Cool, i'll check it out. Thanks ferg. Great stories. In general i find 4-8 to be profitable, where 2-4 and 3-6 tend to be a slow chip bleed....maybe because of the rake. I also do like 1-2 no limit. Havent tried 1-3 no limit yet.

Appreciate the LHE stories. Don't let us down now, wrap this trip up!

I will be moving back to Europe in a few weeks on short notice, so RL kept me busy and I apologize for taking so long to post this.

Here is part IX or -

The Final Part:

My last 24 hours in Vegas.
I think that was the first thought in my head as I woke up. I could not wait to get back to the tables and it wasn't long after a quick shower that I got seated at the Venetian.
My first table consisted of mostly new faces with a few older ladies (who played very well) from the day before thrown into the mix and everybody was in good spirits.
I got into my A-game right from the start and raised a fair number of hands early,
consistently adding to my chip-stack and I think it must have been that I was very aware of the fact that this was my last day here –but after about about an hour I absolutely got into the zone and while no hands really stand out from that afternoon or early evening, I have rarely played a better poker in my life!

I pushed for every cent of value whenever I figured I had the best hand, got out at the right time when I didn't and all the while I was making a steady profit. Occasionally, I even managed to find a few spots to bluff in when the pots were short-handed, floating some turns and then raising or even check-raising the river. The latter happened once and I got away with all the 3-4 bluffs I tried.
It was truly awesome and I later learned from a player I talked to a lot, that I apparently have an intimidating image at the table, something that surprised me quite a bit (and having thought about it, I am not so sure that this is the best image to have...)

As the hour got later, I showed no signs of slowing down and it was only at around 2am when my table broke that I realized I had been playing for 12 hours already.
At this point, my general excitement and adrenaline-level ruled out any possibility of sleep in the foreseeable future and so I went back to the Quads, took a shower and packed all my stuff, including any wallets, then I grabbed my belongings, checked out and went back to the V – this was turning out to be a long session...

Back at a new table, I started were I had left of and continued to play very well, breaking even for the next hour.
At around 3:45 the game got down to five people and I was afraid it would break any minute, leaving me only with the 3/6 game at the Mirage, if any.
So I was overjoyed when, within minutes, three seats on the opposite side of the table filled.
Joy turned to outright ecstatic excitement when I realized what had just happened.

So far, I had been playing with two tourists as well as an Asian lady and a young Asian gentleman, with whom I had been playing for a few hours already.
The lady chased a lot and rarely raised pre, her post-flop game was straightforward and pretty exploitable. The young man played a rather aggressive game with a lot of raising and while his post-flop game had a lot of holes, he did get me of a better hand by sheer aggression alone a few times.
Both were very nice people and we talked a lot, turned out they come to Vegas every Christmas to play low-limit poker (a lot of people do the same, weird...).
The two tourists played ABC-poker at best and then there was me – I was still playing a great game and I was happy with my results so far, sitting on a profit of $200 for the night.

It took a few minutes to sink in just who two of the newcomers were...
Complete and utter maniacs – that's who.
I fondly remember one instance playing online, I was just finishing up a loong session, was very tired and it must have been 7am when this lunatic sat down. As soon as I had realized what was going on, I brewed a huge pot of coffee and managed to take about $120 from him in the next 90 minutes, playing only that one table. Good times...
Words almost fail to describe the next two hours, about every third hand was capped pre by either one of those two and if their hand selection for capping followed any kind of thinking or plan, than this was impossible to discern. The Asian kid got involved in most of those hands, feeling little pain it looked like but he was nothing compared to the dynamic duo, raising and capping any two cards and then going mental on random flops.
More often than not, we started the flop 4-handed with around $100 in the middle and by the end a lot of those pots were north of $250.
I was entirely focused during that time and when I got involved into the madness, I did so with good cards.
one of the first times I played a hand I had Kjs, raised/capped it pre, flopped top pair and in the end won unimproved. The pot was over $280 and the prospects for the next hours couldn't have been better.
Getting my fair share of decent starting hands, I helped to built a lot of enormous pots by raising and betting for value. This worked out nicely, though sadly not for me, my big hands got cracked, when I flopped the best hand it wasn't by the river...

Raising, more raising, huge pots – the gods had given me a taste of what live-poker can be at its best but I was denied to profit from it, leaving me with felt where my chips had been earlier.
Speaking of leaving, the dynamic duo, despite their intoxication and to add on to the luck they had enjoyed so far, made one good decision during the entire time and that was to get up and leave before they lose it all, which they would have without a doubt.
All that was left to do was to watch as they had to get a bunch of racks to cash out the chips they had taken from the table. I think all of us that remained got hurt and between the two of them, they must have made at least $900.

When they left, I noticed just how annoyed I had become and I took a long break to walk it off and to do some introspection. Despite the fact that I had lost all my profits quickly, I couldn't help but think that I played my best and it didn't feel annoyed while the game was still on, so I was pretty confident that I hadn't steamed either (in the heat of the moment, this can be hard to tell sometimes).
I later talked to the two Asian players and they said, they have been coming to Vegas for many years but they had never seen a game like this before.

By now it was around 7am and the lack of sleep was getting to me but after a while and some coffee and breakfast, I was back in form and playing fairly decently. However, I failed to get anything meaningful going for pretty much the rest of the session but at least I enjoyed great conversations with one older lady in particular, so I had a good time.

Slowly, some mistakes crept into my game and by 10am, I had already followed two dealers to their new tables when I had remembered that I hadn't tipped them for a winning hand they had dealt me like half an hour before, had to be reminded to put out blinds, stuff like that when the last exciting hand of my trip happened.
I had raised KQs in late position and the nice older lady, who was a very good player, had called me from the blinds. After c-betting the J high flop, I turned a Q and kept betting turn and river. Nice Lady folds and to be cheeky, I throw my cards on the table, exposing a king. Immediately the table explodes and everybody talks at once and I have absolutely no idea what is going on.

Ahhh I see, so it wasn't heads-up huh? Well I guess that explains why the pot is so big then, relatively speaking.

I had completely ignored the old gentleman to my right, who had quietly been in the hand the whole time. He had called my river bet and now that the lady had folded, it clearly looked like I had given up, mucking my hand and showing King high for a failed bluff.
The gentlemen had been losing for a few hours already and a good number of these pots he had lost to me, he therefore was not in the best disposition towards me and rather forcefully proceeded to argue that my hand was dead and the pot was his.
Wtf, I had no idea how to deal with all this, it just doesn't come up online and the whole situation really got to me.
Shaken, I ordered my first and only drink of the night and my complexion as well as my large tip made it clear that speed was to be the crucial part of this transaction.

Meanwhile, the arguing had continued, with most of the table believing that my hand was live and it took quite an effort to muster a weak smile and say to the nice old Lady:
>Hey Laurie, if I lose this one – how long do you think I will remember it for?<
>Oh I reckon for forever<
I smiled again and agreed.

The old man was now getting adamant about his claim to the pot, so as calmly as possible, I asked him why he is making such a fuss and if he sees me acting like this, given the fact that I made the mistake and stand to lose the pot yet remaining fairly calm?
His answer was more of a grumble but earned me a lot of points from the rest of the table who were getting fed up with his manner as well.
In the end the floor came over, had the situation explained to him quickly and immediately ruled my hand to be live. I flipped over the queen and Mr. Willson grumpily surrendered.
All this was resolved so quickly in the end that I managed to flag down the waitress again to let her know that a small whiskey will be enough now.

I played my B-game for the last hours and after 23 hours at the table, reluctantly had to get up and get a taxi for the airport. All in all, I was down $45 for the day but I knew that the two hours with the crazy bunch were what could have made or broken my night, this time the deck didn't cooperate and it was the latter. But that's merely the short term, if I could sit with these guys every day, things would go my way sooner than later.

I actually managed to doze of in the plane back to Montreal, at least for a few hours but even so, when we make it back to the car, I was up for something like 38 hours but was in luck. Over the holidays, we had an ice-storm up here and hacking off solid layers of ice both warmed and woke us up tremendously.

When I finally got home, I was so wired that sleeping seemed impossible and after a few hours, I started to type up this TR. The results of that were hilarious apparently and part II in post #4 still shows why I resolved to never post sleep-deprived ever again. The mods were nice enough to move my repost of part I to post #1, but alas the repost of part II will probably always appear second in post #15.

The most unexpected thing to arise out of the experience is the resolve to play more live poker in the future and the next time I won't be playing 4/8 anymore.

Thank you all for reading.

By all accounts, you should make a much better profit playing NL but I just don't like or understand the game the same way I do limit.
But yeah, below 4/8 the rake just kills it.

I am glad you like them, I read a lot of TRs here and I wish we had more LHE ones.

Thanks for the TR! I agree that limit can be a lot of fun. I agree with others that there is probably more profit potential in NL and in LHE, somewhat counter-intuitively, the variance can be worse; going long stretches of playing well but still taking losses.

But if your primary goal is fun, LHE is just as good and less pressure of a single mistake ruining your session.

Thank you for the trip report, good stories. Can't say i blame you for not wanting to play 4-8 live anymore...if things went your way in that crazy game, sounds like you could have won 500 plus, instead of losing profits. I have alot of experience with live limit...bottom line, just a tough game to beat imo. The pots just get too big relative to bet sizes, and inevitably 3 or 4 people drawing on you are going to hit. I've made the transition to no limit; and although you can lose big pots, i think the ability to protect strong but vulnerable hands; as well as getting paid nicely on your big hands, offsets the downside risks. My advice would be to transition to no limit...reserve playing sshe for when you just want to have fun, drink, play some cards. I haven't played much higher stakes limit, maybe that is another potential avenue...but i still think regardless of limit stakes; there is an inherent problem in a game where you can only bet 10 percent of the pot. Maybe i'm wrong, i welcome all thoughts and opinions.

You are wrong, limit hold'em is very beatable. Why do you think betting 1/10th of the pot as a 60% favorite is a losing proposition? Yes the variance will be higher because 40% of the time you lose the whole pot, but that doesn't make it unbeatable. Yes in NL you can make a full sized bet and have the person fold, but why would you want someone to fold who is an underdog to win the pot?

As a player of both, I think both sides see the same issues. Sometimes the dog will chase that bone at any cost with the rationale that there's a big pot to be won. In limit we think of pot odds that the dog shouldn't be chasing; in NL it's just the size of the pot.

I hear you...i didn't say it's unbeatable...it's just hard to beat..and anything you win at lower stakes limit, you're just operating on a very small profit margin imo. What happened to fergie is pretty standard for good limit players, i think. Play good/run good for 12 hours, win a few hundred. Then run not so good, game gets a bit crazy, and either give it all back or continue to run well and profit 500 plus. I remember reading in matusow's book, he mentioned eventually "hitting the wall" in limit, or something to that effect. The answer to your question, you would want someone to fold in many cases in hold em, even when you are ahead, because you are rarely that far ahead, and would prefer to take the pot down there.

But they do that at low stakes NL too. If I had a nickel for every time a villain hit a 3 outer or less on the river, I'd have a buttload of nickels.

That's what I'm saying.

You should play .05 vid poker, p4b.