Las Vegas. Bright lights, movie stars, “Broadway” shows, the Vegas version of course, and games of chance and skill. I arrive with ten one hundred dollar bills folded neatly into my World Tour money clip, ready to rock the low limit poker tables up and down the Strip.
Games of skill? Well, not just skill, but some skill and some chance – as opposed to the games that are purely chance. As far as I can see, the only game spread on the Las Vegas Strip that has a significant element of skill is Poker. Every other game spread by a Las Vegas casino is set up mathematically so that any individual who plays the game long enough must lose. Blackjack, where the house edge is small, is changing. Greedy corporate casino owners are now only paying 6 to 5 for a Blackjack whereas the traditional payout is 3 to 2. Slot machines have their occassional jackpots, but so do our state lotteries where the vast majority of players must lose so that those occasional big payouts can be made to the lucky winners.
Poker is a different story. You don’t play Poker against the casino, you pay the casino a fee to provide the table, the cards and chips and to assure that a fair game is dealt. You play against the other players. This limits your upside, but it also brings in a significant element of skill. Many professional poker players subscribe to the theory that if you play a sufficiently large number of poker hands the cards will fall pretty close to their statistical projections. Therefore, if you play your cards right, skill will win out over luck in the long run. At least that's the theory. The theory makes me want to play Poker more than Craps or Blackjack or the Slots. I figure that if I’m smarter than the average Joe, I should be able to play this game and win. Well, at least that’s the theory. Professional Poker player and World Series of Poker Bracelet winner Dutch Boyd once said, “Poker is like sex. Everybody thinks they are an expert, but in reality most people have no idea what they are doing.”
Paris with Bally's behind it.
We take the shuttle from the airport to Bally’s. Bally’s is located in the center of the Las Vegas Strip right next to the Eiffel Tower replica at the Paris Hotel, across the street from Bellagio and kitty corner to Caesar’s Palace with the Flamingo, Bugsy Siegel’s original Las Vegas Strip Hotel, across Flamingo road and filling the window in our hotel room.
Bally’s is connected to Paris by a mall. Le Boulevard, filled with shops, restaurants and bars. I thought I was seeing quite a display of entreprenurial cooperation until I realized that both Bally’s and Paris are owned by the same people, Harrah’s. What used to be a group of casinos all competing for the gambler’s dollar is now a series of corporate conglomerates. Harrah’s bought Binion’s so they now are the owner of the World Series of Poker franchise. Harrah’s owns Harrah’s Casino, O’Shea’s, The Flamingo, Bally’s, Paris, Caesars Palace and The Rio as well as casino properties outside of Vegas. Their big competitor is the MGM conglomerate. Yes, the same folks that are building a brand new MGM Grand Hotel in downtown Detroit. MGM merged with the Mirage people so the MGM-Mirage juggernaut is comprised of the MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excaliber, New York New York, Monte Carlo, Bellagio, Mirage, Treasure Island and Circus Circus. Yes, the corporate big guns have muscled the gangsters out of Vegas. Even the little Bill’s Saloon and Gambling hall (formerly Barbary Coast) which is sandwiched between the Flamingo and Bally’s is now owned by Boyd Gaming of Stardust fame as well as the Orleans and many other casino properties. It seems the conglomerates own Vegas now.
Texas Hold’em Bonus Poker is played head to head against the dealer. The player makes all the wagers and the dealer is not allowed to fold. Hmmm. $5 is the ante. If you put up the ante and decide to fold you lose your ante. If you want to play the hand, you bet $10 to see the flop. If you want to continue, you have the option to add $5 before the Turn and another $5 before the River. They pay even money on all of the bets, but you only get paid on the ante if you win with a straight or better. So it seems like a good game. It should be 50-50 to win a hand against the dealer and you get to increase the bet when you are ahead. According to Wizard of Odds at www.wizardofodds.com the house has a 2% edge, but he states that the game plays better than that because of the player’s ability to increase the bet when cards fall favorably.
I pull out a fresh hundred dollar bill and the dealer turns it into $5 chips. Then I play a series of about 20 hands of which I win exactly one. Sometime during this debacle I pull out a couple of twenties, thinking my bad luck can’t last, but it does and soon I am down $140 and I haven’t even sat down at a real poker game yet.
The tournament doesn’t quite get the players they anticipated and we start with just 10 players. They will pay the top two. I decide to let the cards dictate how aggressive I will be. In the first twenty hands or so I win a few nice pots and fold to pressure a few times and by the third blind level our ten person tournament has turned into a nice little four player affair. I’m on the short stack, but still with over 20 Big Blinds after I steal a few uncontested pots. First to act, I am dealt A♥K♥, so I raise it and get a call from the button. The flop comes K-9-4 rainbow suits and I bet out at it with my top pair. The button raises me, but he raises the minimum. I figure he’s looking for information, so I’ll give him some information. I re-raise, “All in!” He calmly says, “I call.” and flips over pocket 9’s giving him a dominating set to bust me. Oops.$65 down the drain on top pair – top kicker.
I’d like to get into the $3-$6 Limit game but there are no seats. While I wait I can play a little shorthanded No Limit with 4 other players at the $300 max table. The blinds are only $1 and $2 so I should be able to get through this without major damage. (Stop laughing.) I just buy in for $200. Two of the others seem to have about that much, so buying in a little short should be fine. Seeing that it is shorthanded I play a little looser than usual. I take down a few very small pots, but because I am playing some “less than premium” hands I keep making weak hands like 2nd pair, small kicker. I chase assuming that if I catch trips or two pair I will be able to get paid off well. I chase. I miss. I keep facing little $10 and $15 value bets on the end after I miss but feel that I need to call because gee, shouldn’t QJ with a board of K-J-7-4-4 be good once in a while? Not really.
My $3-$6 seat opens up and I take my remaining $120 over to the $3-$6 Limit game. My red chips get turned into Bally’s blue chips.
Limit Texas Hold’em played at Bally’s takes a rake of 10% up to $4. They even have special $4 chips made up exclusively for use by the dealers. In addition, they rake a dollar from each pot to fund the “High Hand” Jackpot. This pays different amounts for each Four-of-a-kind and for each Straight-Flush. They pay differently based on how long it has been since that particular hand was paid. I think four fours was paying around $500 while others were in the $150 to $300 range.
I take my seat, seat 8 at the end of the table. I like seat 8 because it gives me a good view of everyone at the table. Player to my right is playing extremely tight. He folds the first ten or fifteen hands I see him dealt. He raises. I almost don’t even have to look at my cards. I do. I don’t have pocket aces so I fold. He actually gets three callers. A king comes on the flop and another on the turn. He’s betting it all the way and I am thinking he probably has AA or AK. His callers miss and fold to his last bet on the river. He declares, “I just have to show this!” and turns over pocket kings for Four Kings. Jackpot! Four Kings pays $275 out of the High Hand Jackpot. We wait. The dealer calls the floorman who calls security. Security reviews the tape and in a few minutes calls back to say, “Pay it!” A few hands later he calls it day. He goes home happy.
At the far end of the table from me a Filipino looking lady seems like she is having fun. I’ll say she’s having fun. In a span of six hands she is dealt three pocket pairs. She hits the flop on each one of them to make a hidden set (Three-of-a-Kind) and when no one makes better, she takes down these huge multiway pots. These pots were raised before the flop and had five or six players all chasing, trying to hit big hands like straights or flushes. The pots had to be in the $60 to $70 range. I may have donated to every one of them. I know I donated to the last one because I unfortunately spiked a second pair and showed down Top Two Pair to lose one of those pots. I also needed to buy another rack of blue chips to keep playing.
A new strategy is needed. I have been playing a basic strategy of playing big cards, making top pair and getting creamed. I need to start making straights and flushes and full houses or play a different game. My friend Jim told me he likes to head down to Greektown or Motor City Casino at about four o’clock in the morning on Saturday or Sunday. He figured that he makes the most money on other players’ mistakes, so why not go play against them after they’ve been up all night drinking?
I take a nap. I haven’t really adjusted to the time change, so when I wake up at three AM it feels like six and there I am at four in the morning trying to win a pot or two from the late night crowd. They’re not making too many mistakes, but after I buy a second rack I start hitting some hands and win back half of it.
I recall having a discussion on a web forum about playing loose games. The poster had cited Lee Jones’ strategy of trying to create huge pots with suited connectors as well as raising with suited aces and any pair. The idea was if you had a hand that could develop into a monster, raise it and create a monster pot while there were still five or six players still interested in it..
Not only can I get into a low stakes No Limit game, they are opening a new table as I walk up. A few of the players seem to know one another. They are in together from Colorado. As the game progresses one of the Colodorado guys seems to be taking over the table. He wins hand after hand with raises and big bets rarely getting called. He plays nearly every hand, at least 75%. I pick up a few small pots by raising on the flop after he leads out at it. I show strength before and after the flop. This keeps me about even. I pick up a Q-10 in late position and call Mr. Aggressive’s raise. I flop top two pair. He bets the Flop. This time I call. He bets the Turn. I raise. I want to go all in, but I don’t want him to fold, so I size my raise to commit me to the pot on the river. I don’t think he noticed how low on chips I was when he called. With my last chip in the pot on the River I get a call and my two pair hold up to double me up. When Mr. Aggressive loses another big pot to a real hand he buys in for another $50. Now that I have some chips I play a little more aggressively. It helps that my cards are running well and I’m picking up some pairs and strong Aces. I raise in middle position with pocket eights and get called in two places. I flop an eight with two clubs. After a check I bet about half the pot and get called by the button and the Big Blind. The button player is one of the few players that had stood up to Mr. Aggressive. He had been doing well and nearly doubled his starting stack. The Big Blind leads out on the Turn with a smallish bet and I raise enough to put the button player all in. He calls and the Big Blind folds. My set of eights hold up to his top pair / flush draw and my stack has swelled to over $250. Time to take a break.
Sunglasses. Wear or not? Greg Raymer (2005 WSOP champ) is famous for his unique sunglasses. Joe Hatchem (2006 WSOP champ) is often seen playing with sunglasses. Chris “Jesus” Ferguson (2000 WSOP champ) always wears them. Phil Ivey (five WSOP bracelets) has told the story of misreading the cards with sunglasses on and losing a big pot because of it. He has not worn sunglasses in a game since. Many top poker pros wear sunglasses and many do not. Are the eyes really the windows to the soul? Does the soul know what my hole cards are? I have found one useful thing about wearing sunglasses is the ability to observe opponents closely without them noticing. I like the idea that I can watch someone closely and not make them uncomfortable. Hopefully, it will help to keep their guard down and show more honest reactions. Now that I am getting a little older and my eyes are not as good as they used to be, the sunglasses are a little tough for me to use if they are really dark. I found a pair in the Luxor gift shop with graduated lenses. They are dark at the top but light at the bottom. This works for me because I can look through the light part to see the cards, while the dark part still shades my eyes. I am still conflicted about wearing them while playing in low stakes games.
Refreshed from my break and armed with a new pair of “graduated” poker glasses I decide to give the Luxor $2-$4 Limit Hold’em game a try. I buy a rack of white chips and join an eight handed game. We joke about my new sunglasses and how the “window to my soul” has been closed. I genuinely like the folks at this table. Of course, after quintupling my stake at the No Limit table I like everybody. Flushed with success, I raise. I raise again. I raise most of the hands when I am on the button. People are playing pretty careful against me. Not too many are raising into me, but when they do, I fold unless I have a very strong holding. I start to feel like they may as well be playing with their hole cards face up. When they pressure me because they have me beat, I fold. Otherwise, I just keep betting and raising and picking up pot after pot. One hand is particularly illustrative. I am in the cutoff position, one to the right of the dealer button. After two people call the Big Blind I raise with a 7-8. The button and the blinds fold but both openers call. After the flop it goes check-check and I bet. The early caller folds but the lady next to me calls. I pick up an open ended straight draw on the Turn. She checks and I bet my draw. She calls. A blank falls on the River. I have nothing. She checks and after she raps the table she puts her hand on her hole cards and slides them forward just slightly. I am really just staring at the board, not believing that I missed my draw and ready to give it up, when I notice this little move of hers out of the corner of my eye. Can it be that she was also on a draw and she missed? I swear it looks likes she is just waiting to toss her cards in. I confidently put four white chips out in front of me and she says, “It’s yours.” She tosses her cards in and the dealer pushes me the pot.
Play continues like this until a new player joins our table. He sits in the seat to my immediate left. A few hands are dealt where I fold but then I pick up a relatively weak ace-nine and raise. The new player re-raises and is called by the Big Blind. I figure there is no way my hand can be good so I fold. The karma is broken. Every hand starts to look like seven-duece. I am way ahead, so I start playing really tight, only premium hands. I play but the flops have no connection to the cards in my hand. I don’t even pick up any good draws. After another hour or so I realize that I have almost exactly double the hundred that I started with. This is about the same as when this new player joined us, so I decide that I have hit a wall and need to call it a day. I have some shopping, dining and sightseeing to do with my wife while I am in such a good mood. My text message to her reads, “GOOD DAY AT LUXOR. UP 300.”
The restaurants in Vegas are as plentiful as they are excellent. For a change, we decided to take Bally’s shuttle bus down to the Rio. The Rio is 1.3 miles west of Bally’s on Flamingo Road. It boasts one of the best “free” shows in Vegas, “The Masquerade Show in the Sky.” Carnival performers parade through the casino stopping to perform stunts in front of the rows of table games and slot machines. This is followed by a series of floats suspended from the ceiling filled with costumed performers and a high energy dance show on the central stage. These dancers perform this show seven times a day. They must be in really good shape. They certainly look like it! If the owners put this together to give tourists a reason to wander 1.3 miles off the strip, they were successful. The next time you are in Vegas, spend an evening at the Rio. It’s fun. We also had dinner at the Rio’s seafood restaurant, Buzio’s. Any restaurant with a “Buz” in the name must be good, huh? The food was excellent with sauces so good you can make a meal just dipping bread in them. Prices at Buzio’s are reasonable for fine dining. Expensive, yes, but not outrageous.
Bellagio’s Poker room is not large enough to handle the number of players in the tournament so they set up tables in their Fontana Lounge and play day one over two days. I walked over their to see if I could see any of the players I see on television. Kathy Liebert came running out of the lounge and nearly ran me over. About two minutes later a break was announced and it was like a poker celebrity parade. Sam Farha, Mike Matusow, Michigan’s Dan Heimiller, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, David Levi, Isabelle Mercier, Scott Fischman and a lot of players that looked familiar, but that I didn’t immediately recognize filed past me. How stupid. I didn’t have my camera. Some of the players were stopped by fans for autographs and photos but most really just wanted to get to the restrooms. The tournament went on for the whole week, long past our departure. The $3.47 million was eventually won by Juan Carlos Mortensen of Spain.
Three o’clock in the morning and I’m staring at the ceiling of my hotel room. Only about six hours before I have to board a plane and head home. One more shot. Gotta try it. I dress and head downstairs to see if there is any action. There are a few tables working in the Bally’s casino but I decide to walk through the mall and see what’s going on in Paris. I walk through Le Bar du Sport to get to the newly built Paris Poker Room.
Internet reviews of Poker rooms had criticized Paris for having their poker tables out in the middle of the casino but they have apparently taken care of that problem. By locating the room off the sports bar it has become a nice quiet private setting for a poker game.
“I raise.” I count out some chips. “Forty.”
“FORTY!” screams Jim. “FORTY!?!” he asks. “What the hell do you have? I don’t know how you play. Buz, do you really have a jack? I have a nine, but I don’t know what you have.”
I can’t help but smile, chuckle and shake my head. Jim leans way back in his chair to look at me from behind the dealer, “Buz, Buz, BUZ. Forty, huh? Okay. Show me a jack.” He tosses his cards in.
“Show me a jack, Buz.”
I slide my cards to the dealer as he pushes the pot to me. “Buz, did you have a jack Buz?”
I shake my head and laugh, then I try to look sincere and said, “I had you outkicked.”
“Bullshit! No way. You had a jack. No way”
Everybody at the table I look to for sympathy smiles or chuckles and shakes their head.
A few hands later, after the flop the player in the eight seat puts in a big raise after the flop and Jim starts into his routine. Seat eight swivles around in his chair and puts his hands behind his head with his back to the table and to Jim. He doesn’t want any part of Jim’s act and he doesn’t want to give anything away. Jim can’t get any kind of response out of him and folds.
I don’t play past the flop in any hand for about half an hour. In the Big Blind I pick up AA, the weapons of mass destruction, American Airlines, Pocket Rockets, the best starting hand in Hold’em. After a couple of limpers and a raise to $7 I make it $15 to go. I wanted to raise enough so the limpers ($2 callers) would fold, but likely the raiser would call. To my surprise all three of them call. Rats. Pocket aces is a great starting hand but it does best heads-up.. It is very likely that the aces will not improve, so the hand plays best if you can eliminate all but one opponent. It is much better to have a top pair hand against a single opponent and a big pot than to have a measily one pair against a whole field drawing at straights and flushes. The flop relieves any anxiety I have, but makes my heart pound. 5♥-A♠-5♦. Oh my God. I flopped a full house. Holding a pair the odds against flopping a Full House are 147 to 1. The problem is, even with all those people calling my preflop raise, it is very unlikely that anyone has anything unless they have an ace. They might have a lower pocket pair, but the ace on board will kill any action from them unless, of course they hold the two black fives. I check. Jim checks. The others check. Crap. Nobody bet. The dealer turns over a ten. I can’t wait any more. Maybe somebody improved. I bet $15 into the $60 pot hoping for a call. None comes. It is an odd feeling to be so very happy to win a $60 pot, but disappointed that it didn’t turn into a monster. I muck my Full House without showing it, leaving the folders to wonder if they just got bluffed out of a nice pot.
To show or not to show, that is the question. Some players say you should show your strongest hands when they fold to your bet because it makes it your future bluffs more believable and therefore, more successful. Others say you should show your bluffs early so that later, when you make a real hand, opponents will doubt your big bets and pay off your monster. Still others say you never show anything. Always keep your opponents guessing. A confused opponent is a desirable commodity. Being a conservative, small stakes player still feeling my way around No Limit poker and brimming with underconfidence, I figure not showing anything will, at worst, not be a mistake.
Flush with chips and feeling a little frisky I make a small raise to $5 on the button holding the 10♥-9♥. Three callers and a Flop follows 4♥-J♠-Q♦. Check, a $15 bet, a fold and I raise to $30 thinking that if I do not win it right there, I will probably get a free card on the river. No such luck. The bettor is an Asian-American in his thirties with no discernable accent. More American than Asian. He seems to be an intelligent player who has won a few small pots and hasn’t done anything out of line. He calls. The 9♦ falls on the Turn. Now I have a pair to go with my open ended straight draw, so when he checks, I figure I’ll continue my show of strength and I bet out another $30. He check-raises me making it $65 to go. I thought $65 was an odd amount but definitely small enough to call with all the cards that can improve my hand. I call. The River brings the 10♦. This is an interesting card. It makes me two pair, so if my opponent has a top pair hand I win, but it also completes a possible straight with any 8 or King and also completes the diamond flush, although I doubt my opponent is on a draw. He was betting more like he had a hand on the flop. This is now officially a pretty scary board. My opponent sees it the same way and checks.
When I check behind him he announces, “I just have a queen with a weak kicker.”
“Two pair.” I say, “I got lucky on the river, but I had a lot of outs.”
The pot gives me enough profit to double my initial buy-in. I have over $400 in my stack and I have a plane to catch. The $200 profit gives me enough to be a winner for the trip. In fact, when I stop at the desk to have Frank, one of the dealers, cash me out I realize that with this win, I am $15 ahead for the entire trip. When I mention this to Frank, he says he wants to tell me about the old days. Frank has apparently been dealing in Vegas forever. This is what he said:
“Back in the sixties, these bookies would come to town. They would sit out by the pool and play Pinochle for pennies for their entire trip up until the last day, then, boom! They would start rammin’ and jammin’. That last day they would hit the casinos hard playing high on all the tables. They wanted to win big or go broke before they left. You see, they had a strategy. Come to Vegas and have a nice time, play small games and win or lose a little, but relax and have fun. Then on the last day, blow it out and either have a great trip or go broke, but do it on the last day. If you do that on the first day, how are you going to have any fun? You’ll either be way ahead and trying to figure out how to keep from losing your winnings or you’ll be broke and have a miserable time for the rest of the trip. They had a pretty good strategy. Big winner or busted, they would have a great time in Vegas.”
Well, I am not sure I will be rammin’ and jammin’ on the last day next time, but I think the advice is pretty sound. If you can avoid losing your whole bankroll on the first day, your trip to Las Vegas will be much more enjoyable.
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