MD does because it's a big area pop. wise including NoVA and DC. You have a lot of educated people who enjoy all of the things that make poker great, interesting, and challenging.

I sat down the other night at a game where everyone was serious faced, and my first impression was this was a poor use of time. Soon I found out I was totally wrong, and if it weren't for other obligations, I would have stayed in that game as long as possible.

Rob, I highly recommend a grind trip this winter.

Rob, I said it the last time I saw you and I'll say it again, It's great to see you outside the V. Casino hoping to find good games >>> then playing at the same place every day.

Next on your list of poker regrets will be that you didn't start game selecting sooner…. I know you like to just plant it and grow roots at whatever table they send you too and there's no question you have the skill to figure out a table, exploit it and make money. But why sit in a tough game with an ev of $25/hr when across the room there's a table that will earn you $65/hr with little to no real chance that anyone will ever put you in a tough spot??? I know you know what a good game looks and feels like. All I'm saying is when you feel like the game you're in is not at least a tick above average…. table change. Make one of your 2014 goals be, I will never sit in a below average game for more then 30 minutes.

In fact, if you make that a goal and actually give it a go, I will bet you a 5star meal or $100 that you will thank me while scratching your head and wondering how much more you could have made in 2013 if you spent some time and energy surveying the room and picking the game you want vs. planting yourself wherever

Oh and this…..
you are such a fish. You can walk to Aria way faster then you can get there by tram.

Yeah wtf bellagio to aria is a 10 min walk tops, and nice post floppy.

But it was cold outside ldo.

Legs don't have wheels mother ****ers

Holiday Pay

Decided to give myself a holiday raise at Bellagio this week.

I've been playing at Venetian more again and having good but not steady and consistent results that I'm striving for these days.

However, on the other side of the strip -



I was up about 5 buyins in 40 minutes yesterday at Bellagio. It was the sickest heater I have ever been on. I overflushed some people and set over set a guy and got stacks every single time. Ran very, very well.

After 2 hours I had about 4k and my stack stayed the same for basically the remainder of the session.



Yesterday was also a great example about how things snowball in live poker. Winners tend to keep winning and losers tend to keep losing. It's so much easier to play good when you run good.

I have an hours propbet that covers december 1st to the 22nd that I will finish today (couple days early) because I played a really good amount this month.

Must admit I'm very pleased with my volume this month and after yesterday now my results are through the roof too. Over 100$/hr now after yesterdays demolition of Bellagio. Things are going well.

It's also a goal of mine to learn how to speak manadarin in the new year. I'm getting an edition of Rosetta Stone as a Christmas gift and I look forward to that challenge as well. I have a few chinese speaking friends that I can talk to and obviously a ton of casino employees I talk to on a regular basis that I can practice with. I had a brief conversation with a dealer yesterday at Bellagio with basic stuff I've learned already from one of my friends (nice to meet you, good evening, how are you, I'm good, my name is robert, whats your name, thanks for the help,) and it was really cool. Some guy in the game (a fish) was super curious how I even know basic introductory stuff as it's a pretty unique situation for some white kid from new england to be able to speak any type of mandarin.

I also had a prop bet offer (1k against my 500) that I wouldn't be able to learn the language after a year but I declined cause I think I'm getting way the worst of that bet. The general consensus I have heard from people is that mandarin isn't crazy difficult to speak but is insanely hard to write. I'm only trying to learn to speak though.

Couple days left in Vegas, very excited to fly back home for a week.

You also ran bad that I had the K high flush vs your ace high flush and fish rent nuts before you could crush me... If I a) don't know who you are or b) am not 4b by fish causing you to 5b you get another 500


You should probably be getting it anyway and I just play bad enough to fold but really thought you only had jxss, qxssx or axss, and are weighted heavily towards axss

Curious how you play qxss and jxss in that spot?

Assuming you mean in my spot.

I just call and keep pot under control, see what you do.

I don't want to get 200bb in the middle (this was a limped pot as well) with qxss.

With the nuts in my spot I think it's better to just gii vs fish and not worry about what you do. Because if I call and you call behind that is an absolute disaster. This is what I was pondering, thinking once I put out 650 your gonna fold everything but I still think it is better since I am 1200 deep with a guy who is just not folding.

Hi Rob, rufus2012 here. Long time listener, first time caller.

I agree wholeheartedly. 100% professional staff (managers & dealers alike) & fantastic food service. Best room overall in Vegas. More 5/10 games would be nice tho...

In my experience, it can be +EV to JUST CALL Riv here and see V's cards, just for future reference. Like you said, he's incapable of calling with worse than the straight, so what's the point of raising/shoving...

My question is does this thought process ever cross your mind when you're debating a RIV call when IP?

This made me laugh. Reminds of watching Mike Francesca's show. I hate him with a passion but always watched his show for some reason. Jedi mind tricks.

Never.

I called in that hand because I don't think he won't call me with worse, not because I want to see his hand.

In live poker so often your playing against people for the first and last time that information isn't valuable enough to do stuff like that.

Even against regs, same thing. Game is so slow that that spot isn't going to come up often enough. Of course seeing his hand can tell us how he is going to play other hands but EV is still EV. Game is too slow to give up money for information.

So you just called just in case he actually did make a flush. Makes sense Rob. Thanks for the thoughtful response! Love the thread man. GL

Not exactly. he called because he didn't think villain would call a raise with worse. and when called villain will have a weirdly played flush more than he has a worse hand but his raise/call river range is very small if it even exists.

in florida the regs were talking about how good the maryland games were. spot to play right now.

I'm in my first year of Mandarin in college. The Chinese characters are great, don't miss them, they are extremely interesting. If you know them, you can pick up a lot of Japanese, and other dialects. (I actually did this the other way around) Classic literature is very easy to pick up if you know modern writing too. I'm working through 孫子兵法 (Sun Tsu's Art of War) at the moment.

So I've heard. Every card room I've been to in the last six months is talking about Maryland .

Sick run Rob! I can only dream of getting max value with my monsters lol.

Had a feeling that was you. Was on your table at Venetian and briefly at bellagio while you had that sick stack, but got a table change within first orbit. Congrats on the big run!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptPBCSsPJR4

http://youtu.be/eJBde7b41xI

Rob, 1st is a Francesa parody and second is a Mike & Mad Dog parody. Both pretty good!

Mike and Mad Dog rule and this

http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2013/...s-network.html

Hey Rob, the following quote was said by squid face shortly after WSOP 2012. I'm wondering how you (and any other Vegas grinders) feel after playing through the 2013 series.

Francesca parody is amazing. Love the diet coke. 2:50 to about 3:20 is hilarious. Was waiting for him to mimic Francesca's "cut him" hand motion which he uses all the time to get the last word in. Me and my dad do this motion as a joke sometimes as Francesca often does it in such an arrogant condescending way.

Another funny story -

Pre poker I was a cable guy for AT&T and installed cable in peoples houses. During my first few weeks I had to ride along with an experienced guy and we did jobs together. The whole day (since it's his truck and I'm a new hire) we are listening to Francesca on the radio despite me telling this kid how much I hate him.

We are working in some guys house and still talking about how awful Francesca in during the whole job.

Eventually we finish up and this guy is doing the introductory thing showing the customer how to use the remote and immediately flicks the channel to the YES network where Francesca is blabbing away on television and I just immediately start cracking up infront of the customer while I'm watching this guy teach him how to use the remote.

Say hi. I'm pretty nice even when stuck.

The key is to have your opponents have a hand just worse than yours, try that.

Absolutely true. Although I don't know if I agree with moving your family for 6 weeks, that seems extreme. Luckily I have no kids

Thought I would chime in about learning chinese:

This is the most important thing to watch imo as a beginner: He has the best method to teach tones, I have come across on the internet:
Youtube Chinese with Mike-Guy seems very cool as well and pretty funny.

Some good resources are CCTV growing up with Chinese-this is a video series china has created for learning the language-starts out easier but its fairly difficult.

ChinesePod-A torrent available for this- I listen to these when I play poker. Short 10 min podcast things.

Memrise.com for flash card programs

PLECO $15 dictorionary app for your mobile phone, with flash cards you can create. This is def worth buying.

Pimsluer Chinese-Again you can torrent this.

I would not bother with Rosetta stone, it really garbage and way overpriced if the price is still similar to what I remember it was last I checked.


Also forget any change of learning it within a year. I think i considered my self pretty intelligent (IE attend the top uni in the country), I also had a similar mindset to you thinking I would be fluent very quickly. I started in June this year and have put in a ridiculous number of hours. But it is just so difficult as you will soon find out when you start to reach the intermediate stage. The tones are the hardest part to master and you should def make sure this is your number one priotorty when learning, as when you speak to chinese with wrong tones they will just look at you dumbfounded.

Eitherway goodluck, it has def opened up a lot of doors for me already, especially in regards to making new friends. And its been pretty fun as well.

The quote was directed at a pro whose sole source of income was poker who had a very young family and was contemplating coming out to vegas for the wsop.

Nice run...always awesome to finish off the year with a nice bump to the w/r

Obviously you celebrated with hookers and blow amirite?!

Celebrated by losing 2k the next 2 days in a bunch of unavoidable spots.

eh i couldn't disagree more with LV games being great during wsop (and i think JDB would agree). i thought the games in the summer in LV (mostly 2/5 at wynn + mostly 2/5nlhe and a lot of plo at V + one session 5/T and like 3 2/5 and a few 1/3 at aria + some sessions of 2/5 and 5/T at B + few random other games) were literally the worst live poker games i have ever played in in my life. i did play randomly at golden nugget and PH a few times and those games were good but they don't run often enough. i have played just about everywhere in the US cept chicago and detroit and i've played a lot of live poker in asia.

like, ya, the players are wannabes or whatever but at least they have some idea what is going on. players would start 4betting me light/backraising me/floating me/raising my cbets light at 2/5. it was weird and it like never happens to me except as random spazz from foxwoods to philly. and even if someone is a poser internet kid in a hoody then they are probably a small winner in their normal game and at best a small loser in LV. and even if they are breakeven player at 2/5 then they are hurting your winrate by forcing you to be nittier and by occupying a seat that a fish who will lose 1-300$/hr would otherwise take. like, i would see 4 euro regs playing 2/5 often. that is not a good game lol. or really any game with more than one other person that looks or plays like me. at borgata/parx/sands/foxwoods i have encountered maybe 3-5 other players at 2/5-5/5 that i thought might be as good or possibly better than me. and i'm not saying this with an ego i know when i am like the 4th best player at the table (though usually i don't feel this way unless i am playing 5/Tlive or HSMTT online)

if someone is in their mid-20s and have 5-10k to drop on tournaments they probably aren't horrible. it is degen if they aren't a pro but that person still probably has poker experience. even if you're 50something you've probably read a few books...i remember one time at caesars there were 3 friends (had come in from chicago) at my table who'd played the ****ing SENIORS EVENT that day and were talking about spots where they 4b or reshoved light.

games at every other casino are super-nutted during big tourney series. but i found this not to be the case during wsop in LV...last winter games were awesome though. convention time is better than wsop time.

one final example: basically me and two other players are completely destroying nj online SSNLHE for like $70+/hr...one of them is the only player i've met in PA who i thought might be as good or better than me (below 5/10-10/10), is a good friend, and we share rooms at borg pretty often. and he was talking about me with the 3rd player about me at sands the other day and how i 4bet too large

i never met the 3rd guy IRL but i have tons of hands on him from intertops as he was a sick volume grinder.

there aren't that few good players in the player pool in lv. JDB told me he saw a former sunday mill winner/online MTT legend playing 1/2 regularly at V...