Buying in for 5 big bets is pretty comical.

I thought the same. More power to him for playing LHE but this feels more like trolling. $20? Seriously?

I wouldn't call them harder.

In the end, games are table specific and being able to game select is very important.

The nice big rooms attract the most tourists (ie. When was the last time you read a TR about someone going to play poker at TI for example) and offer you the most tables to select from, I think that should be more important than the perceived number of "good regs". (In quoted because it's 1/2, 1/3)

More importantly, the MLife rooms all have lower rake, which really adds up in the long run.

Cheers,

S

I don't discount the possibility that I may be wrong about those rooms.

BUT - not all tourists are built the same. The TRs here are still from 2p2 members. I want the tourist that doesn't bother with the trip report because they only play poker a few times a year. Those tourists (I think) would be much to intimidated to play at Aria (for example). Besides, game selection is a factor of area, right? Sure, I can find multiple games at bigger rooms. But if you just take the south strip, with MGM, Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay - that gives you plenty of games to choose from in a relatively small area. You can easily spend a day playing all those games with no shortage of action.

Excalibur is most assuredly filled with crap players. Their room is in a loud part of the casino, their tables/chairs are junky and their chips are equally grimey to The Mirage's. But if none of that bothers you, it can be a profit spot. For me, I prefer to spend my time a little more comfortable. For the same style of players the Luxor is a more comfortable and nicer ran room for my time.

Excalibur and Mirage are definitely next on my list

hey... you get better by playing against better players.

I'm just sayin

Sure, of course that's true. You can also become a better driver by practicing in an empty parking lot or by racing in Daytona on a Sunday. Both of those will make you a better driver. But, which one are you better suited for? Which one will give you better improvement from the level you're at? Money I win from low-hanging fruit spends the same as anyone else's money . . .

Is this a blog?

It's like Carrot Top once said to a journalist prodding him about "prop comedy" during an interview.

"It makes millions of people laugh, so I'm going to guess you're mad at me because I'm willing to make people laugh and it's not your style of comedy and it makes me millions of dollars while you pester me with a microphone."

In different terms: It's bad business for Jim to mix it up with players above his level when he can sharpen his techniques and his form working out on players that are closer to or below his own level. Like Carrot Top, he would be foolish to leave easy money on the table in pursuit of challenging himself, especially considering Jim's belief (and maybe Coach Cushlash's as well) that it is in his best interest to tighten his flaws while exploiting the most exploitable.

Afterall, Jim's goal is to improve his game from losing regularly to making money. Exploiting weak player pools is a part of that. Fixing in game flaws is a part of that. Dude is a businessman from what he was shared in previous post, so I'm pretty confident that he (with the help of Coach Cushlash) will be making the best moves to accomplish his stated goal.

In regards to the recent discussion:

There is a balance between the advice of "you get better by playing against better players" and "go play easy games and pick low hanging fruit".

We perform and learn best when we challenge ourselves just enough. If something is too easy we won't be stimulated by it enough and won't learn. If something is too hard we will be overwhelmed and likewise will not learn. There's a middle ground where the activity is just stressful enough to foster new growth while not so stressful that we shut down. Ideally we want to put ourselves right on the line where if we went one more step we'd shut down.

To relate it to poker, we learn best in games that are on par or a bit above our skill level. Just starting out, these 1/2 and 1/3 games are perfect for JB or any new player to cut their teeth. There will be plenty of spots that will come up that new players will need to think hard about. So even though the opponents are lol bad, its not just "low hanging fruit" because new players will need to work hard to reach that fruit. After a while that will not be stimulating enough and he can move on to bigger/tougher games. At some point the next level will not be profitable enough to make it worth jumping to even if the level currently being played is no longer stimulating. Then it just becomes a battle of attrition, which is a whole other conversation.

I agree with both cushlash and Nat. The middle ground for me is that I have no visions of grandeur with this. I don't see myself on the cover of Card Player. The goal is *profit* not necessarily "domination". I think that's a subtle but important difference.

So I'm not really sure how far I want to go with it. For the short term, if I can make my utility bill payments for the LV summer that might make me ecstatic. Can I make a car payment with this? Who knows? If I do, what is the effort required to get there? Would that effort be easier just billing more hours for CET (I work when I want)?

For now I'm just going to have fun with it and learn as much as I can from people that know more than me, like cushlash.

Clearly MSchu got better by playing the big mix games in the Ivey room

JB sounds a bit fragile to me... but good luck to him, for sure.

at this level (1/2-1/3), there is a fairly small range in terms of skill level when the totality of player pool is considered. So while I think the advice of "careful consideration" is great for a good 2/5-reg 5/10 game, @ LLNL it seems slightly cautious to me here. I think seat time is a much more important component than is game selection for exportability sake, specially at this level.

I think, is terms of your analogy, if your goal is to race... you need to begin racing, NOT learning car control in an empty parking lot.

surely you are going to finish in the back half of the field either way, but slowly you move forward if you have skill sets.

certainly cush is going to set up you as well as anyone locally that I have ever met, so carry on and see you at the tables.

You don't grasp the analogy. The goal is not to race, the goal is to drive. Again, you don't have to dominate to profit. You can dominate & profit, but they are not requirements for each other.

hey... if that we absolutely true W, I would have never tried to four bet you with air when you were holding the nut flush!

I don't want to get into a whole deal here, but then your analogy is misguided if you goal is to merely be able to drive... but suffice to say, I do understand it.

if you are still learning to drive, then yeah... look for EXTREMELY soft games

people don't realize that the big rooms really attract more fish all the time. i do come from a bit stiffer market tho so it's not as much of a "culture shock" when there are competent 1/3 players.

Again, I'm not discounting that I may be wrong. For the time being I'm enjoying the results at the less-popular rooms.

Personally, I think it's a bit refreshing having someone come in to LVL, openly acknowledge they're a losing player and make no excuses about it, set out a path for improvement with realistic goals, and work to achieve it in a fashion that makes sense to them. JBs route/methods/goals might not be for everyone but I applaud the thought and effort that went into them thus far.

To continued luck and improvement JB!

I am not a pro, but I have probably logged as many hours as anyone in here at 1/2 - 1/3. IMO all this gnashing of teeth over which room is best or not is drastically overstating the importance of venue selection for these games. In today's post-black friday world, you can definitely find yourself in a 2/5 game where the level of play is considerably higher than the stakes would normally dictate. I once sat at the Venetian where we were 7 handed, and four of the others at the table were known-to-me documented successful full time pros (RobFarha was one for example). This just doesn't happen at 1/2.

It is true that you get more/better players at Aria (for example), but there are also more games running. You can easily table select your way out of any game that has more than a couple of solid regs playing in it, because there simply aren't _that_ many truly solid regs playing 1/2.

The fact is that any player who is thinking about the game enough to get coaching to play it is already playing well enough to beat 1/2 in any room in Vegas. Not crush, not own, but beat. Or, if they aren't, they will be _very_ quickly. This assumes that they are coachable of course, and don't have silly leaks like being tilt monsters, or becoming drunken ATMs after 2am etc.

It is my opinion that it is vitally important to be confident when playing, and staying away from certain venues because the 1/2 there might be too tough is contrary to that idea. I am no mastermind, but I can say with confidence that there are very (very) few truly good 1/2 players, anywhere. Why? Because if they were that good they'd have moved up to 2/5 by now. It's just not that hard to move up at this level.

I'm sure someone else said this elsewhere, but 'reg' and 'good' are far from the same thing at these stakes.

cliffs: play wherever you want. You can and will beat the game regardless of what room you're in. If you're in a bad game, change tables. If you can honestly tell me that in a session you switched games twice in the same room and all three games were too full of solid regs for you to beat it, I'll pay your coaching fees to cushlash for a year. Just isn't happening.

Good stuff amigo, I need to get my **** together and hire you as a coach some day.

As far as small rooms go on the south strip Monte Carlo has a nice comfortable room.

Best of luck.

I suggest not wasting time/energy pushing +$1 for every tip placed. The number is not useful and it will have you constantly distracting you. What you cash out is what you made......why make it any harder on yourself.