Texas Calculatem and Poker Office Blog

I was going to post a day by day account of my trip to the states. But am too lazy. So here's a quick run down of Vegas!

First day we got to our hotel room. It was the Venetian. The one with the amazing fake canal. We had dinner in a cafe in the canal section of the hotel. The ceiling is painted with clouds and serves as a light source, thus making it feel as if you're outside. God. This is too slow. Who cares.

After dinner I moved to the Flamingo Casino for some low limit Poker. Only $2-$4 limit as I haven't been putting in the hours lately. This is much higher than the $0.25/$0.50 that I've been playing at Pacific. But it's the lowest at Vegas and I didn't think I could lose.

The interesting bit of the table was the 3 drunk Canadians. It transpired that they were there for the cheap ($1.00) drinks. I'd sat down with $200, but most players were sitting down with $40. And so they couldn't really lose much if everything went pear shaped. One of the drunkards even went to the bathroom. And upon his return regaled us with tales of two (unattractive) ladies who dragged him into the bathroom, stripped off his shirt, and played with his nipples.

Anyway, that isn't what you guys are reading this for. You want to hear about me. My SSHE Poker skills. And how they performed without the aid of Texas Calculatem or Poker Office. To put it briefly, I played a super tight game. I'd frequently fold hands like AT, KT or KJ from early to mid position. As you need to hit on the flop. When I played I did so aggressively. Folding marginal hands. Raising when I was ahead. It seemed to work well enough, but I was only up about $13 at the end of the session.

The next morning entered a $50 tourney at Harrahs. As expected I played shit. Early on, someone made a raise from UTG. I had JJ. I knew from the Acorn's blog that the correct move would be to re-raise to see where I was. However, I was shitting my pants and didn't want to be knocked out early. I therefore folded. Had I kept on playing I would have hit a full house and taken down a big pot.

Later on in the tourney I played even worse. I called a 300 raise with KQs. The flop gave me two overcards and a flush draw. The opponent went all in for 600. I therefore had 2/1 pot odds. And was 2/1 to hit the flush. With 6 outs (7/1 odds) to hit an overpair. It was more or less a +EV call. However. I missed. The opponent had ATo and beat me with a high card ace. I had less than 1BB left after that. And my next hand was QQ. What could I do but go all in? Well. I did go all in. And that came up against an AK that rivered me to make a pair of kings.

So... I played badly. Should have re-raised with the JJ. And should not have been played KQs against a raiser when I was so short staked.

Anyway, after that it was the early afternoon. I went to Caesars to sulk and sat down at a $3-$6 limit table. The play was more serious from the $2-$4 at Flamingos. Either because it was too early to get lashed, or because the higher stakes made the players more serious. Anyway, the standard of play was still beatable. I presented a tight game which was definitely noticed. In one hand I raised from mid position with TT. The table shit itself and everyone folded to the table sheriff. Who laughed and said he couldn't let me steal. The flop came Kxx. The sheriff shrugged. Showing weakness. So I announced "MONSTER HAND" and bet. The sheriff folded.

On a later hand I'm not too sure how I did, though. I was dealt AQo. And raised. There was one caller. The flop came Kxx with a flush draw. I bet out automatically and was raised by a fellow Chinaman. I paused to think. Definitely a mistake. I could not really re-raise at that point. And therefore called. The turn was a King diamonds. And gave me a flush draw. Though that would not be the nuts due to the paired board. I checked and the opponent bet. There was now 5BB in the pot. So I just about had the odds to call. Though the implieds weren't great and I might have been drawing dead. ANyway, the river was not a diamond. So I folded. Doh.

I played a bit more Poker at Flamingos after that. It involved lots of folding. And wining big pots when I hit. Managed to 3 bet a turn when I had a straight which was nice. Though a scare card on the river (gave me a weak straight) forced me to check/call. I was surprised to see, though, that the guy who'd raised me had raised the turn with top pair (Aces). I guess he didn't think that I'd play 58o from the big blind.

Overall, I made $40 from Vegas. $90 from limit Poker. And a $50 loss from the tourney.