Hallelujah for Vegas Poker!

TSS... have you thought about playing live. There are a lot of guys pros making a decent living playing 1/2 in Vegas. there must be 1/2 dozen casinos near almost anywhere these days.

Sure you can't multi-table, you have no stats, no rakeback, and the game moves at a snails pace. But a winning player should be able to win anywhere.

Hammah - I don't know what poker god you offended, but you sure are due for some run-good.

Not having played live for awhile, and playing only a few sngs and such online, I am amazed how bad live players are. Either I've gotten really good or they've gotten really bad. Saying that, Nighthawk is kinda right in how willing people are to gamble it up. You need your hands to hold up when 3 or 4 others are drawing to beat you. Somedays the hands hold up, somedays they don't.

That's not really an option.

Wayne

I dont think anyone could make a living at 1/2 nl.. the rake is just too high.. In 2/5 yes... I know of a bunch of guys making around 50-60k a year in vegas..

The games in LA are very tough with generally much better players than anywhere else I have ever played. so you cant make a mistake , must be willing to gamble a bit, or you get your money in good and hope it holds up.

That said I think most of the money that is made in poker is not in a big hand where you get it in. but rather in the run of the mill top pair that you value bet better. That is where I have been trying to focus my attention lately. And since I am playing NL I generally dont have 4 players calling to the river. Its usually heads up after the flop or at most 3 handed..

So now I bet alot more even with weakish hands to try to get the players that have gutshot draws or overs out of the pot.. then its more of what I think the other guy(s) have..

Last night was a great example. I would say that my table was generally pretty bad in the sense that I didnt think any of the players were horrible.. But I looked at the other table that was going and it wasnt much better. So I just waited and the tables change and we got a complete idiot laggy to come to our table. He got a couple of hundred off me but he spread the money around and juiced the whole game.

What would have normally been a normal open raise to 25 or 30 became 45 or 50 because he called so much. You either had to be willing to gamble a bit preflop or be patient and wait for a good spot.. Im not the gambling type so I had to wait. I made the most of what I got and left the game up around 300..

One gal that was also a bit laggy kept reraising to isolate this guy and got him very good. He bought in 4 times (thats 2k folks) and she got him for 1600-1700 of that. Once she raised on a limp to 50 with 66.. he repopped it after flat calling the limp from the cutoff.. she immediately went all in and he snap called for 500. he had ak. her 66s held up.. That set up a bigger hand when another player raised to 10 from middle position , donkey called.. and the gal raised to only 40.. well the min raiser reraised her to 90 donkey called that.. then the gal 5 bet it to 300.. I knew she had a big hand but she got both players to call her 300. on a Jack high board she shoves and got the donkey to call her.. She had AA.. god knows what he had.. but he calls her 300 with only 150 behind.. A girlfriend of mine was sweating her husband and she saw the hand the guy that min raised. he had 23 sooted.. lol.. he called 300 because he saw her all in with 66s and thought she had shit.. now that was a good game... just wish I had a few more big hands..

h

How does a guy with 23 soooooted think 66 is shit? It's a made-effing-hand you moron. That gal has some game.

She definitely seemed to have a "I dont give a shit about the money" kind of attitude. that said, she was a bit of a calling station and the other players kept trying to bluff her. I will remember that next time I see her. She would do well in certain types of games but I would just shove on the river with the nuts and let her call off her whole stack..

Twice she called big big bets on the river with really weak hands.. True they were from the donkey and another guy but she called a 600 bet and a 300 bet so she goes based on instinct and reads and not pot odds and betting patterns.. That too can be exploited..

She was on my right so I never really got in a situation with her. I did have two nice hands ..I raised to 25 with AA utg and a short stack player with 300 (the rest of us had at least 500) reraised me to 75 .. I shoved and he snapped called me. We have some history and he thinks I try to make moves on him.. Then later the laggy gal raised to 45 I flatted in the cutoff with JJ and the same short stacker this time shoved for 170 after having lost some chips.. utg limper folded saying he had AK and she folded. I called him and he had 99s.. my JJs held up and thats basically all the action I got. I was pretty card dead and the laggy donkey got me a little..

was an interesting game for sure..

h

On another note to this point. I try very hard in the LA games to figure out the players I am going to target. I used to not do this and just play my hands and my reads. That works but only so far. So now with the players that are worse I will play looser and maybe more aggressive and much tighter and more passive against the better players..

Last week when I won big I doubled up early by flat calling a very good player with KK in utg+1. He had 10 and I busted another player trying to bluff on the river by betting 150 into a 1200 pot. needless to say that was an easy call. The good player couldnt believe I flatted.. If I had reraised I would have won the pot pre.. the board was pretty safe to and so I took a risk and won a really big pot. With my table image I need to do this a bit more .. I will get drawn out on for sure but I hope that the times I dont add up to a lot more equity..

h