TROUBLE IN VEGAS

My brother isn’t great with my poker playing. He might ask how a trip was and if I say “Good thanks!” he’ll invariably reply “Yeah, but no gambler ever admits they lost.”

I dislike this, but I understand where it comes from. Our other brother messed his life up horribly through a gambling addiction and it was trying to recover from this self-inflicted financial carnage that took him to Africa and, ultimately, to his death.

I posted about a winning poker trip here. Proving my brother wrong, this post is about the flip side of being a recreational player.

But why write this post at all?

I want to work through my feelings about the last few days, and this is how I choose to do that. I want to see if self knowledge and growth, in poker and other ways, can come from being honest about my mistakes and recognising my limitations.

I’m here during the World Series of Poker and Sin City is overrun by tens of thousands of players from around the world. 8,000 over 50’s sat down for the recent Seniors event! This makes the feel of the place completely different.

When I was here last August the incomers were holidaymakers; in March they were sports gambler, here to bet on the national college basketball tournament. I was in the same poker game most days and got to know the local regulars. I categorised all opponents as “Good Locals,” “Bad Locals” and “Tourists.”  The atmosphere was lighthearted and fun and the Good Locals accepted me as a poker player. I liked them and, with my British accent and the courtesy I always show to dealers and waitresses (sadly rare in Vegas), it was clear they at least enjoyed me as a curiosity. We laughed a lot and shared exaggerated stories about the game.

And I won.

The Good Locals showed respect for my game, folding when I raised, and the Bad Locals and Tourists payed off my strong hands. And, if I occasionally chanced my luck in the bigger game, there were always two or three wealthy Tourists to give me a chance to win there too.

This time, it’s completely different. The locals (good and bad) have left and the sports betters are replaced by the best poker players from  Paris and Prague, Madrid and Montreal, Houston and Helsinki.

Today, for example, I was sat between Javier from Spain and Benjamin from Paris. Javier lives in Portugal because the tax regime for professional poker players is more favourable there than in his own country. Like the rest of the table (apart from me and an American veteran in a wheelchair) they were thirty something and swarthily handsome with their designer stubble and expensively casual clothes, and had a super aggressive style of play.

And I lost.

I couldn’t  break these guys down. They folded when I wanted them to call and called when I want them to fold. Unlike the Good Locals (and most of the players I come up against in the UK) they had no respect for my game. It was hard, really hard

There have been mitigating factors on this trip. I have “trigger thumb” and it is constantly, naggingly annoying. My eldest is having anxiety and mental health challenges, exacerbated by work stuff, and I’m trying to be there for him from 8 time zones away.

These things take my focus away from the complex games I choose to play

So what to do? I’m going to cut my stay short and head to a resort and poker room in Arizona. I’ve been told many times that the games there are great and I’m guessing many of the best players from there will be here in Vegas.

And… I rather like the idea of a poker road trip!

Hopefully, I will find Good Locals, Bad Locals and Tourists. Hopefully it will be a more profitable environment for a polite Englishman with a decent Pot Limit Omaha game.

 

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To be fair (and I’m aware this is the losing player’s perennial lament) I’ve had some absolutely fucking shit cards.

Take this hand. It’s a double board game with half the pot going to the winner of each board. The aim is to scoop, that is, win both boards.A hand is made up of two cards from the player and three from the board.

Here’s the position after the turn card:

I have the second best possible flush on the top board and have the best possible full house, 88866 on the bottom. There’s already quite a bit of money in the pot and I shove the rest of my stack, confident of getting at least half and optimistic of scooping a big pot.

Benjamin from Paris dwells up for a while and calls. I can sort of understand his thinking. A quite possible situation is that I’ve got the top board with a King high flush but his 44488 might be good for the bottom.

The truth is that he is stone dead on both boards.

Unless this happens:

Benjamin  ow has a Straight Flush, 23456 of Hearts, on the top (only two cards could give him this, a chance of 2/33) and Quads 4444 on the bottom (only the last 4 could give him this, a chance of 1/32). The chance of him winning both boards is 0.28% or 1 in 352.

And yet that is what happened.

Poker can be a tough, unforgiving game.

I think that’s partly what draws me to it.