Playing with $5 and $10 blinds

I've had very little experience playing NL (or high stakes spread limit) with $5 and $10 blinds. i always play with $1-2 blinds maybe $1-3, or even $2-3 at times. I've wasted way too much of my life in lower stakes, but the lower stakes are far less stressful. i feel uncomfortable in games unless ive got 100 buyins, this way i know ill never go broke and be living outdoors totally unable to buy into a game.

and i dont have 100 buyins for $5-10 blinds. the minimum buyin here is $500, which i feel is too high, but thats what it is. ive got 49 buyins at best. at least when im in a $1-2 NL game with $100 buyin i can comfortably relax with 245 buyins.

so i was quite shocked last night, (finally there was a game going, all the poker rooms in town were closed on Christmas and all i could do was play VBJ-probably why im up $2000 on it since my flight arrived here from dallas). and its getting to be freezing cold outside and full of snow. but as i was saying i was surprised at how LOOSE PASSIVE such a high stakes game was (the $10-300 spread limit game which goes on wednesday nights). a lot of the times the button straddles for $20 and eventually we got up to 8 handed, a lot of the time it was 6 or 7 handed. when i first sat it was 4 handed, and thats when i was losing. and when it was 8 handed, it seemed there would be 5-6 limpers every pot. i thought in the bigger games they were more aggressive and more raising? not in this game, except for the 2 guys i think are the best players in the game. they were both winning. and they had well over $2500 on the table.

i dropped down to about $250 of my $520 buyin, (id moved over from the $1-3 blinds game when it broke with $170 and added another $350 if u wonder why i bought in more than $500, it was kind of on accident). and eventually had it up to $684, and left with $622. maybe i shouldnt left since the field seemed pretty weak, but i felt like anytime now that i had more chips and they knew it was higher than i usually play, i felt id start getting bluffed. i thought they were playing horribly by never trying to bluff me on the many times id have folded. plus i wanted to write down a win at poker since everytime i come up here the poker sucks.

the $3-50 spread limit game is always way too tight and the only game i really like is the mixed game on thursday afternoons at a different casino. saturdays PLO no longer goes anymore.

should i have quit the game? emotionally a $500 loss at poker would been devastating, but i bet more than that several times on the VBJ when i put out all 5 spots $100 each a few times. i almost dropped $1500 or so more than once but always came back on the final few hands. for about $20-25,000 in coin in, im up about $2000 which is well above what a good player should be ahead for that much in coin in. a good player should only be getting about 100.50 for every $100 ran thru the machine or maybe even less than that.

as soon as i get a month prepaid at the other motel ill have Vince ship the shoes he bought and Ray ship the other important package hes holding for me. but i am still in the casino hotel right now. i could also order some books again online too.

and i need to fix my sleep hours i should be waking up at 3pm every day and going to sleep about 5am.

winstar trip report

First, let me say that i did what i usually do, (i dont write up the trip report until after i have left the building). I'm at the DFW airport and ill be far away from dallas by midnite.

it was quite a disappointing trip, starting off with the fact i lost about $5000 in las vegas right before i left, (or id probably have wanted to stay in vegas longer). i was playing in rooms i dont usually play and i took a big loss in one ive almost never been in. about $200-300 at poker, and then instead of going downtown to play BJ like i shouldve i stayed in that casino and lost a ton on higher limit VP machines and went to their BJ tables out well over $1000 already and eventually returned to my hotel out $2800 or so and then lost some at poker and went to sleep out over $3000.

the next day i lost $70 at poker, then went downtown to play live BJ in a better place, and had my first losing session in a long time in the golden gate, and dropped another $2000. thats when i went back to my hotel, packed my bags though i had one more night there, and went to the airport and caught a spirit flight to DFW. $88 plus baggage fees for $133.

i thought for sure cdizzy would be happy and enjoy hanging out, but she never seen me once not even though she was picking up another guy at the airport in a different terminal i didnt know about ahead of time. she was busy and said she might come by that night i was going north to winstar and he was going south to Aledo and they were stopping a lot of stores buying presents.

but i didnt see her. then she said she would see about getting a free room so id avoid the daily cab fees into gainesville from winstar 10 miles away for like $14-28 twice each day. hell i stayed in the quality inn a nice place but its like $447 a week, more if by the day. theres much worse and cheaper motels nearby i seen for $240 or less per week. so if i stayed put that high cost of living per month. but they wouldnt give it to her over the holidays and i never heard back on the soonest they wouldve gave it to her.

so i won $252 in PLO $1-2 mix the first day, and couldnt win nothing after that. wasted many hours in NL later only to make $10. then the next day i lost $75. and today, i lost $390 within a couple hours. and found out she couldnt come til the 26th, though yesterday i thought she might come late in the afternoon though she wasnt free til after 730pm and been then i was so tired id left to sleep still stuck and frustrated that when the PLO finally went, it only lasted 30 minutes, then broke. i never got around to checking out the $1-2 NL or the $2-5 NL played strictly $1-3 NL.

the buyin structures annoyed me, simply because i like to martingale. which means to start out buying in less than $100, and eventually be buying in $500 or more up to the big stack. but thats not allowed here. $100-300 in $1-3 and $100-200 in $1-2. the $1-2 the minimum should be less and in $1-3 the max should be more. even in $2-5 its $500 max and games above it seldom run except weekends. so even when its the biggest game in the room its still max $500 with no matching the big stack.

thought about going to KS but it was over 350 miles and a huge uber fee, and once i got there id be stuck there, with 90 miles to wichita and few flights out of wichita to places id like to go. its not a main airport. had i not lost so much and was closing in on 30k still instead of 20k i probably wouldnt minded spending the money.

i wont hit 50k this year either im now at only 48k in wins this year at poker instead of 48,800 in wins like i was about a week ago. still a pretty good year though, i think its a record.

so im flying to a place ill feel at home, save money on housing and can play a little of what i want, but not nearly all the games i want of course. i wont stay too long. i hope i can sleep enroute because i would love to but ive never been able to. of course i usually flight allegiant or spirit, and i think american might be a more major company.

I was offered a dealing job

I'm still living out of the casinos because its so much cheaper than normal this time of year, probably about half the normal cost or less. Which means i dont have a kitchen or a microwave. even though with a roll of finally over $27,000 for the first time in many years, i could even afford a nice suite at the Grandview or Palms Place with a washer and dryer, or one of those fancy $2500-4000 monthly places on VRBO and airbnb. but its the convenience of not needing to use Uber at night as much as i did before.

seems it was less than 2 weeks ago i last updated the blog and it looks like i had over $5000 less at the time. according to my records for december, ive already won over $600 more in december (from poker) than i did in the entire month of november, and in november i won over $4500 from poker. so about $1200 more the rest of december will get me to $50k for the year at poker.

im about $5200 so far from poker for the first 3 weeks of december. Biggest win being the $1300 session in the $2-5 at the redrock. and tomorrow Vince will be bringing me back the laundry i paid him for tonight.

i should go to Houston to play poker, i think i could get some good housing deals there and tons of different places to play, and it seems theyll all on poker atlas if anyone cares to look it up. but i could also go to NH or back to Ray's. im glad to see hes finally back to winning in Omaha, if he would quit giving it away on machines.

its hard to leave when im doing so well and housing is lower than it normally is. as the economy continues to improve under the leadership of Donald Trump (the first leader to be genuinely concerned about helping the poor instead of just how to get their vote) i do worry housing costs will continue to get higher as inflation starts to take hold due to rising wages. wages are something that should never go up, they should stay stable and costs go down if u want to see peoples burdens made easier.

but at least now i feel i can afford to go anywhere and play poker, or prepay upfront a few months or pay to fix my citizenship issues. i was down to 12k sometime around early oct or late sept so how i got it more than doubled so quickly took a ton of luck at the BJ tables.

when playing poker about 4 nights ago one of the guys at the table who id seen a few other times before told me he was looking for someone he could trust to go into business with in california and that i seemed like an honest guy, which the floorman agrees with since i pointed out how they overpaid me $5 upon cashing out. of course i myself am afraid to trust anyone like to travel or live with them, except for Ray. Him i would feel comfortable hiding a ton of money in his house if i had to. but he wants to run a poker game and he used to in the past in other states. and he needs a dealer and he said i could earn $200 a day. i think im better off just playing though and id be afraid of it getting robbed or raided though he swore it wont.

$20,648 and a worry about my bank account found a purchase i never made

well i wasnt sure if id ever make it back to over $20,000 but i did. I've been insanely lucky on most of my recent Blackjack sessions, with the exception of the $1700 i lost on the machine in the El cortez. and im still winning at poker too. in the first 5 days of december was already up over $2000 for december.

id like to talk (and ask for advice) about a certain situation regarding my bank account and a strange debit card purchase i found on it which i didnt make. i check my online banking statement fairly often, which might even be unwise considering im doing it from so many different hotels internet wifi. and i found a charge with 2 different well known clothing companies that of course i wouldve never ordered. one of them had been made, then refunded in full, and the other one had a charge for well over $100. so i called the bank to complain, and i guess because of my good and long term account history since 2003, and because i normally keep a balance of $5000 or more in the account at all times, they instantly refunded me the debit. sometimes i have as much as $20,000 in the account, but rarely. the only time i had almost nothing in the bank account was the brief time period somewhere around 2011-2012 when i was down to the last few hundred to my name and ruined my credit rating when i had those 2 unpaid phone and internet bills that got over 3 months behind and past due. Koala will remember it well. and so would king of donks but he quit this blog many years ago.

i would like to know (and cant exactly find via google search) how the banks find out who did this, and what they do with the info. should i try to prosecute? can the person be found? what did they use for an address, what specifically did they order, and how did the company know to refund the charge back to the debit card? did they use my name for shipping and more importantly, where were they to ship it to? city and state. would it be wise to call the companies phone on my bank statement or would it confuse them and waste time?

as it turned out eventually the other company refunded the charge too, so now i need to contact my bank again and let them know i got reimbursed twice once thru the company and once thru the bank, or will they notice this anyway? they reimbursed it about 2 weeks after the bank did. i wouldnt even known this hadnt i not seen it on my bank statement yesterday but i feel i should call and tell them right away?

my new debit card is at Rays house and i havent picked it up from him yet because i thought i might go there and i was worried if he shipped it to me of it getting lost in the mail. lucky for me i opened a second bank account a few years ago the last time my bank needed to replace a debit card with a new one, so i am using my other emergency debit card to rent hotels, ride uber, etc in the meantime. i wonder if the bank wonders why i havent activated the new card yet?

if i knew one person in vegas i trusted enough to have it shipped to their address without it getting lost, who was willing, id have it shipped there. but i might not even be in vegas.

i would definitely pay Ray upfront via paypal the $25 it would cost about for overnight delivery because it would be important to send it the safest, most secure and fastest way possible, no matter what the cost.

i wish i trusted the front desk mail clerks at the casino and the non casino hotels but i dont. never trusted a soul in my life except for Ray. im always worried someone could tip a hotel desk clerk to get my room key and be waiting in my room to murder and rob me. this has happened a ton of times in vegas over the last 100 years.

i forgot to change my lyft profile, i did my uber profile but i forgot to on lyft. and i used lyft and then it got declined, i hope my bank understood that one. so i found out in an email once i was in my room, and then i quickly put the new card in my profile and reinstated my lyft account in good standing where lyft no longer considers me owing them money.

the bank told me the old debit card (which i still have in my possession) can no longer be used and that i should destroy it. but they did tell me i can still get refunds thru it because at the time, i was still waiting for my hotel refund from el cortez for my deposit back. which i later got about a week later. this is how i eventually got the refund from one of those clothing companies much later. the other refund had already been given before i noticed the charge. i wonder if it was because the company realized on its own the charge was fraudulent?

i probably shouldnt rock the boat, but i would like to call the company and try to learn the address of where they wanted it shipped, but will my bank already have the police investigating this, or do they just eat the loss? considering the company refunded it anyway i dont think my bank will have a loss, because if that refund doesnt go back to the bank on its own ill definitely let my bank know i got it twice now.

im just glad to know that when i first told the bank about the false charge, they refunded it instantly without a wait. i dont know if they do it for everyone or just those with a good banking history. unlike a previous bank account in Butte in 2002, this account has never once been overdrawn.

im sitting in the restaraunt typing this because at the hotel ive been staying in friday and saturday once i moved out of the other hotel id paid a week for, the internet sucks horribly and it wasnt working in my room for a whole day.

vegas trip report

Ever since massive live blackjack losses right before i left Blackhawk colorado mid summer, ive felt too afraid to play much of any live blackjack and ive stuck to only playing it on machines so i could min bet $1 instead of $5 or more. and when i first played a little blackjack in vegas, it was on the machine in the el cortez when i stayed there a week, and surprisingly enough, though it shuffles every hand and gives few points (still better than none) i came out ahead about $200-300 over the course of the week without any substantial losses. the only loss was rather small. i might not be sitting at the single deck table max betting $500 regardless of the count like Bill Potts says he is doing and claiming he still has an edge so he gets all the free rooms he wants, but at least im not losing and the minus ev is very small and maybe non existent when u look at the big picture cause at least it shows i played something.

but then i played a little live BJ at low stakes to test it out, in the Longhorn on boulder highway so i could play $2 min up to $100 max where the rules are good and the payouts and they use a shoe. i got extremely lucky to run a $52 buyin up to $1096 before cashing out when the walmart store across the street finally opened at 6.

so as the roll kept growing, (and as my poker winnings for the month of november passed $4500) i finally decided to try a little live BJ in the golden gate, where i normally is the only place i usually win on live BJ instead of lose. my host no longer works there and i only got the resort fee comped for the 2 nights i stayed there, not the room. and he told me he cant comp the resort fee if i use priceline but the cost is so much less using them. and today he said i didnt have enough play for more time. but i won $600, $600, and $400 in the 3 sessions i played over the course of the last few days.

i do not know why i lost at live BJ in colorado so frequently seemed like i did almost all the time, including close to $5000 on the final day, a substantial percentage of my bankroll at the time. all the bad luck was on like 3 spots of $100 each for $300 total on some very good counts. and they actually deal much deeper in the shoe in colorado than here, especially in the Lodge or the monarch.

but it certainly scared me off of live BJ. live blackjack was pretty much nonexistent in my play in atlantic city, though i did lose one time in Philly quite a bit but less than $1000, and i did lose that on the machine in the Tropicana once which wasnt a good machine because the minimum was $5 and it shuffled every hand. not only that, no surrender.

so yes this is the first live BJ in some time, and for some unknown reason every single one of the sessions is a big winner, no losses to report.

i think my tooth is healing correctly although i cant be sure cause it feels funny where the hole is if i touch it, but at least im using up the rest of the amoxicillin, its the 9th day and theres very little left i was given 10 days worth. instead of a dentist by now the far most important problem is to see a regular MD for a checkup

almost caught the allegiant flight to Billings this morning where its illegal to play blackjack, just to make sure i didnt start giving anything back but was too sleepy to be up at 7am ready to fly out. so im still here. guess i really shouldnt leave a place im doing well at, although vegas is certainly the last place i expected to be doing well in. its simply luck and its also how funny variance works.

out of all the multiple people i ran into this week who knew of my blog, including some Uber drivers, its amazing how many still dont know the blog is no longer private.

tooth fixed still in vegas for 1 more week since im winning and need rest

Well it feels good to have the tooth out and it turned out to be 2 teeth but it looked like one tooth to me but theyre extremely close together. seems most of the holes in my mouth are all together on the top left. like 4 on the left all in a row, one obvious one in the middle and 2 on the right of it. and it seems all of the bottom teeth are still there. why would the top ones be far more likely to go bad than the bottom ones?

Had i not been completely out of it, i wouldve asked the dentist if theres anything wrong with any of the other teeth. or if i was in the right place, a dental exam is free of as low as $19 i seen on a sign in Phoenix and i know some places give free exams, in hope u will do more. i dont tend to visit those dentists because usually they dont offer IV sedation but if i was only getting a cleaning i wouldnt need it. because they dont shoot u with a needle then. at least i hope not.

but it cost me $839. damn thats a lot of money if i did that less than 20 times id be totally broke and on the street unable to meet basic expenses or come up with money. this is why moving back in with Ray or living for $500 a month in deadwood where theyres very little poker is so tempting. but theres a ton of good games elsewhere. remember i won $1500 a week in Phoenix. and im up even more than that for the week ive been back in vegas. and then theres places where the games are really shitty where it takes a whole month to win that, such as atlantic city.

i was so out of it when they wheeled me out in a chair to alaska gals car i didnt remember being in a wheelchair, (first memories are in her car) and i didnt remember giving her the money to buy the food but i know i did because she gave me a bunch of $20s and $1s when she came out of the store with the food and then i asked her what i owed. and she told me i paid already. thats whats nice about IV sedation. it provides amnesia where u dont remember anything about the dental procedure.

my mother needs a tooth removed too, and shes waiting til she can afford the work, which she couldve until she had to spend $572 on an emergency basis replacing a broken hot water heater which flooded the basement. remember though old people and the indigent are covered for medical that doesnt include dental for some reason. i dont know what they do.

this is why people shouldnt expect the government to do everything for the poor and the rich should still give private charity. not to illegals seeking to cross the border, but to those right here who need help.

liberals just dont help the right people, at one time it wasnt seen as a dirty word. even Ray knows this. they used to be for free speech until they were against it. But instead of helping the poor by creating walmarts and cheap food and jobs becoming available they block it because theyre so rich they can afford much higher priced stores. same way with blocking Uber to force everyone to use cabs. when i walked out of the second casino a little pissed off because then i was only up $120 when i was once up $661 in the first casino a valet guy asked me if i wanted a cab. and i told him exactly what i thought of cab drivers compared to Uber and how if they had any self respect both them and him would support Uber then he was pissed off at me.

i was really dependent on Uber in shreveport but they didnt have it u had to wait an hour for a cab to go only 1 mile away. and it just makes people angry. now they have it. and u know what? Rich liberals like Josie dont care because they have cars. she doesnt even care enough to read the blog anymore, she didnt know i had a tooth fixed courtesy of alaska gal had i not texted her.

i was starting to go on tilt because a guy whod racked up and was quitting beat me with a flop of 66A when i had KK hit trips and then he unracked and i thought he considered me the sucker. and i was down about $100 and had rebought. so i called the very aggressive player (different guy) whose been playing a lot and raises all the time preflop and he claims he makes his living at it but he raises preflop too much to be any good. hes going to reno or tahoe soon he says. someone had made it $11 and he was the BB. i called the $11 and so did 6 others, so he squeezed it up to $105. only i called and i only had $23 behind. i had 89 of spades and the flop comes 67T all in spades. he goes allin and i called. and i won the high hand bonus too so i suddenly was up just over $300 and out of the hole.

and id gotten up as high as $661 up but then gave back about $200 plus trying to steal a pot. so i left and went to another room. lost a bunch on a machine enroute and was then up only about half.

i got seated lost my whole $100 with KK against AA before the blind got to me, and eventually left with only $47 of my $200 (including my rebuy). then i went to go buy food. took more than 1 bus because i changed my mind while on the bus as to where id buy the food. and there were tons of homeless people on the bus one girl completely conked out with her boyfriend propping her up both looked broke and some just sitting at the bus stop not getting on the bus. but she mightve been a hooker but not the other 2. and i was pissed at the old lady who was asian who i asked about the bus, she didnt respond finally took her headphones out and said id missed it. i was leaving to get an Uber then 1 minutes later the bus comes and she boards it with me. i didnt miss it. i think some just are afraid to talk to someone who comes up asking questions after dark. but really its that people only care about themselves. the cocktail waitress on the machines where i was losing over $150 the same way she just stood there saying thank u looking at me when i didnt tip for my water.

and now im going to eat the macoroni i bought and cooked then go to sleep. i couldnt remember if i took the amoxicillin so i let it go. is it better to take 2 or take 0 if u dont know? i didnt take no more pain pills, havent needed them. Glad to have clean laundry again too, but if i had a steady place to live for a few months i would want way more clothes and better clothes which i have at rays house.

and now im at the point where having a regular MD look over my prostrate and give me a full checkup to make sure nothing is seriously wrong is more important than dentistry finally.

at least my computer is finally no longer on arizona time i fixed it tonight

Big day wednesday and a story about an old robbery that happened to me

I dont know what to talk about in my blog, so i thought id tell a little story from the past i dont remember telling before. Many years ago when i was homeless in vegas (this was well more than 10 years ago but i have no idea when) i had a bankroll of less than $500 and i think i was still playing stud at the time. i also think i was panhandling for a living at the time too, so it was way back. nowdays panhandlers drive me nuts and i know Jesus dont want me to feel that way but so many waste their money on drugs and beer i just dont feel they deserve the money like i feel i did since i invested mine to either make more or get rooms with it and many of these guys just waste it abusing different substances. But the Bible talks a lot about how God hates those who oppress the poor.

But its funny how i used to actually panhandle in casinos, get banned for it at times and now im the one to report them, 20 years later.

so im out in Henderson and for whatever reason these 2 young women offer me a ride to a different casino i want to go to. dont remember how it all came about. all i remember is while riding around, im trying to figure out if the girl is single and wants to hang out, and the one girl gets a phone call from a guy who just got out of jail and needed picked up and she goes to make a stop to pick him up a few miles away. then we all stop at a convenience store enroute and thats where i shouldve exited. at the time i had $200 in my sock and the rest of my net worth in my pocket which was another $200-300. or maybe i had a bank account then with $100 in it and $100 in my sock. i dont remember, but ive had the same account since 2003. i dont remember if this was earlier, it mightve been.

we are back in the car going further into henderson and are kind of in the country and he wants to pull down this one road. then he gets out to look at something on the car and he starts talking to me outside the car and asks me why im talking to his girl. he has some type of club in his hand and i dont know what she told him in the store or on the phone, but im worried im being setup and i throw out the cash in my pocket on the ground and keep running and i see him picking it up off the ground as im getting further away and then i see the car going the other way with him getting back in it. man was i glad he didnt follow me. i flagged down a police car a short time later told them the story made a report and nothing ever came of it. this is one more reason i dont try to ever talk to women to find out if they have a man or not.

tomorrow i should see about getting room for longer than my check out date Thursday because i wont feel up to moving or leaving town Thursday and this motel im at has a 7 night limit per month u can stay there. (without special permission which i could see if i could get but the price will be a lot more).

i lost $212 on $1-2 NL today but im still doing much better in it since coming to vegas because in $1-3 NL i lost every time i played. i did recover all but $88 on the VBJ at the el cortez. odd the sign on it says absolutely no multipliers and 2 days ago all my points on it were being multiplied by 2. and they got rid of the atm promotion some time ago.

the reason i wont feel up to doing anything but sleeping close to 24 hours wed afternoon and then not feel like moving thursday is because alaskagal is taking me to the dentist wed morning appt at 930 for IV sedation which will cost me about $600-800 i estimate in total. thats a big hit out of the roll but ive won that since leaving Laughlin and i know most of u will be glad to see it get done. so i wont be able to eat nothing on thanksgiving and i need to go get all the food tomorrow that u have to stick to eating after IV sedation plus i need to get to sleep much earlier tuesday night. i wouldve already left vegas but i knew i needed to get this done and since vince claims he is too busy im glad i found a friend willing to go so the dentist with me could legally sedate me without losing his malpractice lawsuit insurance.

video BJ and a dealers mistake earning me huge pots Riverside Laughlin

I'd like to talk about a hand that happened tonight before i forget about it. while sitting in $1-2 NL this evening the dealer mentioned that my card was exposed because either he (or seat 1) mentioned that my card was seen, so i flipped up my ace of hearts and asked if i wouldve still got a new card had it been a deuce instead of an ace.

well my other card was a king. and the dealer took back my ace, and replaced it with a second king. i made it $15 preflop in late position, and got 4 callers. Flop comes T74 all different suits. guy in EP or the blinds bets $15. short stack goes allin for $62, and another shortstack goes over the top for $84. the loose guy from India who plays here often has me covered for over $400. im worried he might raise, and i think the correct play might be to raise or fold. but i only called. luckily he folds. turn comes 7 and he folded K7. river comes 2 and i showed my KK and beat another guys QQ and another hand i never seen. i did make sure to tip the dealer.

and then of course the loose guy from India claimed it wasnt enough, though the dealer spoke up in my defense.

and im still at $14,800 of the $13,400 i had when i arrived here from Phoenix. (once i was briefly over $16,600) alot of small wins on the video BJ and a few bigger losses with Koala mentioned came to $3500, though he leaves out the wins, often because i dont mention them on twitter.

but since my phone records for the new month of november shows ive won over $1500 since nov 1 off poker, i really should be up more i guess. i still am a bit over $40,000 for 2018 and almost all of the play is from $1-2 NL, maybe $1-3. i still think thats much better than 99.99% of $1-2 grinders earn. hourly is still $19 as im reaching the 2100 hour mark or so.

the host who seen my $1800 loss the other day (and also knows how much i was previously up) found me a free room over the weekend for 3 nights, saving me a little money and helped me also find someone i could pay $25 to wash my laundry too. so now i have clean clothes. she offered me tickets to a concert tonight held in town by a famous singer named Kid Rock and i had no idea the tickets were for front row seats and worth well over $100, but i declined because i wasnt interested in a concert. later on, all the guys at my poker table said i couldve easily sold it. There is one other hustler here who knows about this machine recently installed and neither of us wants to publicize the casino where it is

i didnt want anyone to know i was in Laughlin playing this newly installed dealers angels machine, but im tired of multiple big losses on it although i had multiple big wins too so im not really down anything on it. but i was briefly at $15,800 this morning when up $400 but i ended up losing instead. now im at $14,700 after my shuttle into Vegas and a hotel room at a place ive never stayed before. not a bad room, but they dont do long term. internet is less than i expected and they even upgraded my room free. also my tooth isnt in good shape, the one thats been waiting about a year. vince isnt able to help hes too busy working and id like to use the same dentist i always use on spring mountain since she knows whats needed.

theres about 4-5 allegiant or spirit flights id like to take out of here within the next day or so. none of them left this evening, except for a reno flight and i should see a dentist first if theres a way to

Out of Phoenix

well for a while i was doing really good in Phoenix, and though i left Arizona to head for a little town in Oklahoma with cheap housing and good poker, i still think Talking stick is a pretty good poker room. i was up over $2500 once and though i had one big loss of a little bit less than $1000 one day and i found myself playing the sucker $3-35 VBJ too many times for about $200 or more in losses over 2-3 days, i still did pretty good in the room, i left still winning more than $25 per hour for all sessions combined. and the $8-16 omaha stud8 mix and the $3-300 spread limit are the best games the room offers. and if i had a higher roll id probably have liked the $20-40 mix and the $10-500 omaha mix the best.

it was the first poker room with loose action id played at in quite some time. while there i ran my roll up to $13,600 from less than $12,800. and at one point had $14,500.

and 2 days after leaving the area, im still at $13,800. but it will take years to get the roll back up to $20,000. and my health will give out in the meantime. at least now ill be able to get housing within a few blocks walking distance of the poker room for $800 a month.

i still have no idea if this is the right place to be. i kind of miss deadwood, but the poker just doesnt go enough of the type of games i can make money in. i still think Reno is an option too for good games, as is detroit.

what made me tired of phoenix was paying $450-550 a week for my hotel at the extended stay america plus $175-200 per week in Uber fees. the cost of living there was just too much, even though i think with a slightly bigger roll i could earn about $1500 a week there, (which is $72,000 a year) which isnt bad for poker, if i only could ride the swings out a little easier. but $3000 a month in living expenses is a tough nut to overcome even if i would average $72,000 a year. so when Mickey told me about a place he was playing in Oklahoma with an extended stay hotel for $800 a month within 3 blocks of the poker room in a small town, and good $1-2 action noon til 2am everyday and a PLO game 2 nights a week, i decided to go.

i wish i had faith this would continue to grow, but i feel disaster is going to strike soon. but still no losses

hopefully i havent posted too many new blogs in a very short period of time and some of the newest entries wont overlooked. for they only have about 1 3rd of the viewership of the ones that are up for a week or so. 3 in 3 days is a lot more than normal.

my roll is slightly going up, its at $13,500 now due to todays $400 win, but ive been very lucky to win. ive won 5 out of 5 days in this casino now, but i was stuck $800 once yesterday (and recovered) and today i was stuck $361 and recovered. the problem is my expenses are so outrageous (and yet ive got them as low as the minimum possible for Scottsdale) but i really need to win about $5000-6000 per month to grow the roll a bit over and above expenses of $2500-3000.

and that would be possible and even probable if i just had a much larger bankroll to work with.

i still feel like people i dont know who they are are targeting me at the table. one guy puts on sunglasses, one guy moved to my table with over $1100 whod requested a voluntary table change and sits 2 seats to my left, which caused me to leave immediately when i didnt really want to, since i had over $1100 in front of me and over $400 of it was profit and no one else at the table had about $500 on them. and i dont trust nobody especially in poker rooms and especially as well known as my twitter and blog is. and the guy in the seat next to the dealer in seat 9 looked familiar id swear it mightve been the guy from palace station who bought a room off me 10-15 yrs ago and ran up over $193 in charges and it all got put on my credit card when he left the room and it got taken out of my bank account and palace station wouldnt give it back. i think his name was John and he used to do a rideshare back in the days before Uber to california.

i made a loose call earlier with JQ suited, and the flop was 789 offsuit and i called a bet. turn comes 3 and thank God everyone checked, i thought he was about to bet. river comes 10 and i bet the $300 max and one guy drops, other guy calls and i never saw his hand, but i assume he had the J for a slightly smaller straight, though he did think before he called, but he had been losing a lot of pots. he was the only guy who initially sat with $600 when my table first opened. i was the first one there. and i stole a pot once with 7-2 offsuit and showed it too. and i was glad the guy other side of table who was winning heavily left but this was shortly after i bet $100 on the river when i hit my flush and he snap called so fast i worried he hit a boat the same time i hit the flush or maybe a bigger flush.

i still think these are far better games than the games on the east coast in atlantic city too. and the management is good too because they dont offer the button straddle, only the UTG straddle. and they offer a wide range of buyins and make it $2-3 instead of $1-3. i still would like to sit in the $8-16 OE mix again too, but u can lose quite a bit on a single pot in that case too.

why i quit so early in the afternoon, when it would be better if i played different hours.

 seems like every day im waking up in my hotel sometime between 3am and 6am, and playing til sometime like 1pm to 4pm. but yes i know those arent the best hours, but ive won 3 out of the last 3 days though. only day i lost was the first day i played since i arrived in Phoenix.

To be a little more accurate, i actually havent went to Phoenix. i have spent ALL of my time either in Mesa or Scottsdale. not phoenix, although its referred to as Phoenix. same way the people who live on long island describe themselves as living in NYC.

and another odd thing about Phoenix (notwithstanding there are no cocktail waitresses to bring u drinks, only food servers, who can also bring both drinks or alcohol, but the difference is instead of coming around asking, u have to tell the dealer to turn on the service light every single time u are dying for water because they wont let u get your own water, only your own coffee.) is the fact theres so many good looking women playing at the tables which u wont see anywhere else in the country. most cities its mostly men.

Some drunk girl named Kristin and a good looking girl friend of hers in the seat by the dealer well she got thrown out long before her friend left. im not sure what happened, but she was slowing the game down a little and very loud. the asian lady older lady next to me, who i seen in there every morning always with about $1000 on the table (people put way more chips on the table than anywhere else in the country) i think the asian lady was just pissed because she wasnt near as good looking or near as young as the drunk girl who just was having a good time, for when the dealer told her she was big blind she said im not big, im skinny.

anyway it seems she was the one who complained. she has a lot of money and im sure she gets her way. and the one guy had just moved from another table to sit by her with a lot of chips, which he ended up losing, plus a rebuy or two. he moved over probably because he wants to get laid, and he probably ended up tilting off the chips because she got thrown out for being too drunk.

and there were 2 guys at the table i was concerned about (this was later and after id got back the $304 i was once stuck) and had over $600 on me (and when i quit i had $819 off of a $604 buyin and rebuys). like i said, its very hard to lose money in these games in Phoenix. why theyre looser i dont know, unless its the fact blinds are $2-3. or maybe because the buyin is $100-600, a much wider spread than elsewhere. but those 2 guys eventually quit about 20 minutes apart, one had been there all night and had well over $2000 on him, and i once paid him off big time by betting allin with 56 of hearts when he flopped a wheel and i was first to act. but then i bluffed him once too later on. flop was 235 and 2 spades and i shouldnt shove with 56 of hearts but the guy on my immediate left was straddling or raising every fucking time i limped it seemed or when it was my BB. and sure enough he raises to $30 more on his straddle and 6 people called as did i. so when u consider how much was already in the pot and how long id been waiting for a better hand than 56 of hearts and hadnt seen one--well u get the idea. and the raiser of course folded when i shoved the flop. i mightve got away with it had he not flopped the wheel and took down a ton of dead money.

and once the other guy left i felt good, for by then i had $800 on me finally, and for the first time was up at least $200, which u really need to earn per day if u ever want to get ahead with high hotel and uber costs. and yet ive got my Uber costs down to $12 each way for $24 per day. thats about as low as they will get. but a brand new guy had just sat with a funny mustache that looked taped on and he was an older guy everyone seemed to know especially a woman who wanted his picture. and he bought in for $600 and not knowing if he knew of my blog, or my twitter and paranoid he might be targerting me since i was the only big stack left, (others had no more than $125-350) and no idea how he played i had no choice but to immediately quit. but i didnt hit and run because i didnt leave when i had the $600 back when the other 2 guys had over $1500 each.

u need a lot bigger roll for the wild games in phoenix but i cant imagine anyone whose as good at me at poker earning less than $1000 a week over the course of a 52 week year, which means u can earn over $50k a year in the cheapest form of NL. imagine how much a good player could make in phoenix in the $20-40 half stud8 half omaha8 games or the 5-500 game or the 10-500 omaha games and even much higher games going if they had a 50k roll. earning well over 100k per year would be quite simple and im sure WEC does it if he spends enough time in phoenix instead of tucson, which i doubt.

the only city i know of u can get by with a small roll is los angeles, which offers $40 NL with a low rake (well compared to the $100 NL that is) and the fact a broke guy is allowed to sleep outside in cali without getting arrested for it.

if i didnt need so much per week for a safe enough hotel and Uber, i could get by with much less stress and a lower roll but im spending about $600-700 per week out of the $1000 or so ill win here. this is why i need to win $200 a day so ill make $1400 a week to ease the burden. my experiences when a young kid age 18-30 is why i feel so many fears and this is long before i ever blogged about my experiences. but im terrified of shitty motels and weeklies like i lived in in vegas before and the even worse ones Ray knew about in toledo that no longer exist.

theres a ton of self entitled spoilt rich people who order food at the table here and ive never understood why so many do that. most of the rooms in ac dont even allow food at the table but hey the chargers work and theres drink tables to sit your coffee on. i made a big reraise once with A9 of spades preflop, bet the flop with air and took it down. but the point i want to make is i refrained from showing the bluff.

and one guy and his friend did recognize me from the blog from another table at a higher stake who claimed they knew of me from the stratosphere. he had me find him the link to the blog. i tried to talk with him later but he was busy on facetime with a guy instead of a girl of all things, and ive never used it and would find it odd and weird why anyone would. especially with a guy. he stayed on facetime for a long time and he was doing it as his table, which if i were playing there id find it rude and shouldnt be allowed.

lots of promotions here, they were giving out tons of tickets during football games and all kind of splash pots every hour. i gained $50 from spinning a wheel and u must add it to your stack

phoenix trip report

Since getting off the plane from deadwood at the Mesa gateway airport which allegiant prefers to use instead of sky harbor airport all the other companies use, i just cannot do anything with my roll. no matter what, for weeks and months, it keeps being about $12,800. am i ever going to get back to $20,000?

i first went to wildhorse pass and briefly got stuck $600, and was in a very bad $1-2 blinds $2-100 spread limit game most of the morning (first i have a good nights sleep the previous night and did my laundry though--i didnt IMMEDIATELY head for the casino) but the pots were almost nothing in them. then i moved to the $2-200 spread limit when it finally opened with $2-2 blinds and boy what a difference in style. lots of people bought in much much deeper and there was action. but i couldnt get a pot for nothing and i was out $600 when i quit. some of it on a failed bluff.

then i moved for one final shot with $300 in the $5-500 spread limit game. with $3 and $5 blinds. they didnt like the fact i wouldnt straddle, but how could i the stakes and the buyin is far above what u can afford with a life roll of only $12,000 and i was the only guy not straddling and games overall in phoenix (except for that $1-2 game) was loose as hell. most everyone had way over $1000 or $2000 on  them. eventually i won a big pot because of course, someone was going to call me to bust me no matter what. my hand held up and i left shortly with $638.

then i moved back into the other room (the one game was in the high limit BJ section with a poker table included) and didnt play more than an hour or so, and eventually left still down $230, which was a lot better than it once was.

the next day i switched hotels to scottsdale instead of mesa. and i won $403 in the $3-300 $2-3 blinds at talking stick. and ive been saying for years $1-3 NL sucks and $2-3 blinds is far better for action. games like $1-3 and $2-5 NL shouldnt exist because the small blind is less than 50% of the BB. only games like $1-2, $2-3 and $3-5 should exist where the sb is at least half the bb or more.

$1-3 and $2-5 is nitty and horrible for action. which anyone whose played those limits knows.

i think games in phoenix are easily beatable for over $1000 per week but i dont have the bankroll and u need a bigger roll to play here.

but yeah its sure easy to win here. i finally found some good poker. and today i won over $170 in the $8-16 omaha8 stud8 mix and once was up over $400. before i switched i was down a little in the $3-300. and theres also $5-10 blinds $500-2500 omaha high spread limit which i wish i could afford to minimum buy and sit in i could make a fortune staked in it.

but is it growing my roll? nope, the entire wininng paid for my weeks hotel and a ton of Uber trips. so im still about $12,800. that number never changes or grows.

I think i did the right thing in leaving deadwood?

     I'll bet Corey wondered where i was wednesday afternoon and why i didnt show up for the game? Truth being told, earlier that morning (when deciding whether to take a room for $500 at the motel id planned to live in for $500 a month with a nice full size fridge and great wifi) i sure wish i could get that same deal in other parts of the country more suitable to good poker action. most everywhere to live is at least $1400 or more a month when paying short term prices and even that is much lower than paying by the night. so no i wouldnt really save much on hotels if i stayed put in 1 place unless i lived with Ray.

but as to where i was wednesday? well i lost $1800 on the dealers angels machine that morning, but still overall, i wasnt really down anything at it, and i shouldnt be if im betting correctly. i had about $12,700 left when i arrived in deadwood from philadelphia after expenses, and then while in deadwood i started off using my 4 free nights and my $300 in free play before the 15th and my $300 in free play after the 16th for $600 total.

so that should put me at $13,300. and one thing that really made me want to leave is unlike in July where i somehow managed to win $4000 in poker in deadwood, primarily with the help of a bad beat jackpot, for the 8 total sessions of poker logged on this trip, i was up only $13.

now i started off winning on the VBJ and the highest i had was $14,600 and it was actually $14,900 since it was before i could pick up the 2nd $300 in free play. and when i bought my ticket out of deadwood, i was down to $12,500 after paying for the ticket.

but then i won some back while awaiting transportation to where i needed to go first, and was all the way back to $13,200 so like i said i didnt lose anything on the VBJ. the $100 it looks like i lost, remember i spent $53 total for my 2 nights in the silverado once my room at the Grand ended.

and id also racked up 13 tickets for this saturday night drawing which i wont be there for now, and i might be missing out on $1000 again. i found out i got called about 1-2 weeks after i left with Koala.

so most of wednesday i was busy traveling to another part of the country to play more poker than blackjack and trying to get somewhere when my roll was still over $10,000. cdizzy and lightning and Ray have proof of my hotel reservations but they are sworn to secrecy about the city i went to, and the name of the hotel. but at least here ill be able to play more poker than i was in deadwood, but before i do i must finish my laundry first. im tired of wearing the same clothes like i was in deadwood. my suitcase dont hold much because its a carryon which saves me a lot on costs.

its going to cost me a lot if i pay for a month here, or pay for a month elsewhere about 300-400 miles away where theres even more casino options and good games. i have an idea too of another city i should go to and play.

i need to hurry up and publish this, this was written up yesterday morning BEFORE i spent the whole day playing in the casino. and tomorrow i hope to get around to writing up the trip report and my opinions of their games offered and how loose or tight they were. but im in a hurry to post this and get to work and check out. and u can hear how i did in the game

away from the east coast

well i got tired of spending so much time playing at Ocean and Tropicana, and i was winning so little there on the east coast, i flew out of there yesterday morning. in fact im still in the hole for the month of october even though i finally won at poker once i entered a completely different part of the USA. tonight i lost $89 at the first poker room, then won $99 in the second poker room. my room is taken care of til the morning of the 15th, and my roll is still only just over $13,100. as soon as i wake up later today ill grab me some food too at the nearest grocer.

Ocean had good promotions but it was one of the nittiest games in the country due to the promotions and $3.75 hourly comps and a guy at sugarhouse in Philadelphia last night agreed with me when i spent 3 hours there waiting to catch my flight out. just last week one of their players kept insisting the dealer color him up before he cashed out and until the floorlady insisted he carry the chips to the cage and handed him a rack, im proud of her for not allowing him to color up and i called him out on it and surprised others at the table agreed with me. usually they just want me to shut up, but i hate anything that slows the game down (because im often not winning and bored out of my mind folding one hand after another). in fact i always complain about people washing the cards too and i bet the dealers hate it when people demand this too. ive even been thrown out of casinos in california many years ago for making too big of deal out of it. i wont even color up at a BJ table when they insist i do it sometimes because i dont want to waste all that time, or waste the other players time i just want to get up from the table.

so because i dont make problems for the staff (except for being too broke to tip out of my ass like most of the players do instead of sparingly on big pots when ahead) i should be seen as "good" for poker rooms, because im not one of those dicks who either refuses to play when the game gets down to 7 players or less (and also not one of those dicks who insists on straddling just because its my BB and always buys in for the max to show off because they feel like theyre better than everyone else). which is why im so disappointed in Andy Rich for throwing me out of the nugget, because i thought he was someone who understood me for being different and accepted it. i dont even show my hand as much as i used to when its unneccessary because i need the money too bad and i dont want it costing me money.

i wish people understood the stresses of having no income or assets and believing governmental assistance is immoral if u can get the money by other means, such as gambling. no one can truly put themselves in others shoes, same as i cant relate and understand someone who has a job over someone who is in business for himself. i dont see myself ever passing $20,000 again and i cant get rid of stress until i do because its pretty much the bare minimum u need to grind $1-2 NL comfortably, or the equivalent. i did well in school and was 1 year ahead when i graduated because i was from a small Christian school that used the ACE education system where u learn at your own rate, if anyone reading is familiar, which i doubt. but i shouldnt ever have to work since i put my time in in school to be successful. now that i am an adult, others should be working for me. working is for the people who didnt do well and have a much lower ACT score than i did because mine was extremely above average at 33. and we ALL know how God (Jesus and his father) feel about the rich, so much so he took a whip to them and threw them out of the synagogue. and how the Bible says its easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. if I (which i dont) and everyone else followed the teachings of Jesus, everyone would love and have empathy and compassion for others especially those with mental health issues instead of just the people who commit perverse and immoral sexual acts. and sex isnt needed by anyone its sick and gross and i hate the way guys need to hire hookers to do non sexual things just to have a friend for an hour to make out with and not have sex with because its a sin to do that instead of makeout. the entire Bible is about caring for the poor and God wants the people with a lot of money to do it, (people like Alysia and PPP) not them to pass them off to the govt and have them do it with a lot of red tape and waste eating up 90% of the proceeds. and its also not fair how those who earn $500,000 a year pay the same prices in a store, the same fees when driving roads, etc as those who only make $25,000. and its damn sure not fair to make them tip the same amount per pot they win.

no one should have to choose between paying taxes and especially paying for the high cost self employment tax (and health care should be much lower cost too without deductibles which makes insurance worthless if you are poor) or paying to have a roof over your head every night, but if u dont make enough at poker because u only won $1500 or less than month instead of the normal $3000-5000 u should be making in $1-2 if u are tight enough, and keep your first buyin to a minimum and dont start raising your buyin until after u get stuck so youre forced to, u have no choice but to spend everything on rent and hotels thats why the ideal situation is to either live with friends or get your cost of living down to $500 a month in rent, which is pretty much out of question is well over half the country.

and when people are losing their ass and u are taking all their money and u know they cant afford to tip the cocktail waitress for Gods sake tip the waitress for them. i would if i were the rich guy. id do a lot if i were the rich guy, but i doubt ill ever be.

its even tough to relate to Ray because he has so much credit he dont deserve but only got because he filed bankruptcy, but i do feel he is the best friend and understands me better than anyone. Him and Vince.

to make the country and much better and more compassionate place, get out and vote republican. dont let violent mobs control this country and take away our right to free speech and to have ideas that go against the government and are unpopular. i am compassionate towards others if theyre broke, not so much if theyre employed or rich. i even have compassion for the dreamers who came in as little kids, not so much if they entered as teenagers. because i know of my own ID situation and i dont want anyone in this boat too. to change republican policies u dislike work from the inside, its done wonders for online poker. dont work from the outside.

all about tipping

to flat tip $1 per hand is the dumbest thing ever and ill show u why. lets say u lose a $1000 pot where u and maybe 1 or 2 others each put in a few hundred. the winner of the pot tips $1 or $2.

then u win 6 pots with the same dealer within the next half hour all of which are only $10 to $25 each in a short period of time. so u are supposed to tip $6 total when down several hundred and the guy whose up over $500 is only supposed to tip $1? u shouldnt have to give a damn dime unless u are only playing for entertainment and u want to. not if u are struggling to survive, cover motel costs and medical costs, etc.

Which brings me to the point of tonights story. Me not going home to Toledo with Ray has cost me a ton of money, over $4000 in total now. my roll is running ridicously low and im doing everything i can to save on costs and get extra money out of every pot. earlier this year when i was making over $4000 almost every month i always was giving the waitress and the dealer $1 except for the smallest of pots.

theres a guy who walks around here with a tray delivering cocktails late on the night shift named Jorge. maybe he got hired because the gay rights lobby demanded the casino start hiring men as servers, i dont know. But this guy is always a real dick because anytime u dont tip him he always comments and says thank u for doing your part to insure prompt service, (which is a reference to tips). when u do tip him, he says nothing, or simply thank u. and leaves out the part about insuring prompt service.

it pissed me off last night at the poker table, and the floorman was near the table during a fill and i complained and he asked me if i wanted to talk with his supervisor and offered to call him or her. (the servers supervisor, not his). i was in the middle of a big pot and i had KK and there was an ace on the board, and i was wondering if the guy was bluffing. i turned up my KK and showed it to the guy next to me and it was heads up. and then i turned my cards back over the other way still thinking. my mind was sidetracked by the servers rude comment because i damn sure wasnt giving him a dime, i have lost about $1200 in the past week just from poker alone, not counting other expenses and losses. and it was the second time he had made the rude comment, a few days ago he did when on the VBJ machine and i had nothing smaller on me than $100s. and the other male server whose name i dont remember isnt so much a dick and i did tip him before when he came by and brought me a water. this is why its so critical rooms set out a drink station to where people dont have to go thru the servers like most rooms in ohio, colorado, michigan, south dakota, etc do. i never had to ever deal with cocktails in the peppermill unless i wanted to and its not the only major room where they set out drinks. i dont see the point in making those comments, dont they realize its hurting their tip rate? and heres how. 100% of the time when someone doesnt tip its because they cant afford to its never that they got plenty of money and no worries over money and just dont do it. so if they dont say nothing theyll often get tipped soon as the guy is winning. but if they make a comment theyll never get a dime no matter how much they win in the future but i think none are smart enough to figure this out. its so weird how people just assume this will make the guy tip the next time when it works just the opposite. its only human nature.

so i called the bet, and was talking to the floor and waiting for him to turn his hand over. he showed one card an 8, and there was an 8 on the board, along with the ace on board, and i was waiting for him to turn the other card over. it was about a $100-150 pot. and he finally showed the other card which gave him nothing to beat the KK. next thing i knew the dealer was pushing him the pot and my cards were dead, and the floorman told me id never turned my hand over. the guy sitting next to me told me i showed him my cards but didnt show the dealer and i thought the hand was over and i was about to be pushed the pot so thats why i threw the cards in i was so sidetracked talking to the floor about the server i totally forgot i never turned my KK back face up after having turned it face up earlier for a brief moment before i had decided to call him, and then right back face down.

needless to say i shouldve left after that but by the time i left i was out over $300 but i didnt lose it at anything but poker. something doing the right thing by staying off the machines doesnt help

my blog would be better if i were rich enough to play $2-5 right?

I'm just not making any progress at all on ever getting my roll back over $20,000. i was about $700 better off than i was a week ago and now im about the same as i was a week ago. and September was the lowest month (for money won at poker) for the entire year, (at only about $1700). About the only way ive been lucky is though this is the prime season for hurricanes striking the coast, the only one this year didnt come anywhere close to where i am. usually theyd be far more hurricanes.

i fixed my sleep hours so id be awake for playing like 8pm to 2am or til 4am, whenever the game breaks up and i dont want to pay a big Uber fare to where the game would still be going and not break up. But the games have been nittier than i first expected them to be, and tonight a loose guy whose a bit of an asshole (at least according to the black guy next to me who the asshole kept insisting on calling him a name different than his real name) called my preflop raise with 10-2 offsuit when he wasnt getting the proper odds because id bought in for less than $100. on the flop of 10 2 6 offsuit i went allin with the rest of my stack into about a $40 pot for $67 and he called of course, and preflop he kept swearing he wanted a 3 to hit the flop. he eventually went broke but none of it to me.

and then i lost a huge pot to him later on too when he flopped 4 diamonds with K5 of diamonds and i had 2 pair which stayed only 2 pair on the river. flop was 446 with 2 diamonds and i thought well if hes got a 4 thats just my bad luck and sure enough i was ahead on the flop. and yet he is the only who reraised my $65 allin.

eventually i got stuck $462 and quit the game, and then lost over $100 more on video BJ which was only paying even money on BJ. he had left long before then, the last hour i was on another table where about $40 of it went. then another guy whose a better player than him (and was badmouthing his play when he wasnt around) also put a bad beat on me. i raised preflop with AQ and the flop was AKT with 2 clubs and 4 people seen the flop. i bet $40 and only he called and he was first to act. turn comes offsuit 7 and he checks. i bet $55 he only called. river comes 6 of spades, another blank. he checks, i check behind and he showed 10 7 for 2 pair on the turn.

he was congratulating himself with the fish about how well he played it, when truth is, he lost a ton of value by not checkraising the turn, (or by not betting the river). he got the bare minimum out of it that he couldve got due to his "fancy play syndrome". (attempting to checkraise the river). most people who know and observe how i play will know ill be scared to bet the river with only top pair when ive been called down for big bets on 2 streets. plus if he bets big on the river it will look like either a busted flush or slow played monster hand. i dont see how he calls the flop and preflop.

on the bus over here sunday morning, i seen a HUGE fight near the bus stop which made me a little nervous when i left my hotel. one girl who id swear is a hooker was telling either a big mexican guy or 2 white guys to beat the other person up (i couldnt figure out who she was rooting for) and she appeared to be with a 3rd guy, either white or mexican, i couldnt tell. if she wasnt a hooker she was definitely on meth or crack. my hotel wasnt in the best area but i chose it because it was cheap and the rooms were indoor instead of outdoor so i felt safer. i see women with scumbags all the time, who look like they use these girls for money, especially when im inside the cardroom or in the casino. these women are so stupid to not find a guy who loves them and will take care of them instead of guys who use the woman to support them financially (and their gambling habit of poker losses) and instead charge me money if i want to right to feel loved simply because im white. people like me, Vince and Ray all see the light about how liberalism has ruined relationships. in the old days, women were raised at home to love and care for their man, and they werent taught to treat him differently and like dirt simply because hes white when they would love him if he were of another race.

and some guys are doing the right thing by finding a black woman, for most white women are complete trash (u can tell this by the way they feel about Judge Kavanaugh) because then u kind of even the playing field a little bit. also an asian or mexican woman would also be much less drama too than leftwing white women who will turn against u 30 years later. at least black women are far more intelligent than white women, since they realize a white man will treat them with far more respect and not expect money from them, but will be the provider for his family. (and to me a family is your girlfriend/wife---not your parents or your kids). No one should be forced to have kids unless they have a wife first. and this doesnt mean i support abortion, but that the kids in certain circumstances should be given up for adoption because theyres not nearly enough babies for adoption and too many older kids. kind of like how i gave up my son for my mother to adopt because i knew that i would be homeless for most of my life and have to hustle to survive leaving me unable to do it myself.

i just wish id did a better job of controlling expenses and saving a bankroll because if i had 50 to 100k like most of the guys my age instead of 10k or so this would be a hell of a lot easier and i wouldnt stress out over every $100-300 swing and say things i deeply regret. i really have no idea how much money disappeared on video poker that wasnt plus ev or bad blackjack bets where i had no edge. not even counting the bets where i did have an edge. i feel a lot more afraid than i did as a kid, because i know how much the culture has changed in the last 20 years so i never want to save money anymore by riding a bus (well sometimes i do i guess but rarely) or staying in a hotel where addicts and pimps can pound outside on the door at 3am. at least i quit giving money to hookers years ago but i still wish i did if i knew someone i trust to give a good massage, and a good makeout session, and wouldnt give out my room number to anyone or invite them inside. but how can a man ever trust a woman anymore in todays culture? this isnt the 1900s.

im surprised no one in the casinos ever mentions my blog anymore, i kept expecting someone to say hey what are u doing here, i didnt know u flew here. but no one ever does. in a way its nice to be far more anonymous too. and i actually did win $105 in $2-5 a day or 2 ago.

I'm lucky my bankroll isnt $12,600

as i relax in my room before i fall asleep, after ive checked out of one hotel and into another hotel a little bit early (gave the front desk clerk a $5 tip though she said it wasnt neccessary) i thought id put in a much delayed update as to how im doing since Ray returned home to Ohio. and by the way since he did he's been losing his ass due to his refusal to go up to detroit and insisting on playing in Toledo instead. and as usual, most of it went on machines instead of poker.

i got stuck tonight at one casino and left to go to a different casino down the road a bit because they usually have a much better game due to the different type of clientele who frequent it compared to the original casino i was in. in fact, though the max buyin is $300 in their $1-2 NL game, after getting stuck and taking a beat or 2 and then making some very poor calls, i was out over $500 for the night total (only thing ive done right finally is fix my sleep hours so im most wide awake to play about 8-11pm.) i hadnt fixed that in ages. one thing that would make that easier is taking a place on airbnb or vrbo or homeaway for a longer time period than a hotel, but i change cities way too much most of the time.

so the whole table agreed to let me rebuy for $2000 because otherwise i knew id never get even unless i went to a different cardroom down the road a few miles to go play $2-5 NL or PLO. and we also got an agreement from everyone in the game for a mandatory UTG $4 straddle. i tried to also get a mandatory $25 duece to seven bounty, but they wouldnt even do $10, though a few wouldve. and of course $10 isnt big enough to make it worthwhile to change how u play. i miss the game with the mandatory $100 bounty i played in last summer.

and though i dropped to about $1920 at first i eventually won a huge pot from a guy whose friend kept wanting him to lose everything in front of him so he would leave. and eventually he shoved preflop over my 3 bet with AJ and i called with AK, and it held up. no one hit anything. so i shouldve left the game then with the $2448 i had in front of me on the table.

by the time i finally quit i was down to only $2140 and i felt the 2 asians from another casino who were dealers were being quite rude laughing when i lose and the one guy seemed to be colluding with another player who was the loose guy giving him $20 back after the hand on a $30 call. so i went out to play some machines and lost over $150 playing the ocean magic machine without an edge just playing every hand, i wonder how bad the payout was when u do this? maybe micky knows. or Bill Potts.

i did run into a guy who reads my blog, who was really shocked to see me because he thought i was still hanging out in atlantic city, and then 3 of the black guys in my game got curious about my blog and asked to see it. luckily when i gave them the link, no one found anything that mightve pissed them off.

so then i went to a VBJ machine without the best rules, because it shuffles every hand and theres no surrender, but it does pay 3-2. i started winning, but after being up $300 or so on it i eventually ran into a bad spell, to where i was out over $1300 for the day. and since its not countable in any way, i was simply flat martingaling.

at least it was giving out comps. which later got used on food. and i took $1000 out of the atm so i could make a big bet to get even, totally forgetting that if i won a double down id get a w2 form. luckily i won all 3 of my bets one with a $400 double down, which is why im now in my room up the street with $15,500 instead of $12,600. and i hope to wake up to play during the prime hours which is like 8pm to 4am to play every night.

one guy on twitter even thinks im in vegas and I'm not he claims he heard a conversation between 2 black guys who were planning to rob me and says he seen me in a game and heard them talking about me. then he asked me which hotel im in because he said he has a business proposal for me and he would buy me lunch of course nothing he said was true since he couldnt seen me in vegas since im not there.

i spent way too much in the last few years because i should easily have over 50k on me at all times as much as im winning every year in poker. but theres too much money wasted on hotels, Ubers and other games. nothing on things id rather spent it on like women, massages and my health. i havent ridden city buses in ages because it feels like lower class and im too old now to still live like the poor do. ive got high standards like PPP and im lazy as fuck. i feel like i put my time in worked my whole life and deserve it since ive had the same job for 30 years now.

and the other day i got AA the first hand and im way more inclined to shove more when i get it when first sitting because i feel ill get no respect but too many called and i lost my whole stack on a flop of 88Q to 87. and it was a dealer who busted me. then he left to go to work. i dont see how anyone stays sane when their bankroll is only 150 buyins with no other income or way to replace it and they know theyll have to survive off it the next 30 years of their life. why do so many young kids who know nothing about life or poker think 20 buyins is plenty? i do remember though me turning 21 and thinking id never go broke on $500 playing $1-5 stud, and i was busted and panhandling with no way back to KS my first week in vegas.

and i think people try to start $1-3 because they dont want to play higher blinds like $2-5, but just be able to buyin $500 instead of $300. so wouldnt the best solution just be to raise the max buyin in $1-2? we did manage to do this tonight but i thought sure the floor would say no. the black guy other end of table was taking a picture of my buyin saying he never seen that much in this game before. not sure where he posted it but ive seen some guys using instagram even and its a site for little girls.

our bad habits are what keeps us from having a big roll

Almost every room i go into, seems i find a massive amount of trash on the floor next to my seat. mostly racks of course, but sometimes water bottles, etc, and food containers. I hope the staff appreciates me often cleaning it up when i run to the restroom so i wont step on it, and if not i always thank the janitor if they need under the table. even if they dont always appreciate me berating the other players for putting it there. though i annoy alot of people (by buying in short until ive been there a while and get stuck, and insisting on a seat change button immediately, and waiting for the button to pass before i come in) i feel often im one of the people at the table most good for the long term image of the game, since im not wearing sunglasses, headphones or a backpack or watching TV on a tablet or cell. most people are such dicks at the table they wont even try to give out helpful info and would rather u shut up. then feel perfectly fine taking a phone call nonstop for the next 10 minutes sometimes even in a foreign language. and then the other players always put their chairs up so high, every chair i sit in i immediately have to lower it to the floor to avoid being uncomfortable. luckily its been a week or so since ive had to pay $5 or $10 for a seat change.

and my hearing is getting so bad due to wax in my ears (as are my teeth and other medical issues) i cant tolerate peoples accents because its so hard to hear and i get very annoyed always having to repeat myself to asian people. its tough to listen to utube at times even at the highest setting and im always needing to turn fox news up to like 40 or 45 level in hotels to be able to hear it easily. i need things to be LOUD.

its funny even with the bad luck i have in the past few days (gave back about $3000, mostly in non poker losses but some was at poker) im still up about $36,200 for the year at poker, but i still highly doubt ill hit 50k for the first time ever unless i get in a ton of hours between now and the end of december. sad thing is my roll is much lower at a bit over 13k than it usually is most of the last few years. at least expenses have gone down lately, due to some assistance with Ray since we have been traveling alot and summer is over now which raises room prices a lot in the northern parts of the USA.

i still wonder if im playing bad at times too especially when im stuck and getting tired and wishing i could be ahead so i could leave. i think thats my biggest leak along with video poker (where i lost a lot recently) and blackjack. for example tonight i lost $343 in a good $1-2 game Ray suggested i move to. and he ended up winning over $700 to make up for his big loss yesterday which affects him way too much emotionally when it happens. its still really bothering me how hes so terrible out of shape and gained 60 pounds when he is only 5'6. but its cause he wont stop the horrible alcohol habit he picked up (to help him sleep) a few months ago. or wont visit the gym like he should. for some weird reason i dont eat the best either but i never gain weight in fact ive been trying to find a tighter belt and cant. i think he should return to toledo, and im still up in the air if i should too to fix a tooth. im tired of us not having a real apartment with seperate rooms. hotels dont have apt suites without a large cost.

if u want to know how to beat me at a poker table, just remember most of my allin shoves, when im down and been there all day, are with fairly weak holdings.

i see more collusion out here than ive ever seen in my life, regarding promotions and checking it down. i dont know why poker managers wont crack down on this. i think its because its usually the biggest tippers doing it. and the people putting in the most hours. i even told one manager about a guy rivering a royal a few minutes earlier as i was leaving he asked how the high hand worked, got the wrong info as to how much had to be in the pot, so he checked the river, she checked behind. he shows the royal as another person says no u need $20 in the pot, then he bets, she calls, then the dealer whose saying nothing wanting his tip calls the floor to verify and its verifies. i feel bad for the person with the high hand who just got screwed, but i dont know who it is. i told him what id seen, when i left about 5 minutes later but i doubt he cared enough to investigate. But doesnt the Bible say to speak up for those and do justice for those who cannot themselves? God helps those who arent physically or mentally capable of doing it for themselves. how is this ethical when if i grabbed someones cards and threw them into the muck or flipped up someones hole cards unethical? either things are or theyre not. and no one ever cares if someone checks it down to his buddy or to almost everyone to make sure his big stack is never at risk with another regular. and another thing people never care about is when someone slips too much on the table way above the maximum buyin. now this can cause a guy to lose a lot more than he should whose slowly built his stack. no good player wants a new guy to come in on their left with enough to cover them.

the main reason ive never got into $2-5 is because of the must move drama u dont have to deal with in the $1-2. at one table, u can select the best game, or stay in seats 2 or 3 if u wish without moving. but not so in $2-5 so tables get terribly unbalanced. plus theres no fish. all the good grinders are sitting there trying to earn their living, since its usually the biggest game in the room. even Ray is starting to realize $1-2 is looser action than $2-5 now thats hes finally getting less scared to sit with more than $100 in $1-2. no reason anyone should be scared unless theyre way ahead and theres other big stacks at the table. maybe i shouldve listened to the advice of WEC many years ago.

now that ive finally got this done, im wondering if i should walk to the poker room from my hotel or if i am too tired. i did manage to get a late checkout at noon without charge.

i lost my ID

well i got really lucky a few days ago, even though im now at only $14,900 of the $16,400 i once had it up to a week or so ago. i'd left my room across the street from Parx that morning and when i got to the Tropicana to check into my 2 free nights (email offers ive been getting for years but not valid during summer before labor day) and only monday-thurs not sunday to thursday and this week due to labor day only tues to thursday. so i booked it for tues and wed nites.

when i arrived i realized i didnt have my Louisiana state ID on me and got very concerned because i have no way to ever replace this if its missing. Ray immediately started calling the motel we just left because we knew there was no place else it could be, and the motel staff there didnt seem entirely honest. for example they were photocopying a copy front and back of another guests credit card, which isnt supposed to be done he said and that other guest wasnt too happy. and of course the whole staff was black too due to the nature of philadelphia area.

we called both twice and kept being told it hadnt been found and ray was sure they probably hadnt handed it back to me when id last updated the room for 1 more night thru priceline and left it in the photocopier. i thought she might be planning to sell it to a illegal immigrant to give it to someone to commit a crime with. so the next time we offered a reward for it of $100. wouldnt u know it about 45 minutes later one of the employees had suddenly found it supposedly in my room on the floor next to the bed. i had suggested they search there when i offered the reward just as an excuse to get them to look again but i never leave it seperately than my players cards and wouldve had no reason for it to be by the bed.

im sure she had evil plans for it and only returned it due to the reward. i didnt know ray had called and offered 100, so i offered 500, but of course i cant afford that so when we picked it up we paid 100. she didnt say nothing about me saying 500 but she had left for the day, kept it in her pocket so she would be the one at the desk the next morning when me and ray came in, so we had to wait til the next morning

and the tropicana did let me check in without the ID so i was a little shocked but heres why. i had my tropicana card and a ton of other cards in my name, plus the debit card the reservation was made in in my name, and i knew my birthdate and address they had on file for me. and Ray had his ID and of course the exact same address on his ID as mine. but i felt very lucky they let me check in. luckily it was an older white guy working the desk who i guess felt bad for us. and he did a good job trying to help as much as he could. he even found us a room with 2 beds though i couldnt find availability when i first booked.

and the ocean resort? its getting a ton of business from the promotions but essentially the wrong kind of business. nothing but nits and promo grinders and u know this isnt really the way u professionals who play for a living should be making your money from poker. u dont do it from grinding promotions with a bunch of other nits who grind for a living. u do it by searching out good tables and games where theyres a lot of loose action, such as shreveport, detroit, etc. that was the worst $1-2 NL game i ever sat in and i made it worse early on by trying to buy a pot when i shouldnt then i made some bad plays, got outdrawn once, and still paid his full house off with my flush

and i felt the regulars were laughing at me including a guy and his asian wife when he started reeling his hands like hes reeling in a fish. and i saw some really shady funny business going on with the high hand of the hour too, that the staff didnt catch and the guy at another table with queens full got screwed. one guy had a boat and they both checked the river because another guy said u dont need $20 in the pot, then someone else said yes u did, so then they bet and he told the guy hed give his $10 back and this was after theyd both showed their cards, and the floor didnt know. but he ended up getting beat by a bigger aces up than his before the hour was up. then the floor went to pay him in error, came back to get it back 10 minutes later when the real winner was wondering where his money was, and he gave it back but acted like he didnt know a bigger aaa99 was out there against his aaa66

and its not worth checking the ocean magic here because too many are doing it including one of the regulars at that table. ray quit and said its a horrible game and then went to the borgata and recovered 360 in the $1-2 PLO. it doesnt usually go but theres a big tournament in the borgata right now that lasts til sept 21. which is why there were 35 tables going at 1 am in the morning compared to 15 at parx.

so i left the poker room at ocean and went out and threw away $147 on a machine like an idiot, no wonder i never build up a decent sized roll. im at an ultimate texas holdem pit table with 2 black guys both smoking passing the ashtray back and forth to a black women both losing heavily and like most, betting big on the sucker bets and claiming thats how u make the money. so i sit in the only open seat but next to all the smoke but i really wanted to play just this game instead of blackjack. so i start winning and theyre telling me im losing money by not betting the trips bonus.

and the one guy wants to watch CNN and i tell him he wont get the truth from watching CNN only from fox he wants to hear what theyre saying about trump and i tell those guys they tell nothing but lies about trump. one guy goes broke, the woman gets mad i root for the dealer to have a smaller pair than me so i get paid on every bet and her hand qualifies to pay me, because she is staying in with cards so much worse than she should be she doesnt want the dealer to qualify when she should fold.

then she loses big almost every bet and leaves pissed bad mouthing me to a new lady who is mexican or white whod just sat and the girl who sat is drunk and very friendly and wonders why she said that to me and is looking for my help in how to play the game. so i explain why she left pissed. she gets dealt ace 8 suited where she is supposed to go 4x the bet preflop but she only had $15 behind to bet with and she had 2 $10 bets out one of which is the blind.

anyway id briefly ran it up to $565 but lost a couple big ones and quit with only $310, $10 more than id sat down with. ray came back from borgata and i met him outside at the jitney stop and we went to harrahs.

in harrahs though they still arent doing the free room promotion til much later in the month or next month, theres still good games at night. the one Ray sat in he moved from due to a drunk guy arguing and the one i was in had a drunk girl and her boyfriend who were both giving away money and laughing and it was a good table. i bought in $450 to try to double up since i was out $446 when i walked in but the floor told us soon they were fumigating the room for bugs tonight and would close the room at 3.45 so i didnt have much time. so the best game i was in had to break soon. the girl told him once if she busts out he will need to rebuy her in, and i told her that she didnt do that when he busted out earlier. then the guy spoke up and said listen to this guy, i like him, and asked me my name. once he said that she was just a hooker but it was obviously they were together and he had mentioned they worked together once.

if u dont quit this game now and stop straddling my blinds u might be leaving the game in a wheelchair

My win rate, as often happens, is much higher when i first visit a new room or when ive not been there in a long time or have no regular blog readers who frequent the room. at one point i was over $55 an hour here at Parx but now that ive logged well over 100 hours of play, its down to $29 an hour. im not anywhere close to being back to $20,000 and rereading a tons of old blogs of being in the northeast area of the country seems like most all of the time except for in the old days i was like 18k to 24k.

if Parx still had the ton of old 4 out of 6 decks shufflemaster VBJ machines they used to have when they first opened (and removed years ago) when the poker room was in the other building u might feel scared walking to at night, i wouldve played it instead. maybe i shouldve sat at the $15 minimum ultimate texas holdem table? i really miss the $2 video machine that deadwood used to have for that game.

i had some of my best luck since returning home from deadwood in the $1-2 NL games. not the $2-2 plo which i only like due to the fact the minimum buyin is only $100 here, meaning i finally feel like i can handle the variance. and the variance is still huge, i went from being up well over $400 in it today to being down over $200 extremely quickly in 2 hands. by the time i eventually quit, i was out about $450. i feel like i made a really bad play late in the session when frustrated nothing was happening and wanting to win a pot and quit. a big leak i have.

in atlantic city my biggest wins were in the $1-2, both at harrahs, borgata, tropicana and ocean resort. all the winners were in $1-2. thats obviously where i make the bulk of my $22 an hour. it sure isnt $1-3 NL which is terribly nitty and no action game. anytime a $1-3 NL starts all the tight grinders immediately move to it and maybe 1 loose aggressive guy whose main action is in making straddles but not much else and its a nitfest. while the easy money is in the $1-2. even Ray thinks the $2-5 sucks here compared to detroit.

and i noticed today on bravo ocean resort is doing some great promotions for september. for 200 hours played u will get back $500 in october. the comp rate for all games is $2.50 per hour. theres $100 high hand every hour with NO MINIMUM qualifier and often theres only 1 table going. everything theyre doing can be seen if u have bravo on your cell phone. today on labor day they were giving out $250,000 and i dont know if that was the poker room only as it sounded on bravo but thats way too high for just the 6 tables they had running so it must of been for the entire casino.

i guess what im saying is the new manager is going to give this a real try at making the room into a success. and as for Parx, the main thing it has in its favor is they allow food at the tables, they have phone chargers which work, and u can sit a little table next to it and theres a huge variety of different types of game choices and u usually get seated very quickly, which is always important to me. But at sugarhouse is where the massage girls do the best work. and Harrahs philadelphia might have looser action games than both. its right beside a big prison.

Ray is going home to detroit soon, hes not done too well here, and i think i should return too so i can fix a tooth and quit paying for motels, but i dont want to sit in the car 10 hours and i like my privacy and i think i can do well here if i stay off machines and BJ. im still about 15,300 and when i stepped off the plane from deadwood i only had about 11,800

i did go ahead and book my hotel rooms for the next 2 days in the casino and on airbnb theres still dirt cheap places to rent for a month (well compared to hotel prices) within walking distance of the poker room in south florida. but those might go up before long.

ignore the catchy title, its just to catch the readers attention and ive found that trying to steal pots greatly increases your variance either up or down. but imagine how much it would increase if u could see every other persons exact hand and steal 100 percent of pots that could be stolen.

atlantic city trip report

when visiting atlantic city and wanting to save money on hotels since the free or reduced room prices promotions apply only rarely during the summer months, dont ever take the Taffy motel to save money. yes the lady is friendly who runs the motel but she will clean your room without permission between the hours of 1 o clock in the morning and 730am and u will find it clean upon return and all your remaining uneaten box of crackers missing. and your TV will not work, you will have no internet at all (only time in years i stayed in a place without it voluntarily to save money) and the microwave will be very tough to operate. theres much better motels down the road for about $100-200 a week more than the $344 a week Ray and I paid including the $44 in tax. if we wouldnt needed 2 beds it wouldve been $250 plus tax. i never realized how much more motels cost when booking 2 beds.

and the new ocean resort casino is nice, but very little business and i didnt get a free room like most are because i didnt have a local high level card to tier match. cards from far away do not count. but i did find action packed players in there and i turned $300 into $1119 once. and the good news, u can only straddle UTG by NJ state law, so the loose straddling cant hurt my position any.

and i won many other places in atlantic city playing $1-2 NL, and in fact it was all i played. i am now back to around $15,000 even after paying for hotels, gas, tolls, and other expenses. Ray paid some of the expenses but i paid at least half. he didnt do so well because he wasted too much on liquor, food, (i ate dirt cheap in the grocery stores instead of eating out) and on video keno. i think my readers will be proud i played no video poker or blackjack since leaving deadwood. none in detroit either. only slots i played were the ones Mickey showed me that were plus EV at rare occasions.

Ray thought the action sucked in atlantic city, but he spent a lot of time in $2-5 NL in the borgata which had poor action and the $1-2 wasnt so good there either, though its the only room with phone chargers. i thought the action was great in the other rooms like Trop, ocean, and harrahs. this one game i played in rob vegas poker wouldve loved. it involved an 68 year old drunk female dealer from hollywood florida, who now works as a nurse for an 83 year old man and only deals one weekend a month to keep employed. she kept telling the middle eastern guy about 35-45 how good looking he was, and moved to sit by him. and she lost well over $1000 and kept rebuying. she paid off my 3 tens with only K4 on a flop of KT5 turn 10 and river 2. so i got about $175 from her. But when he finally lost back the whole $750 he was once winning and he asked her to rub his nuts for good luck she got mad. and said shes a married woman. but before that she said she was moving to rub his leg. though i doubt she did

i recognized a lot of faces in almost every poker room though i havent been here for almost 2 years. rooms still have the same regulars whove been coming here for years. some black guy remembered me and i didnt have a clue who he was. and on the jitney i ran into Fran, an old man now, but he used to be a flamboyant figure with a cigar, an old time 20-40 stud player. now hes playing $1-2 NL.

and theres a shocking high number of ocean magic, golden egypt plants vs zombies and alladin machines here, plus a few Harleys. the only problem is most are being heavily watched by a group of asian guys constantly watching for people to get up. the vast majority of them are in the Trop or the Hard rock. but not watched so heavily i didnt hit $183 once on ocean magic and a few smaller wins other places. but like most cities usually nothing is lit and if its on the max bet and the ones beside it on the max bet, it means the hustlers already checked it and left it on the 75 lines times 5 or the 500 credits. if its something else then maybe a real customer just left it.

i as always, used my nitty image to steal pots, and of course, i cannot stop myself from showing the bluffs. im still on track to win exactly 50k this year at poker if i win $4000 a month each of the final 4 months. which is an awful lot for mostly $1-2 NL, so i feel im not too bad of a player if i can stick with nothing but poker. its good to be out of deadwood and back to more poker and long hours of nothing but grinding poker. over a month without blackjack or video poker is pretty much a record for me.

roadtrip report

when traveling, the most important thing to do ive found out is to LOWER THE EXPENSES. the reason my roll is so much less than it was about 5 months ago is all the expenses i was paying in deadwood, (and of course losses in colorado on live BJ). if someone is beating the game for $100 a day and i was averaging over $4000 per month in the first half of the year, they will eventually go broke if theyre paying out just as much in expenses. imagine though, the difference if theyre only paying $40 a day in expenses.

at first i thought airbnb would help reduce hotel costs and it did, but even then the costs got way too high due to the sturgis rally. and of course theyres often no place to book on airbnb and airbnb always shows every place within 50 miles out and not just the ones the closest so its difficult to sift thru or know whats close. at least it does this for rooms in less populated areas instead of just the big cities.

and at first i thought my safety would be an issue on airbnb, since i was worried people would find out by google searching their potential tenant i supported Trump. and i thought airbnb was so liberal just like Uber, Lyft and OK cupid that it would cause serious issues for my comfort in others homes. and when i had no previous history of staying in others homes, i thought my booking requests would be declined, but i finally used it for the first time in deadwood. and one time, i was quite surprised by another advantage machine and BJ player (with a book on shuffle tracking) also staying at the airbnb and he even knew some of those on my twitter. but the first time i stayed with the lady who was my host, she didnt like the fact i left dirty dishes in the sink to soak, but i thought i was doing the right thing by soaking them in dishwater and not leaving them sitting out dirty. plus she was offended i asked the housekeeper what she would charge to wash laundry so id not need to visit the laundrymat. i thought maybe the housekeeper and her were in a gay relationship as personal as she took it or was worried id turn her into ICE. but as of now shes giving me good references and will let me book anytime i want.

traveling with a friend really helps to lower hotel and transportation expenses, because then i dont need Uber.

so Ray and i are on a little road trip and surprisingly enough, no ones said a word to me that theyve known me and this is rare, usually someone will before now. at least in the past. especially since theres a ton of players who play here regularly who read the blog in the past.

we have played both $1-2 and $1-3 NL and $2-2 PLO and i hate the time charge in it. so does Ray. but the $100-500 buyin is a bit lower which helps. and not having to bring it in for $5 helps too. so it lasts a long time and theres tons of preflop limpers who never raise. such a passive table.

but it bugs me how many always run it twice, even 3 times which really slows the game down and yet im paying the time. i did agree to running it twice on my own allin though, when asked, but 3 times is crazy, it causes the part to make a lot of extra work for the dealer really slowing it down. at least u cannot straddle unless its UTG.

the first night, we found a very loose $1-3 nl about 3 am with only 2 games running in a different room and Ray has never been in ANY of these rooms before. there u could straddle and they were alot. quite a lot more action than detroit or vegas, or anywhere else.

finally about $600 up for the month of august, at least im finally up something far less than normal but remember on the 10th i was still in the hole for august. holding onto to a little over 12k is all. 

and another nice thing, though theres no where in the casino where they offer free beverages sitting out, at least the waitress puts straws in the coffee without u needing to ask. oh and lids too. and our hotel is an easy walk.

Ray is glad hes not doing no more driving thru heavy construction (most of Ohio was) and is why he likes to drive at night. and now theres about 12 poker rooms to play at within 150 miles, so theres multiple choices of games. more so than detroit. he says he has never been here before in his life. not even when he drove for Greyhound since it was mostly west coast runs denver to vegas.