Apparently I've played with more aggro/fishier people than you guys have. And he's not assuming villain is going to call off anything. Villain made the shove.

No. The discussion is about alternatives to Hero's raise to 50.

I too am against the "consensus". Shoving $200 into $50 is only getting called by AA and KK and occasionally AK. I think a raise to 80 is (pot sized raise) is enough to make things clear unless you have a LAG image he would play back at or he is very LAG. Otherwise you can fold to his shoves and if he flats you can shove most flops where you have an overpair.

And I would not accept the consensus on a poker forum as correct. Think about the hand and the replies critically. Challenge the responses to explain their reasoning and assumptions. If you were in a strat forum I think over time you could figure out who to give more weight to (though it is often not the loudest or ones with the highest post count.). Even advice from a great player may be completely wrong for your game (simple example: you play very TAG and he plays very LAG and doesn't adjust advice to match your image.)

So you're moving up to where they respect your raises?

Seriously, if you can't beat the tourists you can't beat anyone. You've just gotten lucky/unlucky at various places.

Hi Jim_Beam, I´m a player coming from poker online, I´m going to Vegas (I´ll get this weekend) and I wanna play NLHE 1/2, which casino could you recommend me?

I think his point, which I would echo, is that he finds those games to be less violently variable; that said, the tourist games are much more potentially lucrative if you ride out the swings...just remember when they hit those 2 outer rivers that they had to play horrendously to do so, and that's what you're here for.

this advice is awful. open the same everytime. 15 is too big if you make it 15 then you need to be opening an absurdly tight range, you wouldnt be able to open hands like 44 etc. If the 4-bet is to 70 or 80 we can never fold to the 5! I like the 4-bet to 50/ fold against OMC type villains. they will still call the clickback a lot of the time if they do have worse in their range and have a hard time folding when you bet 1/3 pot on the flop. Also it makes it easier to get away when they have us crushed.

For those saying flat the 3! what range are you giving the villain at this point and how are you continuing against it? Live poker is hard because we dont have huds that tells us what the villain is doing in every single spot so I think a lot of the time if we can take a line that will narrow the villains range we should as it will make our life a lot easier.

One of my clients blew me off today and I'm not billing. And in my poker logs I'm only a few hours away from hitting 100 hours . . . so guess what I'm doing today?

I want to go camp out somewhere for 5 hours play and reach 100 hours as a milestons. Any suggestions? I'm debating between Venetian and Wynn because I like those rooms and it's comfortable to play multiple hours there.

I love the V. Your mention of comfort leads me to ask: how much do you think being comfortable in a given room influences the quality of your play?

I know I feel I play better when comfortable. Not just the location but things like having my seat adjusted to a comfortable height or being in the 5 or 6 seat. I know relative position is important so I will move to other seats to get position when needed but all things being equal I like those middle seats better both because I can see the board better and I don't like feeling squeezed on the ends. (And I hate the 1 seat.). I even have found when I am playing well I have a "stance" with my left arm on the rail reaching across with my hand resting in my right elbow. (I think this is part of a set of physical cues that get me into the poker mindset.)

All of the above is just my way of saying I believe comfort and routine can contribute a lot to how well I play and suspect it is true, perhaps less consciously, for many others.

So, how much do you think being comfortable in a given room influences the quality of your play?

I think it definitely makes a difference. I'm a little more "meta" about it in the sense that I need the room itself to be right. High ceiling, good lighting, plenty of space in between tables, things like that. After that, the comfort is all the same - I don't care too much about the chairs; everyone has good chairs that adjust, etc. My friend said that Wynn is like playing in someone's nice living room and I agree with that. So, I like those meta types of things that make a difference.

Having my poker bag with me helps because that provides some consistency too. Like I know what water I bring, I have hand sanitizer for gross chips, etc.

Finally, my history in each room also comes into play. I know it doesn't make sense but some rooms just don't feel good. It will be a while before I play in Luxor again. I hate the Bellagio because I just get 0wn3d in there. I have yet to lose at Venetian, I won $5000 in the Wynn room. So those come into the "mind game" of it all too (for better or worse).

I think you need to get out of your head that some of the rooms are like "black cats". Work on feeling you can win in any room but work on leaving "bad" games instead. Personally, I'm great at identifying bad games but leaving them is a my issue at times.

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Well, yes, of course. But all that will come with time. There are SO many games to choose from in Vegas that I can afford to have a "black cat" or two. I mean, it's not like if I said "I'm never playing luxor again" would cut me off from a significant percentage of games in Vegas, right?

Just curious but how to promotions of each room effect your play? Are there certain rooms you avoid because of promos, or do you prefer the non promo rooms (aria, bellagio, wynn and venetian)

Personally, I think the promo that changes the way people play (1/2 especially) are ticket drawings. People will play extremely tight toward start of the hour for drawings and if a player has zero or few tickets, players tend to play their draws more aggressively. (MGM flush or better tickets).

So I guess my question is, do you feel the extra rake, offsets the terrible player pool?

go with the V if its between those 2, more casual players and you seem really comfortable there (who wouldn't be its a great room for hanging out in)

Never playing in the Luxor again would cut you off from exactly 1 to 3, 1/2 NL tables…

My point exactly :-)

Too late. I'm already pulling into Wynn :-). But if I get stacked there I will walk over to V

I saw Jim Beam walking across Desert Inn so I guess he just got stacked!

Just kidding, but could you imagine?

1 - getting stacked

2 - my fat ass walking.

One of those things NEVER happens. Please vote accordingly

Hmm brain twister let me thing. Ok since it's a 50-50 shot I'll go with #2. The ? on #1 is how many times today, so far?

I got stacked twice today at 300NL - fawk!!!

And I didn't reach my 100 hours - double fawk!!!

Today has not been a good day. I'm going to post a line that I need to check on and you guys can tell me how much of a moron I am.

I don't agree with you. There's two sources of variance in poker.

Type 1: variance caused by being wrong about who has the best hand.

Type 2: Variance caused by the fall of the cards.

Holdem has the least type 2 variance of any commonly played form - you're usually either way ahead or way behind. And NL tends to have a larger fraction of the money go in on late streets where that's even more true.

Clearly type 1 variance should be reduced by playing against bad opposition - you should be wrong far less IF you are in fact better than them. If you're not better or not by much, than type 1 variance is still a big concern. So if OP is experiencing excessive variance in tourist joints, the issue is probably not the tourists. It's him. The QQ 5-bet hand is a pretty good example of the kind of wrong that costs lots of chips.

Just to be clear, I'm definitely not trying to beat up on OP or make fun or him. I think it's cool he's putting in the work to become a winner. I just interpret his results and the underlying causes a little different.

From the Wynn poker room to the Venetian poker room is a long damm walk. What's worse is you have to walk back to get your car.

this is not variance imo...this is poor/incorrect play, its a controllable factor (though may not seem to be at times) variance in poker (when i refer to variance i mean mathematical/statistical variability) is by its very nature uncontrollable, hence the importance of accounting for its inevitability. that said, when i say variance, i mean that your outcomes of hands are going to swing much wider when playing opponents who play more erratically/informally...its just how it works. but you are correct that you should seek out such games/opponents to maximize profits, and i understand why your mentioning the 'Type 1' because it can be very difficult to define if your suffering from poor play/decisions or true (Type 2 as you define it) variance.

I can attest that there are certain 'tourist' games that I find far more profitable but are also more volatile simply because a good chunk of my repertoire for controlling the table that I would implement in a 'local' sort of game is removed...in other words I'm going to have to play very standard and actually show up with the best hand so much more often to win $, but in doing so will be winning significantly larger pots (getting overpaid from TPTK ect...)

at this exact time though you should avoid the wynn...your just so much more likely to run into player(s) capable of outplaying you there, better to sit in a game of droolers and print $.

Agreed. I should have gone to V. I was a moron for going to Wynn