Well, another 2 weeks have passed since I last blogged, along with another trip to Las Vegas. This trip was par for the course- great food, great friends, mediocre poker. The long and short of it is that I made enough money to cover my expenses for my flight, rental car, a few gifts for Kim, and all my food and entertainment(I didn't have to worry about lodging as I stayed at a close friends home). The truth is that I really look forward to playing live poker, but then after a few hours of playing I find myself wishing I was seeing 1000 hands an hour on the internet. Go figure!!
There were some highlights of the trip though. These highlights included spending at least 10 hours watching friends play online over several sessions. I think that I will not be able to put a price on the lessons I learned in this time. I also was able to hang out with all of my friends, join them for nice sushi, Italian, and Vietnamese dinners, basketball games, and even a night of live poker where they beat up on me pretty badly! I'm not gonna rant about this, but note to self: If you can't play hard verse close friends when real money (hundreds, not quarters) is on the line, then don't play at the table with them..plain and simple! I also spent a night playing a home game with another group of great friends which was a blast. We played quarter limits badugi, badeucey, 6 card Omaha hi-lo, and various other fun games. These are the things that I miss most about living in Las Vegas. People have always told me that it's hard to make friends in Vegas because there are so many fake people. I can see that logic, but I can also so that I have made some of the best friends thus far in my life in Las Vegas. These are people who I would trust with my bankroll, and if you know how tight I am that says a lot! LOL.
The unfortunate part of my trip was that I started coming down with a slight cold the day before I left. It seems to be almost gone now, but it has caused me to miss playing poker the last 3 days. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow and can get back to the grind.
I had extensive conversations with my friends who's advice I respect very much when it comes to poker about moving up in limits. Based on my skill level I have kept myself playing relatively small. While some play NL games on 20 or so buy ins, I have been playing them on a much deeper roll due to a lack of confidence in my own skills. I think after talking with my friends, I will begin to integrate a few games of the next level into my daily grind. If I feel comfortable in doing this I will hopefully make a full transition to the next level by the end of April. I think this will give me more than ample time to be confident in my skills and keep winning at a higher stakes game. In the meantime I will continue studying videos on Bluefire poker as well as reviewing hand histories with friends whos games I really respect. Hopefully all of this will be a recipe for success.
My "student" who is really not a student at all but the friend who's home I stayed at during my last two trips to Vegas has been working on his game. I spent 6 or 7 hours watching him play online during this past trip, reviewing hands, and discussing strategy for the 9-handed games in which he plays in. He is being very stubborn and resisiting change for the most part, unwilling to get his 100bb stack in to the middle in situations that demand it. In his defense, he moved to Las Vegas in 1978 and remembers a much more passive game where the good players were nits and would sit back and collect the money. I don't think this holds true as much today as in yesteryear. I have promised him a few hours a week of help to review his hands. Hopefully he will progress from a 2.5 year break even player to a goal of 1bb/100 winner before rakeback. He is considering retiring soon and just getting him to that winrate would suffice for him to maintain his standard of living. If only I could get him to stop folding AK and QQ preflop...sigh.
There are 3 more events left in the WCOIP series on FeltStars.com. I have not won a second event yet so my wrist is still without a free Rolex. Hopefully I can win one of the last 3 and snag that watch! It concludes on Sunday the 21st, so I'm sure I'll blog sometime after the last event about this week back from Vegas and whether or not I'll be getting a nice new timepiece.
Til Next Time....
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