Author Archive
A Case for Legalized Internet Poker
I was playing cards today at the Venetian when I was introduced to an interesting regular. This guy would just verbally announce his chip bets and then the dealer would push them in.
My first reaction was that I was pretty annoyed by this, since a fairly decent part of my game is determined on chip tells, and asked the dealer why she was allowed to do this.
Playing Blind/Squeezing
If your range for 3-betting preflop are AA/KK/QQ/AK and you are never squeezing in nlhe, you are losing a lot of potential profit. If you played an entire session at a full ring game without ever looking at your cards (and without your opponents knowing you are playing blind), you should still be able to turn a profit simply by utilizing light 3 betting and squeezing.
These are Daniel Negreanu’s words, not mine, and he is talking about levels as high as $25/50. I read this many years ago and had no idea what DN was talking about; However, I see now that his principles are definitely valid and can apply to any level in live play.
Anyone Want to Be A Tournament Reporter?
The WSOP is coming up sooner than ever this year and all the major media outlets are looking for seasonal help. If anyone is interested in tournament reporting, now is the time to apply.
I’ve done freelance work and tournament reporting for the past two years during the WSOP. I even covered one of our bloggers at a final table! The job has its perks and downsides, including:
Pros:
-Get to meet all the fake poker celebrities
-Get to experience living in Vegas and playing lots of poker
-Experience firsthand the madness that is the WSOP
Three Types of Players and How Young Grinders Live
There are basically three types of players that grind the 2/5 game in Vegas. They comprise:
1) Retired (60+) guys - they play like super-nits and make a few thousand a year to add to their social security. Either extremely nice or extremely cranky, depending on their life experience. Probably make up about 30% of player pool.
2) Guys like me (20-30 year olds) - Trying to make it into the bigger games but having moderate success at the midstakes level. Probably another 30% of players
3) Businessmen/Tourists - Play recreationally and are usually pretty solid but have a few leaks which are exploitable - 40% of player pool.
More on $500 Freeroll
Very interesting comments to my post…
This is weighing on my mind a bit, so I thought I’d include some more details and see what people have to say.
First off, for people worried about the well-being of the cashier, two points:
1) If a mistake is made at the cage, the penalty for the cashier who made the mistake is that a point will go on his/her record if the mistake is above a certain amount (i am assuming the amount is probably less than $500). If a cashier acquires enough points in a given time span, he/she is fired.
$500 Freeroll!
I do not consider myself very lucky at all when it comes to money made outside of poker play, like hitting high hands, jackpots, etc. I have logged a ton of hours and have never hit any kinds of bonuses, which is kind of a statistical anomaly.
However, I no longer have any right to complain. I was playing in a $2/5 game in a pretty big casino on the strip and decided to call it an early night after getting hit over the head with the deck. I had a couple of racks of red $5 chips that I was cashing out and when the cashier counted my chips, he accidentally paid me an extra $500!
Antonio is Busto? Dealing with Variance and Anxiety
In case you don’t read the NVG forums on 2+2 (and you’re probably a better person if you don’t), there is a post in there about a comment Antonio Esfandiari said on the latest ep of Poker After Dark. The clip (Go to the 9:45 mark if you’re interested) details Antonio telling Mike Matusow he used his last $20k on the buyin for the show and he is now busto.
Playing Creatively at Higher Levels
I have definitely put my dues in moving up in levels. I was a big-time loser for about six months when I first started playing cash nlhe at the $1/2 stakes. It takes a while before you learn what the standard play is for each situation, but once you master it, playing the game becomes almost automatic and you can expect to nit/grind your way to a pretty steady winrate, pretty much only earning money from players who haven’t learned standard plays yet and breaking even against everyone else.
Moving to Vegas and Poker in Different Regions
Well I have finally had it with these brutal Chicago winters. No more slush for me!
I have moved out to Vegas to take on the NLHE games here head-on. I tried this once before, attempting to make a living off the 15/30 limit games, but didn’t do so well. Hopefully I will do better this time around.
Poker in Chicago was okay - the games were composed mostly of regulars, though, who wouldn’t stack off very light (which is what you should be looking for when checking out game selection).
Ladies Only Events Cancelled?
I was reading an article on pokernews about how the California gaming commission is giving ladies’ only events some heat for being discriminatory.
It seems like they are issuing a warning that they need to start accepting both men and women. I thought this was the way ladies only events always were. Phil Gordon, Rafe Furst and co. gained a lot of notoriety for playing in the ladies-only event in drag at the Bay 101 a few years ago (it’s a pretty funny story that’s detailed in their book “Tales from the Tiltboys) and I think I’ve heard of Jose Canseco doing the same in a couple of events. I don’t think they ever explicitly ban men from playing these things, it’s just kind of implied that we’re not supposed to.
