Me and my buddies were playing a casual $20 buy in against each other. It came down to me and my best friend. It's was about a 60/40 chip division with me on the lower end. I had made aces full by the turn and went all in. He called with trips kings and was upset with himself, right up until the final K showed up on the river. I wish I could say I handled the situation with class and dignity, but if I did, I'd be rightly called a liar.
My game is blackjack. I have been to the Mohegan Sun well over 100 times as well as going to Vegas and Atlantic City. My best was winning $5000 and my worst was losing just over $2000 with a bunch of that on credit cards. Was up at Mohegan a couple weeks ago and since there weren't many people there the blackjack tables were all $10 minimum bets, which I hate. I like to play at $25 minimum because you don't get as many drooling retards. But with $10 you get people who don't know how to play fucking up the table. Our table had one guy who came up with a $5 chip and a match play coupon, play one hand, lose and leave. Though I did get to see one guy, who hit with the dealer showing a 6 and instead of the dealer busting the whole table lost, get yelled at by an old lady who he made lose. Then the rest of the table called him a fucking moron and he took his chips and rushed away.
I'm assuming you count? How covert do you need to be for them to not pick up on the fact you're counting? Do you have to pass up raising on good hands? I work about a half hour from Mohegan and have yet to take advantage of this to make some easy money counting out of fear of being caught.
I'm awesome at gambling. I'm good at math, I'm good at reading people, I can card count enough to give myself an edge at blackjack and I can make good decisions. For a while. When I win more than once or twice, I get a rush. I start to suck at math. I misread people and get egotistical and I make bad, bad decisions. My gambling results always look exactly the same, smooth start, small wins, medium wins, stupid bets, crushing losses, going home broke. From my grandparents to my generation, there are about a dozen problem gamblers in the family. Some of them have lost massively, some of them have just slowly trashed their life for years and years before crashing. I have just enough perspective from the times I have gambled to recognize that I shouldn't gamble. I get the addictive high from winning, and I get the poor judgement from the high. The only smart move for me is to only ever play expecting to lose. I'll throw a few dollars in for a buy in every now and then - and consider it an entry cost for a night out, and expect to lose it all. If I can't afford to lose it all - I don't go, and I never expect to come away with anything. I play cards at most once a quarter and don't ever risk more than $30 for the night. When I'm out, I'm out. I haven't broken those rules for years - but I'm still regularly tempted. Fuck it, it's cheaper for me to just do recreational amphetamines if I want to get high. I'll be too fucked up to buy more drugs for less money than I'd lose on gambling if I got into it.
My coworkers and I used to drive 90 minutes to the local casino, play all night and lose all the tips we made previous shift. Then we'd have to drive home as the sun rose, knowing we'd have to go back to work and make everything back we just lost. It was a depressing summer. I know blackjack is supposed to have the best odds, but I've gambled with some shooters in craps who knew how to roll.
When I first started going to casinos, my mom got really worried because my dad was a degenerate gambler and that's what led to her divorcing him. As it so happened, I was very disciplined when I gambled. I only played poker as it is much more of a skill game where the house doesn't hold an edge, and I never spent more than I brought with me, which was never much. When internet poker exploded, I couldn't deposit any money since I didn't have a credit card. So I did a lot of freerolls (tournaments with no buy-in cost but usually very small payout) and built up a sizeable bankroll without depositing a dime. I devoured a lot of literature on poker, namely stuff from Sklansky. Eventually, I stopped enjoying the long sessions with no human interaction. When my friendsw were going out to the bars, I was beginning all-night sessions and going to sleep at 7am and sleeping til 4pm. Rinse and repeat. Finally I just decided this was a ridiculous way to go through college. I cashed out my money and bought a car and went to Europe. Now that I'm in a job that I enjoy but doesn't pay too well, I find myself thinking of picking the game up again. Unfortunately, the government shut down online poker and regular trips to AC isn't doable. But I always wondered how good i could get and if I had the skills to go pro. As far as online versus live poker goes, I never was fully comfortable playing live not because I had major tells or didn't like interacting with others. Every time I went to a casino, I brought a few hundred with me and usually played the 1-2 nl game. The problem with that is you feel a lot of pressure to not play to aggressive because if you lose quick, you will have nothing to do for the rest of the night. So I played too tight. Conversely, since I always had a nice bankroll online, I actually played much better since money was not as big of an issue. That's definitely one of the biggest differences. When you have money in an online account, it isn't real. You don't have easy access to it where you can withdraw like an ATM. In a casino, that money I brought was real. It was the same money I used to live off of and I was very conscious of that fact. That's why I loved tourneys. Everyone was in the same position. I've played blackjack a couple of times but didn't enjoy it that much. I just don't like gambling where the game is set up so the odds are against you the moment you sit down.
Either this hand is REALLY popular, or we're on the same wavelength, because I saw this post sans video (on my phone), and thought of this exact hand as a great example of real poker playing. Phil Ivey is so, so sick. BTW, if any of the Nor'easters on the board are ever at Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun, lemme know.
sold play money chips when i was 15 for $10, built it up nice and slow, then lost my whole roll ($1600) in one night. Like that Rounders quote I can still remember with amazing clarity the exact way I lost it. Built it up many times after that, rinse repeat yada yada yada.... ended up about +15k overall in about two years of very sporadic play. In hindsight I was too young and too immature to beat the game at reasonable stakes. 200NL was the limit I could never beat. Unfortunately I never really had any degen stories involving hookers, blow or thousands of dollars. The most I won in one night was 1800. I practiced strict bankroll management. Published an article for 2+2. However, I did get to do a few cool things, like be able to bring my friend along to sit front row centre at a Toronto Maple Leafs game ( $450 tickets each), got to go to a raptors game and a Toronto FC game. Used my FPP's to get a DSLR camera with a 75-250mm lens. Got some T shirts. I would trade the very little amount of success I had in poker for friends in high school. I played because I had nothing else to do. I was pretty much alone in my house playing online poker and when I lost I took it very badly. The online poker world is full of very interesting stories involving young kids who crush the games. I could find some links if anyone is interested.
I love No Limit Hold Em. I usually just play small stakes home games with friends, but have started venturing to my local casino a few times to play the 1/2 NL games and have built a small bankroll. Tonight I won my biggest pot ever ($550 with a set of 6s) but lost over $200 of it later on as I kept playing (not really any terrible plays - got rivered and lost a coin flip) but probably should have quit after I won that big hand. That brings me to a question for the more experienced players on the board - Isn't it kind of an unwritten rule not to leave the table right away after you win a huge hand? I know it's your money and you can do what you want with it, but when you are going to be playing at the same casino over and over with lots of the same people, whats the best strategy here?
Are you playing for fun or for profit? If you're playing for fun - it's polite to play for at least a few hands after a big win. It keeps your relationship with the other players a bit friendlier. If you're playing for profit? Fuck those guys. Win big and go home.
After reading all of these posts I've can only assume that everyone who plays poker wins all the time. Some of you have to be lying. I've only played 5 dollar buy-in with from friends, and have won around 3/8 times, partially because my friends suck, partially because I'm alright at reading people. I tried online poker, put $10 in, got to $45, lost it on a hand I should have won, said fuck it and uninstalled the program. But hey, not everyone can be as baller as all of you gambling professionals.
Bear in mind, a lot of people who play poker, only play poker. I don't touch anything else at the casino because I don't enjoy blackjack, or roulette, or anything except cash games of NL hold 'em. I go to my local casino on Friday nights only, because that is when the rich, drunk, fly-in fly-out workers come to throw away a thousand dollars on a night's entertainment. There are a lot of things the amateur but serious poker player can do to maximize his chances against the drunk that has struck out in the nightclub and is convinced that the two minutes of WSOP on cable he's seen make him awesome. Poker is also unique in that you can choose to play against people who mostly suck. When it comes to online play, I'm mediocre, but I consistently beat the limits I play, because I play micro limits with donkeys who have never read a poker book in their life, and wouldn't know who Sklansky was if I smacked them over the head with Theory of Poker. It's easy to win if you are playing against people who can't lay down top pair. I'm currently stuck at the 25c/50c level, because I get manhandled at the 50c/$1, but I rarely have a losing session at 25/50c. Choosing the correct game is important.
Disagree with Scootah. Entirely, actually. If you're playing for fun, and you're a douchebag, then there's nothing to stop you. But if you a.) want to be polite, or b.) are actually planning on playing semi-regularly, then it makes no sense to chip and run. It's bad etiquette, and not worth it in the long run. Nobody's going to stop you, but you're much better off just waiting half an hour, which is probably less than 10 bucks, if that. This. It's actually hugely different, and the jump from 25/50 to 1/2 might be the biggest early jump you're going to face. Being able to win a couple hundred bucks most weeks at a casino is pretty far from being a "pro" in any sense, and really isn't that hard if you're that interested in getting better. It's sort of like chess. If you play every week and read a bunch of books and stuff, you can go from amateur to hobbyist pretty quickly and start beating people who don't know what they're doing. That doesn't mean that you're ready to go on the national tournaments or anything.
Why not? This has come up enough, and maybe this will actually be helpful. These are some basic tips to beating 1-2 games in casinos. Feel free to ignore some or all of these tips, especially if you just want to have fun.
Does anyone else here play Craps? Its been 3 pages, and not even a single mention. The first time I went to a casino, I was set on finding a cheap Hold 'em table and playing against the degenerates of Milwaukee, WI. While waiting for a game to open up, my buddy and I watched the craps table. After a while I decided to throw $20 down and grab 4 chips. 10 minutes later, I'm up $100 bucks, just playing the pass line and the pass odds, and I forgot all about that Hold 'em game. Ended up turning that $20 into $400. Now I go about once a month. I still haven't come home with anything less than what I brought, and lets hope it stays that way.
4th post my friend. I learned how to play a couple years ago and stick to both craps and blackjack exclusively. I usually observe all the tables for an hour or so, then choose my table based on how many rolls people get and how much money is being played. It's pretty common from what I've seen to be a hot table with a lot of money being played all the time. Also, when I do play in, I stick to the standard pass line and then betting the numbers. When one of my numbers is rolled, I usually just add it to my bet; it's all won money anyway, so it doesn't hurt to lose it. And it's making 'friends' with the dealers is always a good move, they recognize your moves and automatically do them when something happens. Plus they give advice.
If you're playing for profit it is in your best interest to stay after you win a big hand. When you're winning you are more relaxed, can fold hands and wait for optimal situations. Patience is a virtue when it comes to poker and when you're winning it comes more easily. Your table image is likely better and if you're good you can use that. Now, when you're losing everything becomes a mindfuck. If you got unlucky you tend to try and get your money back too fast and tend to push bad situations. If you're getting outplayed the tendency is to try and outplay them even more, which is almost always bad because then you tend to polarize your ranges and when you're losing nobody believes you have the narrow range you are repping. Of course everybody gets this wrong and people like to chase losses and book small wins instead of the other way around. It's the wrong mindset.
I don't understand anyone who plays the pit games for profit. Sure, I love feeding a slot machine for an hour and hitting some big payouts sometime, but I know by simple probability the more I play the more I'll be down in the long term. So I just play for fun/ video game fee, I guess. As for roulette, let me inform some of you who haven't looked into it of the following fact: Every single bet in roulette has the same EV (which is slightly negative, of course). Yes, everything is negative, but EVERY bet has the same EV --- Red, Black, Column 3, Evens, 21, 35, 6, 00, 0. Making quad bets, making half bets --- all the EXACT same EV (riskayout ratio). There is only one that doesn't, the pentagon between 0, 00, 1, 2, and 3 (the sucker bet, but people never do that anyway). So WHY do people consider different patterns to put their chips in, and stare at the board for a long ass time? EVERY bet is fucking same. Sure, the Red/ Black has less variance that the number bets, but in terms of "profits" they are all the same. There is no system. Craps? Never played, but seems unbeatable long term, like most pit games. Blackjack you can only win by counting cards I guess. I always assumed the casino would catch on, though. I don't know. That's why I mostly stick to poker - the only beatable game in the house long-term. And occasional slots just for laughs. I've found most poker players in casinos are horrible compared to your typical online player, for some reason. Probably because someone who has downloaded online poker software has at least looked into the game.
I agree with your logic, but not your conclusion Obviously, every bet has the same EV, but as you've said, there's wildly different variance, and people have highly different tolerances for variance. When I play roulette, I have a pretty deliberate betting patterns, because I know that I'm really paying 80 cents or whatever for entertainment value and I want to maximize that. I could imagine somebody who put 20 bucks on 7 every time they go to Atlantic City, and quickly forgets about it if they lose. If they win, they have an awesome trip where they make 700 bucks without doing anything! That's probably +happiness EV. On the flip side, if somebody just bet red/black for 24 hours at a time, they'd probably lose pretty consistently, which would be pretty sad.