Live Session #32 (Happy Days!)

In a later post I'll continue with Part 2 of my "Don't Listen To Phil Helmuth" entry but in the meantime I'm burning to tell you of my latest live session. Today, I left the house at about 4PM to catch a bus to my favourite book shop; that'll be The High Stakes bookshop along Great Ormond Street. Yes, and I did it, I went and bought this book at the bargain price of £44:

I know, I'm a sucker for the latest poker book but I just couldn't resist treating myself, so there it is. I'll probably review it later but it's not really "high brow" material that I may have suggested it was in an earlier post.

ANYWAY, to get to the point... After purchasing this latest acquisition my first port of call was The Fox. Once again it was the familiar sight; seriously looking decent players playing £1/£1 cash game poker. I'll pass. Then it was onto the Golden Nugget but the only poker action occurring there was a fairly dead poker table consisting of just 3 or 4 players but it wasn't for me. Ok, so I then took out one of those two £5 chips from my wallet (that I was left with on Saturday) and plopped one onto the blackjack table. I lost. Still, I got another one for next time. Then it was onto The Empire for some £1/£2 cash and, boy, did I hit the jackpot tonight!? Yes, I did.

Ever get one of those sessions where you just hit everything and there's always someone there to pay you off? Well, it happens to me once in a blue moon but that was my session tonight. In the 3 and a half hour session from about 6:30PM to 10PM I hit jackpot after jackpot and bullseye after bullseye; I flopped two full houses, hit trips and two pairs left right and centre and got paid off one after the other by some pretty suspect players (but mainly a rather inebriated Russian fellow). I even saw plenty of flops that would have beautifully hit my folded hands!

Again, the types of players paying me off here were the ones who insist on playing with stacks of around £50-£100. (This is all right to see at £1/£2 as a max buy-in player at The Empire.) This is not really quite scarey enough though and not particularly competitive either. Unless you know your short-stack strategy, if you get felted you should certainly not start fishing out another £50 for another go! I just think this is wrong. Anyway, I shouldn't complain, as a result of my massive heater tonight, I managed to double-up my buy-in from £400 to a cool £800 for a £400 profit. You just don't get this type of action at The Fox. That's what I'm talking about!!

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We are supposed to learn most from our losing sessions but I learnt a great deal tonight:

1) Staying sober is definitely a more profitable way of playing than drinking large quantities of alcohol.

2) I must not do anymore premature monthly updates. Today was 31st May but because I'd already done my May update this will have to be carried forward as part of the June balance. It would have really been a nice boost to the May balance but there ya go.

3) I must stop with the stop-loss way of thinking at the table! At one point tonight I had around £822 at the table and I remember saying to myself, "I don't want this to fall below £800." This is a TERRIBLE way of thinking at cash game poker. Needless to say I played very softly with the hands that I really should have played aggressively and just ended the session by playing really weak poker - what a twonk! I did end up leaving with £800 but really did have this niggling feeling that I should have forgotten about the stack and played on as normal. At least I got away fairly early and avoided the nightmare of the night bus.

Don't Listen To Phil Hellmuth: Part 1

My brother, Hugh Jarce, used to play poker at the casinos in Bournemouth way back in the good ol' days of the late 1980s. We're talking of the days when only a handful of well-informed individuals knew what they were doing. My brother may not have been an expert but generally knew the right moves. Now back in those days he'd tell me of the meaty wins he'd have and of the days when Japenese tourists would visit the poker tables and would just throw money away like it was confetti. He would generally do very well but stopped playing when the regulars made it unpleasant for other players who were not part of their group (that was his excuse anyway).

Now my brother, Hugh, missed the boat when it came to grabbing the opportunities that life throws at us. He was a computer geek way back when hardly anyone knew what a computer was; he was one of the first owners of the ZX81 and, as technology progressed with the ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro, wrote programs that were admired and possibly ahead of their time. His thing was crushing video games - and we're talking arcade games back in the 1980s. For example, he'd memorise all the patterns, inside out, of where the pacman should go in the Pacman video game; master it, clock it and make the 10p last until the screen would go all funny. He was probably one of the first in the country to clock games like Space Invaders and Defender and he could stay on games like Joust and Mr Do for as long as the arcade would stay open or for as long as he could stand on his own two feet. That's a lot of video game for 10p! He even won a trip to San Francisco after winning a competition at the arcade racing game, Daytona USA. (Yours truly got to go as part of the package as well - bosh!)

Now while some may argue that these activities are a complete waste of brains and are skills that might not actually get you anywhere in life (apart from free trips to San Francisco), it was his knowledge of computer programming that allowed him to suss out how to read the games in a different way and, hence, how to "beat the game"; and I mean that in the old fashioned sense of those words and not the namby-pamby way in which those words are used today. (He now bemoans the "Fisher Price" mentality of computer gaming where they are dumbed-down to the point where ANYBODY and EVERYBODY can play and master them - but that's another issue.) Although my brother knows computers pretty well - and could make a pretty penny if he had the right drive (pun not intended) - he has chosen not to exploit these talents to make his money.    

Now the other thing he also has/had (but has chosen not to develop and to make dosh out of) is/were decent poker skills. One of his claims to fame was that in the first year that The Mind Sports Olympiad held poker tournaments (pre-Moneymaker in 1999), he won two of the nine events and was placed 1st, 2nd or 3rd in four out of nine of them. (This is an amateur event and no real money changed hands - only medals.) He occasionally plays online poker today at micro-stakes levels but has NEVER put real money into a poker site claiming all sorts of reasons why not.

This brings me to the main crux of the matter in this rambling post about my insane brother. What it is, is he claims that you can't really learn the game from reading poker books. In fact, every time I proudly show him my latest acquisition to my poker library, he takes a quick leaf through it and says words to the effect of; "Well, there ya go ya see look, there's one flaw right there..." and things like "Well, who's to say that's the right thing to do there, what about variable x, y and z?..." etc etc etc. I feel he MUST have read something back in the early days which clicked, but, to my knowledge, I don't think he's read a poker book in his life.

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I'll continue with Part 2 of this load of ol' twaddle in one of my upcoming posts and also get round to connecting it with the title. Until then, I need to get off this computer and do something else for a while...

MAY - UPDATE #5

I may or may not be playing poker tomorrow but I'm gonna shove up my update for May anyway:

With just the odd few one-shot deposits here and there it's been a fairly quiet month at the online game and with the way things are going at the moment I feel it's going to stay that way come June as well (with no one-shot deposits at all if I know what's good for me). After the debacle that was April and with my live game pulling me through a little bit, I guess the month of May seems like the start of the recovery process. Nevertheless, I still have two fairly big regrets about this month:

(1) The drunken trip to The Empire (after a successful 3rd place finish in the freezeout at The Fox for a £330 payout) was unforgiveable. It's really something I should have put right by now at this time of my life so maybe it was a necessary lesson but, whatever, it ended up being expensive at the cost of £200! Cheap drunken poker sessions are one thing but taking £300 to the table while pissed out of your head is just plain stupid. Never, never again!! (I really should have learned my lesson after the PKR Social where I similarly threw £200 down the drain there after one too many bevvies.)

(2) The second regret was the £155 attempt at qualifying for PKR Live 6. I really don't think I should have tried for this. For a start it was mid-week and I played this after a day at work and, secondly, I was not only back at work the next day but would have had to have played the event straight after that day's work as well! Not good.

It's always easy to be wise after the event but if I had behaved myself and kept my discipline, that £355 deficit would just not have happened and I'd be looking at a much more impressive live game monthly profit of over £700 instead, not to say an overall yearly profit approaching £2000. We all live and learn I suppose. Anyway, with my "May starting bankroll of £1000" plan pretty much scrapped, here's how things have gone this month and how things are going for me so far this year: 

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ONLINE: MAY -£90 /  YEAR: -£440

LIVE: MAY +£370  /  YEAR: +£1910

TOTAL: MAY +£280    /  YEAR: +£1470
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A Little Online Dabble

With the time at 5PM but with the rain coming down outside, I decided to postpone my little trip into town this afternoon and I've had a little dabble at the ol' online poker game instead. Now, these days, my dips into online poker are just what the experts tell you that you shouldn't do. I plonk in small amounts, sit down at a table with my entire roll and, after doing ok for a short while, just end up losing the whole lot.

Now while I know that this is touristy behaviour in the extreme, the small amounts I put in are really very small and just serve the purpose of scratching that poker itch that all poker players, who are on a break from the online game, get from time to time. If I were serious about my online game (which I was up until April time) it'd be deposits of around 30 buy-ins. As it is I went for a £18.54 deposit this afternoon which got me around $30 to play with at PKR.

With just a little tinkle at the $0.25/$0.50 game I've managed to spin that up to $53.37. The thing is, this little foray has rekindled my passion and has re-awakened the monster that was slumbering within me. I'm really tempted to put in a meatier deposit to allow me to start playing the $0.25/$0.50 semi-seriously again. But I don't know. I think I'll just play with the $53 a little bit longer and see if I can weave the wobbly magic on a consistent basis to see if I've still got it. What I think will probably happen will be that it'll disappear in the usual proverbial puff of smoke.

Anyway, I'll leave you with a picture of my "phoenix from the flames" real money balance before it ends up on the big fat $0 again.:

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P.S. It's another change of plan. I'm currently back down to $33 and I've just decided to put it all on the line and register for the $33 Late Night 6-Seater MTT. Whatever happens, I'll post a screenshot of the vital statistics (as above) with, hopefully, a figure in the hundreds next to "My Real Money"; NOW COME ON!!

On A Roll

Today is bank holiday Monday and the sun is shining once again although it is a little bit overcast. The time is 2PM and I've just woken up after the late night session last night. After 3 evening sessions over Friday, Saturday and Sunday live poker is going quite well for me at the moment but like all good things, I know it will come to an end at some point but let's not tempt fate eh? Let's keep playing our usual game and ride the run-good wave, as they say.

It means, of course, that the poker Gods are calling me once again back to the felt and you know what? Like the sirens in the story of Odysseus - I just can't resist their call. I will be answering it and setting off once again on that bus ride to temptation. Today, I just feel it's right to have a break from the £1/£2 game for a while, lighten up a little and play some £1/£1. As usual, I'll avoid the £1/£1 game at The Fox and probably head on over to The Vic for a change. My only one session this year at The Vic was successful so positive memories of the place remain.

Lastly, as the last three figures in my bank account are £...8.54, and I like to see a nice round round figure ending in £...0.00 in my balance, I'm just going to make a small £28.54 deposit into my PKR account and have a little dabble in the online game this afternoon for a bit of fun. I'll take the figure off my May live poker balance.

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P.S. The sirens weren't so strong after all, it was a stay-at-home-day today with beer and a bit of online poker instead. (See above.)

Live Session #31 (3rd At The Fox)

It seems like The Fox doesn't do too badly for me after all as tonight I managed a 3rd place finish in their 7PM freezeout for a £240 payout and a £200 profit overall. For the record, by the way, this was a £43 freezeout rather than the £38 freezeout that I originally thought. It was an "ante-up" tournament, which meant that blinds stayed the same (100/100) and it was just the antes that went up. Once you got the hang of the fact that you were fighting for the pre-flop pot rather than the negligible blinds, it all became pretty straightforward what to do - and it was surprising to see how many players just didn't cotton on to this fact. Furthermore, as the antes increased, not limping in for 100 chips just seemed barmy. Me? Yes, I'm barmy but it was just a case of playing ABC poker, noting the preflop pot size and just being very aware of position. I was a little annoyed at my exit hand (66 v. A2 and seeing an ace hit the flop) but I was very short-stacked compared to the 1st and 2nd place players so it wasn't so bad.

One interesting thing I have noticed at these Fox tournaments is the fact that many inexperienced players do end up hitting the panic button far too early and are prepared to call huge all-ins a little too freely with their fairly big stacks and marginal hands that really should hit the muck in an instant. With about 7 or 8 remaining and a few short-stacks just holding on (me included), players with mountains of chips and holding hands like A6 up to AJ were far too ready to put their tournament life on the line and call all-ins with these hands. I'm not complaining, of course, because I climbed the money ladder just by sitting on my arse but it's something they really don't need to do with such big stacks and which could be put to use in more +ev situations.

Afterwards I felt good and, as I was relatively sober, went to The Empire for a bit of £1/£2. This evening I came out with a £46 profit so it was all good. Here, I just played tight and pushed with my good hands. Yep, they folded when I pushed but I was happy to top up my profit to quite a respectable £246 for the evening. The only thing that is really getting me down now is the long wait for the night bus home and that bloody dreary bus journey - deadly dull and tediously tiring, especially when you have to stand virtually the whole way!

Three In A Row?

It's bank holiday weekend and Sunday afternoon is upon me. I've had two consecutive nights of poker on the town and I'm kinda itching to get out there again tonight. With the missus being away, sunning it up in the south of France, and no work to have to face tomorrow I guess I should just go on out and take advantage innit? There's a pile of clothes to be washed but I just can't be arsed with that for the moment.

So where's it to be? I enjoyed my visit to Golden Nugget yesterday and The Empire was nice despite it being incredibly busy and there always being a 30 minute to 1 hour waiting list these days. I'm really starting to warm to the casino venues now and finding more and more reasons to play at these rather than at the relatively colder atmosphere of the poker clubs like The Fox or The International. Maybe I should go for variety and start with a little £1/£1 at The Vic today?

Despite holding the rare £160 event or the £325 main event, one redeeming feature of The Fox Club, these days, is that they do offer the right ingredients for a few cheap drunken poker sessions with their low buy-in, reasonably structured, MTTs. It's always a bit of fun to piss-off the "serious" player who seem to think there's actually more skill in these small buy-in donkfest affairs than there really is. Still, you do get plenty of poker for your money and, in fact, they have an interesting £38 freezeout tonight at 7PM which I'm considering giving a go. What I'll probably do, therefore, is play a little £1/£1 cash at The Vic and then, if I do well at that, have a few beers and play fast and loose at The Fox's £38 freezeout later on for fun and jolly japes.

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P.S. Change of plan: I'm still at home so the above plan will be out. It's 5:15PM so I can still catch the £38 freezeout at The Fox but I don't really know. Whatever I do, I'm definitely gonna be hitting the town for some Sunday evening poker - so let's do this!!

Live Session #30 (Nothing Doing)

Not much to report on this evening's action really. I arrived at Golden Nugget at about 9:30PM and ensconced myself on a £1/£1 table with £100. It was a pleasant enough table with one particularly fishy player. Anyway, I started badly after going all-in while hitting two-pair (6s and 4s) on the flop. But bosh - the villain had a set of 4s and I was soon down to £40. Luckily, soon after, I got out of jail by hitting a flush on the river and get paid off which hauled me back up to £90.

On the next key hand I'm up against Mr Fishy and I have KK. I limp/re-raise the small £5 raise to £20 pre-flop and still get the call from Mr Fish. On the orphan flop I chuck in £32 which puts my villain all-in and he goes into the tank. I remember the "talk-to-them-if-you-think-they're-gonna-fold-but-want-them-to-call" trick and so I feign impatience and tell him, quite aggressively, to fold so he can save some money and so we can get on with the next hand. It works like a charm and he calls, showing 10 5 for a pair of 5s. The board doesn't help him and I'm up to around £140. I then lose a bit on the last key hand by chasing and failing to hit a gutshot and flush draw and then, at about 12:15AM, I get up from the table with £105 and £5 up on the session. I cash £100 and plop the £5 chip on the blackjack table... and win!! I double my £5 to £10 - Hurrah!! I put the two £5 chips in my pocket for next time.

Ok, so I then decide to hit The Empire and, once again, it's as busy as Piccadilly Circus. I'm way down on the list but manage to get seated at a table after about 40 minutes. Unfortunately I get seated at the table from hell which consists of many good players and it's as aggressive as f**k. Not only that but I have Mr Hyper Aggressive Big Stack Swedish Table Captain sitting two to my left!! I feel I'm getting tired - not helped by the presence of Mr Hyper Aggressive Swedish Table Captain with the big stack - and leave at 2AM after just two orbits and feel happy to be down just £5 and to end up breaking-even for the night.

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Poker Tonight On The Town - Let's Do This!

It's 8PM, I haven't been outside since getting out of bed this afternoon and I'm still at home sitting in front of the laptop like an old man. It's ridiculous; I think it's time I got off my fat hairy arse and started being a bit more pro-active, so I'm gonna get me on a bus and I'm gonna hit the town baby! As I'm off work all next week, it's nice that I don't have to worry about the time factor as well so I think it may just be an all-nighter. It's bank holiday weekend and judging by the hustle and bustle of yesterday methinks the town will be buzzin'.

At the moment, I don't really know where the hell I'm gonna take myself off to: The Empire? The Fox? Golden Nugget? The Vic? Not sure. Let's just get out there and see where the mood takes me.

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Life on the edge baby! Let's do this!!   

3 Poker Books From Left Field

I've already posted my own personal favourites when it comes to poker books and I've also got many more that are so-so that are also probably part of the poker literary canon (if there is such a thing), but a few more have recently become available from out of the blue that might be worth checking out. They're not part of the mainstream and I don't actually think that these are available "over-the-counter" in the UK. I believe they originally came out as e-books but you can get hard copies of these if ordered through Amazon. (The best price from Amazon appears in brackets below.) They are:

The Poker Blueprint by Aaron Davis and Tri Nguyen (£34.54).

Don't Listen To Phil Hellmuth by Dusty Schmidt and Paul Christopher Hoppe (£48.95).

Analytical No-Limit Hold 'Em: Crushing Mid-Stakes Short-Handed Games by Thomas Bakker (£12.49).

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I won't give my opinion about the actual books cos I ain't got 'em, but the first two have been given a fair amount of acclaim by those in-the-know and they may certainly be worth researching if you're interested. Besides, I'd think they'd be categorised as falling into the "high-brow" class of poker books and are really more for the advanced player. One more has also recently come out which I think is available over-the-counter at The High Stakes bookshop in Great Ormond Street and may be worth checking out. This is the latest one by Daniel Ashman and it's called Dominate No-Limit Hold'em.  

I only just noticed this last one just now and know nothing about it or if focuses on cash games or tourneys, but there it is.

LiveSession #29 (Quiet & Solid)

It's now 4:15AM and I've just got back from a live session in town. It all started out with a few beers with Nobby McNobbus around Leicester Square and the Soho and the Carnaby Street area of town. With a quick stop-off at the Golden Nugget - and my very first crack, this year, at a live blackjack table - it was then onto The Empire. (I figured a £5 minimum was worth a few punts.)

After showing Nobbus a master-class lesson in how to play at the blackjack table, but now £20 poorer (curse that blackjack table), we entered a very busy Empire and I registered for some good ol' £1/£2 only to see my name at about 27th on the list!! Ok, long wait. Back in the main casino we sink another pint while helping ourselves to some nice cup-cakes that were being served up to the clientele - made in honour of The Empire's 4th birthday - nice. Also, for the first time, I had a go at one of those sit-down roulette machines and what a load of ol' bollocks they are! I lose 60p but that was all that was needed for me to decide "never again" with these cash-sinks. 

Still, with the time now at about 12:15AM, we headed back to the poker room and after about a 20 minute wait I was finally seated at a table where I decided to plonk down £400. With Nobby railing again, and commenting after about 4 or 5 hands or so that he'd never seen me take down a pot, I look down at KK in mid-position. UTG pops in £10, Mr Loosie McTricky calls and so I zonk it up to about £60. They all fold except Mr Loosie McTricky who decides to call. (This is the fella who cracked my pocket queens with 67 in a poor session I had last month.) The flop comes K x x with two spades and the villain checks. I'm not in the mood for his antics, or perhaps I should have been(?), but I put in about a half-pot raise only to see his cards immediately hit the muck. Hmm, I dunno, I could have slow-played it but I don't think I would have extracted much out of him and I was happy to scoop in about a £70 pot.

McNobbus takes his leave and misses the next hand where I scoop another £30 or so when my AJ connects with a J x x flop. Things then got very slow and quiet after this and although I looked down at QQ and a couple of AK hands, nothing really came of these and my stack started to dwindle to about £440. Luckily, at about 3AM and towards the end of the session I look down at AK, early-position, and slow played it by checking with an A x x flop against a fairly loose villain. On the river I chuck in £20 and he re-raises £50. I snap call and he shows an 8 to make a pair of 8s(!?) This hand puts my stack back up to around £500. I play a few more hands and then take my leave when our table breaks and when I get the last choice of where to sit. The choice of table I get is a tough one so I called it a day with £490 in chips and a £90 profit for the night.

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P.S. OK, it's now 1:30PM on a Saturday afternoon and it's full English breakfast time for me! Another live poker session calls but I'm not sure where to head for tonight. Once again that bleedin' £38 freezeout at The Fox is tempting. Although you get a lot of poker for your money at these, they really are Donkfest City. The Vic for some £1/£1 cash games sounds like a nice idea but we'll see, we'll see.

A Week Off Work...

I'm in a very good mood. In about 4 hours time, from now, pips will sound which will signal the end of the school day and a nine day break away from work; meaning nine days of lie-ins, not having to mark mind-numbingly boring work and NOT having to interact with bloody students - hurrah! I've also got the missus and my older daughter off galivanting in the south of France which means I'll have those two nutcases out of my hair for a week as well. Oh yes.

Methinks there'll be a lot of live poker played this weekend.

A Change Of Itinerary

Ok, it's been massively on my mind recently and I know I've made loads of posts about Vegas, but I'll try to make this my last Vegas post for a while. And I mean that most sincerely folks.

Apart from now needing to save loads of £££s so I can take loads of $$$s to have me some fun; my main thoughts/concerns are where to take myself during the first few days of my trip. Now I posted something on the 2+2 forums about walking around Vegas in August and someone suggested that I just visit 2 or 3 places per day and, on reflection, I think this is a mighty fine idea. There again, I reckon I could do 5 or 6 daily in the first part of my visit. Here's a possible itinerary but remember when I say "day" I really mean that this covers the time between about 5PM -9AM as I reckon these will be my active times:

Day 1
As my base will be Harrah's (in the northern part of the strip), I figure I'll just check out the big casinos on the north end of the central strip for starters. So after I arrive (at about 3PM-4PM) and had my sleep (which will take me to around midnight), I'll be off to visit Wynn, Treasure Island, The Venetian, Palazzo and Mirage with the possibilty of checking out Ceasars Palace if the time is right. I'll try to resist sitting down to actually play on this first day as I may still be a bit spaced out - but only two of these are part of my "fourteen" anyway.

Day 2
The next day will involve viewing (and probably playing at) the "cheaper" casinos on the eastern side of the central strip. This will include visits to: Casino Royale, Harrah's, Imperial Palace, O'Shea's, Flamingo and Bill's. These casinos are all very close to each other in a concentrated part of the strip so walking will be kept to a minimum.

Day 3
This will be the day to visit the "mid-range" casinos on the eastern side of the strip: Bally's, Planet Hollywood and Paris will be the places to visit here. No poker at the latter of these, of course, but supposedly "softer" games at the first two. This will be followed by the "big" fancy establishments on the other side including: Bellagio, Aria and Cosmopolitan. The Bellagio will be the only place, for me, to play poker among these.

Day 4
The casinos on the southern end of the strip seem spread out and as walking will be tough in the middle of August, I think it'll be best to stick to just three or four per day here. I think just Monte Carlo, MGM and New York-New York will be the new discoveries on this day. A return to base will then be in order, and then I'll just go where the mood takes me for the rest of the day.

Day 5
The final casinos to be visited will be covered today. We're talking: Excalibur, Luxor, Tropicana and Mandalay Bay. I believe there are links between some of these and hopefully these are indoor air-conditioned walkways but I'm not sure. Still, if I tick these off my list on day 5, I'll then be free to just visit any poker room that tickles my fancy; although I may have to revisit places like The Venetian and Mirage, so as to actually play in these venues as they are part of my "Vegas Fourteen."

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I reckon this itinerary is nice because I'll get to visit all 25 casinos on the strip at a leisurely place, rather than attempting to race around, getting stressed and ticking them off the list as quickly as possible. It also means that by the half-way stage of my trip, all of the "fourteen" would have been surveyed and I can then have a more well-informed plan of action. 

Review Criteria

As regular readers will have gathered, I'm off to Vegas this August for a monster poker trip of epic proportions (well, for me anyway). As explained, I'll be gathering $1 chips, as momentoes, from the 25 casinos that run from Mandalay Bay all the way up to Wynn. I don't intend venturing north of Wynn (to Stratosphere, Encore, Riviera and Circus Circus) as the casinos start to spread out, but I might do if I have time to kill or if I need a long extended break from the tables. Here are the places in question (from south to north):

1.    Mandalay Bay - SW

2.    Luxor - SW
A.        Tropicana - SE

3.    Excalibur - SW
B.         New York-New York - SW
4.    MGM Grand - SE

5.    Monte Carlo - SW
C.         Cosmopolitan - CW
D.         Aria - CW

6.    Planet Hollywood - CE
E.         Paris - CE

7.    Bally's - CE

8.    The Bellagio - CW

9.    Bill's Gamblin' Hall - CE
F.         Ceasars Palace - CW

10.  Flamingo - CE
G.         O'Shea's - CE

11.  Imperial Palace - CE

12.  Harrah's - CE
H.         Casino Royale - CE

13.  Mirage -NW
I.          Treasure Island - NW

14.  The Venetian - NE

J.         The Palazzo - NE
K.         Wynn - NE

Those that are in a larger font and underlined are my "Vegas Fourteen." These are casinos which have poker rooms that run $1/$2 cash games and which restrict maximum buy-ins to $200-$300 thus making them lighter on the pocket for the small stakes poker player such as yours truly. I hope to sit down in all poker rooms of my "Vegas Fourteen" and to do reviews of each. Obviously I'll be spending many more hours at some rather than others, but I reckon a sit down period of an hour or two (minimum) should be enough to get the flavour of the place.

There will be five aspects of the poker room to take into account and I'll be giving a mark out of 10 for each. I'll then double that mark to arrive at a clear percentage or a mark out of 100:

1.  Quality
Here, I'll be looking at the general comfort offered to the players. The space to move around in, upkeep and cleanliness, general quality of the furnishings like carpet, tables and chairs, along with overall decor and surroundings will all be taken into account.

2.  Atmosphere
This will be based on the general ambience of the place. If it's an enjoyable and relaxing experience with most players just enjoying themselves and chatting nicely then this is all good.

3.  Traffic
No one wants to walk into a dead poker room with just 2 or 3 players sitting there staring into space or reading while waiting for more players. Similarly, just one table of serious nit-types is kinda rubbish as well. Good traffic with a good choice of tables to play at is essential to make a decent poker room.

4.  User-Friendly Factor
General ease of access to the poker room within the building is a bonus. Clarity of table stakes being played and knowing where to go is a must as is ease of getting and cashing chips. The system of registering to play and getting to the table should not make visitors feel awkward and being kept well-informed is a must.

5. Staff
Friendly, co-operative and helpful staff are a must from the waitresses to the dealers to the cashier clerks. It all adds to the experience.

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I was going to give a separate category for "Competition" but as the standard of opponent fluctuates so wildly on a day to day, table by table, room by room, basis I won't include this as part of my criteria for reviewing the rooms.

PKR Live 6 - Where's The Pizazz?

With my head swimming with thoughts of Vegas, it seems I have neglected to twaddle the bloggle with poker related issues closer to home. Well, perhaps PKR Live 6 would be an interesting topic for this post... But then again, where was all the usual hype and what happened to PKR's usual build up? Where has the character of the tournament gone and where the hell were the familiar faces on the Saturday night?

Personally, my involvement in PKRL6 was fairly minimal in that I failed to qualify both through the online satellites and the live qualifier on the Thursday evening of the main event itself. But I was there on the Thursday and the Saturday evening of the main event and I have to say, it all seemed a fairly subdued affair.

The thing about PKR is that it encourages a community spirit both through their own forums, their arranged meet-ups, their profiling of players, their arranged parties for those who qualify for the WSOP, and their all-round connection with the actual players. PKR Live 1-4 was all about bringing PKR players together to play poker in a relaxed social settting. It worked very well (so I'm told) and was extremely popular with PKR players, until PKR struck a sponsorship deal with The Fox Poker Club and moved PKRL 5 to that venue - much to the huge disappointment of the PKR community.

Many players bemoaned the fact that it wasn't as good a venue as the beloved Loose Cannon which, in a more comfy and relaxed pub setting, encouraged the socialising and fun aspect of poker. Complaints ensued from the players and so to pacify the whingers PKR decided to create two "events". Now, on the one hand, we have the bi-annual event called "The Social", aimed at the more recreational player who like the fun and social aspect of the game, while on the other hand there's the retention of the bi-annual "PKR Live" event aimed at the more serious, deeper-pocketed player or the pros.

With the arrival of PKR Live 6, away went the exclusive "PKR players only" policy and in came the "all-comers welcome" rule. Now, although the competition still attracts many PKR players, they amount to a lot less than 50% of the overall field. In fact, only 3 PKR players actually made it to the final table!! This dilution of PKR players, for me, takes a lot of the "character" away from the tournament - and judging from the lack of buzz and hype from both the PKR site AND the PKR community, I can't see it matching the "golden age" of before. In fact, without even the excitement of a seat draw a few days before commencement, or even an odds table, it now just seems like ANY other high buy-in 2 or 3 day tournament.

It's fine to see PKR players like KKowboy, Locodice, MrStarch and BrotherMuzone17 going fairly deep but PKRL6 just didn't feel like the community event I felt it might have been. This was also highlighted, for me, when I visited the place on Saturday evening. As I mentioned earlier, I popped in after a visit to The Empire but left straight away after being disappointed with the lack of the familiar faces at the tables. As for the £110 and £160 freezeout side-events held on the Saturday and Sunday, I've heard pretty much zilch about these.

Oh well. 

Hurrah! It's Harrah's!!

Ok folks, I'm on my way to Vegas baby! I've gone and booked the trip and come mid August I'm getting on that jet-plane and I'm flying across the water!! As you've probably gathered from my obsessive posts recently, I've been building up to this for some time - and now the deed is done. Get in!!

I've made a few adjustments to my original plans which I'm sure you'd like to know about and which I'll get to shortly. First off I've plumped for Harrah's Hotel. I decided that both a central location and saving money (~£600) by NOT choosing Bellagio was the way forward. Additionally, Harrah's supplies a safe in the room (unlike a few others) and this layer of security just makes me feel a lot more... well... safe and secure. The price is also not bad being at the lower end of the spectrum and I've read a lot of reviews which suggest it's great value for money. Here are the details and changes that I'm sure you'd like to hear about:

1) I've decided to give myself an extra night's stay (that's 11 nights rather than 10) and leave London on the Wednesday rather than the Thursday. This will give me extra time to scope out the place and allow me to be brighter and fresher for the first Friday and Saturday weekend of play. I depart on Wednesday 17th August and return on Sunday 28th August (giving me two full Friday and Saturday weekends to enjoy).

2)  The flight is a direct flight with no stop-offs and takes just 10 hours 45 minutes. I leave at 11:25AM London time and arrive at 2:10PM Vegas time. This is so much better than my original plan as I will now definitely be able to get in a good afternoon's sleep when I arrive and be able to do my first exploration of the place - aware and well awake - at the right time in the evening. Furthermore, check-in to the hotel starts at 4PM so my arrival is timed to perfection!

3) With this direct flight comes a small price: the total cost (for hotel and flight) comes to £1345 which is about £80 more than if I went with the 16 hour flight with a required change at Newark. Still, I don't think I'll miss hanging around a boring airport for 6 hours (both ways) - and the afternoon nap to charge those batteries will be most welcome indeed. This small change in schedule really gives me a lot of extra time to take things easy.

4) The departure time of 4:40PM from Vegas is also just right. It gives me plenty of time to organise myself for leaving and I could even squeeze in a few hands before hitting the airport - nice.

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So there it is. My first trip to Vegas booked and in the bag. I'll try not to swamp my blog now with Vegas Mania and calm down a little bit. Oh yes.

On The Brink Of Booking Vegas (High Twaddle Factor)

After yet more research and the viewing of tantalising YouTube clips of the Las Vegas strip, I'm on the brink of booking my hotel and flight. It looks like Harrah's is winning the battle with Bellagio as far as which hotel to stay at is concerned because I'm beginning to think that the £550 I'll save as a result is more valuable than the luxury, comfort and classier environment I'll experience at The Bellagio. It also means that the £550 (~$850) can be used as extra ammunition to gamble with - a good thing.

I've been thinking a little bit about my itinerary and I already have a plan of how to spend my first few days:

The flight takes off from London, on the 18th August, at 12 o'clock midday British time and then, after a connection in Newark and a total of 16 hours, I touchdown in Vegas at 8PM, Vegas time. I reckon this means I'll arrive at my hotel door at around 10PM or so, Vegas time. Now, as this will be my first time in Vegas, my first plan of action will be to go on a reconnaissance mission.

Here's the short version:

Fri 19th Aug - 1AM-6AM: Visit the casinos of the north central strip like Venetian, Mirage, Treasure Island and Wynn with, possibly, a few in the vicinity of the central strip on the east side of the road.

Fri 19th Aug - 7AM-5PM: SLEEP.

Fri 19th Aug - 5PM-7PM: Blog a bit, explore hotel, freshen up and whatnot.

Fri 19th Aug 7PM-11PM: Check out the poker rooms in the south of the strip like Mandalay Bay, Luxor, MGM and Excalibur and, possibly, the rest of the central strip places on the east side of the road.

Fri/Sat 19th/20th Aug - 11PM-1AM: Power nap back at hotel.

Sat 20th Aug ~1AM onwards: Finish my reconnaisance mission by visiting the big places on the west side of the road (Aria, Bellagio and Ceasars Palace) and then PLAY POKER!!

And here's the long version:


If I'm tired (it'll be about a 24 hour trip from my home front door to the hotel door) I'll take a long nap but if I'm excited and buzzing I'll be off to start accumulating my $1 chip collection. This involves picking up a $1 chip from all the 25 casinos along the south and central strip, including those not in my "Vegas fourteen." I'll not need many $$$s for this which is probably a good thing as I'll need to suss out the vibe on the street anyway. Also, if I do this straight away, through most of the night, it'll be at the coolest time of day as well. It'll also help me to get my bearings. I reckon if I do just the north central casinos like The Venetian, Mirage, Treasure Island and possibly Wynn along with a few in the immediate vicinity of Harrah's then that'll be a good start.

If I don't nap when I arrive and do go off on my reconnaissance mission, I can see myself returning to my hotel room in the early part of the morning on the 19th August - this will be when I'll SLEEP, big-time. I can see myself waking up late afternoon/early evening where I'll finish off checking out the battlegrounds by heading in a southerly direction (if it's not too hot) and checking out places in the southern area including Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur and MGM and, possibly, the rest of the central strip places east of the main road. This will have involved a LOT of walking so it will be time to possibly take another nap to recharge the batteries. This will leave just the big casinos on the central strip that are on the west side of the road such as Aria, Bellagio and Ceasars Palace still to visit.

I'll nap/sleep again for as long as I need and then, depending on how I feel, I'll either finish my collection and tick the rest of the places off my list or I'll just go right on ahead and start my campaign. It is vital that I'm alert, aware and awake as I take my first steps into battle and hopefully I'll be bright and fresh and ready for my first rumble during the evening of Friday 19th August or the early morning of Saturday 20th August. My surveillance of the battlegrounds should supply me with the information as to which poker rooms to hit first but I can see myself just sitting down with a shortstack at Bill's or Imperial Palace to start easing in gently and to build confidence.

Of course all this is a very loose plan but there it is.

Fun With My New Vegas Fourteen

Now that I've settled on a "Vegas Fourteen" I thought I'd collate the user reviews from All Vegas Poker and have a bit of fun creating an interesting chart. Ok, this is how it works: as always, they appear on the list in the general order in which they would pop up if you travel up the strip from the south. The first number in the list shows their rank according to how users rate the poker room's overall quality. The second number shows the rank order of the softness of competition, according to AVPers, (1st = softest, 14th=toughest) and the final numbers just shows the minimum to maximum buy-in for the $1/$2 cash games:

1.    Mandalay Bay - SW                 7th            10th              100-300

2.    Luxor - SW                              11th            6th               50-200           

3.    Excalibur - SW                        12th            1st               100-300

4.    MGM Grand - SE                     2nd            7th                60-300

5.    Monte Carlo - SW                    3rd            11th              50-200

6.    Planet Hollywood - CE             4th            5th               100-300

7.    Bally's - CE                              14th            4th               100-300

8.    The Bellagio - CW                   8th            14th              100-200

9.    Bill's Gamblin' Hall - CE         13th            3rd               20-200

10.  Flamingo - CE                         10th            8th              100-300

11.  Imperial Palace - CE                9th            2nd               60-300

12.  Harrah's - CE                           6th            9th                60-300

13.  Mirage -NW                             5th            12th              100-300

14.  The Venetian - NE                   1st            13th              100-300

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Now the interesting thing about this chart (and apart from the fact that I don't know how to change the font colour back to normal) is that a lot of the ones I rejected from the final fourteen (four out of five in fact) including: Tropicana, Aria, Treasure Island and Wynn would have all appeared in the Top 5 under overall room quality. Furthermore, many of these were also rejected due to toughness and cost of playing. (Tropicana, Aria, Ceasars Palace and Wynn would have been in the bottom 7 for soft competition.) So it appears that there's definitely a correlation between luxury, comfort and quality on the one hand, and stiff opposition with the forced higher buy-in on the other. 

This is also born out when we see that the poorer quality rooms like: Bally's, Bill's, Imperial Palace, Excalibur and the rejected O'Shea's all have the supposedly softer competition. Interesting. Oh, liking the Bellagio's tight range when it comes to minimum and maximum buy-ins as well - and check out Bill's minimum buy-in!!

I wonder if I should get out more?

My New Vegas Fourteen

In a previous post, I wrote that I intended to visit twenty poker rooms along the strip. Well, after more research, I've decided to whittle that number down to fourteen. The reason for this is that, not only have I realised that twenty is a bit too many but, some of those original twenty just seem to offer the wrong combination of tough players along with maximum buy-ins that are too high.

My new "Vegas Fourteen" are now as follows:

1.    Mandalay Bay - SW

2.    Luxor - SW

3.    Excalibur - SW

4.    MGM Grand - SE

5.    Monte Carlo - SW

6.    Planet Hollywood - CE

7.    Bally's - CE

8.    The Bellagio - CW

9.    Bill's Gamblin' Hall - CE

10.  Flamingo - CE

11.  Imperial Palce - CE

12.  Harrah's - CE

13.  Mirage -NW

14.  The Venetian - NE

Aria, Ceasars Palace, Treasure Island and Wynn run $1/$3 cash games rather than $1/$2 and the last three of those allow a maximum buy-in of $500. My new "Vegas Fourteen" have maximum buy-ins of between $200 and $300 which is much more comfortable. I will be on holiday after all and I want to relax a little bit rather than worry too much about defending $300-$500 against good players with equal or bigger stacks than yours truly thank you very much! O'Shea's has had to go because it only held $1-$5 "spread" games, whatever they are (and it seems kinda mad/crazy there anyway - although possibly my kind of place to take $50-$100 for a bit of fun), while Tropicana has been lopped off due to lack of information.

I think this new list will be a lot more manageable and will actually keep me a little more focused. Nevertheless, I would still like to visit the other casinos along the strip as well to satisfy my curiosity and to collect the $1 chips for my Vegas chip collection. The "rejected" places are:

1.    New York-New York - SW
2.    Tropicana - SE
3.    Paris - CE
4.    Cosmopolitan - CW
5.    Aria - CW
6.    Ceasars Palace - CW
7.    O'Shea's - CE
8.    Casino Royale - CE
9.    Treasure Island - NW
10.  The Palazzo - NE
11.  Wynn - NE

In upcoming posts I'll start to do charts/lists/ratings/rankings and stuff of my new "Vegas Fourteen" just for the fun of it.

Harrah's V. Bellagio

As I mentioned before, being in the teaching profession, full-time, brings good news and bad news when it comes to trips to Las Vegas. The good news is that I get 13 weeks to choose from when it comes to organising a trip out there; the bad news is that I'm restricted to certain weeks and I'm NEVER going to get to the WSOP while I still have a job!

As the blog seems to be ticking on nicely and poker hasn't been so evil that I'm positively drowning or struggling, this is THE year to go to Vegas. Easter has come and gone so that's out and Christmas is for family innit? So a solo trip in late December is out as well. A small window of opportunity exists in late October but six days with no full weekend is just not enough time to explore thoroughly - so this leaves late July/August.

My 6-week summer holiday begins on 21st July. I'll want time to chill out, relax and recover straight after this and, no doubt, play some live poker in the UK before jetting off. A 10-night stay during mid to late August then seems the right time and gives me enough time to explore. Thursday 18th August to Sunday 28th August gives me time to enjoy two (lag-free) Friday and Saturday weekends so these are the dates I have set aside.

--------------- 

This brings me to the choice of hotel. Without question, a central location in the centre of the strip is priority number one. Initially, my short-list (with prices of the hotel+flight for the 10 days) read like this:

Bellagio £1656

Imperial Palace £1082

Bally's £1423

Harrah's £1231

Bill's £1212

These prices, out of London and back, are from Expedia and although probably not the best prices you can get do seem reasonable enough. The dirt cheap Imperial Palace had terrible reviews so that's out. Bill's, although tops for location, value for money and character, does not have safes in the room so that's out and Bally's just seems expensive when compared to the others. This leaves Harrah's or Bellagio.

I like the sound of Harrah's because it's a reasonably priced hotel in the centre of the strip that provides the customers with a safe in each room. It's a step up from Imperial Palace and it seems ok for comfort and just the sort of place that I need for my purpose.

With its elegant fountain show set to music and dinstinctive facade, Bellagio is a high-end, famous hotel which is renowned for its opulence, ostentatiousness and its relatively sophisticated edge. On top of its reputation for luxury and comfort, Bellagio also seems to offer a greater and more relaxed experience. On top of this, it seems to have good internet connections in each room and also safes - just for that extra layer of security and reassurance but I'm still not 100% sure that these accomodate laptops.

At present, on the expedia website, Bellagio offers the 5th night free!! This equates to a saving of £466 or two nights free for a 10-night stay. This is really why I am drawn to taking up this offer, otherwise I would probably stay clear. Oh, they do slap on $20 a day "resort fee" though which will mean an extra $200. Hmm. Still, if the safes allow laptop storage and I feel like I'll be able to blog, surf and write on the internet in the comfort of my room at The Bellagio then that'll probably swing it for me.

I'll let y'all know what I decide on...  

My Vegas Hotel Shortlist (2 Contenders)

It's Monday afternoon and I have a few moments to kill at work so I thought I'd engage in a few blogulational activities:

First off, although I said I'd be in for a "feast" of poker over the weekend, I made the decision NOT to try the £160 freezeout at The Fox on the Sunday after all. I had lost £155 attempting to qualify for PKRL6 on the Thursday and then won the same amount back at the cash game tables at The Empire on the Saturday. I just figured that if I then lost the same amount all over again on the very next day, this would have made me unhappy; sometimes you have to factor in how a possible loss would affect your psyche when considering whether to play or not. I just don't think I could have faced a drop down again so soon after getting back on track with my sound cash game play. Yeh, yeh, I know... results orientated and all that and, yes, I could have cashed in the freezeout, but... you know how it is...

The main thing occupying my mind at the moment is my Las Vegas trip but I'm still undecided on which hotel to pick. A central location, for sure, is top priority (to reduce the amount of walking) but I also like the idea that a safe can be used for peace of mind. I hope to have surplus cash lying around and I don't envisage carrying my passport everywhere with me. Imperial Palace was a possibilty as it's dirt cheap but since reading the reviews I've been a little put off. Bill's (no safe in the rooms), Flamingo (bad reviews) and Bally's were also considerations. Bally's seems nice but it's only a few hundred pounds cheaper than Bellagio (I have seen a great deal on the Bellagio) - and paying a few extra hundred for the luxury and comfort of a grand and relatively sophisticated hotel sounds very reasonable and tempting and is no major hardship financially either. (Well, we all gotta treat ourselves once in a while innit?)

This leaves two contenders: Harrah's and Bellagio. I'll write about these in my next post.

The Las Vegas Twenty

After some extensive research of Las Vegas poker rooms along the strip, I have come up with the twenty that need to be visited while I'm there. I originally intended to keep to the central strip area but there are a few in the south part that really can't be ignored. As I'm going to be there for 10 nights I reckon I can certainly get down to the south strip to check 'em out. I don't really intend to go anywhere north of Wynn (which leaves out Circus Circus, Riviera and Stratosphere) and I, similarly, won't have time to visit the downtown area (with places such as Fitzgeralds or Golden Nugget) or off-strip rooms (like Orleans, Gold Coast or Terrible's). I think Hooters is just off the radar as well. Many casinos in the central area are big name places (like Palazzo, Paris and New York-New York) but just don't have poker rooms so it may be unlikely that I'll even go into them.

I still haven't decided on any sort of itinerary but on the first day I'll probably just concentrate on acquianting myself with the casinos and poker rooms by accumulating my $1 poker chip collection of chips from each of the rooms (through night time walking of course). This little reconnoitre will then help me to make an informed choice of where to actually play when I'm fresh and ready to rumble. I really don't think it'll be wise to sit down and play until the second day of the trip when I've fully recovered from the lag. 

The list below starts from the south end and works its way up to the north: (C=Central. S=South. W=West. E=East N=North of the central strip.)

1.    Mandalay Bay - SW

2.    Luxor - SW

3.    Excalibur - SW

4.    Tropicana - SE

5.    MGM Grand - SE

6.    Monte Carlo - SW

7.    Aria - CW     

8.    Planet Hollywood - CE

9.    Bally's - CE

10.  The Bellagio - CW

11.  Ceasar's Palace - CW

12.  Bill's Gamblin' Hall - CE

13.  Flamingo - CE

14.  O'Shea's - CE

15.  Imperial Palce - CE

16.  Harrah's - CE

17.  Mirage -NW

18.  The Venetian - NE

19.  Treasure Island - NW

20.  Wynn - NE 
 
In my upcoming posts I intend to summarise each one by collating the reviews as appearing on All Vegas Poker. These reviews, of course, will also help me to make an informed choice of the places I'm most likely to visit and I might even do ratings/rankings of my own in order to make sense of it all.

P.S. It's looking pretty likely that it's going to be a visit between 18th August and 28th August but I now just need to book the thing. My short-list of hotels to stay at is now whittled down to just a few. Bellagio, Bill's and now Harrah's is in the running as well. I've pretty much rejected Imperial Palace and Bally's.

Other Casinos  

1.  New York-New York - SW
2.  Paris - CE
3.  Cosmopolitan - CW
4.  Casino Royale - CE
5.  The Palazzo - CE

Live Session #28 (Short and Sweet)

Today was not really the "feast" of poker I had in mind. First off, it was a trip into town for a haircut followed by a meet-up in the pub with the missus. This was followed by meeting up with the daughters at a bus stop (they were about 45 minutes late), another beer at a different pub and then a meal at our favourite Chinese restaurant in Chinatown.

All this meant I didn't get to The Empire until about 10PM  - but with luck on my side early doors it turned out ok. With £350 in chips brought to the table I look down at KK in mid-position after just a few hands have been dealt. I zonk in an £8 raise and get a call from the BB. The flop comes K 9 x with two spades and my villain chucks in a raise of £28. With this, he shows me his stack which amounts to about £130. I take a while to decide what to do and sense he's getting impatient so I take a little while longer before announcing my raise to £60. He then chucks in his entire stack and I snap-call. Bosh! The 9 hits the turn giving me the full-house and a tidy £170 profit after just 5 minutes at the table. (I think he had the flush draw.) I then just chug along for about an hour or so before deciding to cut and run with a £500 stack and a £150 profit on the night. I think I just got a bit tired and was happy to recoup the loss from the qualifier on Thursday night.

After this, I wandered over to The Fox, at about 11PM, to see how the PKRL6 was getting on but didn't really recognise any of the faces at the final three tables or so. There were loads of cash games going on but I just felt that the vibe wasn't right to get involved so I left pretty sharpish. I did expect to see a lot more familiar faces from PKRL5 and The Social but there just weren't the familiar faces around. Oh, I did say a brief hello to UWillLose but that's about it.

The next thing now is to decide whether to go back to The Fox tomorrow at 3PM for the £160 freezeout or just to pocket the £150 and stick to cash games for a while. If I register it'll almost seem like freerolling with the £150 I made today but, there again, I think I'll feel a bit fed up if I lose another £160 to another bleedin' MTT! (Even if it is part of a PKR event.)

The Vegas "Problem" Sorted

Being from the UK, I am mainly used to cold weather and only really experience a hot climate on very rare occasions. After questioning the feasibility of doing an August trip to Vegas during the height of summer, I decided to ask on the "Las Vegas" section of the 2+2 forums for advice. The general feeling is that daytime walking between casinos along the strip would be unbearably hot and I was strongly advised against doing it. 

Now as I have a strong aversion to taxis and hate the idea of spending a fortune getting taxied around, I have decided to overcome the heat problem by just going nocturnal for my trip and, hence, saving my waking hours and walking hours for the evening, night-time and early morning. Problem solved.

A Feast Of Poker This Weekend

On this bright, sunny Saturday, the plan is to stay stone-cold sober and to play lots of cash game poker in town. My plan, at present, is to actually play a little £1/£1 at either The Vic or The Nugget (or both) to start with as a "warm-up" and then to possibly play some £1/£2 at The Vic or The Empire later on.


Depending on how well I'm doing, I'll probably register for the £160 freezeout that starts on Sunday at 3PM at The Fox. In fact, if I'm doing really well, I may even lay down £110 for the 5PM freezeout at The Fox today - but this highly unlikely. Whatever happens, I'll still pop into PKRL6 to see how things are getting on. Hell, I may even sit down to a cash game table at The Fox but that really depends on the vibe and how sober I am.

A full trip report will follow...

A Cheeky Adjustment (Boring)

This will sound boring and self-indulgent to most but I'm just blogging this for the record...

With the £50 excess amount that I withdrew from my PKR balance yesterday along with the £100 profit that I've made from the live game so far this month (excluding the rebuy qualifier on Thursday), this means £150 on top of the £1000 May starting balance. As I blew £155 attempting to qualify for PKRL6 through The Fox's rebuy satellite, that puts me back down to a total profit of £1000 at poker this year including ALL live and online play..

I know I said I was going to keep the live balance and the online balance separate, but I figure I can allow myself this little adjustment (adding £50 to the live balance) to put me on a nice round balance of £1K once again. I know this is a bit cheeky but with the sun shining down nicely, my job still safe after a big scare last week and a feast of live poker to look forward to over the weekend - who cares?

Online Revisit Over

My little revisit to the online game ended this evening when my initial $180 withered away to $90. I decided to take out £50 and leave myself $4 with the chance of spinning that up at blackjack. It was pretty short-lived though when, on my first hand, I doubled on this blackjack hand:

 

Yep, I doubled on 11 to make 21 only to see the dealer hit blackjack to destroy my dreams and my hopes at prolonging my life at PKR. You can see my sorry looking balance at precisely $0 in the top left of the screen.

So that's that.

Live Session #27 (A Non-Event)

So it was a trip to The Fox, after all, for the last chance of a place at PKR Live 6 through their £55 rebuy qualifier. Being the only player to rebuy at the start for an extra 4000 chips, I got off to a smashing start where the chips came my way like iron filings to a magnet. I then proceeded to go card dead for the rest of the evening and never really had the opportunities to build on my early success. With 6 places available and down to 21 runners I was down to about 8BBs but with everyone around the table on or around about 10BBs it was really the crapshoot stage. At this point it was folded to me in the cut-off when I looked down at A8s - and as this was the best hand I had in hours I shoved all-in but then got the call from the SB who flipped over KK. End of. With £50 donated for an add-on at the break, this meant a £155 loss.

Overall, the actual atmosphere seemed a rather sombre affair but, of course, that's because I'm comparing it to the madness that was the PKR social where people let their hair down. No doubt the difference between an £80 entry and a £750 entry was a contributory factor as well. Familiar faces and names like Twister86, Japete, Kickofff, flesicher123, Rhymenoceros, WongaMan, PirateNation and vd12345 were all in evidence but there also seemed to be a hell of a lot of unknowns as well.

Over the weekend, as it's part of the PKR event, I plan to give the £160 freezeout a whirl at The Fox on Sunday at 3PM. However, if my excursion into the cash game arena ends in a big disaster tonight or tomorrow, I might have to think twice about throwing myself into a poker game on Sunday as well.

Today is Day 1B of PKR Live 6 and with the possibility of a lot of the Day 1A players lingering, there is a high possibility that I will be seeing them tonight at the cash game tables either at The Fox or The Empire. (Although I'll probably avoid The Fox.) And there's certain to be a few PKRL6 dropouts hanging around for cash games on the Saturday as well. Oh well, bring it on!!

Vegas - Looking Like Late August

Ok, as well as The All Vegas Poker site for information on Las Vegas, there is also interesting stuff on the 2+2 forums on Las Vegas as well. It's increasingly looking like a late August visit but I'm now being swayed away from Bill's Gambling Hall and the mid-priced casinos of the central strip and am being tempted more by the allure of The Bellagio which is also central but just seems simply a nicer place to stay. Oh, and they have safes in the rooms as well. For the extra £300 or so for the 10 days, I'm beginning to think that, as it's my first trip and I want something special and memorable, it'll be worth forking out the additional cash.

The main reservation I have about the whole thing is still, really, the heat for that time of year. However, I reckon if I just stick to exploring the central area of the strip (from about The Luxor up to Wynn) I think I'll be all right.

A Dip Back Into The Online Pool

After depositing £120 ($180) into my PKR account last Saturday and then bragging about how well I had spun it up, last night I proceeded to spin it right back down again to just under what I started with ($165).

Sometimes this is just what poker is: you get into the zone and the cash just starts to gravitate towards you like a magnet and you feel great - then very soon you get the comedown where absolutely NOTHING goes right for you and you just fall back down to earth with a bump leaving you wondering what the hell it's all about and whether the whole damn thing is even worth it!

The idea is that you win in the long run but, I tell you right now, when you're looking to just break-even in that long run and it spans the good part of half a year or even going on a whole year, you really have to start asking yourself some serious questions.   

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Tonight, at The Fox, there is a £110 qualifier for an entry into the PKR Live 6 Main Event. I am so tempted to play in this it's unbelievable but qualification would mean having to, at least, tell a porkie pie to my employer to get the afternoon off - and this is really not something I want to do.

Nevertheless, I am thinking of taking out that $165 from my PKR account and counting that as payment to enter the qualifier tonight (meaning it won't count against my live profit/loss figure) but I just don't know.

We'll see, we'll see... 

PKR Live 6 - Side Events

I've just opened up an email from The Fox Club which contained this schedule of events:

 

Funnily enough, I never realised it was a 2PM kick-off for the Day 1s of the main event which means I would have had to have taken a day off work anyway if I qualified - and as a teacher, this would have involved throwing a sickie which I don't really like doing (on those extremely rare occasions I do). It's probably just as well anyway but means I'll have to count myself out of having a pop at those qualifiers as well. Which is a shame.

Still though, as it might be a good craic, this does leave open the possibilty of grabbing a seat for the £110 and/or the £160 side event(s) on the Saturday and Sunday. Although the structures aren't great, these are very tempting indeed and it's going to be hard to resist at least going in for one. Perhaps a trip to The Empire on the Friday or the Saturday will be in order and I'll enter one or both of these depending on how well I get on at those cash game tables.

I wonder why there is zero advertising for these at the PKR site?

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P.S. Looking like it'll be the Sunday Side Event for me. The structure is a lot better than the Saturday one and just the one MTT per weekend is enough for an oldie like me. It actually starts at 3PM (the start time on the chart is a typo) and I think it'll be a nice way to pass a Sunday afternoon. Friday or Saturday will be cash games at The Empire but I will stay well away from cash games at The Fox. To be honest, I think my biggest challenge over the weekend will be to stay sober.  

Upcoming Attractions...

We are now well over a third of the way through the year now and with my posts averaging well over one per day, I think it fair to say that I've been successful in keeping the blog going and chugging along and doing the business. We've certainly had a few wobbly moments along the way and not to say a few hiccups. I also haven't always kept things going exactly according to plan but I guess that's the nature of the journey - we don't really know how things are going to pan out or what's around the next corner and we sometimes have to change attitude and the way we do things from time to time. You never know, I could still nab the huge win that every poker player dreams of or, on the other side of the coin, I could always go through sheer hell, hit the most shocking downswing of all time and sink to rock bottom.

Poker eh?

As it is, I've done "all right" - and I mean that in the strictest sense of those words and with no irony or sarcasm intended. Just "all right." I guess if you're £2K up after about three months or so and then lose £1K by the end of the next month it's not exactly a big success but no real disaster either. When we get to the end of the month, of course, I'll post my scoreboard and let ya'll know how I'm doing financially at the game. But I'm still here, blog an' all, and that's the main thing. Here are a few ideas I've got in the pipeline and which I'd like to do before 31st December:

1) Visit Vegas and include daily trip reports. (I need to research internet cafes in Vegas.)

2) Compile reviews and post my own personal Top 10 or Top 20 of each Vegas poker room / casino that I visit. (Yep, I'll be taking round a notebook and recording all my observations.)

3) Collect a $1 poker chip from every poker room along The Strip, scan them for upload, and then post them up on my blog.

4) Post my reviews of my own album collection. This is mainly 60s-80s rock and pop with a few from the 90s thrown in. I have already done reviews of 300 of my albums (approximately 500 words each) and I've put them in rank order. I think I may upload some of these reviews (bit by bit - maybe just 2 or 3 at a time - and maybe just the Top 50) for your delectation and delight.

5) Show my playing card collection with full commentary on the design of each pack. There are a lot of different features of playing card design that are quite interesting. The big names, by the way, are Copag and Kems which are the main two brands favoured by casinos and poker rooms. Do you know the difference between plastic cards and plastic coated?

6) The Producer. It's very hard to explain about The Producer but I think the time is right to mention him. I guess you could say that The Producer is my guiding spirit, my muse or the voice that keeps me on the right path. One of these days I will speak further about The Producer.

7) YouTube clip (with commentary) of a PKR session. The only thing holding me back from doing this is technical incompetence. I really like the idea of posting a YouTube clip of Wobblebottom in action at a PKR cash table and with a full voice-over commentary on the thought processes involved a la Cardrunners. It would have to be in real time, of course, to make it more fun and just a bit of a laugh. The great thing about this is, of course, is the listener gets the full benefit of my wisdom - for absolutely free!! And I get to twaddle at what I do best; chattin' shit (as the youngsters would say).

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Well, there are a few more surprises in store but these are definitely things I intend to do over the coming months anyway. 

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MAY THE POWER OF THE TWADDLE BE WITH YOU!!

Get It Into Your Thick Skull...

Stop playing cash game poker while drunk!!

It's just absolutely ridiculous that I still haven't got this lesson sorted out yet. I'm pretty sure I've lost hundreds of pounds doing this and I'm starting to get sick and bleedin' tired of it I can tell you.

It stops NOW!! Now COME ON!!

DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN!!

Las Vegas - August Or October?

I've made a few posts recently about visiting Las Vegas but unfortunately I don't think an October trip is going to be possible. After looking at my options, I don't think I'm going to get enough time to enjoy the place by squeezing in a trip during the one week I get off in October. Therefore, with a six week break covering the last part of July and all of August, I think the last part of August seems the most likely time I can go. The only problem with this, though, will be the damn heat. By the way, it's a solo trip I'm planning.

I reckon I need about 10-14 days overall with a couple of jet-lag free weekends in between which means I'm looking at leaving on around Wednesday 17th and coming back on something like Sunday 28th. There are three main aims of the trip:

1) To play lots of poker but not to play so much that I play stupid.
2) To collect a dollar chip from as many casinos on The Strip as I possibly can. (Just for the hell of it.)
3) To review as many of the poker rooms on The Strip as I possibly can. (I want to try to compile a Top 20 but this may have to be reduced to a Top 10.)

This will involve a lot of walking and a lot of being outside in the sun which is why August is really not the ideal time to go. BUT, it just seems like it'll be the ONLY time I can go. Bill's Gambling Hall is still one of the main contenders of the place to stay but I've since discovered that they have no safes in any of the rooms. This may well be a deal-breaker but I'm just not sure. I'm thinking of possibly plumping for one of the mid-priced establishments because a safe is pretty essential on a trip like this.

As ever, we'll see, we'll see...

Live Session #26 (£60 Freezeout At The Fox)

After a long walk with the missus today to the Elephant & Castle, she jumped on a bus to Covent Garden while I thought I may as well jump on the tube and play some poker in town. I was going to play £1/£1 or £1/£2 at The Vic but when I looked at the time and saw I could make the £60 freezeout at The Fox for 3PM, I thought I'd give that a go instead.

With about 60-70 runners all told, I managed to just about scrape along and made the last two tables with a slightly below average stack. Then, with about 8BBs left and looking down at AK in mid-position, I went all-in and ran into AA - Thank you and good night. In a more sober state I ignored the temptation to play any cash games and headed straight for home; if only I did that yesterday, it woulda saved me £200!!

Online poker is working out quite well for me at the moment with my initial $180 deposit from yesterday now spun up to about $330 after I had a winning session at $1/$2 just now. I know, it's still probably only going to be a matter of time before I donk off the whole lot but I'm enjoying the profitable run while it lasts. Here's a little braggy screenshot of me spinning it up at the nl200 table:

Back In The Saddle At PKR

I really don't think my £120 is going to last long. Yep, as from about 9PM this evening, I deposited £120 and I'm now back playing online poker for a little while. But it's nothing serious and I certainly don't intend to get back into travelling on the long road anytime soon. The £120 converted to about $180 and I 4-tabled three nl25 tables and a nl50 table. Before you could say "Jack Robinson" though, I was down $40 so there was only one thing to do innit? Yep, I got off those tables and took all $140 to the $1/$2 game.

Luckily I did manage to spin this up to $230 before getting outta dodge and closing PKR down. So, yes, if I carry on taking my entire bankroll to one table it really won't be long before my new and meagre online bankroll goes busto. I know I said I wasn't going to mention online profits and losses but it's difficult (a) when you've gotten into the habit and (b) when it's a profit! Still, it won't be part of my overall balance; remember, my "blog balance" got set to £1000 on 1st May and it's just the live game that we're concerned with here. Damn you though online poker for calling me back again and again and again.