"Multi-Action Poker"

New way to deal live poker will be tried at Aria starting tomorrow. Kind of like multi-tabling live. See details here.

I've seen the table at Aria. It's pretty funky. Several people have Tweeted pictures of it, such as this one from John Kim.

It's the little things that count

The little cards, that is.

Last night I was playing at Aria with my friend Poker Lawyer, who was in town for a few days. Shortly before the events described herein transpired, we were also joined by another friend, Stump.

I had 2c-4c on the button and called a raise to $15 from a middle-position player. PL was on my left in the small blind, and reraised to $45. I called, and it was just us to the flop. I don't remember what hit, except that it was completely uncoordinated and had a 4. Which, of course, was plenty of reason to call her $50 flop bet, knowing that I either already had the best hand (if she was playing A-K), or would improve to it with two pair or trips on the turn or river. Turn card was a blank. She checked. I moved all in for my last $110 or so. She folded. I showed. She said, "Every trip to Vegas I lose $100 to you when you have that hand!"

She is, apparently, learning, however. She won a big pot with 2-4 when I was away from the table on a phone call.

Not long after that 2-4 hand I had 6s-3s. The 6-3 is a hand that my friend Grange95 and his other Iowa poker-playing friends call "The Spanish Inquisition," because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. (I have written about this a few times before. See here.) I raised to $13. The guy to PL's left called. His play was a completely straightforward, conservative, ABC style. (He also bragged to us about his niece the porn star, but that's another story.) Flop: 6-3-6 with two diamonds. OK, that might be good for me.

I was surprised that Porn Star Uncle led out with a $20 bet, but I was happy that he had a hand that he liked well enough to do that with. I was guessing a medium pair, 7s or 8s or 9s. He tended to reraise pre-flop with 10s or higher. I didn't really think he had a flush draw, because he was not the type to take over the betting lead with a draw. I also didn't think he had a straight draw, because even if he had called me with a 4-5 (presumably suited), I didn't think he would lead out with it. I hoped against hope that he had 3-3 in the hole, though this seemed unlikely. I called.

Turn was 4d. This time he bet $35. He was not one to lead out betting twice without a hand that he liked a lot, so I felt confident now putting in a raise to $100. He rechecked his hole cards before calling. Aha! He probably has a big pair with a diamond, and he was playing it more cautiously pre-flop than most people would. I don't think he would call that raise with just an overpair unless it included a big diamond, hoping for a flush. I mentally joined him in hoping that he would get there.

He did. The river was the 7d. Now, this put a four-card straight flush on the board, which gave me a bit of pause. But he checked to me. If he had the 5d, I didn't think he would take a chance on missing a value bet if I got scared by that board and checked behind. I also didn't think he would have bet out on the flop with just a gutshot straight-flush draw. Furthermore, since both the 4d and 6d were on the board, he couldn't have started with suited connectors that included the 5d, and I didn't read him for being somebody who would play gappers after a pre-flop raise. And, finally, if I flop a full house and lose to runner-runner straight flush, well, them's the breaks, and I'm going to feel like I just got ridiculously unlucky, not that I played badly. However, failing to value-bet a full house when I think my opponent has just made a big flush, because of "monsters under the bed syndrome," would indeed be playing badly.

So I shoved. He called instantly and flipped over pocket queens, including, of course, the Qd. I showed the full house. Judging by his facial expression and sputtered words, I think it's safe to say that he did not expect the Spanish Inquisition. Our chief weapon is surprise.

Frankly, I'm still puzzled by his call. He should have been worried that I had Ad-Kd or Ad-Jd when I raised the turn, or that I had an unsuited big ace with the Ad that beat him on the river. He had seen me bluffing before, but never for anywhere near this amount. Maybe he didn't notice that those had been much smaller pots.

Anyway, he had me covered just barely, and I ended up doubling up with that $680 pot. Nice work if you can get it.

PL and I told the table about our strange Iowa friends and their love of the Spanish Inquisition. The next hand I played was again a 6-3. I raised, bet the K-4-5 flop, got a caller. Turn was 2, giving me the nuts. I bet and the other guy folded, his face registering obvious suspicion. I showed again.

Within five minutes, I had S.I. a third time. This time I just called somebody else's raise. Flop again had a 4 and 5, so I called. Turn 7. He checked. I bet. He folded.

By this time, everybody knew. It was no longer true that nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, everybody was fully anticipating exactly what I had, and they were right.

Lesson: A hand that nobody expects has diminishing returns as they learn to expect it. Which, of course, means that you move on to other hands that they are not expecting. In big-bet poker, a disproportionate share of your profit will come from hands that are outside of the range your opponents will think you are playing in a given situation.

One player joked to me, "I see you winning with 2-4 and 3-6, and I feel that I'm learning the wrong poker lessons here." I corrected him: "No, you are finally learning the truth about which hands are actually the strongest. The books you've read have it all wrong."

A tip o' the hat to Grange95 for cluing me in to the power of the 6-3. It's no 2-4, but clearly it will do in a pinch.

In case you missed it

Just a few minutes ago, Jennifer Harman posted the above photo on Twitter along with an explanation that it came from a hand of Stud-8 she had just played at Aria. Four players made ace-high flushes. Three players had low hands, including (if I'm reading the blurry image correctly) one wheel for the nut low (second hand from the left). She said that they generated a $27,000 pot in this $300/600 game.

Live poker is SO rigged.

"You shouldn't have bet that"

Aria tonight. I raised to $12 from early position with K-Q offsuit, got four callers. Flop came 9-10-J rainbow. How perfect is that?

I bet $25. Sadly, all three opponents folded in turn. I showed my hand while effecting an obviously fake pout about not having been called. (I think it's truly disgusting when people genuinely whine and complain that the pot they just won was too small, so I wanted it to be clear that my little tantrum was purely in jest.)

Three players simultaneously said variations on the title to this post: I should have slow-played it. I should have given them a free card so that one of them could catch up. I should have let them do the betting for me.

I didn't respond. I almost never discuss at the table how a hand was played; I think it's a terrible idea nearly all the time. I have no interest in giving other players new and different (and maybe better) ideas about how to play. Why would I?

I understand the impulse to play possum and pretend like you missed the flop when you actually have the nuts. And there are times when it's clearly the right thing to do. But I think that should not be the default play in that spot. Let's see how many reasons I can list for why a lead-out bet is defensible, and arguably even the best play.

1. I have a big hand, so I want a big pot. The most reliable way to build a big pot is to put money into it at every opportunity, hoping that somebody with a second-best hand will do the same.

2. If it checks around and fourth street is a queen or an 8, it vastly increases the chance that I will have to split the pot with somebody else, and/or that it will kill any shot at being called by somebody who flopped top pair or even two pair, because the straight will be both more obvious and more likely for somebody to be holding.

3. Waiting for the turn to bet means that I'll now have a flush draw on the board about 3/4 of the time. My decisions will then become increasingly complicated.

4. In just a short session, this was already the third time I had raised pre-flop and followed it up with a continuation bet, because I had gotten lucky and hit top pair or better each time. This meant that any players paying attention might think, "He can't have it every time," and decide to draw a line in the sand, calling or even raising with something like top pair, thinking that I most likely whiffed.

5. I know perfectly well that most recreational $1-3 NLHE players can't resist slow-playing monsters like this. Players tend to assume that others think and play the same way they do, which means that the nuts is pretty much the last hand they will think I have when I lead out looking so strong. They will put me on top pair, an overpair, a straight draw, or a pure bluff. Put another way, this is a situation in which I'm being tricky by being straightforward. If I'm lucky enough that one of them flopped two pair or a set, we play for stacks with the odds greatly in my favor, because they will not believe that I have them crushed.

6. Metagame considerations: The typical player in these games will tend to check both his complete misses and his strongest hands, which means that he's leading out betting with a fairly narrow range--mostly one-pair hands. I want to give the impression to anybody paying attention that they cannot reliably put me on a range of hands based on whether or not I c-bet, i.e., that I don't follow the pattern they have come to expect from other players. This is also the primary reason that I showed it after winning the pot (which I only rarely do). Showing a lead-out bet with the nuts means that a continuation bet with air later in the session is more likely to succeed, because opponents will remember that they can't exclude the strongest hands from my range based on the fact that I'm betting.

7. Because several of them will believe that slow-playing is clearly the superior play, they may conclude that this was a beginner's mistake and that I'm less experienced than I actually am. They may decide that I'm straightforward and not tricky, that I bet when I have a good hand and check when I don't. I hope to exploit, dash, and confound all of those expectations later in the session.

8. If I give a free card that pairs the board or puts a flush draw out there that comes in on the river, and I end up losing a big pot to some awful runner-runner combo, I'm going to kick myself down the nearest staircase for misplaying it, and I can't afford the resulting hospital bill.

9. One of Mike Caro's most frequent admonitions is to do the obvious thing. For example, here's a bit from Caro's Most Profitable Hold'em Advice, pages 119-120:

The simplest choice of strategy is usually the best. Exceptions are exceptions for a reason....

The reason I'm telling you this is, once you become skilled at hold'em, it's easy to justify doing the unusual. But the most obvious decision is usually correct. You should make occasional exceptions to keep observant opponents off-guard and to earn extra profit.

But, if you stray too often from what are the simplest and most obvious decisions, you're sure to sacrifice profit.

Of course, as this particular hand played out, it's likely that I could have made more money by checking. Had I known their exact cards--say, that I was up against a pair of deuces, a pair of threes, and a pair of fours--then I might have come to a different conclusion. Letting one of them catch a set on the turn would be about the only way to swell the pot under such circumstances.

But given the range of hands that people usually play against a raiser, and the fact that I had three opponents, there was an excellent chance that that flop hit one of them hard enough that he or she could justify a call or raise. The fact that it wasn't true this time does not dissuade me from the view that a continuation bet was the best move, all things considered.

Poker for fun and profit

Last night I had dinner with two out-of-town friends, Jennifer Newell (aka WriterJen, previously written about here) and Jason Simon (aka Genomeboy, previously written about here). We ate at Burger Bar in Mandalay Place. I've been there a couple of times before, but this time had something different: "The Hawaiian," which is a marinated/grilled chicken breast sandwich with bacon and pineapple. Yummy!

From there, Jason and I went to the Aria poker room. We had to wait nearly an hour to get seats in a $1/3 game because of the long waiting lists. Jason jumped into a $2/5 game while we were waiting, and promptly lost $300 in one hand, all in pre-flop, when his A-K got four-flushed by another A-K. Sick.

But soon we were at the same $1/3 game. I left up $255 less than an hour later, all my profit coming in two hands. In the first I made the nut flush on the river (thanks, of course, to crubs), beating a flopped two pair. In the second, I got tricky with just 5-4 offsuit against the raise of a tight, solid player on my immediate right. The flop was A-9-4. I called his flop bet partly as a float (in case he had kings or queens, hated the ace, and would check the turn to me), partly hoping to hit trips or two pair. When the turn brought a second 9, he bet again, and I raised, figuring that he would put me on a hand like 8-9 or 9-10. He agonized for quite a while, but finally folded. Stole one!

I might have left about then anyway, but I was enticed away by several Tweets announcing that a cluster of poker media people had opened an alcohol-fueled $2/4 mixed game at Binion's. They included Pauly, Change100, KevMath, AlCantHang, and Kara Scott, plus PokerVixen, whom I've met on a few previous occasions. That just sounded like altogether too much fun to pass up.

The game only survived about 90 minutes after I arrived (most of the others having reporting jobs to perform in the morning), but it was a blast while it lasted. Highlights included:

• Kevmath open-raising from under the gun in 2-7 triple-draw, then drawing five cards.
• Al becoming the first person I've ever seen spill a capped bottle of water across a poker table.
• Vixen making a #1 in 2-7 and revealing her hand one street too early--which was seen by everybody at the table except Pauly, her lone remaining opponent in the hand, who continued to try to beat her.
• Bluffing Al off of a queen low in razz when I had secretly triple-paired, and showing the burn--shortly after we had talked about how fun it was to bluff in razz.

I lost only $3 in the game, and got 50 times that much enjoyment value out of it.

Ironman tournament

I went to the Aria today, knowing that it was the last tournament in this year's Ironmen of Poker schedule. I had hoped to spend some quality time with the boys. Sadly, in the four hours I lasted, I never had one of them at a table with me (as far as I know; there are a couple I haven't met, so perhaps one was with me and I didn't realize it), which felt like a big ol' cheat. I should have asked for my money back.

Three things of note happened.


1. Ejection.

A couple of minutes before we were to get underway, I heard a loud call for "Security!" I have heard this much more often as a joke than as a real alarm, so I didn't think much of it. But I looked to see what the source was. To my great surprise, it was Todd Brunson, charging out of Ivey's Room. This was no joke; he was obviously pissed off.

I follow him on Twitter, so I knew that Shawn Sheikhan had been causing trouble for the Aria games recently. Sure enough, that's who the problem player was again. I snapped this picture, which unfortunately is basically useless:



The guy in the dark jacket stepped in front of me just as I was documenting Sheikhan and the other guy nose to nose and chest to chest, looking about ready to erupt in fisticuffs. By the time the stupid phone camera reset for another shot, the poker room personnel had separated them, so the moment was lost.

A few minutes later, Sheikhan was escorted out (via a private elevator that I had never noticed before--just a few steps from Ivey's Room) by four large men in black suits.

Here are the relevant portions from Brunson's recent Twitter stream:








It sounds like Sheikhan may have finally gone too far, and managed to get himself permanently excluded from the property. Seriously, WTH is wrong with that guy? He is Bad For Poker. We don't need people that prone to violence.


2. First hand.

First hand of the tournament, I am happy to look down and see A-A. We all started with 8000 chips, and the blinds are 25/50, so we have 160 big blinds. Because people play the first hands so cautiously, I thought I would probably raise, pick up the blinds, and that would be that. Nope. I raised to 150. Guy three to my left reraises to 450. I add another 1000 on top of that, and he immediately announces "All in." Hmmm, let me think. What should I do? OK, I call. He has K-K. I win.

Doubling up on the first hand of the tournament--that was a new one for me. I wish I could make it happen more often.


3. Telescope.

A couple of hours in, I was moved to a new table. We had a visually impaired player there. I didn't know it at first, because I didn't notice anything abnormal in his appearance or conduct. But I raised my first hand at the table, and he asked the dealer for a estimate of my stack. The dealer had just sat down, and others at the table quickly explained to her that the player really couldn't see that far. (I was across the table from him.)

On subsequent hands, I noticed him using a small telescope-like device to see the cards on the board:





He was, however, apparently able to see his own cards, though it looked like it took some effort on his part.

This was another new thing for me. I've played with Hal Lubarsky, who has an assistant tell him the cards and the action, but I've never before played with somebody who used an optical assist device. I'm really curious what his diagnosis is that makes him unable to see cards less than two feet in front of him, but it didn't seem like it would be polite to ask.

Freerolls

Cardgrrl and I have been on a mildly amusing food freeroll for the past few days.

I play at Binion's with fair regularity, and build up food comps faster than I can use them. This is especially true since they closed the coffee shop a few months ago. I wrote about that at the time, and a reader suggested taking Cardgrrl to the steakhouse. I had considered that, but initially rejected the idea because she is a vegetarian. However, the next time I was at Binion's, I checked the menu, and they had a couple of nice seafood dishes listed, which are on the Cardgrrl-approved list. That settled how I would splurge my freebies.

So Friday night we hit the famous Binion's Ranch Steakhouse, racking up a $98 tab. Maybe some of you eat in places where that doesn't seem like much, but I'm a cheapskate, and it's more than double what I usually pay for dinner for two, so it felt like a feast of kings to me. Had an excellent 16 oz. New York strip steak (well, half of it anyway); Cardgrrl had broiled salmon.

The photos above show the view of the city from our table at the steakhouse, which is on the 24th floor of Binion's.

Stepping off of the elevator on our way out, a guy asked whether we had just eaten at the steakhouse. Yes. "Was it good?" Yes again. With that, he and his family got on the elevator and headed up. Obviously, my culinary opinion carries great weight.

It was only after the moment had passed that Cardgrrl and I started thinking of the better responses: "It was worth what we paid for it." Or, "It's great, considering that all the food is free."

The next day, we met up with Shamus and his wife Vera Valmore for brunch at Hash House a Go Go out on Sahara Avenue (skipping, for various unimportant reasons, the newer incarnation of the same establishment at Imperial Palace). Though we weren't expecting this, the two of them were generous enough to treat us to the meal, and the freeroll was well underway.

Back in February, when Cardgrrl was last here, she shared a starting table at the http://www.allvegaspoker.com/ tournament with Adam Altweis, the poker room manager at Aria. (See interviews with him about this new job and the Aria poker room here and here.) He kindly handed out to his tablemates comp tickets good for dinner and drinks for four at any of several Aria food establishments. Cardgrrl invited F-Train, Jen, and me to share in her gift. Saturday night we met at Lemongrass, a Thai restaurant, and, well, basically ate everything in sight. They had some Teamsters come and roll us back out to our cars about three hours later. Thank you, Adam!

Yesterday we ate at the Victorian Room at Bill's. It's not exactly haute cuisine there, but Bill's is another place where I have somehow accumulated over $100 of food comps, so it seemed fitting to let the free stuff keep on rollin'.

Today I extended it further by having for my lunch the other half of the steak I couldn't finish Friday night. Just as good the second time.

One of these days, I might have to start actually paying for food again, and that's gonna hurt, after this weekend.

I suppose one could say that my poker has been freerolling, too; I haven't played much in the last week or so, but I did join Cardgrrl in the Aria afternoon $175 tournament, which is about as nicely structured as you're likely to find in a daily event. Didn't do too well there (busted out by a reader, even, when my AK ran into his aces--hi, Tyler!), but Cardgrrl lasted a lot longer, and I made enough in a cash game while waiting for her to more than make up for the buy-in. A cash game at the Pavilion Room at Rio went well for both of us Saturday, too.

The freeroll picks up in a different way tomorrow. Through my membership in House Seats Las Vegas, I scored free tickets for Cardgrrl and me to see Cheap Trick doing their wildly popular "Sergeant Pepper" tribute show at the Paris hotel/casino Tuesday night. Shamus saw it with Vera (but not Chuck or Dave; a little Beatles humor there!) Saturday night; see his review here. I saw this show at the Hilton last September, and enjoyed it immensely. I will be delighted to share it now with my favorite visitor from the East Coast.

Speaking of whom, she is in a HORSE tournament right now at the Golden Nugget, part of their summer "The Grand" series. I have finished what I needed to do here at the ol' homestead, so it's time to amble down Fremont Street to where she is playing, and see just how badly she is crushing the game. Sadly, she will be leaving town on Wednesday, and soon thereafter things will return to what passes for a normal schedule in my life.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Y'know, that might make an intriguing first line of a novel. Somebody oughtta try it.

I picked that title because last night I did a study in contrasts. I saw via Twitter that my friend Grange95 was playing at the Aria poker room. It's always fun to share a table with him, and I didn't have any particular reason to select someplace else, so off I went. As I was getting ready to go, I noticed a handful of $5 chips from Hooters sitting on the table by my door. (Actually, there are chips from lots of different casinos; they kind of accumulate and multiply.*) I realized that Hooters is only a short distance from Aria, and I thought that that particular sequence might make for a fun comparison on this here blog. So I stuffed the chips in my pocket as I headed out.

It was true: the two casinos are about as polar opposite as you could make two places. But more about that later. First, let me review my session at Aria.


Stupid parking preference

The first comment-worthy thing I noticed on my way into Aria from the parking garage was that there were maybe 10 or 12 of the spaces closest to the door marked with these signs:



There's a whole bunch of stupid things about this. First, MGM Grand is in the business of making money. This kind of policy does nothing to enhance their bottom line, unless it's by some highly indirect way of making tree huggers think that that the corporation is a wonderful friend of the earth, and thus they somehow become willing to lose more money at the slot machines, which seems dubious. MGM has no corporate interest in whether its customers arrive in a Prius or a Hummer. Worse, it offends some (like me). I had already parked farther away before seeing these spaces, but as I walked past, I noticed two ordinary vehicles (both minivans) start to pull into one of the spots, then see the sign, back out, and go elsewhere. I suspect those drivers were annoyed. It is not good to annoy your customers.

Then there's the whole question of what the sign actually means--does your car have to be an alternative fuel vehicle, or a low-emissions one, or both? And what standard is being applied? Does a flex-fuel car count? If I drive a 30-year-old diesel Mercedes that I've converted to run on used vegetable oil, but it smokes like an oil well afire, is that OK? Is a hybrid GMC Yukon OK? If so, how does it make sense to allow that but not a gas-sipping little Toyota Yaris, which is conventional in its fuel system but extremely frugal? One has no way of knowing what the powers that be at the Aria will deem acceptably green to occupy these premium parking spaces.

Next problem is that I seriously doubt the threat is real. Along the lines of not annoying your customers, are they really going to lose your business forever by ticking you off by having your car towed because it wasn't on their preferred list of models? I don't think so. The Hilton has a bunch of parking spots reserved for players who accumulate points on their member cards, with dire threats of towing violators. However, when my car was stolen from their lot, and I checked with security to see if perhaps it had been towed for some inadvertant violation, the security guy in charge confided with me that they never tow for such things--only if a car is abandoned or parked in some way that blocks traffic. I suspect that all or most casinos follow similar policies. It's hard to get a customer angrier than by towing away his car for some trivial infraction. In apparent confirmation of this theory, I took time to notice the cars parked in these alt-fuel spaces as I left, and it was a completely random assemblage, including some notoriously inefficient SUVs and one pickup truck. I'm not sure which is stupider: to have this parking policy and actually enforce it, or to have it and not enforce it, but I think Aria is choosing the latter route of stupidity.

And, FWIW, I still have serious doubts about the whole fossil-fuels-cause-global-warming hypothesis. (Sorry, Al Gore.)


Dogs playing poker?

My friend Michael Hamai, of allvegaspoker.com fame, just two days ago posted this picture of a dog accompanying its owner to a poker room, with the message, "Only at Boulder Station." It was a wonderful coincidence, then, to spot last night the only dog I've ever seen in a poker room:




My guess is that dogs are not generally allowed, but both of these two have somehow been legally designated as "companion animals" and are thus given access privileges equivalent to those of seeing eye dogs. The most common reason for little lap dogs getting this label is for "treatment" of some sort of anxiety or panic disorder. The owners claim that having the dog nearby calms them down. If you ask me (and I realize that nobody did), the vast majority of these are just scams by people who like having their pooches with them, and/or drama queens seeking and getting attention for their "disease." I can't believe how many doctors will sign off on such nonsense. I don't really mind having well-behaved dogs in public places like casinos, but they should allow anybody to bring them, not just those who wail, "I'm sick! I need Muffins with me every minute of the day or I can't cope!"


Stupid rule

Early in my session, I noticed the dealer just sitting there after a hand was over, with nothing happening, and no apparent reason for the delay. Just as I was about to ask what the holdup was, the green light flashed on the Shufflemaster, he exchanged decks, and went on with the next hand. I thought he was just being too lazy to do a hand shuffle. But then I noticed the same thing happen with each of the next two dealers when a hand ended quickly, so I asked the third one if that was a house rule. Indeed it is. He informed me that there are no hand shuffles allowed at the Aria unless the game is four-handed or less, and even then it requires the supervisor's approval.

I have never heard of this being a policy anywhere else, though when I sent out a Twitter message about it, somebody responded that they have the same rule at the Bellagio. I can't see any convincing reason for it. It slows the game down, without any meaningful advantage to compensate. I suppose there is some tiny reduction in risk of the dealer manipulating the shuffle for the benefit of some particular player, but is that really a serious concern? If there is some good reason for this policy that I'm not seeing, please let me know in the comments. Absent that, I'm declaring it to be just plain stupid.


Winning lucky, winning smart, winning strange, and winning ugly

Most of my profit came in three hands. In the first, I cracked aces with 5-5 when I flopped a full house. In the second, I correctly called down a three-barrel bluff by a tight player whom I had not seen bluffing in the two hours I had played with him. I had only top pair with a mediocre kicker (J-9 on a jack-high flop, to be exact). I just got the strange sense from him that he didn't really like his hand as much as his bets represented, though for the life of me I couldn't pick out any one thing in particular that was giving me that vibe. I was glad to discover that I had been right.

I took one pot that I didn't expect to. I raised pre- with something junky like a 7-8 offsuit, got one caller from the blinds. The board missed both of us, and it was just checked down. By the river, I had not improved at all. But to my surprise, my opponent just checked out (i.e., mucked instead of checking) on the river, saying, "I missed." I won without having to show that I had just 8-high. Who knows--maybe it was the best hand, but there's a decent chance he threw away the winner for no reason.

The biggest pot I won last night, though, came, unfortunately, at the expense of my friend CK, of the BWOP blog, who had also come to share the hilarity with Grange. He had to leave for dinner shortly after she arrived, though, so that didn't really work out. In this hand, I had K-K, and she was the only one to call my raise, with J-10 and position. Flop was J-10-x. I bet, she raised. I thought for a while. I was trying to decide, (1) Did she have something like A-J, and was probing to see if I would fold A-K or A-Q or a middle pair to a raise? (2) If she had two pair, J-10 was the obvious candidate, and could a reraise make her sufficiently convinced that I had flopped a set that she would fold? (3) If she had a set, would she raise here or just smooth-call? Well, by some series of mysterious mental machinations, I concluded that there was enough chance of either being ahead or getting her to fold two pair that it was worth pushing. I did. She called quickly, though with a pained look that, in retrospect, I take to mean that she suspected a set and called with top two pair anyway. I was in bad shape. But the turn and river were both 7s, landing me a better two pair and the roughly $500 pot. That is truly winning ugly.

We have now played two large pots (previous one in December, written up here and here), each of us winning one. But not only was hers the bigger of the two, both times she got her money in good, while I got mine in bad. That's not something I'm terribly proud of.

CK left after that hand (it being only the last in a series of ugly ones for her), and the table wasn't much fun without my friends there, so I cashed out less than an hour later, up about $400.

I headed over to Hooters to complete my self-amusement by contrast. But I've now taken long enough to write up the first half of the night that I need to get going on other things, so the second half of the story (that's the "worst of times," to give you a foretaste) will have to wait until tomorrow.



*Why? Well, sometimes I'm in a hurry for some reason and don't want to take the time to cash out, so I just bring the chips home and use them on the next visit to that casino. But the most common reason is that I pocket some special commemorative chip to add to the collection, get home, find that I already have one of that issue that I had forgotten, and then it goes by the door to be used again next time I play in that room. With Hooters, there are so many different chips, each with a pretty girl on them, that it's really hard to remember which ones I have and which I don't, so on my last trip I ended up with 10 or 15 that turned out to be duplicates, and were waiting to be recycled into the poker economy.

Aria

Last night I finally made it to City Center for the first time. I must be the last local to set foot in the place.

I won't bother with a full review of the Aria poker room; if you're interested, then by now you've either been there or read what everybody else has written about the place (e.g., here). I'll just add that it is indeed as nice as they all say. Aria is simply the most lavish, gorgeous, visually compelling casino I've ever laid eyes on.

With pictures as with the commentary: others have already done it far better than I could, so I'm keeping them to a minimum. (The first four are actually from Crystals, the shopping mall through which I passed on the way from the pedestrian bridge across the Strip to Aria. But hey, it's all City Center.)

It's a beautiful room, certainly on par with Wynn and Venetian. It seems somewhat louder than either of those places, though, with slot-machine and pit noise more prominent. I hate noise. Other than that, it's hard to find fault.

I was tired and played for only an hour, winning just over $100. That was mostly on a rather daring all-in check-raise bluff on a big scare-card turn; it completed both trips and a possible flush, and I was pretty sure my opponent was on an overpair and wouldn't dare call. He tanked for about three minutes, but then folded in disgust. Thankyouverymuch.

I will most certainly be back there many times.