Live pokers, and getting back on the horse

Yet again, sorry for the lack of updates.

Last weekend, I made a trip to the Atlantic City area to scope out the beach and play some poker at Borgata. My live winning streak is finally over, as I lost $1350 over 9 hours of play. In spite of being stuck, I was enjoying myself during the sessions. I'm very happy to know that I can supplement my online play with live poker, and actually enjoy doing it. Many online players seem to be miserable about live poker. Anyway, here is one hand where I totally owned someone:

First orbit at the table, I limp AJs UTG. (I have no idea what is standard here, if anything.) The guy behind me also limps, and the player after him raises to $50. It folded back around me, and I decided to call. The limper behind me also called. The flop comes J73 rainbow. Check, check, the PFR bets out $80 into a $150 pot. I decide that he likely has a small pair here and see no point in raising, so I call. The other limper folds. The turn comes a 5. I check, the PFR bets $80 again. This seems like obvious weakness to me. I'm trying to figure out how to extract the most value, and I decide to flat and donk the river. I call, and the pot is now $470. I donk $250 on the river just to milk him a little. To my extreme surprise, he pretty quickly raises it to $650. I have no idea what to think here... rivered two pair/set is the only thing that makes sense at all. I take about 3-4 minutes just sitting there, completely borderline on what to do. Suddenly, the guy offers to show one card. I say sure, and he flips up the top card, a 7. Three seconds later, I announce call, flip my hand up, and he mucks. I don't normally make live reads like this, but I felt very confident that him showing a 7 was a sign of weakness. Who said that online donks can't make live reads?

As for online, I've finally started grinding again. I took about a week off, which is probably my longest hiatus from poker in about 2 years. I think that being around poker players 24/7 in Vegas burned me out a little bit, but I've found my groove again. I've played 4K hands in the past 2 days. I'm running pretty badly at 3/6 NL, but hot at my occasional 5/10 shots, so I cant complain.

I have a bet set up already with my friend WOW UR BAD for next month. We're making a bet on who can make the most money at 2/4+ NL next month. The qualifier is you have to play at least 30K hands in order to win the bet. We believe that this bet is +EV for both of us, since we're both generally lazy about putting hands in. He probably has a slight edge since his results at MSNL HU are ungodly, but I plan to put up a good fight.

Reflection

I'm now back home. I've been doing a lot of reflecting on the past month that I spent living in Las Vegas.

Going into Vegas, I was concerned about "making the most" of the trip. I made lists of activities I wanted to accomplish. In hindsight, I am glad I did this. Seeing progress in my life is important to me. Right now, I believe there are so many things in this world I've yet to experience. Setting black-and-white goals helps me to clearly see progress. I didn't end up doing every single activity I brainstormed, but I did most of it, and I feel satisfied. The trip has made me very enthusiastic about experiencing new places. Most of my housemates had a lot more traveling experience than me, and I now want to change that about myself. I see myself going to make different locations over the next few years.

During my second week in Vegas, I wished that my housemates had more of an enthusiasm to go out and "experience" Vegas, rather than relax around the house. By the final few days, however, Jethro and cntgetmedown were likely wishing the same of me. I had grown homesick during the tail end of the trip. Vegas is so fast, and it's hard for many people to take in large doses.

On my flight home, I realized that I missed my housemates already. Corny, I know. It was great to have a group of friends in which we all have a common interest, and helped us to bond easily. I feel that we executed the entire plan of the house well. I really hope I get to see these guys again, even if not in the same setting next time.

Now that I'm back home, I'm going to finally play through Metal Gear Solid 4. I love the MGS series because it challenges me intellectually. This aspect obviously does not exist in many video games. Woven into the plot of each game are important philosophical topics. The ongoing evolution of our species; the purpose (if any) of our lives; the best government system and how one can truly measure what that is. The creator of the series is a complete genius. Each time the next installment in the series is released, I become enthralled in a video game for the first time in years.

Leaving Vegas in style

Sorry for the lack of updates, been super lazy about anything that involves effort out here. I've done a lot of various stuff the past few days that deserves mention:

On Monday, a group of 9 of us (my house, AceCR9, PrincessDonk, and Brystmar) went to Tao restaurant in the Venetian. It's an upscale Asian restaurant that turns into a nightclub at later hours. We ordered everything family style and I got to try a lot of new asian dishes that were really enjoyable. The most memorable dish was the Kobe steak, which was extremely tender but $16 per ounce, which is ridiculous. filet mignon is almost as enjoyable to eat, and about 1/5th the price. We racked up a $1200 bill that everyone wimped out of doing CC roulette over.



After dinner, the house went and saw another Cirque du Soleil show, called O. It was at the Bellagio and this was mostly a water show. It involved a lot of the same acrobatics as Mystere. Overall the two Cirque shows I've seen were very similar in quality, but I would recommend Mystere to anyone who has yet to see a Cirque show. It was a very balanced show with good variety. I'm really amazed at how much the entire Cirque franchise has taken over Vegas. There are advertisements everywhere, and seeing a show has become a must-do for anyone visiting vegas nowadays.

Tuesday, we went to a gun range with Bazclef and IAmSnow. We got to shoot four different machine guns - Uzi and Swedish-K are the only names I remember. It was my first time ever even holding a gun, let alone shooting fully automatic weapons. It was extremely fun to just unload an entire clip in about 3 seconds. Once we finished trying out the four machine guns, we had a "challenge" of sorts. Each person in our group got to fire 2 shots with a Desert Eagle, which has to be the most powerful handgun in the world. It has a ton of kickback and I was pretty nervous about firing it. Dodgyken ended up firing the most accurate shots, and won a token redneck hat as the prize.
(Side note: Bazclef does an awesome job blogging about his Vegas trip, so I recommend checking out his blog for activities and details I've likely left out.)



I've been to Spearmint Rhino twice recently. It is arguably the most famous strip club in the world. The girls are gorgeous, but they are the biggest hustlers ever. When you enter the club, you are the fish. Without going into too many details, I've gotten private dances from two girls. The first was okay-looking, but was a great dancer and had a fun attitude. The second girl was extremely beautiful, but had a horrible attitude. The latter just spent the entire time bitching for tips while she was supposed to be dancing. The former was much more worth the money. Strip clubs really aren't that amazing of an experience once you're used to it, so I doubt I'll be hooked on strip club visits ever.

I'll write a recap of my trip and after-thoughts when I get home. I have very mixed feelings about the fact that I leave in a day.

Recap from California

I'm blogging from California, about an hour southeast of the Bay area. I'm in the middle of a 3 day excursion to visit my mom's side of the family. I haven't blogged in a week, so let's back-track:

Jeff (Jethro87) arrived into Vegas last Friday. We decided to go check out the Wynn, which I would put in the top tier of overall casino quality with others such as Bellagio and Venetian. It's a plus that the main poker rooms in Vegas are in the nicest casinos, and makes commuting to live poker more enjoyable. Jeff and I sat at the same 5/10 NL table. The first observed hand involved a creepy middle-aged guy with bulging eyeballs. He was using semi-abusive table talk during a big hand with someone. I found out later he was Alan Boston, a sports bettor who was on Poker After Dark recently. He came off as a miserable old man, something stereotypical of a classless and jaded live player.

Anyway, my most interesting hand of the session came in the first orbit: a guy in MP opens to $40, the cutoff calls, and I call from the big blind with KQs. The flop comes KTT rainbow. I check, the PFR checks, and the cutoff bets ~$80. I make an extremely obvious call, and the PFR folds. The turn comes a 4 of hearts, giving me a backdoor flush draw. I check again and the CO bets ~$220 without too much hesitation. At this point I think he may very well have a ten, since he didn't seem scared that I might have a ten, and competent live players generally don't slowplay. I think I would have made a pretty nitty fold here if I didn't have the FD, but it's another pretty obvious call with it. The river comes a 6 of hearts, completing my flush. I checked since I expect him to bet-call any ten, and this give him some shot to bet air. Also, a river lead by me basically announces my hand and never gets raised. He bet ~$350 and I made a very easy shove less than double that, and he called quickly. I flipped up my flush, and he showed a ten and mucked. I've had a lot of fortunate spots like this in my live sessions thus far, and I definitely believed I've been running hot overall. I booked a $1300 win and Jeff booked a $800 win, which must have seemed like a solid start to his stay.

Cntgetmedown arrived on Saturday. Jethro, him and I quickly hit it off. The three of us have been talking regularly online since June 2007, and our personalities mesh really well. It's funny because I was confident it would be this way. Simply talking to someone online can still be a great indicator of how you will get along in person. This is not to mean that I don't get along with any of my current (or past) housemates. I definitely wouldn't take back living with any of the guys I have, and I'm very thankful that the entire Vegas house has lived up to all my expectations.

I went and got my first lay-down massage on Sunday. I was recommended by my Uncle to get a deep tissue massage. Some of it was painful, particularly the upper back massage in the beginning. I felt great afterwards though, and definitely plan to get massages monthly from now on. Sitting with a computer about 30-40 hours a week isn't exactly ideal for the human frame, so massaging out tension seems to be a great supplement.

I finished June at +$10K online (I'll post a screenshot in the next entry) and +$5.5K live. Considering I had my largest downswing ever, I'm satisfied with this result. I am only disappointed in the fact that I played 16K hands, which is way less than my goal of 25-30K. I seem to always have a different excuse every month for why I didn't play as many hands as I originally shot for.