Since winning the game that was referenced in my post from last week (although I didn’t intend to bring it up there), I seem to be on a roll as it relates to my poker skills. I guess all the reading I’ve been doing has been paying off, because I really think I am getting better.
Tonight, I played another game with several guys who I usually don’t win against (although I’ve faired decently), and ended up doing pretty well. We played dealer’s choice for a $20 buy in from 8 to 10 pm, after which I was the chip leader with about $53 (so +33), and then a $20 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament at 10pm with ten people, payouts at 120/60/20 for first, second and third. I ended up taking first on that one too, so I’m up a total of $133 for the night.
Dan was kind enough not to bust me by exploiting my so-called “tells”; I don’t remember what place he got, but perhaps he will comment and let you know.
We played this one variation called 3-5-7 towards the end of the dealer’s choice round, which was interesting, although I still don’t really like games with wild cards.
8 Comments
Wait tell you play 2s and 3s.
I ended up 5th only to go out because of you, thanks.
There were so many bad hands last night, I couldn’t believe it.
And yes, I have to admit you are on a roll. Whether it has to do with what you’re reading has anything to do with it I can’t tell but please share.
You were a little better with your tells too.
I think it is a combination of reading and just more experience, either in person, online or even on my PDA. Even though the AI on the poker game on my PDA isn’t great, and is pretty easy to beat, I think just the sheer number of hands you play factors into you having a better game.
Last night the keys for me were taking advantage of a couple guys who were new, and therefore building up a pretty good chip lead at the beginning. The other big thing I was focusing on was …..
Wait a second, I started typing some of the stuff I was doing, but I think I’ll keep that to myself; since it’s probably to my advantage not to talk about strategy too much, since there are so many people I play with that read this. I will say that some of the “tells” you may think you were picking up on me were very intentional, and I did pick up quite a few pots last night with that approach.
If you’re still relying on the assumptions you made from that previous game you commented on, feel free to keep it up; I can’t tell if you’re joking or if you really think that you were reading me correctly. If it’s the latter, I think maybe you should read up on some books on tells or something, since I don’t think you’ve hit any on me accurately yet.
Congrats! So, where is the real money? Vegas trip?
I want to try out the poker room on the avenue some time. The problem with driving to casinos (even close ones like Chumash) is that if you’re doing it for profit the travel costs really eat into that.
For example, playing on Friday from 8 to 1 for a $130 profit works out to be $26 per hour, which isn’t too bad (maybe when I’m retired this will be my supplemental income), especially considering that I was hanging out and having fun with friends at the same time, so I would have enjoyed it even if I didn’t win.
However, if you add in hours of driving time to go somewhere else then you have to play for a lot longer just to catch up to making decent money on average. So I think that especially for going to Vegas, you have to be prepared to spend a lot of hours at the tables, and also (at least partially) be just doing it more for the experience than the money.
They’ve talked before about putting a high-speed rail transport between LA and Vegas, which would make it much more worthwhile, but who knows whether that will ever happen.
Let’s go to the avenue cardroom, although I think we should be more proficient at other poker games before we, just in case there is not a hold’em table running.
I heard that they usually have three tables going, one hold’em, one omaha, and one pineapple (although that was a while ago, it may be different now).
I’m pretty confident on the first two, but I’ve never played pineapple before. I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of 3-hole card variation on hold’em, but I’ll have to check it out on UB; I think they have that game on there.
can’t imagine a card room not having a hold ‘em table, on accounta it’s ever so cool.
Ya, these days I think that if they’ve only got enough people at any given time for one table, it will be a hold’em table.