Sleepy Mike back at my table.

#GiveMeBackMySklanskyBucks

WTH? Mike 3-bet a $7 open to $30 with QQ instead of shoving. He's changed his algorithm. Are you reading this, Mike?

I finished The Fifth Season and, as expected, there is a payoff for having to get through a chunk of the book in the second person narrative point of view, and it's not from the character talking to herself, as I'd guessed.

Last night I played at the Flamingo. No real hands of note, but players were flashing their mucked hands, so I was able to get some good reads, and also I was able to confirm that I had made some good folds, calls and raises. Of course, that's all results oriented and might just be down to luck in the short term, but it's still a good feeling.

Per a suggestion from a germ-shy friend of mine, I've recently taken to washing my hands before and after I use the public restroom. I'm not a germophobe myself, but I realize that Las Vegas poker tables could well become the ideal machines for contracting and spreading the Coronavirus.

Flamingo: 6 hours:
+$208

I like

I like the 2nd person, but realize I'm in the minority. Since you appear unafraid of the unusual, here a couple of fairly famous ones.

1. If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino. Only half in the 2nd person. A masterpiece. Everyone I've recommended this book to has hated it. My 80-year-old mother threw it at me in the assisted-living center.

2. Bright Lights, Big City. Yuppie snow queens in NYC. Everybody loves this book. I was bored to death by it, but ymmv. I think both are worth checking out if you're a writer interested in technique.

Like²

The Calvino book looks interesting. I will bear that one in mind. I just started the introduction in Invisible Man. Normally I hold off on the introduction for a while to avoid spoilers, but I noticed that this intro was from the author and they're usually good about not spoiling their own books. In it, Ellison says that his character was somewhat inspired by Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground, so now I can do a meta-review, which ought to be fun.

The Flamingo has become thoroughly reg-infested--which is a shame--but table selection can still mitigate this to some extent. I'm going to give Planet Hollywood another chance. 20 hours of play per week gets you a ticket to their $135/$5k gtd tournament. It's very likely a worse hourly value than the 13 hours/$12.5k gtd Flamingo tourney, depending on the number of runners PH gets and whether or not the freeroll entries count towards the guarantee, as you can buy into this tourney directly if you haven't put in the hours. Once I play it, I'll be able to crunch the numbers a little better, and I'll also be able to see if the current game at PH is substantially better than the Flamingo.

In any case, abandoning weekly freerolls is not an option. I've already established that I can't drag my ass out the door without them, at least for now.

One hand of note last night:

Folds to me on the BTN with AA. I make it $10. SB and BB call. BB is the main villain. He starts the hand with $100 and I cover. BB is a tight passive player; kind of rare, but they're out there. You don't notice them much because they're not in many hands, and when they are in a hand they're not making any flamboyant bets or raises.

(Pot $30) - three players

Flop: 479

Checks to me and I bet $20. SB folds and BB calls.

(Pot $70) - heads up

Turn: 7

SB checks. I bet $35. SB calls.

(Pot $140) - heads up

River: 6

SB checks. He has $35 left in his stack. I have seen a few tight passive players check the nuts or close to it on the river here after their opponent has put in two barrels. Some of them just cannot ever make a bet on their own. They are hooked on trapping. But overall I think that the majority of even the tight-passives would lead the river with their last $35 when holding a boat or a flush here. I think the straight is unlikely from a tight player, calling 85s pre, then calling with a gutshot on the flop and a gutshot on the paired turn. Maybe exactly 85 for the straight flush, but then is he ever checking the river?

Bet $35 or check behind with my overpair?

Flamingo: 5.5 hours:
+$37

Cool! I'd forgotten about that dream. Always write down the fun ones, or you will forget them.

I'm giving PH another chance due to a deduction: floor service is consistently good to excellent at Caesars Palace, Harrahs, Flamingo and Bally's. Knowing this, I have deduced that poor floor service at PH should eventually result in seeing new faces working the floor there. I'll let you know how that hypothesis plays out.

AA>KK

Bally's: 6 hours:
+$597

I check behind.

I love it when AA is better than KK

Keep posting more solid results like this.

I did, and I was good, but now I feel as if I should have bet, but that may just be results-oriented thinking.

I'm lost on this one, so I made a thread in LLSNL. I'll see what they have to say.



Freeroll tourney: last 10 players get $500 each, with no more pay jumps. We're on the bubble with 11 players left. Blinds 10000/20000. I have $140000 on the BTN. Folds to me and I pick up AA. SB and BB cover me. UTG has $20000 left. MP has $30000 left.



Flamingo "Freeroll": 4 hours:
+$470

Nice results again. Go, Go, Go!

I'm not convinced it's a turbo muck, tbh.

Here's the deal: I had a medium stack relative to the field and was in maybe 5th place. My odds of being called and cracked were quite low, but the odds of 6 other players surviving being blinded out before me were even lower, particularly when several of them had (or would very soon have) stacks with essentially zero fold equity.

The next hand, the short stack was put all in by the BB for 20000, which was both the big blind amount and his complete stack. Folds to me on the CU. I'd been doing nothing at that table but shove/folding since I'd been transferred there 25 minutes before. This time I looked at BTN and SB pointedly and said "CALL," and put in 20000 for a limp. They had also been doing nothing but shove/folding, but they limped along. We checked it down and I took the pot with a straight on the river. Tournament over.

If BB had somehow survived, then we had MP up next with 1.5 BB in his stack, and so forth.

My reward for shoving AA the hand before and getting a walk would have been gaining 1.5 BB and staying essentially in 5th place. If I'd doubled up, I would have gone up to 3rd place and no one would have been knocked out. The reward was not consummate with the risk when that risk was compounded by the extreme likelihood of a short stack going out within the next few orbits if I folded.

^Ugh, what a mess. Long pieces and Camo Malt liquor don't mix.

That was me shouting a long story at you in a noisy bar.

Bally's: 5 hours:
+$122

Bally's "freeroll": 2 hours:
+$85

Green is good.

Congrats on all the green lately

Thank you! It's always nice when the variance tips the other way for a while.