"Viva Las Vegas"

I just finished watching "Viva Las Vegas" (1964) for the first time ever. I know--I'm slightly behind the times.

There's not much point in a full review. After all, you've either already seen it or can make a darn good guess about what you'll get if you sit down to watch it: dumb plot that is just an excuse for Elvis and Ann-Margaret to sing, dance, and flirt.

What I enjoyed most was how it captured Old Vegas: for example, the car race downtown, zooming east on Fremont Street, then turning south on Casino Center, as you can see in the shots above. (Notice that when the race finally ends, a finish line has mysteriously appeared on the street at the intersection of Fremont and Casino Center where there was none before!) It would be rather difficult to do that today....

There are also nice shots of the race going over Hoover Dam, though the desert, and to a forested area that I have to assume is probably in the vicinity of Mt. Charleston. And, of course, strewn throughout the film are many shots of downtown, the Strip, and casino interiors. (Elvis has to visit every show in town in one night to locate his dream girl, whose name and working location he failed to get upon meeting her.) There's also a small part with actor William Demarest, whom I knew growing up only as Uncle Charlie on "My Three Sons."

I don't know how you could not like this stuff. Then again, I'm kind of a sucker for cheese.

Guess the casino, #260

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Answer: Mandalay Bay

Fun and not-so-fun at the Luxor

Wow--it seems strange to sit down and start to write a real post of the kind that used to come out nearly every day. It's been a while!


Last night, I picked up Cardgrrl at the Venetian poker room, where she had been playing, and we went off to Mandalay Bay to do some fishing. After an hour and a half, we had both done reasonably well. (OK, I admit it--she had won quite a bit more than I had, thanks mostly to making a set of jacks on the turn and getting the all-in call from a guy with unimproved Q-Q.) She wanted to move on to the Luxor, so I agreed.

Good call, as it turned out.

By coincidence, we discovered in talking last night that Luxor is the place where both she and I first played casino poker--and both of us had no clue what we were doing back then. So it was kind of a return to roots, but hopefully this time with us nearer the top of the Luxor poker food chain than we were five or six years ago.


Unprofessional dealers--what's new?

Just about every time I write about a session at the Luxor, it includes a story about one of the dealers doing something stupid, unprofessional, and/or in violation of basic rules. (Just click here for a compilation of the relevant posts.) I'm not picking on the Luxor deliberately; I would complain about such things from dealers wherever they might occur. It's just that at the Luxor it happens a lot more than any other poker room I visit regularly. As I have noted before, I am not the only one with this perception; "Las Vegas Michael" spends even more time in poker rooms than I do and pays close attention to how they are run, and he agrees that the Luxor is in a class by itself in terms of how unprofessional the dealers are.

Last night it took only five minutes into the session before I had another humdinger of a bad-dealer story. The dealer was Jimmy. The final board on the hand in question was K-Q-3-7-3. Player A bet. Player B called. Player A showed K-10. Player B said, "Oh, you have a better kicker." Player B then turned a king face up, left his second card face down, and passed his hole cards back to the dealer in a clear and obvious fold.

Jimmy tapped the guy's face-down card and said, "Chop chop." Player B still didn't catch on, so Jimmy told him, "If you turn both cards up, it will be a chopped pot." Player B finally saw what he meant, complied (his other card was a 5) and the pot was split.

B's cards never hit the muck, but his intention was unambiguous, and the dealer's correct action would have been to turn the king face down, put both cards in the muck, award the pot to Player A, and say nothing about it.

Player A complained, but did so very softly, speaking quietly to the player on her right. (I was on her left, so heard it.) She didn't complain to the dealer or floor, as she should have.

If a player misreads his hand or the board or both, and wrongly decides to muck his cards, he must be allowed to do so. Neither the dealer nor another player may intervene to stop him. It is a strategic decision to muck rather than table one's cards, and dealers cannot make that decision for players, nor even help them make that decision.

I suspect that the dealer's reason for sticking his nose in where it didn't belong was the hope that he could pick up tips from two winners rather than one. He was a smart guy--he surely knew that what he was doing was against the rules. Dealers injecting themselves into poker hands and poker players' decisions is the single most frequent category of wrong stuff that Luxor dealers do that I have chronicled here. Clearly it is not going to stop anytime soon, because it has been going on for years. It is patently obvious that nobody in the poker room management cares about this stuff.

Here's another minor dealer error I saw last night: On the river, the action went check-check-check-check, then the button pushed out $35. The dealer, James, said, "Raise it up. Make it $35." Raise? Raise? How can there be a raise when there has been no prior bet? Players new to casino poker make this mistake all the time. Dealers never should.

One last dealer story: I had Tweeted about the first incident. Cardgrrl, two tables over, had apparently seen that post. A while later, she sent me a text message asking me whether Don was the dealer that I disliked. I responded that he was one of them, based on previous interactions. I guessed at what he was doing that annoyed her: being vulgar. She wrote back, "He was on about happy endings over here. Idiot." Bingo. Do I know my dealers, or what? (He's the same one that I referred to as "Dealer #5" here, when I heard him making stupid double-entendres about his "big carrot.")


An audacious bluff

Usually at the Luxor the players are such terrible calling stations that I deploy what I think of as my "Bill's strategy," which basically means no bluffing. There can be exceptions, but they must be selected with extreme care. Last night, such a confluence of circumstances occurred.

There was a large four-way pot. One player was all-in on the flop, with three of us calling. I had suited 7-8. On the turn I picked up both flush and gutshot straight draws, so I called another player's bet, as did the last guy.

The river missed me, but meant that the final board was K-5-4-3-2 with no flush possible. I didn't think either of my remaining opponents had an ace or a six, and thought that they couldn't call without a straight if I were to bet. Furthermore, they happened to be the only two players at the table that I thought were good enough (1) to have noticed that I had played my hand as if on a draw, and (2) to fold a hand like top pair or even two pair if they were sufficiently persuaded that I had just made my straight on the river. So when it was checked to me, I bet $50 at what was then a roughly $60 side pot. Both of them folded.

I had to show my cards because of the showdown with the all-in guy. As the dealer pushed me the side pot, he said, "You get this part for sure." I flipped my cards up and said, "I think that's all I'll be getting." I was right, of course--the approximately $150 main pot was won by the all-in guy who had a suited Q-J, and took it with queen high! Each of the guys I had pushed out of the pot claimed, very plausibly, to have had a king for top pair. Either one could have taken the main pot if not for folding to my river bet. I didn't profit, but the side pot was enough to make me approximately even for the hand (i.e., get me back what I had put into the pot before the river), which was good enough.

It is safe to say that my move caused quite a stir. I was massively unpopular with the two guys who folded winners, but the hand continued intermittently to be the talk of the table for about 15 minutes. Both of them admitted the obvious--that they were certain I had the straight. As one of them said, "Guy plays two hands an hour, you've got to believe he has it there."

I was exceptionally pleased with this move. At the risk of sounding overly self-congratulatory, it felt, well, professional. I understood the situation accurately, including my opponents' likely holdings, their temperaments and abilities, my table image, etc., then used that information to make an aggressive move that won me money I could have taken in no other possible way.

To make things even better, over the next 30 minutes I got three more calls from opponents who all said explicitly that they felt obligated to call me down because they had seen me bluff with 8-high. (This includes the guy in the story to follow.) So not only did I steal the side pot in that hand, but got paid quite handsomely in subsequent hands because of having had to show the bluff. I was enormously pleased with how it worked out.


The real happy ending

No, it has nothing to do with getting a massage, which is what I presume that nasty dealer Don was talking about. This is about the best way to end a poker session.

Cardgrrl and I had initially planned on leaving at around 10:00 p.m. But we both had slow starts, without much happening. So we decided (all by texting) to stay another hour or so. Good thing. As 11:00 hit, I played 8-9 of hearts, just as Cardgrrl texted me to say she was going to play two more hands, then quit.

I picked up a straight-flush draw on the flop with position on my opponent (flop 7h-5c-Jh). I called his $20 bet. As you can see from the photo below, I hit my perfect card on the turn, making the jack-high straight flush.





My opponent, who happened to be one of the two that I had bluffed off of a winner before, bet another $20 on the turn. I just called again, because his stack was short enough that if he bet anything on the river, as I thought he would, he would basically be pot-committed for any raise. Sure enough, he bet $20 again. I raised all-in and he called his last $50 or so. He mucked after seeing my cards. (He later said that he had had two pair, and I believe him. He also said that he was, of course, aware of the possible flush, but because of the eight-high bluff, he thought it was about 50-50 that I was bluffing again, so felt obligated to call.)

There was a short wait while the surveillance people were contacted and the high-hand jackpot money was prepared. I stood up and called Cardgrrl's name to get her attention (which is not something I'd do except under extremely rare circumstances--like this was). I motioned for her to come see what had happened. She responded that she was in a hand.

Was she ever! About a minute later, I heard the dealer at her table call out, "High hand, seat 3." Hey--wait a second. Isn't Cardgrrl in seat 3? I looked over again. Yes, she was. I trotted over and saw this on the table:




She started with pocket aces just after texting me the "two more hands" message. She then flopped a set, and turned quads.

My table had obviously figured out that we were friends from my calling out to her, so when I came back they asked if she had really hit a high hand at the same time that I did. Yep! The floor person came by about then with two stacks of red chips (i.e., $200) for me. There was a third stack in her rack, and she told me, "That's not for you--that's for my other high hand." Indeed it was. Cardgrrl won her pot plus a $100 bonus. (If she feels like telling how the hand played out she can--obviously I wasn't there to see what had happened.)

I don't even know how to start trying to figure out the odds against two friends coming to a card room together, playing at separate tables, both down to the last couple of hands of the night, and both hitting high hand bonuses at the same time--especially with this all happening in the poker room in which, years, earlier, both had independently played their first-ever casino poker. If it were in a movie script, they'd take it out in the editing process because it would be too freakishly improbable for audiences to accept as plausible.

But it actually happened (with pictures, as you can see, for those inclined to say "Pics or it didn't happen"). We were amazed and delighted, and laughed about the craziness of it all the way home. That reality can be stranger than fiction is as true in poker as in any other field of human endeavor.

It was the perfect way to end a fun and highly profitable evening of poker with the best poker companion I've ever known.

Guess the casino, #259

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Answer: Golden Nugget

Planet Hollyood shenanigans

Shenanigans, felonies--whatever.

See here: http://www.allvegaspoker.com/news_detail_355.html

Home

Poker and/or blogging should resume shortly, though still likely attenuated for a while, as explained earlier.

Guess the casino, #258

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Answer: Circus Circus

Guess the casino, #257

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Answer: Boulder Station

Deuce-four crushes again

An excellent deuce-four story here:

http://eotf.blogspot.com/2009/09/convert.html

Guess the casino, #256

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Answer: Sunset Station (You knew that Hooters would be too obvious, right? There's a Hooter's restaurant inside of Sunset Station.)

Deuce-four makes the nuts. Ho-hum.

CK of the BWOP blog (who, for readers who still wonder about it, is the brilliant discoverer of the fact that "crubs always get there") pointed me to this post from Kurokitty:
http://pokercats.blogspot.com/2009/09/quadz.html

Of course, 2-4 making the stone-cold nuts on the river is not exactly stop-the-press news around these parts, but it is nevertheless nice to see that the word is gradually getting out.

Guess the casino, #255

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Answer: Riviera

Guess the casino, #254

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Answer: O'Shea's

Blast from the past

I'm in Minnesota, staying at what used to be my house, and now is the ex-wife's. (Fortunately, we have remained friendly.) Using my old computer here, I was reminded of the one and only time I got a royal flush in online play. (Still hasn't happened in live play.)

I saved the hand history. Here it is:


Hand #11575310-35 at Thu740pmUBNet-051 (No Limit tournament Hold'em)
Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 02/Feb/06 20:25:55

TuckerB13 is at seat 0 with 4060.
eric1975 is at seat 1 with 12725.
Kenmeister1 is at seat 2 with 4490.
mike4902 is at seat 3 with 3935.
drock69 is at seat 4 with 1270.
sluggie is at seat 5 with 1835.
Rakewell is at seat 6 with 5065.
KOChief is at seat 7 with 6950.
Picaroon is at seat 8 with 2990.
ImJohnnyBlade is at seat 9 with 4425.
The button is at seat 3.

drock69 posts the small blind of 20.
sluggie posts the big blind of 40.

TuckerB13: -- --
eric1975: -- --
Kenmeister1: -- --
mike4902: -- --
drock69: -- --
sluggie: -- --
Rakewell: Qh Ah
KOChief: -- --
Picaroon: -- --
ImJohnnyBlade: -- --

Pre-flop:

Rakewell raises to 160. KOChief calls. Picaroon
folds. ImJohnnyBlade folds. TuckerB13 folds.
eric1975 calls. Kenmeister1 folds. mike4902 folds.
drock69 folds. sluggie folds.

Flop (board: 2c Kh Th):

Rakewell bets 340. KOChief calls. eric1975 calls.


Turn (board: 2c Kh Th Jh):

Rakewell bets 840. KOChief folds. eric1975 folds.
Rakewell is returned 840 (uncalled).



Hand #11575310-35 Summary:

No rake is taken for this hand.
Rakewell wins 1560.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Guess the casino, #253

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.




Answer: Harrah's

Poker gems, #309

Tony Guerrera, in Poker Player newspaper, August 31, 2009, p. 9.


In the end, we can only control two things when playing poker: our emotions and our decisions. In the short term, being stable emotionally enables you to weather bad streaks and to evaluate whether poor short term results are the result of bad luck or bad play--even if the short term is too short to make any sort of judgment. Being stable emotionally also allows you to focus on what really counts: the decision-making.

Stripping everything away except the decision-making process can be scary because when you do, the only one you can blame for bad long-term results is yourself. Bad long-term results are then only a function of bad table selection and bad playing.

A small mystery resolved

I occasionally get "match play" coupons. For any even-money table-game bet of $5 or more (that's the usual stipulation, anyway), they match the bet amount. For example, you can use it on odd/even or red/black at roulette, which is my usual approach. It's definitely a +EV (expected value) thing to do.

The question I have wrestled with, though, is exactly how much EV is there in, say, a $5 coupon? This should be a completely straightforward question, but I had difficulty with it. My instinct at first was to say, "Well, it adds $5 to the bet, but only pays half of the time, so the EV is $2.50." (For present purposes, I'm assuming it's exactly an even-money payout and odds, disregarding the small chance of 0 or 00 on roulette.)

But when I did the math, I kept coming up with it being a $5 EV. Suppose we have two such coupons, and we bet $5 plus the coupon on red both times. The ball lands on red once, black once. When it hits red, the payout on a $10 bet is $20. I.e., you get the $10 bet back plus $10, net gain of $15, after investing $5. When it hits black, you lose $5. The sum of these two events is +$10, so the EV of each coupon is $5--in conflict with my first conclusion.

Hence my conundrum.

Today I had lunch with Cardgrrl at the Orleans, where she is staying. She was given one of these coupons on check-in, so I explained my dilemma. She wasn't sure of the correct resolution, either.

So we took the coupon to a table, put a $5 chip and the coupon on black, and the ball fell on 22 black. The woman placed two more $5 chips on our winning spot, and we walked away.

It took us a bit of thought to realize what had happened. The payout was smaller than expected--$15 rather than $20. And, once it dawned on us, the reason was obvious: They don't replace the coupon with a $5 chip before spinning the wheel. That makes it different from making an actual $10 bet in this crucial way: With a $10 bet, you get your original $10 back plus the $10 win, or $20. With a $5 bet and a coupon, you get back your original $5 plus the $10 win, or $15.

In fairness, I had seen this happen a couple of other times that I used these coupons and won, but I left wondering why the payout was less than I had thought it would be, without ever stopping to think through it all the way.

When you win, your net gain is $10. When you lose, your net loss is $5. Those two things happen with equal frequency, so the EV for the coupon is $2.50.

On the rare occasions that my gestalt sense of what should happen in a gambling situation conflicts with what the math is telling me, it's usually the math that is right and my subjective sense that is wrong. Here, though, I had the math set up incorrectly, which led me astray, and my original thought about the value of the coupon was correct. I suppose that's reassuring in some way, but, on the other hand, it's a bit embarrassing and distressing that I made such a fundamental error in how to evaluate the situation mathematically.

Can you tell that, aside from poker, I really don't gamble much?

A small life victory (zero poker content)

When I picked up Cardgrrl at the airport recently, I got a parking ticket. This puzzled me at first, because there was still time on the meter.

After looking around at the situation for a while, I figured it out. I had parked in what I had thought was the left-most spot in a row. I thought this because, as you can see above, the next space had clearly visible diagonal stripes across it. Faded, sure, but definitely still there. Besides, nobody ever lets you park in a space that would partially block access to a stairway, as that one would. So I put the coins in the left-most meter. It briefly occurred to me that there was a mismatch between the number of spaces and the number of meters, but hey--I'm in the left-most space and using the left-most meter, so anything else isn't my problem.

Well, as the airport sees it, that striping isn't really there, and that space is available. Therefore, the meter corresponding to the space in which I was parked was expired, and I got a ticket.

I wrote a letter of protest, including the above photo and explanation. If you want a space to be considered available, I said, you have to actually remove the striping, not do it halfway. You leave too much ambiguity as it is. Nobody can be sure whether that space is available.

Today I received the following letter:



Naturally, they're not admitting any responsibility for screwing up, nor, apparently, do they have any intention of removing the ambiguity for future customers. I think the rough translation of the letter is, "You're right, and would win if any judge had to decide the matter, so we'll quietly let it drop, without admitting that we did anything wrong."

No $20 fine for me!

Guess the casino, #252

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Answer: Excalibur

Bear with me, please

I realize that things have been slow here lately. This is largely due to spending free time handing out with the delightful Cardgrrl rather than sitting alone in my apartment thinking up pokery things to gripe about.

Some might even consider this an improvement in life.

But I have to warn you that things are going to get even slower in the immediate future. Wednesday I leave for nearly a week, heading back to Minnesota. My brother is getting married, so I need to be there. Also, I have a bunch of highly unpleasant but necessary tasks that I left behind when I left in haste three years ago--stuff that needs attending to and cleaning up. I will not be taking laptop with me, though I'll have access to one there. Then when I get back, Cardgrrl will still be here for a few more days.

So it may be a while before there is much substantive posted here, for which my apologies in advance. I know it seems odd, but sometimes actual life has to take precedence over both poker and blogging. This little stretch is going to be one of those times. And after that, I have an out-of-town visitor coming to stay for a while (the ex-wife, actually!), so will be doing some of the tour-guide kind of stuff.

But I shall surely return, as good (or as bad) as ever. I hope you'll stick around through the hiatus.

Guess the casino, #251

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Answer: Bill's

Health insurance for poker players

Not much detail available, but perhaps worth checking out if you have no better options:

http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/world-poker-association-offers-health-insurance-for-poker-players-4527/

Guess the casino, #250

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Answer: Santa Fe Station

Guess the casino, #249

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Answer: Monte Carlo

Tiny AVP meet-up

My friend Cardgrrl had a little do Friday night at the Rhumbar lounge at the Mirage, which has a lovely outdoor setting. The purpose was to give fellow denizens of www.allvegaspoker.com a chance to meet her in a setting other than across the green felt.

The weather was just right, and, aside from a few moments of icky cigar smoke, so was essentially everything else about the setting and the attendees. The menu of exotic drinks available at Rhumbar is pretty impressive--enough to make one consider becoming an alcoholic. But I had to be content with a virgin strawberry-pineapple daiquiri thing, which was sweet and tasty. (I also had sips of a couple of Cardgrrl's selections, which were pretty interesting.) I think it safe to say that a fine time was had by all present.

Photos are here.

Tomorrow, Cardgrrl and I tackle the Red Rock poker room.

Guess the casino, #248

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Answer: Gold Coast

Poker gems, #308

Mike Caro, in Bluff magazine column, August, 2009, p. 89, speaking of his experience with trying to keep his World Series of Poker tables light and friendly.


Most of the tables I sat in during those events were friendly--giving me something to work with from the get-go. But some were as quiet as a horror film before the crazed killer jumps out from the closet. Dead serious players. I hate that. So, immediately I went into action, engaging players in conversations and announcing, "This is the quiestest table I've ever been at, which is a sure sign that some players here are taking a hundred million dollars way too seriously."

Guess the casino, #247

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Answer: Bellagio

Guess the casino, #246

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Answer: Sam's Town

A note about the "Guess the casino" posts

I originally envisioned the "Guess the casino" posts as photos of particular places and things in and around the Vegas casinos that were sufficient thematic or otherwise distinct that one could guess the casino without even having been there. There are probably some such items still in the archives (I have hundreds of photos not yet deployed, mostly taken many months ago now, when I got into a bit of a frenzy about it), but as those paying attention will have noticed, most of them now are things that you would have to have seen and noticed in person to recognize. I.e., usually now you can't just spot something about the object or background and deduce where the shot must have been taken. I discovered that there just weren't enough distinctly identifiable spots to keep the series going for very long under the original premise.

So there is definitely a change in emphasis. That is, it's not really any longer reasonable to expect even a fairly Vegas-savvy reader to know or guess the location of more than an occasional photo in the series. But I still enjoy posting them, and hope that some readers still enjoy looking at them. If you find it frustrating to try to actually deduce or just plain guess the casino, well, you might try to stop looking at it as a game at which there is an expectation that you can figure it out with some effort. Instead, think of it as just a little feature about the beautiful or odd things that this strange city has hidden away if you go looking for them.

Incidentally, the other day I ran into a reader who admitted that he only looks at the "GTC" posts, and not the rest of my content! I would never have guessed that there were any such people, but I'm happy to pick up readers whatever their tastes. It balances out the occasional nay-sayer who thinks the "GTC" posts are either a mar on the blog or my way of being lazy and skimping on writing fresh content.

Also, as a special addition, sooner or later you will see pop up in the series some guest shots taken by my good friend Cardgrrl. I don't think she would mind me revealing that she spent a good number of years as a professional photographer in an earlier phase of her life. She has a far, far better eye for physical beauty than I do, along with much more skill and experience at using a camera to capture the beauty she perceives.

Where I win

One of the questions I am asked most frequently is something about where to play--where are the softest games, where can one make the most money, which are the best rooms, etc. Note that those are not equivalent questions.

Recent my pal Cardgrrl addressed the subject of the frequent poker forum question about where the softest games are. Among other partial answers, she suggested that (1) the answer is ever-changing, (2) and somebody who really had a decent bead on the current answer wouldn't be inclined to divulge it.

There is some truth in these observations, but I don't see it entirely the same way. I think there is a fair amount of constancy in how games of a given level/structure play from place to place. Yes, of course, there is also at least as much day-to-day and table-to-table variation as there is casino-to-casino variation (i.e., within-group as compared to between-group variation). We've all seen how the arrival or departure of a single player can radically alter how the game plays in a matter of minutes. But still, it's a safe bet that, say, the $1/3 NLHE game at the Wynn is going to be a tougher struggle to beat than the $1/2 NLHE game at Imperial Palace. It just is. They cater to almost completely non-overlapping clientele, and the two groups have very distinct average characteristics and skills.

As for spilling the beans and inviting in the sharks, I'm not worried. First, I don't think my readership is that broad, nor does it include many people with big pointy teeth. Second, true shark-like creatures don't tend to be interested in the $1/2 games that constitute most of my play and income.

I mention all of this because it has been a while since I reviewed my records to see which poker rooms were generating the most money for me, which is obviously something I need to do from time to time. This post is to announce the results.

In case this isn't readily apparent (though I think it should be), what you see here does not mean that the games in the rooms listed are objectively the softest or most profitable for everybody. There is a lot of random statistical noise that may account for a huge fraction of the room-to-room variation I experience. Alternatively, it may simply be that my particular style of play performs well against the opponents in these rooms, but somebody with a slightly different style would have very different results. I have spent a decent amount of time talking to others who make their living (or a good portion thereof) from the same types of games, and I'm always amazed at how different our impressions are of the places where we fare the best. For example, MGM Grand is extremely popular among most of my fellow "show me the money" serious players, but was long one of my personal "kryptonite" rooms. Conversely, they tend to find that the Venetian game is too stocked with good players as opposed to completely green tourists, whereas my experience has been that the V is one of my best venues. Who knows why? It's all a mystery, with so many variables that it's likely beyond any of us to do more than guess.

Speaking of kryptonite rooms, I'm pleased to announce that two places that had been such for me seem to be no longer. Specifically, Harrah's and MGM. I had accumulated a terrible track record at both places, and avoided them for a long time as a result. But recently, upon revisiting, I have found perfectly acceptable success. This reinforces my tentative conclusion that what I was experiencing was a combination of (1) random statistical variance, coupled with (2) some degree of self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e., after losing at a place three times in a row, there is probably some subtle corrupting influence on my play from a subconscious sense of fatalism. Once that is overcome, things can play as normal.

I note, finally, that, remarkable as this may seem, I had done so much better at the old Hilton poker room than anywhere else, and spent so much more time there than at any other poker room, that two years after it closed it still remains my #1 all-time income source! It still pains me every time I think of it being replaced by a bunch of stupid slot machines. Grrrrrrrrr!

So here we go.


The first way to count results is by total net profit. By that method of accounting, my five top poker rooms (counting only those still in operation, for obvious reasons) are:

1. Mandalay Bay
2. Palms
3. Venetian
4. Sahara
5. Bill's

However, that's not very useful, because it is obviously hugely influenced by the number of times that I visit a place. (For the record, my most frequently visited spots are, in order, Venetian, Palms, Rio, Orleans, Mandalay Bay, Caesars Palace, Golden Nugget, Planet Hollywood, Binion's, and Bill's. But that's counting all three years equally, and lately there hasn't been much of Orleans, Nugget, or Caesars--they racked up most of their visits earlier.)

So let's go to the next way of looking at it: percentage of sessions that are winning ones. For this and all other figures herein, I'm only counting the rooms where I have placed five or more times, in order to iron out some of the random noise that results from too-small sample sizes.

1. Sunset Station
2. Sahara
3. Tuscany
4. Mandalay Bay
5. Planet Hollywood

Finally, we can look at it in terms of average dollars won per session. (I keep track of hours, but not in the same spreadsheet, so it would take a lot of work to figure out dollars per hour for a given poker room. Average dollars per session, though, is calculated automatically for me in the heading for each casino.)

1. Tuscany
2. Sahara
3. Suncoast
4. Sunset Station
5. Mandalay Bay

Your mileage not only may vary, but almost certainly will vary.

As a final note, the fact that I find a place profitable does not mean that I like it. For example, I find both Tuscany and Sahara to be execrable places, so bad that I literally feel like a need a shower when I leave. They are dirty, smelly, noisy, uncomfortable, with bad dealers and management and lousy customer service. I really despise them. But the money flows so easily that I hold my nose, bite my tongue, and keep them in the rotation. (You think it's easy playing solid poker while holding your nose and biting your tongue? Try it!)

Guess the casino, #245

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Answer: Mirage

17 outs, swing and a miss

It's not very often that I find myself with 17 outs on the flop, so I thought it might be worth recording how it happened.

After a very successful session at Mandalay Bay yesterday afternoon (Sunday afternoons there are becoming a happy, habitual indulgence, with the money pouring in freely), I decided to try to make a little extra at the Luxor next door. I bought in for the max, $200, which after about 45 minutes was down to $125 or so due to losing one race (A-K lost to an all-in 5-5) and false starts on a few other hands.

UTG guy raises to $15. He's solid, so probably A-K or a big pair here. I have Kc-10c on the button. With crubs, how can I go wrong? I call, following a call by a MP short stack.

Flop is Ks-Jc-9c. This gives me top pair, the second-nut flush draw (in crubs!), and a gutshot straight draw. UTG leads out for $25. MP guy shoves for about $45. I reshove for my last $110. Original raiser calls. He has, predictably, As-Ac. MP guy never shows, mucks when he loses.

So I win with any crub for the flush (9 cards), queen for the straight (3 more cards), 10 for two pair (3 cards), king for trips (2 cards)--or so it looked at first glance. In actuality, since he had the Ac, that's one fewer crub available. And, of course, they are not all clean outs, since (A) I don't know what the MP guy had, and (B) runner-runner crubs would give him the higher flush, and oddball things like a Q-10 combo give him a higher straight, K-A gives him a full house, etc. Conversely, the Qc would give me an unbeatable straight flush and some big jackpot (I didn't check to see how much it was).

But I'm going to have to have a word with C.K., because the crubs did not get there. Nor did the trips, two pair, or straight. We went blank-blank. Oh well. As they say, all you can do is get your money in good, and I managed to do that. That $110 shove would have reaped about a $200 profit if any of my cards had hit, and I was a clear mathematical favorite.

Maybe this is why they call it gambling.

Guess the casino, #244

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Answer: Flamingo

Memorializing my own idiocy

Yesterday my buddy Cardgrrl won the 1:00 p.m. $150 Megastacks daily tournament at Harrah's. Only 14 runners, but still a very nice performance, especially the recovery after taking a series of brutal bad beats that took her from overwhelming chip leader to about fourth place with five players left (and only two getting paid). She had been looking forward to trying it, because the structure seemed to play to her strengths--especially patience. She was obviously correct. Congratulations, my friend. You deserved it, and I'm tickled pink for your victory.

Cardgrrl was too polite to mention, however, a few additional facts in her brief and self-effacing account: 1. I was in the tournament, too. 2. I was the first to bust out. 3. My bustout came at her hands. 4. I was out about 45 minutes into the thing, which was only about 30 minutes of play, as we started 15 minutes late (having to wait for enough latecomers to get a second table going). 5. I played like a completely moron.

You have to understand, first, that this tournament structure starts one out with 400 big blinds. Four hundred! That is astounding and rare. There is almost no acceptable excuse for losing all of one's chips within the first hour. Getting it all in with aces pre-flop and taking a bad beat would be one. Maybe getting stuck in a set-over-set situation. More generally, if you're putting in even a quarter of your stack early on, it had damn well better be with the nuts or near nuts at the time if you (A) expect to have a shot at winning the tournament, and (B) want to be able to feel good about your play after the fact.

Grand donkey that I am, I managed to lose 3/4 of my chips in an early hand with top pair/top kicker. Now, if one is relatively short-stacked, it's perfectly understandable to go with that and hope for the best. But I know perfectly well that that's not a hand that is anywhere near strong enough for commitment of the fraction of chips that I gave to it so early in the game, and with such deep stacks. This is not news to me; I have been aware of this basic fact of tournament strategy for years. I can justify calling the initial bet and raise on the flop. But I then proceeded to call two more very large bets on the turn and river without having improved.

You want to know the worst part? (This is something that I didn't even confess to Cardgrrl in our post-mortem after she won last night. I was too embarrassed.) I thought and hoped that my opponent had the same hand. That's right--I committed myself that deeply hoping for a chopped pot! I had no reason whatsoever to think that he was bluffing or overplaying a weaker hand than mine. He actually had flopped top two pairs, and improved to a full house on the river. Yes, I continued calling even after the board had paired. It is hard to find words for how monumentally idiotic this is.

Not too long afterward, I shoved over the top of Cardgrrl's flop check-raise with a measly A-J, with an ace on the flop. I did so nearly instantly, not taking any time at all to think about it. Had I folded, I would have been way the short stack at the table, but still would have had 40 big blinds in chips--a workable, salvagable amount, with which I could have found any number of better places to get it in. Had I stopped to think, I would have realized that there were no starting hands with which she would have called my preflop raise from the small blind, as she did, and check-raised me on the flop, that did not have me beat. (She held A-Q.) Furthermore, my fold equity was essentially zero. I was simply frustrated and basically gave up. In short, how I lost the last quarter of my starting chips was every bit as shockingly, inexcusably moronic as the way I lost the first three-quarters of them.

It was an embarrassing, appalling performance. It was what you might expect from a tourist playing something other than his $0.25 home game for the very first time. It is what you might see in an online freeroll, or microstakes tournament.

I spent the rest of the day kicking myself for it and wondering how I came to be such a poker imbecile. Professional at the game? Don't make me laugh.

Even now, I cringe at the thought of anybody reading this--as if it weren't bad enough for six other players to have witnessed it firsthand. But I write this as one final self-inflicted kick in the butt to hopefully sear into my memory how incredibly badly I'm capable of playing, and how terrible it feels to lose that way. (I know what you're thinking--the WSOP experience should have already done the job. Apparently not. I must acknowledge the fact that I can at times be a very slow learner.)

I really have no good idea what caused such a monumental meltdown. It was a complete, catastrophic failure of every part of the constellation of qualities that makes me modestly successful in my bread-and-butter cash games: experience, patience, discipline, analytic capability, attentiveness, and emotional stability.* Was it sleep deprivation from the night before? Wrong time of day for me to be playing? Not feeling much enthusiasm for playing? Not caring much about tournaments generally? Not recalibrating myself to the specific structure? Possibly some element of all of the above.

But whatever caused it, it was mightily painful to be reminded of the depths of ineptitude to which I'm capable of sinking when there is a confluence of factors degrading my game--a self-administered slap in the face, which I now share with my readers as part of my shame and catharsis.

Let's hope it's the last time I have occasion to deliver myself up for such humiliation.



*I realize that some readers will likely jump to the conclusion that it was Cardgrrl's presence that did it, but that's actually the one factor that I'm highly confident had nothing to do with it. It's true that I'm enormously fond of her, but I feel zero impulse to show off for her, zero nervousness, trivial amounts of distraction, etc. If anything, her presence makes me even more solid than usual, because I don't want to embarrass myself with donkitude. I like having her at the table with me, not only because she's fun and interesting and pleasant to be around generally, but because I know her game reasonably well, so it's one less player I have to figure out from scratch.

Today's helpful hint: Ask about the cash

A couple of weeks ago I posted a story from the Venetian in which I anticipated a potential problem about how much money a guy was playing and spoke up, trying to get it resolved before it became a crisis. I admit that I was kind of surprised that not a single commenter agreed with my action. (Nevertheless, I think we can all agree that the player involved, the dealer, and the chip runner all bear part of the blame for the situation arising as it did.) I reject the specific form of criticism that was based on the retrospective observation that the player involved got mad and left, when he was clearly a donkey and likely would have donated a lot more money to the table. That was completely unknowable in advance, and it might just as well have turned out that my intervention saved him money and made him grateful and happy. Still, although I don't exactly conduct myself according to reader-majority rule, it has given me cause to reflect, and I'm now not sure that I would do the same again.

But thinking about that experience and whether I did the right thing triggered memories of a tangentially related class of incidents in which there has been uncertainty about cash playing.

The most common rule in Vegas poker rooms is that $100 bills on the table are in play the same as chips (and are subject to the same buy-in cap), but other denominations of currency are not.

(In card rooms that take the rake in half-dollar increments, there are a bunch of weird and inconsistent rules about when and whether the half-dollar coins you get back are in play. E.g., they might be usable for paying your blinds, but not count if you're all-in, or only count in full-dollar amounts, or other such nonsense. For purposes of this post, I'm only talking about bills, not coins.)

However, there are variations on this. The most peculiar one I know of is the Sahara, where all denominations of currency are in play--even $5 and $1 bills. At the old Hilton poker room, no bills played, nor did $25 or $100 chips. Their reasoning was that it was too easy for other players to overlook these items and thus inadvertantly misjudge an opponent's stack and make a crucial error.

The Imperial Palace is an example of a room that follow this same policy now. A few weeks ago I was playing there. On the river I missed a flush draw but made some sort of small pair. I checked. Opponent moved all in: he had a single $1 chip and a single $100 bill, both of which he pushed forward. The bill had been sitting in front of him for several hands at least, but the dealer had failed to notice it until this moment. He informed the player that the bill was not in play, so the all-in bet was only $1. Floor was called and made the same ruling. The player was livid. I called his $1, though I was about 99% sure I was losing. He had the nuts--a straight. He was ranting about how he was being cheated out of $100. I reassured him that $1 was just about the most I would have called, so the error actually made him an extra dollar that he otherwise would not have gotten, because if his bet had been $101, I would have folded. That calmed him down.

The point, though, is that dealers frequently don't notice currency on the table. Last week at the Venetian I noticed that a player had a stack of $20 bills sitting behind his chips. I don't know how long they had been there before I spotted them. I waited until the hand was over, then told the dealer, "We should probably get clarified whether that cash is in play." The dealer, too, had failed to notice whenever it was that the player had added the money to his stack. He got it changed for chips, and all was well.

Similarly, during the last week of the World Series of Poker, I was sweating Cardgrrl as she played a juicy $2/5 game at the Rio. At some point I noticed a similar situation--a player had quietly added some $20 bills to the table. I was pretty sure that the Rio followed the standard rule of only $100s playing, so I whispered to her that she might want to ask the dealer about it between hands. She did. Again, the dealer had not noticed the issue, and it got resolved before it became a big blow-up.

The obvious problem is that when this sort of thing goes unnoticed and unresolved until there is an all-in move, somebody is going to end up unhappy--whoever has or believes he has the winning hand will want as much in the pot as possible, and the loser will be arguing against counting whatever he can. That's the worst possible time to try to resolve the matter.

Yes, dealers should always notice when a player adds cash to his stack, both to be sure that it is eligible for play and that it does not violate any buy-in cap. But dealers have a lot to do, and this kind of thing slips by unnoticed all the time. So today's helpful hint is to simply ask. Don't assume that any particular poker room follows the standard rule if it's a place where you are not a frequent visitor and certain of the house rule. If you're told that no cash plays and there is cash on the table, or that only 100s play and there are 20s on the table, just wait until the current hand is over and ask the dealer to clarify. Of course, once in a while the player affected will get upset, because people can be irrational and stupid. But you'll be doing everybody at the table a favor by getting the question resolved definitively before there is a big blow-up.

Guess the casino, #243

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Answer: Bally's

Superfull

I saw something the other day while playing at the Wynn that I don't recall ever having seen before. The final board was K-J-K-J-K. One guy bet, got two callers. He then turned over not only the case king, but another jack to go with it. He had four kings and three jacks.

As far as I know, that kind of hand doesn't have a name in poker--but it damn well should have!

Guess the casino, #242

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Answer: Luxor

Guess the casino, #241

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Answer: Gold Coast

Deuce-four gets a new audience

Yesterday Cardgrrl and I went to the Wednesday Poker Discussion Group at Binion's. I had been there just once before, in April, with Shamus. Once again, several members of the group presented in detail hold'em hands they had played, and at each decision point those in attendance were asked what they would choose to do and why.

One of the hands involved the hero having been dealt the deuce-four--in crubs, no less. Reasons for playing it or not playing it to begin with were offered, but, tragically, nobody pointed out the simple fact that you play it because it is the single most powerful hand in poker. Similarly, at each subsequent decision point, people volunteered various explanations for calling, raising, or folding, but nobody ever said what should be obvious by now: "You bet and raise at every opportunity, because you will inevitably have the best hand by the river." And yes, the guy won the hand with two pair (as if there were any suspense in THAT outcome).

I have much evangelism work yet to do. It is disheartening that a group of players with this amount of collective experience can continue to be so confused about how to play the nuts.

Who knew food could be this pretty?

Tuesday I took Cardgrrl out for a lovely birthday dinner at Tao Bistro at the Venetian, followed by a stroll down to the Bellagio to get dessert at her favorite gelato/pastry shop, Jean-Phillippe (the place with the famous chocolate fountain). The pastries were just too beautiful not to document. She had the key lime one. I just had a small cup of berry sorbet, which was delicious. We ate them while watching a couple of the dancing fountain shows.

Incidentally, if you've ever wondered how high the water shoots in the most powerful of the central jets, you might have a hard time finding the answer online. Incorrect information is given in several places. The real answer--or as close to a real answer as it seems possible to find (we know because we disagreed on our estimates, and spent some time looking it up)--is "over 240 feet," as declared by the firm that designed the fountains, here.

Is it a clue to his playing style?

I seem to be running into a spate of unusual--and unusually large--card protectors lately. This one is a rock, the size of which is suggested by how it nearly covers his cards. It's also nearly pyramidal in shape, so that any dealer reaching out to muck those cards prematurely will get a, um, pointed reminder not to do so.

Guess the casino, #240

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Answer: O'Shea's

Guess the casino, #239

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Answer: Bellagio

New site

A guy I know through his work at Bill's and Imperial Palace is involved in a new poker-related web site: Las Vegas Local Poker Guide. I haven't had time to explore it much yet, but one of the interesting and--as far as I know--unique features available is the "Fish alert." I'm not sure what to think of it yet, but it's an intriguing idea. If others have used the service, I'd be interested in feedback on it through the comments section. Of course, if the site wants to give me a free trial membership so I can report back on it here later, I'm up for that! (Utterly shameless shilling, I admit.)

Happy birthday, Cardgrrl!

I hope you have a lovely birthday today, and that this visit to Vegas is enjoyable, profitable, enlightening, and clarifies some of the difficult life decisions you have ahead of you. I am delighted to have you here, and honored to have you as my friend.

Guess the casino, #238

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Answer: Treasure Island

Poker gems, #307

Ed Miller, David Sklansky, and Mason Malmuth, in Small Stakes Hold'em, pp. 17-18.


The beats do not cause you to lose in the long run. Playing passively does.

...

The strange notion that your profits might be bigger against better players comes from the exact same trick that poker plays on your brain. The most horrifying result in poker is the "bad beat," when you lose a big pot that you were heavily favored to win. When you experience a terrible outcome, your brain tells you to avoid the cause, the same way your brain tells you to avoid a hot stove after you get burnt. It is trying to help you, but instead it is misleading you! Bad beats happen most often in the very best games. Avoiding bad beats by playing against only good players is the worst thing you can do.

...Your opponents' mistakes create the potential for more profit, but if you play incorrectly, you may not take advantage of it. If you do not win in the long run, it is not because your opponents are making too many mistakes; it is because you are.

Poker gems, #306

Dave Irish, as quoted in Dominick's "Dmuz75" blog on allvegaspoker.com, here.


You can't play level 3 poker against people who don't understand Level 1.

Guess the casino, #237

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Answer: Texas Station

A question from 1979, an answer from 2009

A few days ago I was playing at the Venetian when I noticed that the music playing overhead was Ravel's "Bolero."

1979--the year the movie "10" came out--was the year I graduated from high school. I suspect that most people of my age had either not ever heard or not paid much attention to "Bolero" until seeing how it was put to use in this movie. I also suspect that just about nobody of my age bracket who saw the movie can fail to think of it on every rehearing of the music.

Sitting at the Venetian table with that music wafting, my mind drifted in directions both nostalgic and erotic. Although she answers, rather than asks, this question in the film, I imagined Bo Derek seductively querying me, "And what do you like to do to 'Bolero'?"

Middle age pierced through the daydreaming fog as I heard the voice in my head answer her: "Play poker."

Chopping at Mandalay Bay

Playing at Mandalay Bay today, I was surprised to learn that as of two or three weeks ago, players can actually chop the blinds now, as at every other poker room in town that I know of. It's one small step in moving M.B. away from its reputation as having the strangest, nittiest rules in town.

Slight overkill on the card protector

Seen at Mandalay Bay today.

Yes, it's an actual railroad spike. The guy said his name is Spike.

I don't think he has to worry about any dealer accidentally mucking his cards.

Ricky Jay

Cardgrrl sent me a link to an old (1993) New Yorker magazine article about Ricky Jay, of whom I am a big fan. To whet your appetite, here's a sample:

After twenty minutes of disbelief-suspending manipulations, Jay spread the deck face up on the bar counter and asked Nogulich to concentrate on a specific
card but not to reveal it. Jay then assembled the deck face down, shuffled, cut
it into two piles, and asked Nogulich to point to one of the piles and name his
card.

“Three of clubs,” Nogulich said, and he was then instructed to turn over
the top card.

He turned over the three of clubs.

Mosher, in what could be interpreted as a passive-aggressive act, quietly announced, “Ricky, you know, I also concentrated on a card.”

After an interval of silence, Jay said, “That’s interesting, Gregory, but I only do this for one person at a time.”

Mosher persisted: “Well, Ricky, I really was thinking of a card.”

Jay paused, frowned, stared at Mosher, and said, “This is a distinct change of procedure.” A longer pause. “All right—what was the card?”

“Two of spades.”

Jay nodded, and gestured toward the other pile, and Mosher turned over its top card.

The deuce of spades.

A small riot ensued.

See the full piece here:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1993/04/05/1993_04_05_054_TNY_CARDS_000362341?currentPage=all

Two reasons I'm happy

1. My pal Cardgrrl is coming back to town tomorrow night, for three and a half weeks.

2. The following day, Tuesday, will be her birthday. Leave a nice comment for her, either here or on her blog, won't you?

Can you tell me what the rule is, after reading the rule?

I have tried to like the Monte Carlo poker room. I really have.

It's small, and I like small, cozy rooms. It's quiet; I like that. They have freeroll tournaments for accumulated hours of play, but they change the frequency, requirements, and payout schedule every couple of months, so it's impossible to keep track of. Parking, since the Echelon construction began, has been a nightmare, though I hear that there is now a functioning parking garage again. (Last night I started at MGM and walked over to Monte, so I haven't tried it yet.) The tables and chairs are of marginal comfort, at best. I haven't been treated well by the room staff generally; more than most places, I have been made to feel like my showing up and asking for a seat is an annoying intrusion into the time of whoever is managing the list. They also don't track hours on your MGM card for food comps. There's a couple of dealers there that I like a lot, but I had an unusual, uncomfortable, and completely unnecessary confrontation with another one. Most importantly, whether there is a no-limit game going when I want to play is completely hit-or-miss, and when there's one going, it's often one of the nittiest in town.

Then, among other things, there are the weird, nitty rules, and the inconsistent enforcement thereof. This is bad enough that it is prominent discussed in the allvegaspoker.com editor's review of the room. Over the last month or so, I have really come to enjoy sending out tweets about the progress of the session, interesting hands, small observations and amusements, etc. In fact, it's possible that my somewhat reduced frequency of telling poker stories in blog posts is due to having told them already in tweets. I'd like to think that these mini-posts are just as much fun for readers as for me.

So when I read something recently (and I can't remember where it was--perhaps one of Las Vegas Michael's tweets?) about rooms in which one is not allowed to use cell phones, including text messaging, at the table, and Monte Carlo was included, it gave me one more reason to avoid the place. (See here for a good discussion of texting rules.)

Last night I had an unusually profitable session at the MGM, and felt like leaving there to pocket my winnings, but still wanted to play more without having to get in the car and drive somewhere else. So I decided to give the Monte another try, for the first time in several months. It's a short walk across the street to the east.

As I played, I noticed that the big-screen TV nearest the room's entrance had a rotating display of rules, promotions, announcements, etc. I jotted down the exact text of the screen about cell phones a few words at a time. Here's what players are told:

CELL PHONES

NO TEXTING WHILE YOU HAVE CARDS IN PLAY

*Please refrain from using your cell phone at the poker table.

* We kindly ask you to step away from the poker table to use your cell
phone.

* Thank you for your cooperation.

So what is the rule? Can you use your cell phone for web browsing, texting, etc., while not in a hand? The first part of the rule would seem to suggest yes. The second and third parts would seem to suggest no, assuming that "use" of a cell phone includes not just talking on it but using its other functions. In other words, it's impossible to tell what the rule is by reading the rule. How moronic is that?

As mentioned, I have heard that the rule is enforced so as to prohibit even texting while not in a hand. Last night, however, a couple of players at my table openly talked on their phones while in the middle of hands. I didn't do that, but I did check Twitter a couple of times and read and responded to one text message that I got, when not in a hand, and nothing was said to me about it. These observations show pretty clearly that, whatever the rule is, it is not enforced consistently.

I'm not sure which is worse--having a stupid rule that is enforced to its nittiest bleeding edge (as, say, at Mandalay Bay), or having a stupid rule the enforcement of which is completely inconsistent, varying with the dealer, the floor person, the time of day, etc. Either way, the fact that one can read the rule as posted in the room and still not be sure what is allowed or disallowed is a sign of woeful mismanagement.

Guess the casino, #236

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Answer: Sam's Town