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Given that I do play poker sometimes, and I mention that fact every now and then, I do get a lot of poker-related questions.

What’s my favorite room, what limits do I play, what type of player am I, etc …

The problem with me talking about my Poker style, is that it will allow anyone who reads about it to beat me.

Basically, I won’t be able to play with anyone who reads this, or I will lose my shirt.

I realize that poker people are extremely opinionated about the game, and convinced that they (and only they) know best, so I’m sure people will jump up and down and scream about how I’m an idiot.

I don’t care. Take if for what it’s worth, if anything.

What are my favorite rooms?

When Poker is a job: The Mandalay Bay

When Poker is a hobby: The Venetian

I’ve played every room on The Strip incalculable times, but if I had to pick favorites, those would be my choices.

The Mandalay Bay offers a large amount of tourist turnover, and it is not (yet) as widely exploited by locals as the other Strip rooms.

I refuse to play poker with people who know me. I cannot beat people who play with me often, and I depend on random tourists who I have never met before in order to make any money.

Why can’t I beat players who know me?

Because they know that I am tighter than a frog’s ass. If I throw chips in the pot, I am ahead. Period. If I come over the top, I have the nuts or something reasonably close to it. If I have nothing, I muck. It’s just that simple. There is no strategy or finesse to my game. I call or bet small when the odds are in my favor, I raise when the odds are WAY in my favor, and I muck races, marginal hands, or anything that I can’t read.

How on earth can someone make money playing like this?

It’s easier than you think.

First, you have to be humble, and not care what people think of you. This may seem like very simple advice, but it is much, much harder to execute than it seems. Much like females, males DO preen for each other. They wear collegiate sports sweatshirts to show that they received a formal education, they wear nice watches to show that they have good jobs, they make sure you see the cool new cellphone they have, and they like their girlfriends to come by the table so the other males know they are getting some.

They also like to do the “Hey babe!”. They will pick up their cellphone even when it doesn’t audibly ring, and say “Hey babe, I’m at the table right now. I’ll be up in about an hour.”

This leads other males at the table to believe that they have pussy back up at the room waiting for them. Even if they don’t.

Resisting the urge to impress other males, is quite frankly, impossible for most men.

For whatever reason, I did not inherit this gene. I’m not gay (not that there is anything wrong with that), but I don’t have the “car gene” (I hate driving, and don’t know a spark plug from a gas cap) or the “bravado gene”. I just do my thing and don’t really think about how it is perceived.

From my earliest recollection, I cannot once remember a time when impressing those around me with material wealth occurred to me.

Whether I was rich, poor, or somewhere in between (and I have been all of the above), I wore the same clothes, drove the same car, and more often than not, took the bus, subway, or my bicycle.

I’ve never once in my life owned a new car. I’ve always bought used cars for cash outright, and driven them until they broke down.

Money comes, money goes, sometimes I have it, sometimes I don’t. But I never look or act any differently whether I have one foot in the homeless shelter, or have a huge bank balance.

Having people envy me doesn’t make me happy, and having people look down on me doesn’t make me sad.

What was my point in all of that?

The point is that I think it allows me to make more money playing poker on the Vegas Strip than I could if I had any sense of normalcy.

You have to be willing to be perceived as an utter loser to increase your poker odds in this town, and most people simply cannot do it.

Human pride is stronger than heroin, and people just can’t break the addiction.

If you can get yourself not to care, then you can use other people’s vanity to your advantage.

Fumble your chips, ask “Who is playing today?” on Superbowl Sunday, just do anything to make other males think less of you. With a completely straight face say “I like that cellphone, I wish I could get one but Boost Mobile doesn’t have that model. You’ll get snickers, and this is good.

You want to be the loser of the table.

Why?

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY wants to fold to the loser of the table. Not even chicks.

Of course, none of this would work online, and this is why I don’t play online.

Online … EVERYONE is a loser.

Rumor has it that some of these losers set up websites and ramble on like people give a shit about what they think. I can’t confirm that they really do this, but that is the word on the street.

Anyway …

This is why I only play in brick and mortar casinos. I don’t obsess over pot odds and outs. I know it is cliche’ but I play the player. I find the most testosterone-fueled, vain players I can find, and sit down.

But it’s not always easy. I need to find these players at a low blind, no limit poker game. If they were truly great, they would be at the Bellagio or Wynn playing 50/100 poker. So I need to find players who think they are great, but are not willing to back it up in a high-limit game.

For whatever reason, the Mandalay Bay captures the niche of high-esteem, low-limit players better than any other casino in town.

Why do I only play low blind no-limit games?

Because I don’t want to blind out or be forced to play hands that I don’t want to play because I am in the blind. If I need to wait an hour for a hand, I don’t want to give too much away in blinds.

This is why I will ALWAYS play the lowest limit game I can find.

The lower the limit, the more patient I can afford to be. And it’s all about patience.

1/2 or 2/5 is my maximum.

If they had a .01/.02 No Limit game, I would play that one.

I never, ever, under any circumstances play “limit poker”. That is not “poker”, IMHO. It’s a different game. It’s much more like bingo than it is poker, and the games are wholly dissimilar. I detest limit poker, and refuse to play it.

So how can you make consistent side money playing poker in Vegas with little actual skill?

First, swallow your pride. All of it. Embrace the loser. Be the loser.

Second of all, play on Sunday. Sunday is a very important day for Las Vegas poker. If you can’t play on Sunday, then always play in the morning. Never play at night, and certainly never at the start of a weekend.

Then, find 9 other people who don’t know you, preferably dudes 21-40 and sit down. Tourists love having their ego fed. Much like the “$20 trick”, pretending to be Johnny Chan is part of the “Vegas experience” for them.

Compliment them when they win. Say “great hand” when someone takes down a pot, and say things like “I’m glad that wasn’t me because I would have folded and lost.” Make them think they are superior to you.

Trust me, they already think they are superior to you, but you want to remove all doubt.

After that, my strategy is incredibly easy. I simply sit back and wait for a big hand. When I get the hand, I will get paid off by one, and probably two other tourists.

Almost never, does everyone fold.

Rex: On Poker Part 2

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