if I put in any bet above $15, I'm kind of committed to calling his raise (he might have a worse two pair). Anyhoo, he turns out to have JhQh – also a flush draw, but beating me on the flop and turn. I suspect he would have called a $15 bet from me and not much more. Slightly annoyed at myself for not extracting maximum value on the river.


3) KsKh in late. Raise, get three callers, including early limper. Flop comes 9c 5d 4d and early limper fires out $20 bet into $30 pot. I think for about three seconds and fold. Other players fold and original bettor obligingly shows his top set of nines. I doubt that many players could find a fold there, but he didn't look tricky enough to me to be betting a draw. I was fairly sure that he would check an overpair, so the logical conclusion was that, like many weak players, he saw not only his set but also the scare cards 5d4d, and made the mistaken assumption that "there is always a draw out there". Was very pleased indeed with this fold, which I don't think I would have found a few months ago. With $1-$2 players, most of the time what you see is what you get. A big bet represents a big hand, not a draw.

Greg Hawes was playing the $500 one-dayer at Planet Hollywood, and despite building up to 10x his starting stack in a 43-runner field, managed to lose three coin-flips in a row to move from chip-leader to bust in 18th. That's the way he plays and it seems to work.
That permitted us time for a pleasant dinner at Lombardi's (opposite V Theater on Miracle Mile – where I saw Bob Dylan in 2005!) and, despite it being an Italian, I spoilt myself with an excellent 16oz bone-in rib-eye steak, with shitake mushrooms, asparagus, and small diced roast potatoes. I didn't finish the potatoes! Greg had a shrimp-based pasta dish followed by a cheesecake and Irish coffee.
Had an interesting discussion with Daniel the maitre d' about how the definition of "medium rare" had become something of a movable feast in the USA over the past decade, with some restaurants moving very close to the European definition, while others have moved less quickly.
Also we had an odd moment when the waitress asked Greg whether he wanted whipped cream and crème de menthe. I thought she was referring to the cheesecake, but apparently she was referring to the Irish coffee. It took me several minutes to work out why anyone would want to mix crème de menthe with coffee and whiskey – a combination of flavours which sounds to me to be utterly repulsive. Th answer of course was in the colour of crème de menthe, not the flavour. Personally, if I was determined to put green colour into anything called "Irish". in this case I would choose Green Chartreuse rather than crème de menthe (a drink forever in my mind associated with the Billy Connolly story told at The Secret Policeman's Ball, "What does the pope drink? Creme de Menthe? Two pints of that then please".)
Dinner was made even more pleasant by the fact that Greg insisted on paying. May he cash in WSOP tournaments more often!

And so, back to the apartment rather early, rather tired and rather full.
Plus $205 for the day, plus $273 for trip. I am now just trying to beat my plus $978 performance in December.

Well, Sunday was one of those frustrating days when things just didn't want to go right.
Effectively I lost two 50:50s for two stacks of $120, although, this being cash, it wasn't quite as simple as shove and hope.
The two losses occurred early in session one and early in session two, which meant I was always playing catch-up. I got some of it back and ended the day $147 down after eight hours of play.
So the plus side of it was that at least I got my hours in!
But such long sessions, interspersed in this case by a lunch with Jamie and Lee, who flew in the day before, really tire me out. Was exhausted when I got back to the apartment and crashed out at 10pm.
That meant that I awoke semi-refreshed, although I had a bit of a vivid and unpleasant nightmare last night, in which I was still working in my old job, but at the main building rather than the annexe, and there was a sort of "military inspection". All of the workers were these hideous "team enthusiasts", with all the stuff laid out with that hideous military precision for inspection.
Obviously I was a complete disaster in all of this!
Thank fuck I'm out of it in the real world.

The first loss was where I took a view on an early raiser and raised over the top for all his $90 from the Cut Off with TT. He had QJ off, and hit his queen.
This all looks marginal, mainly because it it. But I took a view which was essentially correct.
I then perhaps overplayed my last $25 by reraising another early raiser with TT again. This time he had JJ.
As it happens this didn't cost, because shortly after I got AJ and was able to use my second stack to win $70 back. I should have won more, but I overbet the turn when it ran out JxxJ. Opponent was probably calling with just overcards on the flop, so I could have slowed up and given him the chance to hit a card that would help him lose all his money.

In the afternoon I soon hit AK of spades in the big blind and reraised a $16 raise in mid to $50, intending to shove my last $70 on any flop. Opponent called and the hideous flop of QT9 two hearts did not deter me. Opponent had TT and I was reloading. Tens not doing me any favours today.

So it was all a matter of catch-up for most of both sessions. I got some back and ended session one down $54 and session two down $93. The plus side was that at least I got in a good number of hours!

And with luck it will be possible to park somewhere vaguely close to the card room today!

A somewhat frustrating Friday morning. Turned up for the Flamingo Freeroll (10 hours play in the week to qualify). 71 runners and 20 spots paid, 10 at $150 and 10 at $375.
You get 3,000 chips and the structure is fast (opening blind level of 25-50, 15-minutes per level), but the regulars know that this does not necessitate going mad from the get-go. There were still six tables going when the average stack was 3,300 and the blinds were 200-400.
I had played hardly any hands at all, but two uncalled shoves when the blinds were 200-400 got me up to 3,800. Then I picked up AA in the small blind, got it all in vs KQo in the big blind, and lost to 2 pairs kings and queens. So it goes.
All in with AA just twice this week, and lost both times. I guess the EV cost this time round was about $100.
That left me with T25 on blinds of 200-400, not the best spot to be in, it must be admitted - one-sixteenth of a big blind. But I passed for three hands and reached the colour up stage, thus quadrupling my stack to T100 and one-eighth of a Big Blind. Not many players (apart from one notable ex-Luton and ex-Gutshot player) can quadruple their chip count while on a break.
Unfortunately, when I chose my spot of KJo, opponent's ATo won with ease and I was out. Happy with the way I played etc etc. I would expect to cash in these about 40% of the time, TBH.

Two hours of cash afterwards at Flamingo generated little of interest. Hit a couple of hands and check-raised the right amount, but got no customers. Lost the minimum with JJ overpair when a third club came on turn and a rock put in a $30 bet. Finished $26 down.

Drove to grocery store and stocked up. Bought some Mountain Dew, a soft drink that I have never sampled before. It's the colour of urine, but it tastes rather nice.

Driving back into town at 6pm was a nightmare. The worst traffic and nowhere to park. I suspect that the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) will cause similar problems for the rest of the weekend, so I will have a long walk in hot sun from my car to the card room.

The evening sessions proved to be more profitable. I got a nice start with KQs, value-betting all the way an old-guy opponent on a board of KxxxK. He had KT. But then it all went a bit pear-shaped in dribs and drabs and suddenly I was down to $75 in front of me, from a high of $180.
Luckily I got AK under the gun and this time managed not to misplay it. Opponent with AJ seemed quite happy to double me through via my bets on flop and turn on a board of Axxxx.

The most notable hand was when I had KQ in the Big Blind and got in cheaply. The board came QT3 rainbow. I bet smallish ($7) and got one caller (old guy, weak player I think). Turn was a 7 and I bet $11. He calls again. River is a deuce and I'm beginning to get concerned. I had initially planned a $21 river bet, but I decided to make it a semi-blocking bet of $11. He hummed and hahhed, eventually putting the money in, which led me to think I was good. I tabled my hand and he stared at it, stared at his hand, stared at the board. By this time I feel sure that he's got something like QJ. But, no. He puts down his hand of - 32. So, not only does he call me all the way with bottom pair bottom kicker, but then he slow-rolls me. It was incompetence rather than maliciousness, but still somewhat grating.

The game got rather annoying now. A bit of a loud-mouth young drinker sat at my left, kept trying to act before I had finished my action. Then a new dealer came in who made a dealer error I don't think I have seen before. Old guy in Seat 5 (the one who called me earlier with KT) went all in pre-flop for his last $30, raising the guy on his right who had raised to $10. Dealer leans forward to tell old guy to protect his hand and then, presumably working on auto-pilot, simultaneously picks up said hand as if it had been folded! She immediately realizes and puts back the hand. Floor is called and she says she will look at the two cards, and player has to whisper in her ear what two cards he had). This happens, but unfortunately the information does not match. The dealer had replaced the wrong two cards.
So the only choice here is to give back the $30 and declare the hand dead (fortunately there had been no action behind)
Of course, you can see where this is headed. Everyone else passes and original raiser shows his AA, insisting that that the $30 should have stayed in the pot, because he had been in a similar situation in the Rio. The key here is whether there is action behind.
Just about all the floor calls I have seen in the past week have been because of dealer error rather than player error. The poker rules tend to cover all player error situations, but dealer error situations are often far less clear cut, and there will always be one player or more than one player who suffers as a result.

Young guy was pissing me off and the dealer seemed to be more interested in chatting than dealing, so I resorted to headphones - a rare strategy on my part. Neutral Milk Hotel.

For the rest of the evening it was a case of bits and pieces. Getting on for nothing on the big blind with J9o is always nice, particularly when the flop comes 999. Small blind took a quick $10 stab at it, but wouldn't try to bluff any further, damn him.
I suddenly found myself more than $150 up, so I decided to head back to the Flamingo.
Played there for an hour and benefited from players' tendency to put in big pre-flop raises that got callers behind. When a middle position player puts in an 8x raise, called behind in two spots, KK is a nice hand to find in the big blind. I three-bet to $48 with the intention of shoving my remaining $80 on any flop. Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately) all three opponents declined to give me any custom.

Mr Hawes had been playing the seniors in the Rio earlier, and, after busting, went to play some cash in Caesar's. He came over at about 11.15pm and we went to Hash House A GoGo in the Linq. Had a burger. Pleasant. After that it was a long trek back (temperature still about 31/86, at midnight-thirty!) to the car, which I eventually found. Was very tired.

I've crawled to $221 up after five days play, plus $35 Total Rewards rakeback. I know that I've talked about the Aces being cracked, but I've had a few hands that have gone the right way as well. This isn't a case of sucking out. It's a case of putting in the right bets and hitting the right flops. Or winning hands that I "should" win. If I win 80% of the hands where I am averaging an EV of 80%, then I am running neither good nor bad. That's about where I am at at the moment, I would say. Not running good, but not running dreadfully bad.

Yesterday was very much a "little to report day". The sequence goes: get up. Shower, etc. Make toast and some not-very-good filter coffee (I knew that I should have brought my Italian stove pot). Write a couple of emails. Write blog. Walk out into the heat and drive to the Strip.
Play cards. Drive back to apartment. Have substantial lunch. Sleep. Wake up. Back to Strip for about 9pm for another few hours.

I had a good five hours in Harrah's in the morning. I was going nowhere for ages, dribbled down to $55 then fought back up to $80. There was a drunk at the table for the first hour but I couldn't hit a hand. Then it was a tight game, and I got no action for my AA.
Then it clicked, and my AK doubled through against a weak Israeli calling station. Then QcJc got a result when flush came good on river (but also paired the board). Perhaps I should have min-raised the $25 river bet, which I was almost certain did not represent a full house. But it's early days here and I'm not totally confident yet in my judgement. As it turned out the river gave opponent trips with an Ace kicker.
And finally my JJ hit top set and I got a decent caller until he folded river, presumably missing his flush and/or straight draw. Up $100.

The evening session was 3.5 hours of no hands at all. I held it to $20 down by expeditiously getting in for nothing on the big blind with 43o and hitting bottom two pair on a J43 rainbow board. I checked, one guy bet $7 and got three callers, and I raised $45 to take it down.
Missed a few speculative draws when I was getting implied odds, but made trips on the turn for one hand for another small win.
The problem is that when you are card-dead you appear to be even tighter than you are, so getting paid off is less certain. That might mean that I could bluff and get away with it, but in $1-$2 games on the Strip that is a dangerous road to travel.

Should be meeting Mr Hawes for a late lunch today, so I will adjust my schedule. Possibly a long morning session, lunch, then an afternoon session before coming back to the apartment for the evening to read, write postcards and play silly games on the laptop.

It is of course something of a rule that no journey from London to Las Vegas will be trouble-free. This time it was British Airways administrative incompetence, and Dollar rent-a-car popularity that messed me up.

My good run with plane seats came to a sort of end when it was clear that the flight would be full. Sitting between me and another shrewdie solo traveller were two boys aged about 8 and 10, part of a family of five who clearly could not get their act together to reserve a block of seats together.
To be fair, the kids were as good as gold the whole way, sleeping much of the time.

Take-off was delayed for nearly two hours, first by a late passenger, then by the absence of a single form that needed to be signed off by an engineer, and which had not been signed off. That delay led to a passenger panicking and deciding that she didn't want to fly after all. No changing her mind. So, off she went and her baggage had to be found and unloaded. Then another 20 minutes while we awaited a take-off slot. Amateurs, I tell you, amateurs.

Movies

I watched a couple of movies – Birdman and the last of The Hobbit trilogy. Birdman was interesting rather than a masterpiece – clearly a bit of "too clever for its own good" in choosing an ex-Batman as the lead character and going for this unusual "pseudo single-shot" technique. Fine supporting performances; Ed Norton, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts are all strong.

The Hobbit. Well, sigh. Perfectly well-executed by the cast and the director, but I fear that the six films of Middle Earth have only served to highlight the nonsense of the world in which the films are set. Don't get me wrong; LotR is a great read. But Tolkien's world of language stands up to scrutiny far better than does his world of people, orcs, elves, trolls, dwarves and so on. I can imagine several of the characters saying to Jackson "but this just doesn't make sense", to which Jackson can only have replied – "I know, but that's what they did in the book".

We landed 90 minutes late. Then (it was by now 10pm, 6am my body time) the shuttle to the rental car office took ages to arrive, and then there was a significant queue to pick up rental cars. To give Dollar credit they got extra staff from somewhere, eventually.
Finally, there were no rental cars to be had! Another 40 minute wait.

My apartment block's front office closed at 11pm, so I was panicking somewhat (indeed, a couple of BA staff waiting for a car were caught out by this as well, and they had to book a hotel room elsewhere). Luckily there was a night porter at my block, and when I finally arrived, at midnight, he got me a room and a key.


This is an approximation of the view from the front of the suites block.

Getting from the airport to Boulder Highway was also entertaining. My Tom Tom, when I finally got it working, took five minutes to work out where I was and then decided to take me via the I-15 and all of the other I-roads in LV. It's almost as if I had bought it second-hand from a rogue LV cab driver.
In practice, this was probably the quickest route, it being 65mph and 45mph limits all the way. But it was seven miles instead of three miles, and at one point I honestly thought that it had decided to use my previous route and to take me to Phoenix.
I so lost my sense of direction (and it was late), that I made the schoolboy error of turning left onto Boulder Highway going the wrong way. By which I mean not that I was heading in the wrong direction (although instinctively I thought that I was – I had been expecting to be told to turn right) but that I was heading south on the northbound carriageway. I realized within about 15 seconds and there was hardly any traffic around (traffic, of course, is something that helps you make the right decision in this circumstance!)

HOT

So, now I am settling in, but my it is hot out there during the day. I played from 10am to 3pm on Monday, planning to come back to the apartment, do a bit of admin, and then go back to play at Bally's in the evening. As it turned out, I fell asleep at 6pm and, although I woke up a few times, decided to "sleep through".
The admin included heading to the grocery store on the other side of Boulder Highway, where I picked up bread, margarine, cheese, coffee, milk, and some stuff to make chilli con carne and pasta.
That also necessitated picking up the various kitchen items from the front desk, which is only 100 yards away, but was still an effort in the heat. It's getting to about 108f (low humidity) during the day. Hard to describe what that is like when there is no wind. I certainly wouldn't want to be outside in it for more than 10 minutes.

I was unlucky at poker. I more than doubled-through from $110 to $260 when my two red Kings got two callers pre-flop when I three-bet from the blind to $37, and one caller to my all-in on a Qc 6d 3c flop. Turn was a club and river was a club, but opponent was clubless as well.

But then I got $250 all-in pre-flop with Aces and the board came down 9Q544, so I was quite optimistic. Unfortunately opponent had QQ. Sigh.

My next all-in went wrong when one player raised to $10 all-in and he got one caller. I had JJ on button and made it $30 (I think I should have made it $50). Non-all-in opponent called and flop came QQ5. He checked and I shoved for $80, but, yes, he had QT.

I made a near double-through back with AK all in preflop (I limped under the gun, three-bet a raiser and called his four-bet shove).

So, $160 down for the day. Onwards!

Two interesting hands occurred in which I was not involved.

The first saw a small raise UTG called twice by MP and Button
Flop came down Tc Kc 6d
Bet from early, call from MP, raise all in from short-stack button. MP now goes into the tank for so long that I wondered if he realized he was still in the hand. He did, and he re-raised all-in. Early raiser calls without hesitation.
Turn comes a low red card and river is 9s

Early position tables 66 for set of sixes, button has TT for set of 10s and MP has Qc Jc for a straight. Set over set and a four-card royal flush draw all on the flop. Actually, the table had good chances for a Bad Beat jackpot there. Roughly 2*(1/24*1/24), I think. About 1 in 300?

The second hand was one where a ruling was required and some coniderable argument ensued over what was only $10, but it was a tense hand.

Player A has $211
Player B has $201
Player C has $600

Player A is a youngish kid whose English was not that great. Player B (in his mid-30s) was on Rum and Coke and Player C (early 30s, good, but a drinker) had been knocking back Jack and Cokes.

Player B has AK, which eventually turns out to be the winning hand. Players A and C both had draws that missed when all the money went in on the flop. Player A's miss was "better" than player C's miss.

The interesting part of the hand is as follows.
On the flop, player A bets, say, $50 into a $50 pot. Player B says "all-in" (for $151) and player C distinctly says "I call", shoving a randomly large sum of cash over the line (say, $300).
Player A then shoves in all of his own money without saying anything and with a body language that also indicates "sigh, I call".
Now, as we can see, what no-one, including the dealer and, it appears, player A himself, realized, was that he had more money than player B - $10 more to be precise. Player A was looking at the large random sum that Player C had put in, and knew that he had less than that. But player C had distinctly said "I call".

Therefore Player C should now be required to announce that he calls Player A's technical under-raise of $10. But, since no-one had noticed what was going on, the dealer decided to sort out the count after (a common occurrence) and dealt the river.

After the deal was terminated, Player C dragged back is $300 (naughty of him, the dealer should have done the returning) and put $151 in the middle, that being the amount that player B had gone all-in for. Dealer counts the cash and throws $10 back at player A, because he realises that there was $161 there.
At this point another player (in seat one) points out that, since Player A was all in for $161, player C, with $600 in front of him, owes the pot $10 and that a $20 side-pot should have been created (which, as it happens, player A would have won, having the better of the "losing" hands).
Player C refuses to put in the extra $10, noting that player A had not said "all-in", or "raise". The seat one player (she was as it happens a dealer elsewhere at high-stakes games), observed that a player does not have to make a verbal declaration when going all in, and that therefore his action when pushing $161 all in qualified as a raise.

Unfortunately there was no quality floorperson on hand to rule on this. At first I instinctively sided with the observing player in seat one.
But the ruling eventually was that player C did not have to put in the extra $10.
Thinking about it after, it occurred to me that, theoretically (although it wouldn't happen in practice), player C could have folded to that "extra" $10. Since he wasn't given the option so to do (because the dealer and all the players failed to spot that player A had $10 more than player B) he could hardly be told that he had to put in the $10 retrospectively after he had lost. On the other hand, if player C had won, I am sure that he would have taken the $161 put in by player A, rather than player A getting $10 back.
In fact, it could be argued that the dealer had dealt the turn and river prematurely before all the actions had been completed and that therefore he should redeal turn and river.
But here practicalities come into play. It was a $750 pot and the final raise "that never was" was just $10.
So applying the letter of the law here would have been very unfair on player B, who had done nothing wrong throughout, and who had won the pot.
It caused considerable argument, subsequently, getting rather personal at stages. I kept well out of it.

My Tom Tom is proving temperamental. Seems to take five minutes to work out where I am, and then it keeps trying to get me to go miles out of my way on the I-15.  I have to ignore it for five minutes and then it works out that I am not going to change my mind, and agrees to let me go via Flamingo East and Desert Inn.

Well, I shall drive in at about 9am I think. The traffic didn't look too dreadful yesterday at that time.

I have had my breakfast! Very nice to be able to do that in your own little apartment.

A fairly grim second week at the tables; indeed, I found it something of a surprise to see that I was only $100 down for the seven days. Poker is hard work when you can never seem to hit a flop, or can't get paid off if you do, and always get caught when you try to nick a pot where you have missed the flop.
The bright spot and redeeming feature was making the $300 from the Bally's freeroll. I couldn't repeat it Friday morning in the Flamingo freeroll, but this was only because my top-notch all-in 15 big-blind shove with Jack-nine suited was ridiculously called by Ace-Queen off in the big blind.
I was annoyed with myself at the time, but in retrospect my play was right.
I had an entertaining diversion this week on Wednesday when I decided to attempt to find the stairs from the fourth floor to the ground floor. I walked down one flight, along a passageway and down another flight, and through a door -- which promptly locked itself behind me. I appeared to be in an abandoned warehouse part of the Flamingo that hadn't seen much humanity since 1978. At the end of the passageway I saw a double-door with "EXIT" above it, so I went along and pushed it creakingly open.
And found myself on the roof, where the floodlights point up at the side of the building to illuminate it. Hmm.
I wandered around and found another set of doors, which I opened. This led me down more passageways, but no sign of an exit. I DID see a few doors marked "NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL" and another door marked (I kid you not) "GUN ROOM".
This was all rather concerning. I had visions of ending up in some kind of Casino movie ituation attempting to explain what on earth I was doing in a part of the casino that most employees weren't allowed to enter, let alone customers.
I double-backed to the door from the roof and re-emerged. Now I saw ANOTHER door, about 100 yards in the opposite direction, that did have EXIT above it. I headed that way.
This brought me to more passageways, but not so obviously abandoned. A short walk later I saw signs for employees, an employee snack bar, and some people. I told the first person that I was lost, but she didn;t speak English. The second person did, and she directed me "right along that passage way" to some stairs on the right-hand side. Mann, it was a long way. But I walked down those stairs and magically reappeared on the casino floor, through an unmarked door by the Food Court. A journey of weirdness.
I also found another short-cut -- this time from my room to the Bally's poker room. It entails taking the escalator down to the taxi pick-up point. Walking across that you get to a literal hole in the wall that takes you to the taxi pick-up point for the rebuilt The Cromwell (once Bill's Gambling Hall and once the Barbary Coast). From there it is a brief walk to a new pedestrian crossing across Flamingo East.
Last year all of this was still a building site.
Well, it's the Harrah's freeroll at noon tomorrow, so I may have a lie-in.

There'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.

Now, in poker terms, "a dry spell" can mean bad news. However, when it's applied to boilers, it's good news indeed. I spoke to a plumber, and he said what he thought had happened, and concluded that it probably needed a service, but would be quite safe to leave on "frost control" for three weeks. Excellent.

I've been perusing the blogs of some of the people who are going to be in Vegas for the World Poker Blogger Tournament on the first weekend after I arrive. Since very few of them are likely to know that this site even exists (I hardly promote myself to the blog gliterati) I will probably be something of an unkown quantity to most of them. That will make a nice change. Should be a fun few days.

Lunch tomorrow with Mr Galloway to pick up a few dollars, after a morning trip to Mr Smile in Southampton Row for some sterling. I was frantically trying to get to $10,000 profit for the year before I left for Vegas, but it looks as if I shall end up a few hundred short. I have plans for next year, but first we must see how it goes in the 15-30 in Bellagio.

It's been an interesting year. I can't imagine last December feeling somehow insouciant at the prospect of a $2,000 loss in a single night. It's a lot easier to cope with when the money has not been written to book! For 2004 I was targeting $5,000 profit for the year and I was pleased to get rather close to it. For this year, I kept that target, so on those grounds, things have gone rather well. Even though I feel that I have been "treading water" since the end of June, in fact I have won about $1,500 since then, a better performance than last year.

For 2006 it's clear that I need to focus on two parts of my game, which are somewhat contradictory -- game selection (i.e., find the weakest games) and self-improvement (i.e., beat the stronger games). I had toyed with the idea of solely focusing on tournaments but, the more I look at them, the less I see how they can be a route to certain wealth. It would probably take me a year to get up to any speed, and then you have to cope with the inevitable volatility. Why bother, when there are limit cash games just waiting to be hit, and when that's the game at which I have hundreds of thousands of hands worth of experience?

Onwards and bedwards.

All silent in the world of Big Dave D at the moment, with Keith The Camel running him a close second. Meanwhile, Lady Jo of Pokerstars and Tooting (not necessarily in that order), manages to write several hundred words a day (some of them on a subject other than Richard Herring), which very few people read because she keeps her blog even more secret than I keep mine.

But, enough of this bitchy tittle-tattle. I'm in a good mood because the poker gods smiled on me despite some fairly 'B' Game play. OK, it probably cost me no more than three big bets in three hours, but I'm getting fussy about these things. At 15-30, that's a fair amount of money I have thrown away. Fortunately I more than made up for this with an unusual event in Limit, a couple of absolutely A-rated plays that knocked seven shades of shit out of the opposition. One of them won me a $282 pot and the other won me a $352 pot. In the first I had A-10 over opponent's A-3 gutshot draw (pair of fours on board, my 10 kicker played) and in the other I had A-Q over a Q-9 flush draw (two pair on board, Ace-kicker played). And in BOTH cases I think that my raise on the turn pushed the third player with a better hand off the pot. Swallow that, scumsuckers. Hmm, perhaps I've been reading some of the aggressive chat too much.

So, that got back $180 of the $400-odd lost this afternoon (darn, what am I talking about? Think Caro. Don't worry about getting even. You already are even). But what was pleasing about it was that in 200 hands I got 10 pairs, none higher than Queens (which lost). In fact I had a bundle of crap mainly, in a game where three of the four players on my right were loose-aggressive. Profit from sessions like that, despite a couple of silly errors, are all the more pleasing.

But, back to the blogosphere. LasVegasVegas writes The Vegas summers are brutal reminders of global warming, active volcanoes and hell. . So why are flights to LV fromthe UK more expensive in August? Because the British either don't know or they don't care. I'm sorry, but I think you have to be clinically insane to want to travel to Vegas in July and August. To pay Virgin even more for the privilege is just pouring acid on the already boiling pavement.

So, I am going in December, on the 4th, and coming back on the 23rd. Anyone else going for any of that period? I still haven't decided where to stay. The Westgate on Flamingo West, accompanied by a hire car, is one possibility. But then staying on the strip also has its attractions. And there is the final blow-out option of the $575 a night at Bellagio for a 1350 sq foot penthouse suite. OK, maybe that would only be for seven nights rather than 19.

Elsewhere, Ben Grundy (Milky Bar Kid) writes Anyone who thinks that playing poker for a living is easy should think again. I have more stressful days doing this than i ever did when i was working. Its great when its going well but hellish when your luck is out.

Now, I don't know Ben personally, but he comes across as a nice enough guy. However, from his past writing about high-stakes PLO (and the massive wins on Betfair) I got the feeling that he had never hit the really bad run. And at PLO, well, we all know how horrific that can be. It looks as if he might be suffering at least a short-term blip at the moment. This is the real tester (and one that I, of course, would fail abysmally).

Then we have the twin cities of Miros-St Ward. I don't know Bill Purle, but his intermittent blog http://bitharsh.blogspot.com/ is always entertaining, and I have always admired him for his famous "give me a grand extra" coup in an online WSOP satellite. He kind of comes across as a genial upper-classish chap for whom everything is and always has been fairly effortless, including strolling through to wins in tournaments every other week that some of us dream of winning oh, about once a decade. Of course, it all could be a veneer and underneath it all Bill might be harbouring therapy-inducing crises of confidence that we can hardly imagine. But somehow I doubt it. Anyone who can avoid worrying about being the hate-figure of virtually all the tosspot online poker railbird gang must have reserves of illimitless self-confidence that I can only dream of.

Anyway, I twinned the Miros with St Ward because both chopped off four-figure wins in tournaments this week, and congrats to the pair of them, the gits. As with Negreanu, perhaps we should stop recording all numbers that don't reach five figures. Well, perhaps we could record them, but just don't mention them, since to do so might be considered declassé, or even a fraction vulgar. Like staying at the MGM-Grand when in Vegas. Either Bellagio or the San Remo!

Then again, five-figure wins or losses might be rare at 15-30. At least, I would hope that the losses would be.

Amazingly, despite looking at a still $400-ish loss for the month, I've got some confidence back. I know that I am not playing my 'A' game, but tonight I could put it down to tiredness, and at least I spotted the mistakes fairly quickly. And I still won, despite fairly horrible cards (did I mention that I twice ran into flopped flushes when I had two pair? No, Should I? No? OK, have it your way.).

Onwards and sideways ('cos that's what the profit line has looked like for quite a while....)