$23,900

 I know my rolls been this low before, but i certainly cant remember when, (was definitely well over a year ago) and it certainly wasnt in 2023 dollars either. And inflation didnt exist before Biden and the Ukraine. 

Even Trump brought us inflation, because of his ill management of Covid and poor hiring practices.They gave out a lot of government checks that shouldve never been given out. People shouldve stayed working.  i think only De Santis and RFK couldve done things right, and i dont fully trust De Santis to keep us out of war either. 

The only people who should be getting govt aid, (not those who dont belong in this country) but those who are truly too disabled to hold down a regular job. and people shouldnt be made to do belittiling slave labor like many disabled people are required to do for minimum wage. anyone who cant learn how to drive needs free transportation and housing for life to avoid a horrible struggle and mental health stress, and those who arent severly autistic should get no assistance at all. and then u should get assistance no matter how much money u have in the bank because unless u keep 5-20k in the bank at all times, how are u supposed to live and pay your bills?

i would almost guarantee u almost every player in my PLO games has that much in the bank (or more likely bitcoin or stocks) because otherwise they wouldnt play as horribly loose as they do by button straddling, and they wouldnt buy in so deep. i dont think everyones money management is that poor to only keep like 5 buyins when i strive for 100-300 buyins at all times. 

I lost so bad at Empire the day before i went to Elite social today (both of whom take a heavy rake which is illegal of course) but in the past ive won more times than not. and at Elite the PLO bomb pots are $15 and up the street theyre $5. and id really like to play bomb pots for higher amounts since thats where most of my wins in the past came from. (still curious how i would do in the los angelos game, but feel i cant afford it). and then i lost another $800 or so today at elite. (i thought it was less until i came home and counted the money). 

-------2 days later-----

Instead of booking a flight like i shouldve, (unable to decide where to) or getting into a more affordable hotel for $400 a week instead of $600 a week, i ended up paying for 2 more nights tonight which ill have to go into the office sometime before noon but after the day shift gets in the office at 8. sure does mess up my sleep hours and then theyll probably insist on housekeeping cleaning it at least once this week too. i still think i should find another hotel, but its a horrible pain in the ass to move your things when u have to do it by Uber then maybe wait 2 hours with 3 suitcases before the next hotel lets u check in at 3pm. 

and i won $260 or so today and $662 yesterday. yet im still below 25k. i destroyed my roll so bad due to all the times i played online BJ and lost, the most recent being the $2500 loss earlier this week. when Lightning left town i was still 27k plus. And hotels are constantly going up. especially in Reno when theyre not free, and so many cities such as those in Washington state, Montana, and New Hampshire are completely unaffordable. and Florida will definitely be that way too once hurricane season ends. thats really the only good time to go to Florida is during hurricane season. 

Plus i need more food again now too since im trying to buy no bigger supply than what my hotel is paid up for (in case i need to move or get a flight). 

You will probably enjoy Lightning36s trip report more than mine

 or maybe u will just feel like his is more honest about how poker in houston actually works. 

my bankroll has gone down an awful lot lately, a lot of it due to the $3500 i lost online playing Bj about a week ago. but ive had a lot of uber and hotel costs lately too. (the extra $12 a night i paid for a sofa bed for lightning, the $100 i reimbursed him on his car rental costs, and then switching phone companies when he took me to the Tmobile store, etc). 

were i not to have lost all that online BJ, i wouldve lost over $500 of it anyway, since bitcoin dropped over 10% since i had $5400 in bitcoin (of which $1200 was later sold). ive only got about $450 worth of bitcoin now. and that would have been over 500 lost without me playing anything online at all.

bitcoin went all the way down from the 30s to the 25000s

i havent been doing well at poker either since lightning arrived in Houston thursday night. i lost $821 the final night he was in town, and he was so worried id lose $2645 that night instead of $821 he came back to check on me once he finished eating at the restaraunt up the street to get me out of there. and then yesterday afternoon, once id had a good rest, i returned and lost $624 more.

then i had another good rest and played from 330am to 5am  this morning, and finally got back $322 of it. im glad the game was breaking because at one point i had over $100 more. i wouldve lost it all back and PLO wasnt even going only NL. sundays are dead, the night before there were 3 games going at that time in the middle of the night. 

But in houston a lot of the nl games still have 1 hand of PLO per NL orbit with a double board PLO bomb pot too. 

Lightning agreed with me that Heb is better grocery store. it was his first time ever inside of one. but i didnt buy enough food, i am soon going to be out but i couldnt because ill need to switch to a smaller room once my week is up so im no longer paying $12 a night extra for a couch. and i might just leave town or switch back to the other area of Houston i stayed in last year. 

The players way out in this suburb of houston appear to be far better players. i ran into AA with KK and KK when i flopped 2 pair with KT suited. seems like 1 guy always had a monster when he raised and im not used to that. usually i dominate the raiser. 

i am getting tired of texas poker policies though. im sick of people always button straddling when it makes me act first. because i have to fold everything i normally wouldnt in the blinds either that or call a massive raise out of position with an inferior hand. the BS almost always raises. and another really annoying thing about texas poker is always having to ask to please change the music so i dont have to listen to nonstop profanities masquerading as music. i like the good old music i grew up with, michael jackson and Cyndi Lauper. 

Plus the beat is annoying as hell. i dont like no music with a beat. 

i was really surprised that lightning doesnt care for Houston poker and i think his large loss this week played a big roll in that. he says he prefers games where the people buyin short for $300 max(no $1000 buyins in 1-3) and where they wont raise him preflop with garbage, but only when they actually have a hand. i tell him thats not how u make money and he said he doesnt try to play to win money. 

the only game he really cared for was when he jived with the owner at a little tiny club near spring, so far north its not even on poker atlas because its so small. but he won a small amount there. i didnt, but the previous visit i did quite well there. and they do a much lower rake. so many places in texas have 10 and up to 15 rakes which arent even legal but that doesnt stop so many rooms from doing it. only the houston area rooms though. they definitely crack down in the other cities other parts of the state and no room in san antonio, austin, or dallas would ever consider risking trying it. 

i am a little concerned also about 1 more thing. seems the cost of hotels at least in the area i used to stay are slowly going up in price. the only ones cheaper are where i didnt feel comfortable staying at. also my last stay on airbnb was in el paso where i was given a bad review so i hope i wont have a harder time using it again. 

that was mainly because i never returned to el paso to clean the place so they said i was messy. and they never got the keys back either. 

i got thrown out of the doghouse tonight

 we all know that i dont order food in a poker room. Not even when the food is "free" or "free using comps". but when i was in shreveport for a while i was actually staying in the casinos hotel. and that meant no microwave in the room, and no freezer. and the fridge was very tiny. and as much as i was getting in comps per hour for food, i pretty much felt i had no choice. so i began using some for food. 

now part of the time i was in Shreveport i was staying at a place that had a full size fridge with a freezer, but i moved out because i started worrying about having too much cash on me due to there not being a way to deposit into Bank of america or wells fargo in shreveport. and i didnt want to worry about the wrong person knowing where i was staying and people busting the door down in the middle of the night. so i started paying a little more to stay in the casino. not as much more as you would think because i got him to give me really good deal, but he said he could only do it for a very short term and then id need to be out again. 

i was frantically looking for people to give me zelle the whole time i was in shreveport and i found even 1 or 2 i thought could be trusted to do cash app. (always worry someone will reverse it by claiming they got hacked). its only safe with zelle. zelle is like bitcoin, it cant be reversed. 

so i bought a greendot card at walmart and then i had more than 1 way to add money at walmart. i could do both 500 max cash app at walmart and another 500 max greendot. but neither are a good solution for those wishing to store large sums, both have a limit of 500 and 1000 a week. 

Vince wondered why i decided to leave Shreveport and pay $400 for Uber to Houston when i was doing so well there. (actually the only reason i was really doing well was because of winning close to $2500 in bitcoin since i bought $2100 worth of bitcoin almost a month ago). i was losing all the time in their 10-20 omaha hilo game, so much so that i offered the other players $500 if they ever caught me playing that game (in that casino) ever again, and i never played it once since i said this to the table. 

But i was sick and tired of not being able to deposit cash into my bank and my bank got smaller every week because the hotel wouldnt let me pay the bill in cash at checkout. the casino said they absolutely do not accept any cash. so i left the area, and i was also getting tired of only 1 boat there allowing bomb pots. and as far as $1-3 PLO? the game i make almost all my money in in texas? it never goes in shreveport. only got to play once in 5 weeks. all they have is $2-5 or $5-5 PLO with a $500 min buy in both games. 

speaking of Vince u can ask him when u see him dealing graveyard at the Horseshoe in vegas, but he really enjoyed his vacation at Rays house in Toledo. he was there a whole week, and they visited Michigan, Sandusky OH, and a private poker club (similar to the ones in TX) but with mostly tourneys and way less cash games. and him and Ray played 2 tourneys and Vince was the staker. Ray actually reached the final table in 1, but not the money. 

Now as for the story about being thrown out of the doghouse, the doghouse is the name of a cardroom in the Houston area. its quite a ways out from most of the rooms ive played at in the past, but it had some really good promotions i wanted to take a shot at. and being so far out its tough to find an Uber if u wait too late after midnite. Houston is a very large area. you know how in reno u never will pay more than $20 to go from one end of the metro area to the far opposite end? well in Houston that might be $60 from the far NW to the far Southeast. and an hours drive. 

so what u really need around here is a friend with a car. and i am afraid to trust new people i havent been close to already for the past 30 years or so. so i dont have anyone in the area im close enough to. 

if u know how to fight or carry a gun on you, then it doesnt matter how little a time period youve known this person. but this isnt the case with me. 

also if u know how to fight and carry a gun on you, u can stay at motels with doors to the outside costing $300 a week instead of having to be in one luxurious and indoors, costing $700-900 a week. 

remember in the previous blog i mentioned why i left Houston? and about how someone was bitching about a $15 tip since he claimed others wouldve tipped $25-100?

well these guys (and the owner who often plays in the PLO with his wife) have seen im a little wierd due to my autism and emotionally get worked up easily. especially when forced to seat change to the middle of a new table from my original table where i was in the 3 seat because of a must move rule. (this was the day before). 

i love bomb pots and am frustrated so few states allow them in live games. for this is what makes poker fun and worth playing instead of a drudgery of hard joyless work. And not only do bomb pots make the pots a lot better, i wish we could get a mandatory $10 2-7 bounty in all the games too. (but of course no one will ever agree) that way u never know if someone raising has a real hand, or just wants to steal the blinds for the extra $80 from the other 8 players. (and is why it must be $10 instead of $5. $40 instead of $80 just doesnt make the raise with 7-2 worth the risk). and the only time people would ever agree is for $5 not $10. 

No one wants to make changes to the game, because they dont want to do anything that takes them out of their comfort zone. its the same reason people will agree to a button straddle, but not an UTG straddle. Instead all they do is buyin deep (im usually always the only one at a PLO in TX with less than $2000 in front of me) and bitch at me for playing so few pots. and Bill Potts wont come to TX because he thinks a 1-3 game with $20,000 on the table is way too small and u need a nitty vegas style Bellagio $5-10 blinds game to be able to win. 

Anyway i would love to play in an all bomb pot game here (like u can in san antonio or dallas) but only one club here has it and its a horrible game. $11 rake per hand and a ton of short stacks in the game. and its the ONLY game in all of texas filled with short stacks. it seems people are scared of playing a big stack in a bomb pot game, while they are totally comfortable with it in a regular PLO or NL game. Or maybe its because at the place that offers an all bomb pot game regularly the game is full of "house players".

this being said, i want to make SURE i get to play the one bomb pot per orbit on the dealer change. i used to only play the bomb pots where i had a positional advantage but some players give u a hard time if u do this, and others dont ever play the bomb pot, even if theyre on the button (which is tremendously stupid on their part).

and this club, unlike all the other clubs i played bomb pots in, they were doing either $6 or $12 bomb pots. But the reason the bomb pot wasnt $5 or $10 was because they were putting in the extra for the dealer. so the dealer either made an extra $9 or $18 on the hand. and it was mandatory or else u couldnt be dealt in the bomb pot.

now i have a real problem with a tip being mandatory and i especially dont like the policy of an upfront tip from all the losers so the winner wont have to tip. i hate this policy in tourneys where theres a $10 dealers fee additional too. 

so the dealers and players were already bitching at me over tips. 

and i wasnt in a good mood because id lost my first buyin early with T9TQ double suited and had rebought a few times and was eventually in the game for $834. 

and then when i finally won 2 3rd of a huge pot, i and seat 4 were positive the dealer made a mistake in dividing up the pot and the rest of the table was pissed i wasnt going to let myself be shorted and finally we found out i got paid correctly from the floorman after he had double checked the camera. (the owner was at the table, but didnt want to get involved). 

i wouldnt have even made a lot of money on that hand had i asked to run it twice. but i asked to run it 3 times and the other player agreed. 

and not only that it took AA99 single suited to win. all my lower hands id had all day were useless.

that pot got me back to $801 to where i was finally stuck less than $50 but they were pissed off when i didnt tip. 

i didnt feel obligated to i was still stuck and it was the only pot id won. 

then a little while later i got in a pot with the owners wife in it and after the hand, and us splitting a pot, i had $856 on me (and for the first time was $22 ahead). i wouldve given the dealer a tip that time of $1 since i hadnt the previous hand, since i was now unstuck finally and he had dealt me a piece of a pot twice, but i didnt.

here is why. the odd dollar which was supposed to go to me being in front of the button, he just put in his tray. had he given it to me, id have gave it back to him. now that was wrong of him unless that really is the house policy. 

Then i won another pot a short time later with a different dealer and i was finally up over $200 for the day. and the owners wife started bitching about me "only" giving the dealer $1 and said it wasnt nearly enough. now the owner and his wife they were very rich people and so it seemed like everyone else was at the table but me. 

so i got quite mad and started speaking about how awful it is that the dealers in TX are way overpaid compared to how little my friends who are dealers are making in NV and other states and how in those other states people get fired for not being thankful over every dollar. and how i wish i could take these dealers money and give it to those who deserved it. and the owner said i couldnt be speaking to his wife that way and forced me to leave and said not to come back. his wife was asian so that probably is why. a lot of guys get an asian wife because they want a possession they own instead of an equal partner like a normal white or black american would be. he a lot of times thought she would lose if he put her in for too much and is why he thought she should be in 1-3 instead of 5-5 the other day (before i knew he was the owner) and she played a lot of hands i sure wouldnt play. Had his wife not been asian i dont think he wouldve been so mad. 

i dont know where ill play now since my hotel is in the wrong part of town. guess im stuck with some high Uber fees for a bit. its a shame because the promotions were good there that Mickey (not the Mickey u know but a local on facebook) told me about back when i still played a different club he said that club was ripping me off and to try the doghouse instead. also this is about the 2nd nicest hotel ive ever stayed at for a price unbeliveably low. like i said Houston is by far the cheapest place in the country to live. so much cheaper than Vegas. thats why its so unfair to those working in Vegas they dont get tipped nearly what the locals tip here 

most of the locals playing are dealers at the other clubs, its why they tip so much. dealers here make 3 times what dealers make in any other state and yet only pay half as much in housing and gas costs.