March Madness

So as per usual I have been very unmotivated to post an update on my adventures down south and for that I apologize. I flew down to Vegas about 9 days ago, bunked with Trav for a week, and am now on my own for the remainder of the trip. Since arriving, both Trav and I have logged many long sessions, not all resulting in a positive experience.

I would have to rate the games average at best. Most of my sessions have been at the Wynn and I must say the 10-20nl games have been filled with pros. Now, some pros are better than others, and I firmly believe there is edge in such games, however, if you run bad u lose its that simple. Such games result in small mistakes and nobody's giving away the money. The Wynn just doesn't have tourists jumping in to have some fun and drop 10k, stupid recession / depression. The bellagio on the other hand seems to have juicy games. Why don't I play there more? I'm such a moron. The Wynn 5-10nl and 5-10 plo are completely different animals. They are filled with nits and wanna be good poker players that can be read like a big picture book (not as bad as the 2-5 schmuks but weak nonetheless). Too bad I'm still runing like shit so I can't capitalize on poor play, losing most of my big pots with the best hand. What else is new. I feel like I'm playing really good though. I'm not getting a whole lot of good situations and I'm getting a whole lot of tough ones. I would say I'm making great laydown, great value bets, and a couple well times medium sized bluffs and overall I don't think my cash position could be much better based on my style of play. I haven't givin it an exact count but i think I'm up a staggering 4k, whoopdido basil (don't get me wrong thats obviously not pocket change but come on win a couple of the big pots that I should and I'm up 25k).

One interesting observation I have made is the slow increase in interest for plo games. I have played in a couple half/half 10-20 holdem/plo games and also some straight 5/10 plo. The 10/20's have consisted mostly of sharks, but I feel I have edge in plo over most so it doesn't bother me too much to sit. The 5/10's though have several donks with the balance consisting of predictable nits. It's interesting though, plo is growing. I think many of the top level holdem players are realizing the edge has diminished so much in holdem that poker needs a facelift and why not shift to a more edge orientated game. In my opinion, Plo is more complex and medium / long-term results are based more on skill than luck in comparison to holdem, its just not as fluky. I personally love it because it is flop based, not preflop and/or pure aggression based, and your advantage improves if you can work your way through varying board textures. Having said that, it has higher variance and in the short-term a bad run can really sting. For myself, I'm actually down a little bit in plo this trip thus far but I think it has to change.

I just finished playing an all night session at the bellagio with Trav in the juiciest holdem game of the trip. I mean some of the guys in the game were so bad they couldn't beat a 1-2nl game at Club Regent, making big mistakes in big pots. I made out alright but it could have been so much better as I found a couple tight spots and didn't hit too many hands. Trav on the other hand ran into many bad situations and managed a loss in a game that should have banked 10k+ each. Hopefully I see the same faces there tonight.

I'm not going to go into any hands in this post, i'll save it for my next post. Lets just say the donks won the battle but hopefully I will win the war.

Later

Joe