Rex: On Poker Part 2
October 22, 2008
That’s it. That’s all there is to it. No pot odds, no watching the other players for tells, no nothing. Just look for the tourists, and wait for a hand. If you have a poor hand, muck it. Don’t raise or bluff without a big hand.
You can’t bluff tourists on Sunday, because they want to play cards before hopping on the plane or in the car. They don’t want to be spectators. A monkey with a modicum of patience could make money at the Mandalay on Sunday.
Paris Poker Room
Paris Poker Room
When you make your money, walk. The game is over for you.
The longer you play, the greater your chances of taking a bad beat. If you get a bad beat, you want it to happen at the beginning with your initial buy-in. You can buy back in if you lose a small, initial stake. If you blow a big stack, you failed the objective.
When are you most likely to take a bad beat?
When you have the most money in the pot, of course. That’s why it’s called a “bad beat”.
You want to double or triple up with a little, not a lot. Don’t get greedy. Greed will kill you.
Yes, you want to be all in with $200 when your odds are 80%, but you don’t want to be all in with $10,000 when your odds are 80%.
Why? Because twenty percent happens … at least twenty percent of the time.
Mirage Poker Room
Money management is arguably more important than knowing how to play.
Is playing one hand and leaving the table after 15 minutes fun? Nope. But if you are trying to make some spare cash, fun has nothing to do with it.
Sure, the first couple hundred bucks may have been easy, but you will get badly beaten the longer you play. Trust me. When you achieve your goals (for me it is to double my money), leave and go home or do something else.
I rarely have “fun” playing poker. It is simply a part time job for me, and I want to get it over with as quickly as possible. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to make friends. I want to pay my Nevada Power bill. That’s it.
If you want to have “fun”, play a tournament, not a cash game.
When I double or triple up, I walk immediately.
Why would I stick around? I finished my job.
Of course, my opponents always curse me, complain, whine, call me names, threaten to harm me, or whatever.
Why?
Because I have their money, and I am leaving.
Paris Poker Room
I smile and excuse myself while they scream about not getting the chance to win their money back.
Sometimes, they want the floor to force me to stay … but the floor can’t do that.
What I do is not “polite”, but if your routine is “aggressive with shit cards” play, I have no sympathy.
If you act like a pussy, you’re gonna get fucked.
More often than not, the players are drinking and the liquid asshole kicks in. When they scream at you, ignore it. You have their money, what more do you want?
Never drink and gamble if your goal is to win money. Ever.
If I need money, I will hit and run Mandalay for some extra income. If you are going to try to bluff me on every hand, don’t whine. You’re the one that bluffed. That’s why it’s called a “bluff”. Because you didn’t have anything. Your loss is your fault.
When I sit at a table with locals, many of them know me. They know how I play, and we stay out of each others way. We are all there to take the tourists’ money, so if it is a locals casino, or a game populated by locals … I generally get out of the way in a local vs. tourist hand. I know the guys who are trying to pay the rent, or who need gas money, so I typically muck against them if they have one or two tourists on the hook.
Is this collusion or soft play?
Maybe. But I won’t lie and tell you it doesn’t happen. There is a certain honor and unwritten code among locals that actually need the money they play with as opposed to tourists who are throwing daddy’s trust fund on the felt.
If you bust a fellow local just to swing your dick in a card race, it will come back on you. And maybe you will be the one who is short grocery money that week.
Hooters Poker Room
Why are Sundays so special?
Sunday is usually “going home day” for the tourists, and people with money to throw around usually want to get paid large, or go out in a blaze of glory. Either one makes for a great story to tell the folks back home.
In addition …. if there is one hard and fast stereotype about tourists, it is this: Tourists like to bluff.
Wait, scratch that … tourists LOVE to bluff.
They watch so many goddamn ESPN highlights, that they think people are supposed to bluff on every hand. They think it’s a much bigger part of the game than it really is.
In reality, decent players use the bluff very sparingly, and only when it is very plausible to do so.
I’ve seen large stack tourists move all-in after the flop five times in a row against weaker stacks.
Is it MY fault that I wait for cards and call their bluff? Do I owe them the chance to win their money back? They think yes, but obviously I disagree.
In a nutshell, that is how I make a little side money playing poker here. Simply sitting back and waiting for a hand. It doesn’t always work. Sometimes I will just go card dead and a hand never comes. Sometimes I will have a great hand, but the tourist really does have a better hand. It’s not free money. But it works often enough that it is worth a shot when you really just want to turn fifty cents into a dollar.
What is my favorite Poker Room in general?
Las Vegas Venetian
The Venetian Poker Room.
If I want to test my game against a wide variety of competition, I play the Venetian. The players run the gamut from beginner to expert at nearly every limit. If I can break even here, I am happy. It is not a predictable room. You really never know who you are going to get at the Venetian, and it’s a good place to practice.
I don’t always want to play hit and run. Sometimes I want to play for a couple of hours. In such cases, I go to the Venetian.
I like the Venetian because the layout is anti-Bellagio. I am 6′3, 185-ish pounds, and I find the Bellagio far too cramped for my size, to the point of being downright claustrophobic.
There is a lot of space between the tables at the V. It is every bit as opulent as the Bellagio … without the horrible Bellagio Poker Room staff attitude.
Bellagio Poker Room
Bellagio Poker Room
If you buy in for $200 at the O, they give you a sneer. However, I can sit down at the V with $100 at a 1/2 game, and the podium and dealers welcome me all the same as if I had bought in for 1K at a 10/20.
Not as much snobbery, and a proper waiting area instead of making you stand at the rail like the kid who didn’t get picked for dodgeball in gym class.
Oh, yeah … the waitresses, who are pretty easy on the eyes, bring me big bottles of Fiji water at the V. Not tiny bottles of “house bottled water”, which I imagine they just scoop out of the toilet.
It’s typically laid-back, there is often a good mix of male and female players, there is not a lot of dick swinging, and I can watch TV and half-heartedly play some cards.
I play pretty standard poker, with not a lot of money, and I don’t stress over it. It’s my “home room” for lack of a better term. The Hilton used to be my home room, but it’s gone … RIP.
So there you have it. Everything you always wanted to know (and more) about what I play, where I play, my personal advice, and why I do what I do regarding poker.
If any of you ever acknowledge me at a poker table, I will get up and leave.
I’m not kidding.
I’ll know I’m beat.
Written by LeCheese on October 23, 2008 at 5:19 pm
“Yes, you want to be all in with $200 when your odds are 80%, but you don’t want to be all in with $10,000 when your odds are 80%.”
I think Doyle Brunson once said that he would wager everything he owned as long as he had a small edge. I think that there are quite a few who would like to risk 10k with an 80% chance of doubling that money. In fact, every serious poker player would like those conditions.
Written by Rex on October 23, 2008 at 10:29 pm
With all due respect, if Doyle Brunson isn’t covering my losses, I don’t really care what he says.
I don’t even believe he would follow his own advice.
A small edge is 55%.
Anyone who would bet everything they owned on a 5% edge is going to get separated from their cash at some point unless they have a four leaf clover wedged up their ass.
Everything is relative. I suppose a millionaire wouldn’t mind having 10G’s in with such an edge, but if it was some guy making 40K/year … I think it would be a bad idea.
20% happens twenty percent of the time.
You will lose one out of 5 times.
If you keep parlaying your winnings on the 80th percentile, you will eventually hit that 20% and lose. It is a mathematically certainty and inevitability.
In my opinion, bankroll management is every bit as important as pot odds and good play … especially if you do it for a living.
If you bet everything you own on 80% and lose, then you can’t make rent, you are living on the street, and you have no opportunity to make it back. There is no “long run” for you.
And I seriously doubt that Doyle will let you sleep on his couch.
I really wouldn’t advise betting everything you owned on a small edge because of an alleged quote by Brunson, but it’s your cash.
Either way, I wish you the best of luck.
Written by LeCheese on October 24, 2008 at 9:50 am
I don’t think Brunson would go all in – literally! It was just a way of showing how he thinks.
But I must agree with you.
I like taking winnings off the table when reaching like 3xbuy-in, and instead start a new game with an original buy in. But that is more because I tend to play sloppy with chips I won rather than chips I bought
However, if I was faced with an 80% chance of doubling up, I have to go for it. Would you give that proposition up? I think THAT would be bankroll management.
Of course I’d lose 1 in 5. But my four wins would cover the loss I suppose.
By the way, I really like your blog Rex! Someone in the gambling business who knows how to write. Quite rare.