i CANT WAIT TO HAVE A DECENT BANKROLL TO GO TO VEGAS AND PLAY 2/5NLHE!!!

Those stories sound so yummy...

Another night, another chip, and the loss of more IQ points.

12/30 TI 2/4

I've been by Treasure Island many times, but it's the first time I've actually played. I kinda liked this room. I don't know why. It is exactly like virtually every other room on the strip outside of the Big Boys, but it has a nice atmosphere. And the chip is perhaps the most colorful of all.

If you're going to start playing poker at 5:30, you're not going to get much play before the table starts to lose players in any room in town, actually. From 5 to 7, they start to thin out as players go to dinner, or get into the inevitable 7 pm tournament to donk off more money. It's just not going be a good game until the tournament thins and players come back from dinner.

The worst thing about TI's room is the bathroom is a LONG way away. It also was the best thing last night, as there was a very hot mid-30's chick standing in front of Mystere wearing very tight red pants with a V cut in the crotch which came within a half-inch of the beginning of Heavenly Valley. My compliments to her razor.

Nothing good or bad to report in the game. Typical tourist action, although there was finally a player good enough to actually have earned the name. Between us, we made a dent in the stacks around us, who were more than willing to play middling hands for too much too long. I got up quickly over $40, but eventually saw it dwindle back down. I made a mistake calling him down to the river when I was pretty sure he had the 7 for trips. The worst thing about playing these limits is you see so many overvalue their hands it's really hard to give them credit for actually having what they're betting.

One good thing was what appeared to be a bad marginal decision looked like a very good preflop fold when the river would have drowned me. This happened three times. It's amazing how often you question whether to fold a marginal hand out of position and find yourself happy you did when it hit the flop and died by the river.

Once again, I was at the table with a couple of riders from the Orient Express, guys who gamble like their chips are on fire and they need to get them out of in front of them. These are the consistently best contributors to the game. The only thing you have to be concerned about is thinking all Asian guys are maniacs, because once in awhile you find one who's not so bad and he's value betting, not bluffing off his chips. For the most part, much of your profit will come from the guys who are happily gambling and overvaluing every hand.

Finished up at 7:40 with a $24 profit. I'm at a little over $11/hr for the Tour, and it appears this is going to be a very consistent number for the rest of the Tour. I'm fairly certain that the final numbers will be somewhere between $10 and $12 per hour. It's amazing how consistent those numbers appear to be.

No playing tonight. We're watching the fireworks on the Strip from a great spot on Durango.

Happy New Year, from the Budget Tour of Vegas

CJ

CJ,

In your search for a Harley Calendar, I believe you went to the right place at one point but you got involved in the Far Side book and must not have noticed the huge display of calendars that most every Barnes & Noble I've ever been in has. In fact just this past month while shopping for Christmas, I stopped and looked at them for a bit myself and saw at least 3 different Harley Davidson ones. And a few other motor cycle ones also. (Curiously, I didn't find a BMW one though but I guess that's cuz folks with BMW motorcycles are spending enough of their time riding their bikes instead of fixing them, that they don't have the time to look at calenders. sorry, couldn't resist getting the "BMW vs Harley" dig in there )

I know Christmas is over, but if you want to give her a late present go back to B&N.

As for wondering what it would be like to play every hand to the river in a 2/4 limit game, well, I guess you must have missed out on the night that Twelver and MVP did just that! And although I think they started out winning at it since nobody knew what to do when folks are straddling, raising, and capping every round, every hand, in the end I believe it didn't turn a profit. Except for MVP bagging a moose out of season! And who wouldn't call that a profit?

Torture me, please. Put me in a 3/6 game with 4 people who are catching everything in sight. Find two more people who come in and go broke fast. Leave me for card dead until the stacks have shrunk from the rake.

And I come out of it alive!

First session of the New Year--2007. Fitzgerald's $3/$6 game.

When I got there after work, there was nobody there. Zero. Zip. Card room had the manager and one dealer sitting at a table. Finally, two ladies came up, grandmother and daughter--a flight attendant for Delta and drop-dead gorgeous Hawaiian. I'm not the kind who falls all over any Asian woman, but she was some kind of fine. And she played at least somewhat okay, for the first hour. Granny played everything to the river too often. Then Dad showed up, and it was a family donkfest.

I survived, but it wasn't easy. Beautiful lady caught a lot.

If you wonder what the rake does to a game, you need to sit in a low limit game shorthanded when almost no one new comes in. Stacks shrink at a rapid rate and there are fewer and fewer chips on the table as the hours go by. It's really obvious and amazing. No doubt whatsoever that the big winner is and always will be the house. The house never loses a hand.

One thing that was really unusual in this session. I caught AA 3 times, twice in the SB. I got cracked the first time when a 4 on the flop doubled on the turn. Then, managed to get them to hold up the next 2 times, esp when there were 2 Kings on the flop and I managed to river an A to barely hold that time. That's a lot of AA for me, as I don't get them very often it seems.

AK was even 1 and 1.

No other big pairs, or flushes or straights. It was a grinder day.

Finished up $26 for 2.5 hours.