I got staked by Team Moshman, and failed….new start to online poker I think

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Well, This is my graph on Black Chip for 10nl and 25nl.....

I got stacked by team Moshman a few months ago and came out with a bang....then I honestly don't know what happened. I did get coolered a bunch, probably tilted more than I needed too and then made some technical playing errors, but not a gross amount, then ran kind of bad too. I feel damn guilty I didn't turn a profit for the stake, but I can't beat myself up too much because I tried. I quit the stake and they accepted (I'm sure they were ready to quit me, lol) and told them I needed a fresh start, so that's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to start again on 10nl and keep you guys posted.

I'm going to try to use the Jared Tendler Adult Learning Model and Inchworm stuff and the playing/learning process to approach poker from now on. But to be honest I still need to absorb and understand what he was talking about. One thing I know is that he said not to try to learn more than one thing at once....Not sure how I'm going to do that. Lets say I want to focus on Pre-Flop play like 3-betting for instance.....does that mean when I do a session review and mark hands that I shouldn't post or think about any hands unless they dealt with me 3-betting or having the opportunity to 3-bet, or If someone does a leakfinder on me I can't focus on anything except pre-flop observations regarding 3-betting? Dunno. I have to think about that. See what I mean? I totally agree learning one thing at a time until it becomes unconsciously competent is good for the reasons he describes in his book...and I'm absolutely certain that has been a major downfall in my understanding of poker because I have a tendency to act like a monkey on crack. One day I'm MTT, one day I'm 6-max, one day I'm looking at High Stakes Poker on T.V....whatever, you get the picture. Gonna go make a 2 tabling member vid now.

-TTYSoon, peace.

The final word on Vegas, 2 Books

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Well, I better get back to blogging again, I left Vegas in July and moved back to Georgia and sort of fell into a mood funk. My temp dealing job at O'Sheas and the Flamingo was over. Between that and Black Friday my online activity went out the window. Hopefully I'll keep the blog consistent now since DTB is my fav web site, I'll probably be posting in the video threads again in a couple of weeks.

Vegas is a great place to be if you are not in the industry imo. No way in hell am I going to ever deal again. First off, I want to play at least one 1k event this year at the wsop. Can't do that if I go back and deal.... 90% of the people working in the poker industry have no soul for poker and that really turned me off. They do it as work, but don't truly love the game. This goes from the Card Room Manager, down to the brush person. Now I said 90%, there are some who appreciate the beauty of poker. Actually that is a little harsh, I'd say a good portion of poker room employees do have a passion for the "Rules and Procedures" and doing their job well.....but NOT for the game.
It's just a job. Wouldn't matter to them if the flop was 3 dice.

The last couple weeks of dealing were pretty fun, we had some fun games going with some EPT champs, Mark Vos, Danny Stern stopped by, Aaron Jones possy, Whitelime, and some others. They didn't care, they were flinging poo for fun at the 200nl tables. The first thing i told Dani Stern when I saw him was, "Man you lost a lot of weight!" lol, he had an alcoholic beverage in his and gave me a look like, "Gee thanks..." But he was a cool guy.
By far the person who I met who was the most passionate about poker was Elky. This dude LOVES poker. His eyes light up and he'll talk to you about shit, you don't need to ask him. He was playing the 10k Omaha Hi/Lo and I went talking to him. If I didn't leave, he wouldn't have stopped talking about cards. lol. That was kind of neat. (this is all stream of consciousness I know, but I haven't eaten yet and I have a White Mocha Juicing me up...) Devilfish was a nice guy too, he puts on this bad boy thing but that's all bs, he's just a nice guy and appreciates anyone who knows who he is, lol. It seems like most of these t.v. personalities just put on an image for the cameras but in real life they are different people. I think maybe Johnny Chan may be the reverse though, seems to me he is nice on T.V. but turns douche in real life...but don't quote me on that, I may be entirely wrong.

Yeah, as far as playing in Vegas, I dunno...Compared to California I really have no idea, but I don't think Vegas is the poker Mecca anymore, at least not for super duper high stakes games. Caesar's entertainment/Harrahs' does throw good tournaments but as far as grinding cash games, imo it's the worst place to go play. Highest Rake, lowest rewards. Better of playing at Bellagio, Wynn, Aria and Venetian. And of course Wynn and Venetian have good tourney series too, Deepstacks for Venetian and Wynn Classic.

As far as blackjack goes, that shit is probably unbeatable in todays environment, and even if it is, the variance is so huge it's not even fun anymore. I put in about 150 hours at Boulder station playing the Hi Opt II count into their double deck game. I think I probably broke even with comps, or maybe lost at most 200 dollars. To see if a certain win rate can be held I'd have to play more, but that's not happening at this point geographically.

I bought Q-Tips book at the gamblers book club in las vegas, Hole Card confessions and read it every time I was eating at a buffet. Pretty good book, Bell Range, Flat Range, Polarized Range It's pretty useful and I enjoy reading it.

I purchased Nathan BlackRain79's micro stakes book last night. I just gleaned over it and it looks like plenty of good strategy for micro games and covers pre-flop to river play and hud/psychology/game selection things. Looks good, have to get down to reading it. He also has bonus material and a private forum where book purchasers can post hh to him or questions, so that's a perk of buying the book too.

-OK guys, gotta go eat, ttysoon!

Vegas Update, Insert Link for Brad Booth Photo, and Response to Hunter from Last Blog

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Yeah Hunter, Brad was a super cool dude, he had such a great attitude and really enjoyed socializing with everyone, I didn't tell him I saw a video of you beating the snot out of him HU though, lol.

[IMG]http://i52.tinypic.com/15nmaae.jpg[/IMG]

Vegas Continues to be great, think I'll head down to RIO to start scoping things out at the wsop. I'm not rolled to play any events so I'll just go to enjoy the experience and hopefully bump into some names and get some autographs. I can't even play any events anyhow since I'm an employee. I did pass the wsop audition, but I'm not allowed to deal there because I filled in at O'Sheas for other dealers, that's the way it works at all Caesars properties.

Somehow I'm finding a way to destroy the limit hold'em games. I'm getting used to peoples ranges and different player types. I made appx. 250 dollars in a 2-6 spread limit hold'em game the other day. Imo that's quite a feat with a 5 dollar rake(not all places have 5 rake, some have 4), drink and dealer tokes. The take in low limit games is huge I suppose, so I'm happy to be beating the games right now. The live players really suffer short handed because they are not comfortable expanding their ranges and playing against "Aggressive" players.

I'm ready to drop a bomb on Stations Casinos Franchise. I've scoped out their Blackjack games and found a very nice chink in their armor. It's a 2 deck with about 66% penetration, Double any 2 cards, Double After Split, Re-Split Aces up to 4 times, Dealer Hits soft 17. I have my basic strategy set up and tailored perfectly for the game and I've memorized my "illustrious 18" strategy adjustments based on the count. All I have to do now is go to work and I'll let you know the results, a 1-8 bet spread will get them. I can probably expect a 1% advantage in my favor in this game, and more if I get up and take a piss or get something to eat or take a walk on negative counts.

-keke, ttyguys later.

Funnest Day in Vegas Yet, Met Brad Booth, Kicked the Sh*t out of 2-4 limit at Imperial Palace.

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Yo, had a good day today, was fun as hell. Started a dealing shift at O'Sheas at around 12:00 a.m. and every nl game I dealt was fireworks galore so that piqued my interest. Halfway through the shift Brad Booth walks in and I say, "Yo, you Brad Booth?" He said yeah, and we started. He bought into the game I was dealing, 2-6 spread limit with a single 2 dollar blind. He tipped for a round of drinks for the table and he started playing. He bought in for 100 bucks just to f* around I suppose and he tryed check raise bluffing the river for something like 80 some dollars, lol. I said, "Brad, you can't pull a Phil Ivey 1 million dollar check raise, this is limit hold'em" Friggin' Hillarious. He was a real nice guy.

I tried to upload photo we took together but I get some apache parent directory error.

Anyhow I went to go play some poker at Imperial Palace next door and netted a 202 profit after 5 hours, this includes after tipping the dealer and the waitress. I finally booked a decent sesh.

-Ok, Peace out, ttyguys soon.

Vegas Update Part 11?

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

I haven't blogged forever but I'm finally in the mood to do it.

I eventually did get a job at O'Sheas/Flamingo dealing on the strip. Not bad for a start and not bad for this economy and not bad considering the massive competition and out of work dealers. Unfortunately it's a temp job that could lead to perm work, but even management doesn't know if positions will open until after the series is over. Thankfully I have an interview in the morning at Station Casinos, so if I grab that, I'll be sitting pretty. Money wise dealing poker is pretty good. There are some hours where I approach 40 dollars an hour, but that isn't the usual because you are in dead spreads at times, and most days you only work 6.5 to 7 hours. It's a thoroughly enjoyable job though. Time flys, the only bad thing about the job is when you have to take a piss lol.

I bought a cheap scooter for 360 bucks and that's been getting me around. I have been taking the bus for 4 months and that hell is finally over! I'm basically a half ass scooter mechanic now as I've figured out how to change the oil, spark plug, clean the air filter and replace the drive belt. Pain the ass, I had to go buy all the tools and learn how to do it but I did.

Vegas is vegas dude. If I didn't like poker or casinos this place would be a shit hole to live in imo except for some of the nice suburbs.

I've met tons of people while dealing, french people, u.k. people, australians, germans, italians, swiss, canadians. It's fun to chat and meet all these different cultures.

I'm excited to see the series starting up soon, when I'm off work I'm going to head over to the RIO and see if I can rail and meet some of the celebrities.

As far as poker goes lol, I've basically stopped playing since I got out here. I'm a bankroll nit and I won't take a night of tips and go sit in a 200nl game because I'm under rolled...so I've never been a gambler, I'd rather not play unless I'm comfortable.

...but anyhow, I'll keep you guys posted, but basically things turned out all right. If I go permanent with this stations job I'll move my wife out here, if not I'll play it by ear during the series and see what happens.

-peace out.

Vegas Update Part 10

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Well, things are bittersweet right now on this cold Vegas night as I'm blogging outside.

Lets start with the bad....
-My finances are exhausted almost completely.
-I opened my stupid big mouth at school and now there will be a few more dealers going to audition for the same job I'm gunning for.
-I just generally feel like shit and have a cloud of depression over me.

Ok, now the good.
-I was hired for a 4 day wpt amateur event at Tropicana for April
-I did get hired to work the wsop
-I've auditioned at O'Sheas on the strip and I have a good shot at getting the job imo. (this is the one I was talking about above). I may get placed at O'Sheas or Flamingo if I get hired.
-Just submitted an application for Eastside Cannery.
-I may get a chance to audition at Red Rock for a 1 month tourney if they let me when I show up on Monday.
-I'm getting better at dealing.
-I'm getting better at poker.

In a couple days I'll be offline at DTB because I can't afford the re-curring subscription as I need the money for food, but as soon as I have some more cash I'll re-subscribe in the control panel.

I've been a super eager beaver hitting the streets hard for work and survival since I've out here, so I have to be proud of myself, but on the flipside waiting for people to call me back, the competition and just barely getting by is taking a major toll on my morale. I don't think I'll have much more to blog about for about a week, and then after I re-subscribe I'll be back.

Oh, and thanks Qtip for that little discussion on the ck/r bluff with the gutter in your vid thread, it opened my eyes up a bit to some errors in my thinking.

-peace out, ttysoon!

Vegas Update Part 9

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Well, I got a position with the WSOP as a backfill dealer. So technically I made it. I'll be dealing cash games and some tournament play during the series. I messed up a little in the audition so I didn't get one of the top spots, but I think I did ok despite the tremendous amount of nervousness I had during the audition. I dealt 4 games for my audition, NL Hold'em, Pot Limit Omaha/8, Seven Stud 8, and 2-7 triple draw. I have a gaming card now and I am hired by "Rio-WSOP". So I now have my first job in the gaming industry. I'll be starting around May 27th or so.

Even better news is this. Tropicana is building a new poker room and they called me in for an audition on Monday, so if I get this gig I'll be flying really high. It will be a full time job I believe so I'll be set if I pass my audition and get hired. I don't know what else will be entailed in the interview process, but I'll be auditioning for certain in the training room of the HR department.

All in all everything is good and thanks to everyone reading the blog and giving me support. I'm somewhere near Red Rock Casino right now baby sitting a cat in a dudes apartment I met at the dealer school.

I have tons of computer work w/updating my resume now and on the online job sites and I have to practice for my audition on Monday so I'll drop in soon!

Vegas Update, Part 8

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Man I haven't played much at all lately and I miss it. I also miss getting on drag the bar. I've been real busy so I haven't had a chance to get online hardly at all. Chipsteela responded to one of my posts and I was super happy, lol. I haven't even had a chance to read it and digest it yet.

Well, I found some awesome blackjack. I was at Palace Station today and I found a double deck game where blackjack pays 3 to 2 and the penetration was way over 50%! The only thing I could think in that moment was, "Dear God, the second I have 1 to 2k I'm going to come to here and beat them up so bad that green felt is going to light on fire". That game was so juicy I couldn't believe my eyes. I also found another great 3 dollar 2000 max bet double deck at Sam's Town tonight. The penetration wasn't as good, but it was still a nice target.

I was at the Palace Station buffet tonight and was joking around with 2 of the guys working in the food line. They had hats on that said, "We love locals." That is the Station Casino motto. I told them their hat should say, "Locals Suck" Lmfao. They got a kick out of it. There are some miserable mother fuckers out here, I promise you. Not everyone, but definitely SOME. They agreed.

I'm going to play a tourney at Flamingo at 2 p.m. tomorrow, that will be a blast, I hope the structure is good, I'm going with one of the guys from the school. A few of the newer students have latched on to me because I've been taking extra time to help them with their dealing. So they've been driving me around and giving me goodies. This student is buying me into the tourney tomorrow, he's an old guy and he is super cool. I totally enjoy shooting the shit with him. I got into a small verbal scuffle with one of the other students today. Today is a practice day with no instructor. I showed up any simply asked him what he was doing. He had some stacks setup etc... He said, "I don't wan't to talk about it, I want to be alone..." I said, "Ok" and started setting up on another table. Then I was thinking, "Wtf was that?" I got up and said, "You are a little asshole do you know that?" He agreed.

As I'm typing this blog I'm getting impatient, I gotta do some housework at station casino and eastside cannery websites with HR. I can swing by Sams Town tomorrow and talk to the room manager, I believe they are hiring. I've spent at least 12 hours filling out online applications since I got here. It's not fun, but it's worth it.

At the end of March I'll be dealing a charity tournament at Palazzo, so that will be cool, I can stick it on my resume. They'll give me 20 bucks and hour, it will be about 9 hours over 3 days.

To be honest, every one in the casino is friendly I've encountered. No one has given me a cold shoulder when I've asked for an audition, and also they tell me who I need to talk to, so that's encouraging. The room manager let me deal some Omaha to him and some dealers on a "Dead Spread" (Table with no game on it, but has a dealer waiting). That was cool too.

I watched some Omaha being dealt at Venetian and I'm really proud of myself. I personally believe I'm almost up to par with experienced dealers. If I don't get lazy I believe I can be one of the better dealers anywhere. I also notice dealer mistakes very quickly, or moves they make that are costing them time, which costs $$$$. But of course I'm still new and nothing will trump experience, so let's hope I get some But bad habits are everywhere in lots of dealers, so keeping yourself in check and questioning why your doing what your doing can make a huge difference. Some dealers are good, but they can become superb if they sharpened up a game. But of course I've seen tons of super good dealers and they are really sharp.

Aight, that's it for now, be back soon!

Vegas Update Part 8

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Finally got a breakthrough. I have an audition next Thursday at the Rio for the WSOP. Between now and then I'll have to sharpen up on some lowball and badugi. I should be cool with Razz, Omaha and Hold'em. Have to brush up on Pot Limit and practice keeping an exact count of the pot at all times. I'm sure I'll be 100% ready for the audition. I'd most likely pass it if they gave it to me tonight after I take a shower, lol.

I just bumped into Phil Hellmuth and Layne Flack and said hi. Phil was a super nice dude and wished me luck. Phil is very tall and he carries a lot of charisma. He was in the hallway of the Wynn when I bumped into him.

I can't think much right now, I have a shit ton of loose ends to tie up, but the bottom line is Thursday is do or die. If I pass the audition a lot will open up to me in addition to the series, if I don't pass I'll probably pass out, hit my head on a drink holder and die.

-peace out.

Vegas Update Part 7

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Well, things are going ok. I'll be staying out here for another month because I'm going to have an audition for WSOP. I should be able to pass the audition. From what I've heard if you have a pulse and they need dealers they take you. I'm better than a pulse though, lol. All the dealers that dealt last year are automatically grandfathered in, so I'll be competing for the extra.

Teddy the "Iceman" gave me a nice connection to a manager at the Wynn. If they need an extra person for the Wynn Classic she told me she would audition me on Tuesday. Teddy keeps insisting he's going to get me the job lol, I don't know how he's going to do that if all the spots are filled. We'll see.

Finally went downtown, it was pretty darn cool. The downtown casinos are tighter inside than the strip casinos, they have less space. Binions was my favorite. I stopped by the original poker room. Everything is modernized though, but it has a touch of the old style with the photos and posters of all the wsop champs.

I also made my way to Red Rock. That is a nice casino, it's one of the Station Casino brands. They call it Red Rock because it's in a mountainous area, and a lot of it is actually Red Rock. It's somewhere out in the suburbs.

The weather here has made me sick 2 times. It's warm during the day and then gets cold at night. The first time I was fooled because I left the house when it was warm and didn't prepare for the whiplash at night. Since I'm walking everywhere I was caught without the appropriate clothing. The second time I was just stupid

I continue to mash the micro stakes tourneys online. I've played about 10 since I was in Vegas and final tabled 3 of them, the best finish was a second place. Recently I finished 4th and 4th back to back from yesterday to today.

That's all for now, I'm waiting at Starbucks for someone to call me and give me a ride around for a bit. Ttysoon!

Vegas Update Part VI.

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Ok, Busy! Busy! Busy! I've really plowed down these last 3 days.

First off, I need to get to a magic show, they have one every night with a guy and some tigers or something, so I guess it will suffice Depending on the cost maybe a cirque de soleil or blueman group or something. I don't think I want to go see Chippendales or the Thunder Down Under....lol.

There is a resident couple in the Bally's waterside area on the main walkway. A Male and Female duck have taken up residence there. That's primo waterfront real estate! They are living in luxury! There is also a duck who has made home in the caesars palace streetside water display, lol. That's SUPER PRIMO real estate!

Speaking of Ducks, does anyone remember or know of a guy named Paul Magrill (not sure I spelled his last name right). He's the guy that goes "Quack Quack" at the poker table. There is a you tube video of him knocking Phil Hellmuth out of a tournament with a pair of 77's I believe vs. Hellmuth's overcards and Magrill says, "Off to the Races"....Well anyhow I saw this guy in the Venetian bathroom. He is the goofiest son of a bitch on the planet! He had his pants down all the way to his ankles like he was standing in his bedroom while he was taking a piss, and then he started walking to the sink without his pants pulled up. He has a huge head, and I shit you not, the size of his two front teath can put a beaver and a great white shark to shame. Give him a scuba tank, some swim fins and a file to sharpen his teeth and this guy would be the most dangerous predator on the planet.

Still no pro's at the Venetian, and no pros in Bobby's Room. I'm starting to wonder if these guys are fake, and don't really exist.

I found a decent buffet at Palace Station for the price. It's taken first place for the cheapest buffet bang for the buck. I was astonished at the amount of food one old lady had on her plate. She wasn't fat either. I asked her if she could eat it all and she told me she was trying to put on weight, lol. Someone should have told her the food at the buffet wasn't going to disappear, lol.

I finally learned how to read some Omaha 8 low hands, they were a little tricky to read when there are 4 low cards on the board, but I'm 200% better at them then I was last week.

I started asking for auditions. I filled out the employee application at Caesars Entertainment. I applied for wsop dealer and I haven't received a rejection email yet, so that's good news! I don't know if I'll get it though. I went from room to room on foot and asked for auditions, I hit up Caesars, Bellagio, Bally's, O'Sheas, Riviera, Sahara and Palace Station. No one is hiring right now, but in about 4-6 weeks everyone will be hiring due to the series. I made some good contacts and most of the room managers were helpful. I talked to the big kahuna guys at Bellagio and Caesars so that's a positive as they said they would definitely contact me, and to send them a reminder email of our meeting. I almost had an audition at Sahara today from a shift supervisor but the powers that be said to wait a couple weeks before taking auditions. The palace station guy said, "You want some advice?" I said "Yeah". He said, "Make sure you can take rake, take your time and control the game, you are the big dick at the table when you are in the box, then you'll be able to pass any audition." Sounds good to me, it's kind of what they told me in school except for the big dick part, lol.

Yeah, so, we'll see if I get a job or not, but I'm off to an aggressive start. I got a little nervous walking into Bellagio and Caesars and straight up asking for an audition. But as nice as the rooms are the managers treated me nice and weren't snooty or anything. I was waiting in the box at a table for the hiring manager at Bellagio in my black and whites and nobody cared.
While I was waiting for the hiring manager some dude called one of the female dealers a slew of curse words and she had a breakdown and was sobbing in the corner. I've heard dealers are subject to verbal abuse....se la vi.

Next is to apply to Venetian online, and every online site that the casinos have. It's better to put your application/resume online first before even asking for an audition. I think I should probably get my gaming card monday as well. The caesars guy said he couldn't audition me anyhow in a game in progress without me having a gaming card, and he must be right because he's one of the top honchos running wsop here and in Europe. But believe it or not, the jobs are not hidden. They post them online, and if they are not online, most likely they don't need anyone.

So yeah, I'll shoot next for the Venetian group of casinos, and keep up with the Caesars group(they have tons of casinos under their umbrella) and then Tropicana asap, because they are opening a new room!

I also found a pretty cool blackjack book by Arnold Snyder, "The Big Book of Blackjack" or something like that, I like it. His poker books seem suspect to me, but the blackjack books he writes are good.

I saw the best looking strip club in the world frohe highway...I didn't go in, but I've never seen a club that nice on the outside...I'm sure if I work out here my curiosity will get the best of me :-0

-Peace out, will blog more soon!

Vegas Update Part IV

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Things are coming along swimmingly, by Wednesday I'll be asking for auditions and applying at HR departments either live or online.

I dealt 7 stud today, that was decently easy, but there are plenty of nuances that are not open to the naked eye, like, what do you do if you are running out of cards, dealing the last downcard up, and some other things. But Stud went pretty smooth. I also started dipping into omaha/8 and that no doubt has to be the hardest to deal.

Now, let me assure you, if you play a limit game you will get to the river, almost every time, and you might steal a blind 1 out of 100 times, and that's if you start the hand 3 or 4 handed lol. All that aces cracked stuff and full house bonus, quad bonus stuff makes everyone flop crazy. The bad beat jackpot at Sahara is AAA66 or better cracked, so yeah, if it's capped, A6 offsuit is playing, lol. But basically everyone sucks, really. I'm not Gods gift, but i can say I have a leg up on them, lol. Oh, BTW, if a lady who is older than 50 years old check raises you on the turn...please run for the hills unless you have serious equity. I told one lady she wasn't "aggressive" so obviously she took that as a slight and a few hands later it was BvB and some guy asked for a chop and she raised and said, "Oh I'm not Aggressive!" lol, I wanted to roll on the floor and die right there. I felt like saying, "Maam, this shit is going on 10,000,0000 times an hour online, you don't know what aggressive is." But it would just fall on deaf ears.

I bumped into the "IceMan" again tonight at the Venetian and said, "Hi Iceman" I think he was playing 30-60 or something, and believe it or not I couldn't tell if it was limit or no limit, lol. 30-60 seems like a limit game to me So he didn't recognize me for a second and started into another spiel about his upcoming movie he was making and I said, "Yeah, you told me, we talked last week" He remembered me then, and we exchanged numbers, he said he wanted to put me in the movie, but I have no idea what it's about, I didn't ask. He's a super cool dude so i'm interested in looking him up some more online now.

I keep trying to look for pros but there aren't any around, lol. I thought for sure at the Venetian I'd see some because they are having a month long "Deep Stacks" tourney series with buy ins of 300-500. I thought someone would creep up, but I saw no one tonight. Just Johnny Chan the other day. You think Phil Ivey would play in his own room at the Aria, NOPE. lol.

Treasure Island is nothing to write home about, looks better on the outside than on the inside imo.

The female players I see have such serious looks on there faces most of the time. Lol, it's funny because on TV you can see the big pros laughing or chilling in some 50k pots, but these women are like SERIOUS MAN, someone raises the button and we are getting SERIOUS, lol.

Some casinos need to do a re-assessment of the cocktail waitresses. Lol, a great grandmother shouldn't be running around in tights serving me a drink, let's cap the max age at 62 shall we?

In my 20's I was expelled from Chicago land Casinos for counting cards at Blackjack. I was pretty good and put a lot of work into all my indexes, adjustments, count, kelly criterian betting, etc...the whole enchilada. So I came out here and scoped the condition of the games. Basically Card Counting has game selection as well. Penetration(how many cards are dealt out), rules (double after split, dealer hits soft 17 etc...) number of decks, all effect if the game is beatable or not, or if it's worth your time if it is beatable. Well....single deck is bs out here because blackjack pays 6 to 5 instead of 3 to 2. That renders the game unbeatable. HOWEVER. There are plenty of double deck and 6 deck shoes that can be absolutely destroyed...If I had 10-20k as a roll I'd be banned from Vegas for life withing a week. Perhaps there is a single deck that pays 3/2 and they deal out more than 2 rounds, that game can be SUPER KILLED. But I haven't seen it yet. All the poor Johns come down and say, "Single deck blackjack! Lets play honey!" The start tossing out green and black at the Encore but they are either oblivious to the fact of the HUMUNGOUS detriment a 6 to 5 payout has, or they think because it's single deck some magic will happen despite the 6 to 5 BJ payout. I was shocked to see the 6 to 5 payout the first time. I actually got a pit bosses attention and said, "Blackjack pays 6 to 5?", He started Explaining and I cut him short and said, "No need to explain, I was just thinking you should rename this from the 'Party Pit', to the 'Sucker Pit'". Lol, he didn't like that too much....

-Peace out, ttysoon!

Vegas Update Part III

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Well, the weekend is here so I won't be in dealer school again until Monday. Things are chugging along fine however.

We did a class on tournaments and that was interesting and fast paced. There were a lot of things I didn't know that I was exposed too. Most live tournaments are going to either color up or do chip races, so we had to learn how to do that along with other skills. We learned some all in pots, side pot stuff, but they didn't teach the theory, we learned when practicing our downs - our manual covers info on that.

I'm in town for a month and have completed 4 classes of 16. You can attend class here forever once you pay for the initial fee, unfortunately I don't have that long and have to complete everything in 3 more weeks. At the rate I'm going I should be fine. I'll fill out all my HR stuff at every casino i can next week then hit the street for auditions after that by talking to room managers. Learning poker completely for dealing can easily take over 100 hours imo. To get my certificate from the school I have to pass 3 auditions and various intermitent tests.

I bumped into Johnny Chan walking into the Wynn tonight and shook his hand. He's a small guy, they look much bigger on t.v. I hardly recognized him when I saw him because I was expecting him to be bigger, but he was thin and small, lol. Huck Seed and Phil Hellmuth must be giants compared to most of the other pros lol. Scotty Ngyun and Daniel Negreanu probably look like chihuahuas in size.

Some of the smaller casinos are actually pretty cool, they have some cheaper food and the poker rooms can get going when there are some tournaments in there.

Circus Circus is like a crap hole on the inside and the people that frequent the older cheaper casinos are more of the punk type people so the atmosphere isn't so great. Lots of those gang looking guys and their skanky girlfriends and stuff.

I've yet to visit downtown Las Vegas, so far everything has been the southern part of the strip up to the Stratosphere.

I played a couple tourneys online since I got here and binked 2nd on one out of 3 of them so that can pay for a couple buffets, lol.

The weather has been weird out here, warm during the day in '60's but freezing at night time, however tonight the temperature didn't drop as much which is nice since I'm taking the bus everywhere and it sucks to freeze to death at the bus stops.

Imo Venetian has the best poker room, it's big and cozy and nice. They have some good tournaments running every day too. I talked to the "Iceman" yesterday and he told me he was making some sort of tv show or something, dunno. But he was a nice guy and just had a baby so he said he was off the circuit but is now coming back.

The WSOP is coming around so I'll be applying for that as well.

Cash games look soft as heck, I haven't played because I'm not rolled, but I go to watch the dealers after class and take notes on what they do and I occasionally see some hands go down, so live poker is juicier than i thought.

Unfortunately and wild poker or night club stories won't be hitting this blog because I don't have the cash to do whatever I please, but if I get a job before I leave then yeah, lol.

oh, mgm grand has a lion exhibit I'll go see tomorrow and Luxor has that bodies exhibit I want to go see.

What else...hmmm...lot of smoking hot chicks running around, that's for sure. I think I was solicited by a hooker in the Encore last night, I'm not sure though, lol.

I'll talk more about blackjack out here in my history with it in the next blog.

-peace

Update on Vegas

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Well, Vegas is amazing. It's basically a candy land. I've been to almost every casino on the strip and they are phenomenal. Wynn and Encore seem uppity and snobbish type Joints but are great nonetheless. Cosmo and Aria were 2 of my favs, I just loved the atmosphere. The view to the outside of the hotels is just beautiful. Just looking around at the hotels out front of Bellagio is stunning. I wasn't too crazy about New York New York. Still have quite a few places to visit. Red Rock, Boulder Station, Mandalay Bay and a few more.

I've been basically using the bus to get around and have been hitching a ride to school with an instructor. Dealing school has been good, I had my first session today and they tossed me straight into a down and the instructors were impressed. Some of the students hardly know the rules of Hold'em. One lady is a blackjack dealer who bought Wilson Software to see the actual play of hands, lol. I should have told her to hit Full Tilt and play a 5-10. When she figures things out she will have, "Come a long way baby". I'm still working a bit on my shuffle, my pitch is strong, spreading a flop, burning is all good. The hard part is game control and handling things on the fly. But there are easily a hundred mechanical skills that take mastery and many other things that go undetected by players that is happening behind the scenes. It's a lot harder than it looks, just being a player doesn't make you jack shit as a dealer and vice versa.

I can't see for the life of me why people are ignorant of making strides towards being a competent gamer. There is something in the water that keeps folks bad, seriously. I've noticed even people in the gaming industry don't have a clue about what good poker is etc...I don't know why. Don't any of these people try online training sites ever? Who knows.

I haven't seen any famous poker players yet. I went to Bobby's room but nothing was running, and then I went to Ivey's room and the manager said a 100-200 or 200-400 limit game will usually pop up around 1 pm. Blah, no biggie, you can look inside but you can't walk inside the room. I ran into that "IceMan" guy and Gabe Thaler, but that's about it.

-Keep u posted.

Going to Vegas!

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Yo DTB. Haven't blogged for a while.
First off, sorry to the NL micro study group, I've been all over the place so I haven't synced for session.

Next Thursday I'm off to Vegas for one month. I'm attending Nick Kallo's dealing school. www.learn2deal.com I have a room ready and booked the flight. This should be a hell of a lot of fun! I've never been to Vegas before. I don't have a ton of money to go gallavanting around and playing games, but I'm definitely gonna go check out all the sites and casinos.

During my time there I hope to set up some auditions with some help from the school and some connections my friend has, he used to deal at Caesar's for a short while. If I get a job ( it doesn't have to be Vegas) I think I'll definitely be able to bang out 200 a dollars a day in income between dealing and rakeback + earn at the tables. I don't know if I'll be sick of poker after dealing a shift, so we'll see. The main point is finding work.

I continue to light up the micro tourneys, I believe my profit is just over 500 dollars with an average buy in of about 3.33, I have about a 120% roi or so. The David Rowen betsizing thing is glorious, it leaves a lot of maneuveribility and keeps your stack in play for a longer while when things aren't running your way.

Anyhow I'll keep you posted when I'm out in Vegas!

Just Finished 3rd in MTT and I’m pissed at myself.

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

I final tabled again, but I had massive reads on this player when I got knocked out of my last hand and I didn't listen to them, I'm so angry at myself right now.

I opened AQo otb, and had exactly 31bb,

Flop was AT7r

I c-bet and he ck/red my half pot c-bet 5x......This was an instamuck, and I knew it but didn't listen to myself

I had battled him many hands before this and any time he threw out a big bet it was a nutted hand, I had at least 5 encounters of this throughout the entire MTT. I also know his calling range in the BB was any 2 Cards, and he never put money in w/out a big hand, and he would make small bets with anything less than a monster.

Anyone who has half a poker brain can see I'm smoked on the flop and I get it all in the flop.

Not proud of myself for final tabling at all.

-Happy Holidays

2 Final Tables in 2 Days thanks to Dro.

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Yo, nothing much interesting going on outside poker...but my tourneys (albeit small buy ins) have heated up. I made a couple of adjustments that David Rowan taught me that made a pretty big difference. The Open raise sizing, iso raise sizing and c-bet sizing. SMALLER IS BETTER, LOL. It works pretty well. Made 2 MTT final tables in 2 days, 11th place, and 2 cashes, 1 was a larger field, all the tourneys were 300+ entrants. The bet sizing adjustments were huge and helped the most. Also picked up some thoughts about abusing the bubble from Dro that will helpful in the future. The only problem I'll have is assimilating all this information. These tourney ballers are better than we think and have put massive amounts of work and thinking into it. Guess that's why they crush. Some practice and focus and you can work their teachings into your game. I have to thank Dro for the second final table as he got me to the chip lead with a monster call with 88 in a 3-way pot pre-flop were i was thinking fold and he was saying "Call".

-Peace out, ttysoon!

The Last Cigar – I made 2 vids for you guys

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Yo.

I made 2 full tilt 10nl videos, I think they are pretty good so check them out if you want in the member video section. I'm rendering the second one so I should have it up later today.

Hope everyone is doing well. TTYSoon.

The Last Cigar BlogName is being Retired. Blogs will continue, some generic ramblings

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Hi guys, I'm retiring the name the Last Cigar. It's getting mundane, so I suppose from now on I'll just title my blogs as I see fit based on the blog's content.

I read LA's blog and it was a good one. It scared me when he said something like, the 5-10 and 10-20 regs he used to play against are now on 1-2 and 2-4. It's like, sheesh, is there any hope I'll ever be able to seriously beat the game if guys playing 10-20 two years ago are playing 1-2? Gosh.

I recorded 4, count them, 4 videos for the members video area and lost them all. How disappointing. Camstudio blows. gotta get a Camtasia version. Camstudio in all reality is fine, but somehow it couldn't sync the audio with the video. Who knows, but I don't have the strength to do another one right now. Bummer.

I did get let go at my job. How rediculous. He said i wasn't "engaged" in work. Hahaha. I should have told him serving and salads, burgers and mediocre steaks to people watching football games was my lifes ambition, lol. Instead I told him I was too good for this job, and I AM. I will by applying for programmer analyst positions and I promise myself to never, ever work a bullshit underqualified job again. PERIOD.

-tty guys soon!

The Last Cigar, Manager is re-considering.

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Well, it turns out he saw things one way. He said he asked me for a towel and thought I was bitching about the long ticket times. I told him I didn't know he asked me for a towel and I was talking to myself. The situation is a little more complicated than this, but they might let me work again tonight after I talk to all the managers collectively.

-Peace.

The Last Cigar, Well I got fired from my job I think, but it’s not my fault really, pretty good story.

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

I'm waiting tables at Applebees in the suburbs north of Atlanta.

Around 12:20 P.M. we get totally slammed because the church crowd basically came in simultaneously. I get quadrUple sat almost simultaneously. Everyone is running around furiously putting out fires. Every customers food is running 15-30 minutes, normally ticket times should be 12 minutes or less. This new piece of shi*t general manager is "expoing" the food, meaning he's getting it ready in the line to run out to the tables, this is normal. I have a table where the food is ready to come out and I look at the overhead computer screen and the ticket time is 30 minutes. I say to myself outloud, "Omg, 30 minutes". The General Manager was calling for some towels at the same time I said that. Apparently he thought I was somehow sarcastically telling him about the 30 minute ticket time, however I was talking to myself, albeit loudly, because I'm just loud. He turns around furiously and says, "GO GET A F*UCKING TOWEL". ........First of all, the moment he said that about 2 million thoughts ran through my head in a millisecond - here are some of them, "What the fuck am I doing working with all these losers when I have a college degree?, I don't like this skinny punk ass managers non-neatly trimmed Moses type goatee, I can be grinding rakeback at home, I've had 3 hours sleep and I'm working a double 2 days in a row, my self esteem is suffering because I'm settling for less than my potential, lol." So after I had those cognitions I said something to the tune of "Why are you swearing at me?" Then he moved in my direction x% and was staring at me or staring me down, not sure, it all happened so fast. I then said, "What? You gonna fire me over 7 bucks an hour?" during this excursion I heard him say, "Like I don't know the ticket times are taking this long". Well, he tells me to go home and gets another girl to take my tables and says "Cool", they take my electronic computer access order entry key, the restaurant is going down in flames, I'm pissed as hell and accidentally swear in front of some kids and some fat lesbian tells me I need to apologize, and another bisexual girl tells me to go cool off outside. I apologize to the kids and parents ever so briefly. I grab my jacket out of the office and say, "Have a good life buddy" and leave.

WHAT A STUPID MOTHER FUCKER.

I got home and picked up a Captain D's coupon for a 2 fish w/fries, slaw and 2 hushpuppy coupon and stopped at an Applebees 5 minutes from my house and talk to the General Manager there. I tell him, "I just got fired" an explained the situation and asked him if I can pick up some shifts there. He was willing to help and told me that, "No one gets fired on the spot, that's the policy" So I don't know if I'm fired or not, but they took my e-key, so I'm thinking I am. I will call corporate and tell them what happened, because in my opinion, if someone turns around and tells you in a pissed off voice, "GO GET ME A FUCKING TOWEL NOW" and you really didn't do anything to the guy, (he never directly asked me to get a towel, he didn't even know I was there when he asked for one) that's wrong. Yeah I cocked back to him, but only after he said that.

So Yeah, the fish and chips were pretty good, gotta have the tarter sauce

If your looking for MBolt2 dusty, pm me.

-Peace.

The Last Cigar, Going to try grinding Full Time

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Yo, I'm waiting on some stuff from Blackchip poker that Hunter is helping me with, then in a couple weeks I'm going to take the plunge and try to earn 9-10 an hour multi-tabling 25nl on merge. I'll make more than I'm making at the restaurant so why not?! I'll keep a few restaurant shifts per week not to burn my bridges, but this is it. If I pull any winrate at all it will be a good deal. of course if the bill passes I'm screwed for this plan. And this will offer me great flexibility for real estate sales as well.

I have a 22' sharp resolution monitor so I think I can hack 8 tables on that.....

All that's left is scrapping together about 500 bucks and I'm on the way.

-peace!

The Last Cigar, Not The Final Blog, Lol, Changed My Mind, Not Cancelling

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Fug it, I can't cancel, been thinking about it for the last 6 hours and feeling like shi*t. Sent email to support and told them to disregard my cancellation request...TTysoon!

The Last Cigar, Final Blog – Saying Goodbye.

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Hey everyone, I'm leaving DTB. This is not because of DTB. It's just a financial and poker decision for this time in my life.
-I'm not really watching any videos because I hardly have any time to focus in on them, or if I crank one up it's in the background and I'm not watching.
-Financially a subscription doesn't make sense for me right now, I'm not playing much and poker is in the background due to work, studying and working on building my business.
Poker will be on strong in the future, but right now is not the time for me to nickel and dime around. If I play I want my sessions to count money wise, so this is not happening right now and I can spend my time more productively elsewhere, however I love poker and will incorporate it again until I can multi-table 50nl or 100nl at least, and Multi-table >= 8 dollar buy in tourneys.
-My wife is working very hard right now and I cannot in good conscious spend extra money on myself until I take her on a well deserved vacation.

-I'd like to thank Hunter for taking time to respond to my posts.
-Id' like to thank Dro and Chipsteela for taking time to give me quality responses in the video threads.
-Thanks to ZeroSum79 for sweating me when I played step 7 for the ME package.
-Thanks to Charles for choosing me for the free 2 hour sng session.
-Thanks to all the coaches.
-Thanks to all the posters and community for being so great.

To Casey and the NL study group, I'll still get involved in the group and contribute.

To Dro, I will still hit you up on Skype.

-I actually feel guilty because DTB has been so supportive by reading my blog, and giving advice and just being a lot of fun and supportive, but at this time it's a decision I need to make although I'm not crazy about it.

-Peace, and Thank You.

The Last Cigar, Day 104 – Fixing the sleep schedule

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Ok, goodie. I actually went to bed before 5:30 a.m. last night. Hit the sack around 9:30 and my body woke me up here around 4:45 a.m. This is phase II. I fixed the smoking, now I fix the sleep schedule...Next is going back to the DR. this week for more diabetes pills.

Aight, tty guys Later!

The Last Cigar, Day 103 – Still Clean! Qtip video.

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Ok, Day 3, still going strong. I'm a little tired and bored because I'm not smoking but that's ok. I'll just sleep and mope around a bit until the addiction and withdrawal passes, no need to get back in it. Anyhow I'm surviving day 3 of 0 smoke at all and I'm happy I'm doing it. Also the boredom is passing when I drive. That's good. I'm becoming normal again.

QTIP video was cool, he pwned that aggro guy through out the first half of the video. That was like on of his stox polarized vids, he was applying that theory to that maniac.

That's it for today! TTYsoon!

The Last Cigar, Day 102 – I actually Quit this time! Ha!

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

I'm going to consider this the official quit of cigars.
I haven't smoked in 2 days. Hopefully to God for my sake and your sake I won't pick up another one. I'm sick of f*ing smoking. I feel better already, just gotta hold. I think If I start getting a craving attack I'll just go to sleep instead of staying up. After a few days the withdrawal symptoms will go down, even though I'm not having a ton now. And I will happily substitute eating as a substitute for smoking. At least I can eat something somewhat healthy, that's better than smoking.

-Peace out.

The Last Cigar, Day 94 – Merge is my bitch.

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

Well, smoking is still going down, I actually didn't smoke at all yesterday so that's good, and the day before I think I took like 3 puffs. I'm not off the tobacco yet though, but I've made some decent progress.

I'm running at 17 bb per hundred on Merge 25nl. Small sample though, 2200x hands. I'm having fun playing with Matsyendra, he seems to be doing well, usually is above buy in amount when I sit at his tables.

I found a 1k event at the series I will definitely play. It was off the 2010 schedule, so if they don't change things and have this tourney in '011 I'll play that at a minimum if I can't win a package for the ME somehow. I'm going in '011, no matter what. Only death will stop me.

lets see....nothing much else going on, gotta go pay some tickets today, lot of fun. blah. ttysoon!

The Last Cigar, Day 84 – Smokie Still Getting Better! and a Morte Lefkoe

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

I smoked less than 1 cigar today again, actually only like 1/3rd. It's working, the desire is going down slowly. I'm driving now w/out smoking and I don't take smoke breaks at work...goodie.'

My Blog needs to be like Leatherass's or Dr.Giggy's or something. Oh Yeah, picked up like 29k this weekend to make a huge comeback! I believe it will happen one day. For sure I'll be able to say I cleaned up for 2k or so, that will be exciting. Even better would be picking up a huge tourney score, that day will be surreal, and I totally believe I can accomplish that. You know...Dro is so young, and so is chip stealer and it's just amazing at the scores they've dragged down, it's just wonderful thinking about that. I mean, yeah, you don't win 500k in a day or whatever, but they have to feel amazing to win cash for 20k or 10k or 30k, that's so great. Hahahah, 500k??? in a day??? Mentioning those numbers is absurd! anyhow....

I've been studying a lot of personal development stuff as you know and I have a cognitive behavioral therapy book, and in that book there are chapters about core beliefs, and in most CBT books the focus is on negative core beliefs and of course that makes sense...we'll I ran across this guy on the net called Morty Lefkoe and his method for eliminating negative core beliefs looks pretty darn good. I'm going to say of all the things I've been studying that negative core beliefs are the true source of being able to turn things around in your life on a thought basis, emotional and behavioral basis. Yeah, I've spouted off about Acceptance and Commitment therapy and mindfulness, but I believe to date this is the most powerful method of personal change I've encountered. I'm sure many methods of changing core beliefs exist, like NLP and others. Changing core beliefs makes sense to me and I'm pretty excited about it. I suppose other techniques about changing core beliefs other then Morte Lefkoes can work as well, but his seemed to work really good on one excercise I did.

So here's an example of a negative core belief. Let's say you win the lottery but have negative core beliefs about yourself like, "I'm not worthy of success" or "I'm inadequate" or "I don't deserve money". You may not think you have those beliefs, but you may very well have them subconsciously. You've all heard stories about people winning the lottery and being broke some time later right? You've also can understand that Donald Trump has gone bankrupt but has come back to make millions again. These are core beliefs at work. So basically core beliefs are at the root of all your thinking, emotional or behavioral problems like procrastination for instance. So if you want to be more confident, you can work on your core beliefs and you'll be more confident. Not to say tomorrow you'll believe you can fly an f-18 with no training, lol, but that you'll have a healthy self esteem or improve an aspect of your thinking or emotional life by working on a particular core belief that may be one of many you need to do work on. So I think it's worth googling Morte lefkoe and seeing what he's about, I believe it can help people a lot. Is he a charlatan? I don't think so after doing a free module on his website, and also modifying core beliefs is widely known.

Poker continues to be fine, for the limited stakes I'm playing. I've never mentioned my coach before but he's a great guy for small/micro stakes players, his name is Bogdan and he's a great steal for micro/small stakes. His site is http://www.hqpokercoaching.com, there's no competing there with DTB on the link, no worries Hunter, lol. He's helped me out in tons of ways and he's my official cash game Skype poker buddy as well. Lol, I'd love to have leatherass and Hunter on my Skype and pop off strategy questions all day, but I don't think that will work lol. I have Dro on Skype and I talk to him a lil' here and there and it takes a lot of restraint on my part to not want to just bombard him with questions, lol. So far so good, lol. If I hire him for tourneys I'm sure I'll pop him a couple of questions now and then

Garbageman18 just joined DTB too and he's a pretty darn good player so he's a good addition to the forums, DTB just picked up an asset in him.

-aight guys, peace out!

The Last Cigar, Day 82 – Smokie Down, Poker Up!

Posted by PutMyRobeOnRITE

I hardly smoked at all today, I think I smoked about 1/3 of a stogie. That's an accomplishment. In my earlier blogs I mentioned downing as many as 3-5 big ones per day. I also have one in my humidor right now and I'm not smoking it! Amazing. Usually when I'm off work on the computer I'm fiending on them.

So I think I'm going to keep this strategy of cutting back progressively. It seems to be working.

You know, sometimes when I'm working I look at a tip and say to myself, "That's one half of a blind steal @ 5-10". And I almost want to pass out on the floor right there, lol. And I think to myself...look at myself, and look at all these people working their asses off for peanuts and Leatherass is making like 400 or so per hour, maybe more....Sigh. Se La Vi. But hot damn, I can crush 10nl. Siiiickkkk.

I'm beating 10nl on Merge for about 13 bb/100. Pretty good I guess, small sample though, just under 2,000 hands. Beating 25nl for like 62.66 bb/100 lol, but only a couple hundred hands, basically one session so that doesn't count.

I'm having tourney withdrawal since moving the little chump change I had from Stars to Merge. I can't understand the tourney lobby for Merge, it's so unuser friendly. I got used to playing on the cash tables though, so there is no ergonomic tilt right now per se.

That's it for this blog, nothing earth shattering, just keeping up the pace...this is day 82! By next August I have to be playing 100nl and enter a Wsop event...I think I'm running behind...gotta get moving on these plans!

-Peace!