That Woozy Feeling

The last thing you want is to be sick in Las Vegas. Unfortunately for the last couple of days I've been plagued with some kind of vague illness: headachy, light-headed, wobbly on my feet, and with a delicate digestive tract. So, at the moment, I'm hanging out in my hotel room feeling just a little bit sorry for myself.

I hope whatever it is goes away quickly so that I can resume having a good time.

Which one is me?

My friend JK sent me this photo this afternoon. It pretty much sums up the way I feel about my game at the moment. I haven't posted much lately because all I've been doing is losing and not having a whole lot of fun. (The good news is that the rest of my life is getting more and more interesting.)

I'll be heading to Atlantic City on December 5th, and plan to play in at least one Circuit Event.

Day 365: Not Finished Yet

Okay, so this is a little embarrassing.

You start a blog out with A Grand Plan. You state it in public. You do a pretty good job of keeping people informed on your progress.

And then, at the very end, you change the plan.

Boooooo. I call shenanigans! On myself.

Life, and the experience life brings (or leaves in its wake), has a way of interfering with the best laid plans. To wit:

• My book is not done. Not even close. In fact, the extensive outline that I've been working from has come to seem less and less like the book I want to write. Accordingly, I'm having to reconsider it from the ground up. I fully intend to keep writing, and I definitely think I have a good book to bring forth, but it's not going to be the one I initially thought it would be.
  
  
• I have distinctly NOT succeeded in leading as well-balanced life as I'd intended.
  
  
• My poker results are inconclusive. While I have made a decent profit in the past year, I don't have enough information to make a decision about whether I can survive as a professional. I'm inclined to think I can, but I don't know for sure, and I've determined that I'm unlikely to know for sure in a reasonable timeframe.

So, what to do? what to do?

I'm flying to Las Vegas tonight. I'll be there for 3.5 weeks. I have arbitrarily decided that I will let this short period of time serve as the tie-breaker in my decision-making process. If I make a decent, livable income at the tables on this trip, I'll keep going. If I don't, I'll start looking for a job. You know, actual salaried, every-other-week-a-paycheck, health-benefit-conferring employment.

You say there's a recession on? No kidding. Thank god I live in Washington, DC, where employment opportunities are less awful than in most of the rest of the country. (And nothing stops me from continuing to play poker on the side while I diligently look for work.)

No matter what the outcome of this last lagniappe, this baker's dozenth month of poker, I will never EVER regret having given the past year to my experiment. It has been challenging, fun, heart-breaking, educational, rewarding, and deeply, deeply interesting. I have made wonderful new friends, achieved personal bests, and come to treasure my city and my friends all the more. It has been a spectacular adventure.

I was sitting at Starbucks the other day, having a coffee and catching up on my spreadsheet, as is my wont. The man at the table next to mine leaned over and made a comment about the svelteness of my MacBook Air. We had a brief conversation, during which he asked me: "Are you a lawyer?" I laughed. And then the following sentence emerged unprompted from my mouth for the first time: "Actually, I play poker for a living." And as I said it, it seemed true.

We shall see.

August Trip to AC

AC Warm-Up

I can't participate in my usual bus junket to AC this month because it's scheduled right before I head to Las Vegas, and that's just too much of a muchness. (How, for example, would I properly perform the Last Minute Laundry Ritual?)

So instead, I'm heading up this weekend, for a three night stay starting Saturday. I'm not particularly thrilled at the prospect of driving with all the summer traffic, but I also wanted to catch at least some of the Saturday night action. I'll be interested to see how busy things are the rest of my stay; I'm assuming it won't be super-juicy, but I would think it'll be livelier than the equivalent days of the week in winter.

I may branch out a bit and play somewhere other than Harrah's at least part of the time, if only for variety's sake. It's comfortable to hang out where everybody (well, regulars and staff, anyway) knows your name… but it might be interesting to go where I'm less of a known quantity for a change.

Like A Bad Penny…

I keep coming back!

I have booked my airfare, and I will be in Las Vegas from August 18th through September 10th. It's not quite a month, but close enough. Unlike my last stay, I'm not renting a condo, but will be hotel-hopping from place to place according to what kind of deals I can get. Twelve of the nights are already booked at the Venetian, which I'm getting for the ridiculous rate of $30 a night. Who could resist THAT?

The plan for the visit is mostly to play 2/5, with the occasional good structure, modest buy-in tournament thrown into the mix. This trip will be something of a litmus test for me. Can I really pay the bills and have something left over at a non-WSOP time ~ during one of Las Vegas's low seasons?

We shall see.

Almost Gone

The Last Minute Laundry Ritual is complete. My little shoulder bag is packed. I even went out and bought the new iPhone so I can video blog if I want (although I have to say I am mightily disappointed by what appears to be WORSE image quality than my original phone). I'm traveling light this time… no computer.

I am ready for Atlantic City. I set out in a positive frame of mind, filled with curiosity about how I'll perceive the competition after my time in Las Vegas. I plan to mostly play 2/5, and maybe one tournament on Sunday.

Expect updates mostly via Twitter.

Up the Coast

I've decided to forego my A League's End of Quarter freeroll tournament on Saturday. I have a very short stack of chips to work with (having qualified by winning a game, and then being out of action for the entire month of June), and the prize pool is relatively small this quarter.

Instead, I'll be heading out on another junket to AC for a couple of nights. Time to revisit the 2/5 game at Harrah's, and maybe even slip over to the Borgata for a few hours to see how it feels playing there. If things go well, the profit potential is considerably higher than I'd likely manage at the EOQ. Since the trip costs me nothing but 9 hours of bus-butt and another couple of nights away from home, it seems like an easy choice. And I can always hope that my orphan stack will manage to survive the blinds and squeak into the money.

Are the good results I've experienced in the last 10 days just variance swinging back (temporarily) in my direction, or have I really learned something as well?

There's only one way to find out.

So Soon?

I leave Las Vegas in just about 48 hours.

When I write it like that, it seems as if it can't possibly be right. How can this be? I'm only beginning to settle in, feel the rhythm, establish a way of life.

My god, I've only just discovered the gold that is the uncapped 2/5 cash game at the Rio! How can I leave now?

And I haven't won a tournament yet. I was supposed to win a tournament, dammit!

The Main Event starts in a few days. THE MAIN EVENT. How am I not playing in the Main Event?!? (You mean, I'm going to go home and then sit around waiting to see it on cable months from now? That is just wrong.)

The fact is, I don't wanna go home.

I've grown attached to the WSOP pad, which ~ despite a few plumbing quirks ~ is incredibly comfortable and quite luxurious. I love going for a swim under the blazing sun in the morning. The place has a dishwasher and a washer-dryer in the unit. Sigh.

I've grown accustomed to playing in comfortable casinos, with non-usurious rake, that are RIGHT THERE ALL THE TIME. Let me repeat: RIGHT THERE ALL THE TIME.

But.

I've been living the dream, and it's time to wake up. I haven't made money on this trip. I am not living a sustainable lifestyle. I miss my friends and my city. I have a book to finish. And some big fat honking life decisions to make in just over a month's time.

It's going to suck big-time to get on the plane. Try as I might, though, I can't come up with a viable rationalization for putting it off.

Nothing Is Ever Simple

I had it planned to a fare-thee-well, starting over a month ago. I had numerous communications back and forth trying to ensure that everything was just so, pre-arranged, and ready for me to walk in and settle down. And of course nothing has gone according to plan with my WSOP pad.

The agent was late in meeting me.

The unit I was supposed to occupy, selected with great care, had a plumbing problem in the kitchen, flooded, and was reportedly uninhabitable.

The place she gave me "for one night," has a gas leak, an unspeakable odor in the poorly-functioning air-conditioning, and an execrable and noisy view of dumpsters.

I am awaiting her return, at which time I fully expect to be put into A VERY NICE UNIT THAT WILL MAKE ME HAPPY.

Because right now? Not so happy.

[Update: I spent the night in a different unit. Acceptably comfortable but on the ground floor with views of the parking lot. I am assuming that something more closely resembling what I signed up for will be made available to me this evening. I'm not thrilled with the hassle of moving around, but hope this will get resolved.]

[More: The situation is NOT resolved. I am very disappointed in the way this is being handled by Berkshire Realty management.]

All My Bags Are Packed…

I'm ready to go. I'm leaving on a jet plane!

I'm so ridiculously hyped up it's a wonder that the walls and ceiling don't have Cardgrrl-shaped dents in them. Somehow I've got to set aside the novelty and excitement enough to take proper care of myself for the next month: eat well, sleep enough, exercise regularly. I am trying to be a sensible adult about this, really I am.

O boy o boy o boy o boy o boy o boy o boy o boy o boy o boy o boy o boy o boy o boy o boy!!!! WSOP here I come!!!

(Yeah, I'm calm and collected, for sure.)

The next post will probably be from my WSOP pad.

(You have no idea how awesomely cool it is for me to be able to type the words "my WSOP pad!")

Soon and Very Soon

I am once again experiencing the psychological displacement that occurs when I'm getting ready to swap one location for another. I leave for Las Vegas in five days. I'm well on track for various chores, errands, and the Last Minute Laundry Ritual. It's just all a bit more complicated because I'm going to be away for a whole month.

In the run-up to my WSOP experience, I'm playing much less live poker (where things have been brutally rough for me of late). I've been signing up for large-field, multi-table tournaments online and practicing the skills that I think will be needed in June. So far, the results have been very encouraging, as I have cashed in four out of five events. It would be really nice to actually WIN something, however.

Hanging on to a substantial chiplead seems to be my biggest challenge. I think I'm going to experiment with folding-everything-but-superpremium-hands for a couple of levels next time I find myself way out in front. The game I played last night, I went from a very healthy second place to out in less than twenty hands. Granted, some of them were fairly ugly coolers, but still, my own play was nothing pretty either.

I was impressed by the hyper-aggressive action in that six-max, deepstack tournament. It was relentless pressure from start to finish: eight solid hours of raises and re-raises. Even with the very gradual blind structure, players were scrapping over every chip. I was completely wrung out afterward. I figure that I saw nearly as many hands in eight hours of online play as I would in a 14-hour day of live action. Stamina really matters.

Off to the Air-Conditioned Venue

Yes indeed, tomorrow I head out on another bus junket to Atlantic City. I have ~ as is customary ~ completed the Last-Minute-Laundry Ritual, and have a full array of clean clothes to choose from. Now I will be attempting to go to bed at a sane enough hour to actually get some sleep before the bus's departure at the ungodly hour of 9am.

9AM, I ask you! Don't these people understand that we are gamblers?!? Well, to be honest, most of them are significantly further into the geriatric demo than moi, and they probably go to bed and get up with the sun. Maybe when I am ancient I'll do the same. (I doubt it.)

I was supposed to be heading to Guadalajara, Mexico, this weekend for a family shindig. That trip got cancelled for obvious reasons of health paranoia. I guess I just have to go to AC and get "casino crud" instead. What a shame.

LUZER

I arrived home this morning on the red-eye in a state of total exhaustion. Mentally, physically, emotionally: I got nuthin'. This last week in Las Vegas has put me severely to the test, and ~ honestly ~ the results are not so pretty.

Here is a quick rundown of the highlights (the good stuff):

1. Dinner with the bloggerati. Mentioned in my previous post.


2. Hanging out with B.W.o.P. CK very kindly spent some time talking with me about life in Vegas and also introduced me to the O8 game at the Orleans.


3. Playing poker with Cory Zeidman. The Grump describes the scene quite well. What he doesn't mention is that Cory and I played two hands together and chopped them both. In the second hand, I had Fido (K9), and flopped trips. Plenty 'o betting with banter. Turn was an Ace, River was an Ace. Cory showed 8 9 off. He cashed out shortly after and I asked if he would very kindly let me just win one outright next time we played together. He promised he would.


4. Playing poker with Jamie Gold. I had been sitting in the Venetian Deepstack Sunday game for about an hour and a half when an unkempt, unshaven, dirty-fingernailed Jamie sat down three seats to my left. He was perfectly pleasant to everyone, and received the constant attentions of one of the massage therapists the entire time he was at the table. I took his big blind one time, but that was it. His game was utterly unremarkable and he busted out in about another hour and a half. He seemed awfully nice, but also the very picture of a poker degenerate. A few minutes after he went broke in the tournament I heard the name "Gold" called for a new 10/20 NL table in the Salon.


5. Being a tourist and doing touristy things. For example, I saw the Treasure Island sirens & pirates show, which is about as silly and pointless as you could possibly ask for. The Grump was seeing it for the first time too (after three years in Vegas), which gives you an idea of just how much of a can't-miss it really is. As evidenced above, I also had my picture taken in a goofy way, which is pretty much de rigueur for a tourist, right? I played mini-golf. I saw a bad lightshow at the Fremont Street Experience (it was basically an extended commercial for LG). I visited Binions, but did not see the eponymous golden nugget across the way. Oh well, gotta leave something for the next visit.


6. Getting my hotel completely comped again. That this was a such a thrill should give you some notion of how much of a trainwreck financially the rest of my trip was.

The bad stuff:

• Only two profitable cash sessions, and those barely.


• Three quite expensive tournament blanks.


• At least three really dubious decisions for a lot of money, when I should have known better.


• A growing sense of fatalism about my lack of success. (I knew when I was all in with my KK that I was up against AA. When my all in AA went down to 33, I just shrugged and mentally kicked the penguin on the way out.)


• A sensation of dread about my impending month in Las Vegas. I no longer know whether I'm running bad or I am bad. I do know that I took another big hit to the bankroll, and will have to spend all of May rebuilding, just as I spent all of March rebuilding from February's trip. This does not bode well for my notion of being able to survive on poker in Las Vegas.

I saw a bit of Las Vegas beyond the Strip, and was brought face-to-face with the reality that it is fundamentally a desert wasteland with a car-dependent monoculture pasted down on top of it. During June I will hope to explore a bit more, to see if there are any signs of life and creativity to be found elsewhere in the city.

Pre-Travel Travails

Well, there's the taxes. Everyone loves doing them, I know. I always leave them to absolutely the last minute, to ensure maximum stress and anxiety. And then there's the mad scramble for the documentation, etc. It's totally pathological, and I'm embarrassed to death by it, but there you go.

I actually like traveling, especially when the destination is one I'm actually anticipating that I will enjoy. What I don't like is the 48 hours or so before I travel. Mentally, I'm already THERE. That makes every little thing I have to do HERE a giant pain in the patootie (e.g., doing the taxes becomes 10x as unpleasant, if you can imagine that). Washing the dishes becomes horrendously miserable. Writing the note for the paper delivery person is an enormous burden. Hell, figuring out what to wear today (i.e., stuff I don't want to pack for the trip) is aggravating. The basic problem ~ that I'm still HERE instead of THERE ~ is completely insurmountable, and yet I manage to let it irritate me. This is utterly irrational, and you'd think that a person who'd spent a significant fraction of her life in various meditation practices would be able to rise above it.

Nah.

I am still HERE, and I have these annoying tasks to accomplish and decisions (mostly minor) that have to be made, and it making me a cranky Cardgrrl. Expect little to no bloggage until I'm actually THERE; in practical terms that likely means Wednesday.

[Post Scriptum: Please don't forget to greet me with "Hey, Sis!" if you wish to make yourself known to me at the poker table.]

A Rant, A Complaint, and An Observation Likely To Have Consequences

The rant:

It infuriates me that hotels charge paying guests extra to use the internet (wirelessly or otherwise). It makes me feel nickel-and-dimed; it makes me feel chiseled. The internet is NOT a luxury, these days. It's a utility like electricity or water. I want my internet and I want it priced into my room. And since my room is comped, I want it free. Making me pay $11 every 24 hours is price-gouging and it annoys the holy living hell out of me.

The complaint:

The last couple of times I've stayed here the room has been entirely devoid of bath towels. Fortunately, this time I noticed it before I found myself dripping wet, standing and casting about helplessly for a towel after a shower. This time there were also very few hangars in the closet. A call to housekeeping remedied the situation, but seriously, how hard is this stuff to keep track of? It just feels negligent. It suggests that management and employees just don't sweat the details. Aren't they looking to retain and recruit guests during economic hard times?

And now the poker-related material, an observation likely to have consequences:

A new dealer comes into the box at the 2/5 table. His skills are mediocre, but he keeps the game moving and seems pleasant enough. Then something happens that shocks me: a big hand develops, it gets heads up, and the winner—who already has a huge stack in front of him—drags a monster pot. The dealer pushes it to him, pats the table, and says, "Good hand."

"Good hand???"

Did I hear that right? Did the dealer just congratulate one player at the table for beating another player at the table?

As the winner is stacking his chips, he does it again: "Nice hand." The victor finishes stacking the loot and tosses the dealer a toke. "Thank you very much, sir. Well played."

I am aghast. It now looks to me as if the dealer was trolling for the toke. About five minutes later, I win a decent sized pot. As is my custom, I push my toke to the dealer on top of my cards as I pass them to be mucked. No "nice hand" comment for me!

Another fifteen minutes pass, and the exact same scenario develops with the previous winner. He takes down another juicy pot. "Well done, good hand." Pause. "Nice hand." Toke. And we move on.

As soon as this dealer was pushed, I went to speak with the floor. I am friendly with most of the staff at Harrah's, but I particularly enjoy interacting with Tina, who is competent, funny, and—this is key—a little scary. I like her a lot, and I trust her judgment. I told her what I had witnessed, and that the congratulations alone were problematic, but if they were being used to elicit tokes that was even worse. Her expression darkened and she assured me she would handle it. I experienced approximately one millisecond's worth of sympathy for the dealer who winds up on the wrong end of that disapproving look.

[Update: I was taking a bath after I wrote this post, and happened to look up and see... an entire rack of nice fluffy towels that I had previously failed to notice. So I take back the part about the towels, this time anyway.]

On the Road Again

I'm heading to Atlantic City again this Saturday for couple of days. This is a bus junket, so happily I won't have to negotiate traffic or drive while tired. All the more opportunity to concentrate on playing teh pokerz.

I've also booked my trip to Las Vegas in April; I arrive one day before the Tax Man and leave a week later. Key goals for the trip include stunning the tournament world with my brilliance in the Deepstack Extravaganza at the Venetian and lining up a place to stay for the month of June. (Gosh, I wonder which one will be easier to accomplish.)

Bad Performance

I once again donked out of my WSOP subscription series tournament with another lousy result. I am utterly embarrassed by how badly I'm doing in these games.

I am going to have to do some serious thinking about why my play has deteriorated so notably in this particular series. There's no getting around the numerous mistakes I've been making.

I could have overcome the bad luck I ran into if I had managed to play better. Lack of sleep and exercise could be contributing factors, but again no excuse is really adequate to the degree of suckage I've exhibited so far.

It's a good thing I won my B League game on Thursday; otherwise, my morale would be awfully low right now. As it is, I must get some rest, and get my head together for my foray to Atlantic City tomorrow. Because I cannot allow myself to be bent out of the shape by this latest debacle.

By the way, major blog posting is likely to be light to negligible while I'm in AC. I will, however, try to keep updating via Twitter.

Q and A: A Poker Player Getting Comped? What's Up With That?

Faithful reader phrankguy1 asks:

I'd be interested to know how a poker player gets completely comped rooms at AC casinos (Harrahs again?) on weekends. Do you play table games, etc?

I get this question a lot.

Once in a blue moon I'll run $20 through a slot machine. Or I'll sit at a $5 table game with $50.

But, honestly, it's a rare thing. I do it because someone told me that I'd never, ever get comped a room if I didn't.

I'm not so sure, though. I am currently a Platinum member at Harrah's and wouldn't be surprised to make Diamond level on poker play alone this year. When I go to a casino, I play A LOT of poker. I mean, ridiculous numbers of hours. On a four night trip I can easily rack up 70 hours of play. I think the stakes you play at matter too. On the other hand, on my last trip to Vegas I only played about 16 hours at Harrah's properties and they still comped my whole five-day stay. Go figure.

Most of room comps come from corporate headquarters, or through my casino connection folks. Once or twice, however, the poker room has arranged for me to extend my stay, gratis.

It has occurred to me to wonder, too, whether they are more generous to female players than male. I don't know why that would be the case, but I suppose it's possible.

More Travel Ahead

I'm making two trips to AC this month. The first, this coming weekend, is primarily aimed at participation in the WSOP Circuit Event at Caesars on Sunday. I'll be driving myself there and back for that one. The other is just the standard bus junket on the weekend of the 21st. In both cases, my hotel is completely comped.

I'm also planning another trip to Las Vegas in April for a Round 2 stab at the Venetian's Deepstack Extravaganza. Some people might call me a glutton for punishment, but I refuse to believe that I'll run really, really bad two trips in a row. (Of course I might, but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.) From a cursory exploration, it looks as if I ought to be able to secure a very reasonable airfare; I need to work with my casino folks to see what they can do for me in terms of lodging. My timing on that one is flexible, although I'd prefer it include a weekend.

In May, I'll be making a family-related trip to Guadalajara, Mexico. I don't suppose they have poker in Guadalajara (which is probably just as well). I think that may be enough long-distance travel for the month. We'll see how I feel about AC when the time comes.

And, of course, the current plan is to spend the month of June in Las Vegas.

When I write it all out like that, it sounds like quite a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. I wish I had more options closer to home.