Barcelona would be pretty cool if it wasn't for all the guys like you and me lol. Kinda like Venice, it's completely overrun by hordes of tourists and as a result all the locals hate their life and especially the tourists, whether they are domestic or international, and the tourists are not loving their life either cos everything is superexpensive especially from May to September.
The football club, meh, I used to like it too, but they've been superarrogant about their stuff for a long time, good sports when they win and crappy attitude when something does not go their way. Ofc at present and various mismanagement later they have no reason for any arrogance, they could be the new ManU, it was basically straight downhill after Guardiola left, Messi and a few others kept them alive for a while...

In that case, SJ let me know if you want to go somewhere that's LIKE Barcelona but with more amicable population.

Which place might this be???

Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded.

-Yogi Berra

RIP Jeff German, last name pronounced with a hard G, IIRC. He was murdered in Las Vegas--allegedly by a local and purportedly corrupt politician, who was the subject of German's excellent reporting.

I made German's acquaintance 20 years ago when he came to my store to sign his book on Ted Binion's murder: Murder in Sin City: The Death of a Las Vegas Casino Boss. He was a genuinely nice guy. We struck up a long conversation, though I don't remember what it was about. I was going through my long affair with meth at the time, so we could've talked about anything.

Murder in Sin City is an excellent book; German was a hell of a good writer. I owned a signed copy, but donated it at some point before one of my moves. I'd like to have that one back.

There's something about the start of the football season that kindles joy in many Americans. Hunter S. Thompson--a lifelong fan of the game, who started and ended his career writing about sports--understood this feeling of hope and renewal so well that he titled his suicide note "Football Season is Over."

Yesterday the local cardroom gave out $3000 in football promo payouts over 3 hours during the lackluster 20-7 Patriots loss to the Dolphins. Compare that to the $900 the room would have given in that time during last month's high hand promo, and that's a significant bump higher. I verified that the promo drop is the same as always. Last night 10 tables averaged $100/hour in promos, so 8-point-something players per table averaged around $12/hour in EV.

Ed Miller estimated that the average $1/$2 player loses $10/hour to the rake with their breakeven play. Give out $12/hour in EV and add the MGM's $2/hour comp for playing, and this ought to be time well spent for most players.

Yesterday I was consistently the second-youngest player at the table; possibly the youngest--another gentleman was also in his fifties, and I estimate that we were within a year or two of each other either way. Every other player at the table was in their sixties through eighties.

I was card dead again, but the few times I opened saw me getting 3-5 callers in spite of what should have been my tight image. Sometimes no one pays attention to your image, especially when there's a football game/promo payout going.

That's where exploitative sizing comes in: I've written about the threshold of pain for preflop bet sizing, and I'm going to need to start using it more often. At this point, I'm too married too my $10 open when no limpers are aboard, out of sheer laziness, because it's easier for me to keep a running count on the pot when there's $10 chunks going in.

Conversely, $10 is also easier to call: just toss in 2 red chips and see a flop, no digging around for dollar chips or dealing with change. Ideally I want 0-2 callers for my opens, and I'll need to bump the price up until I get that, without going so high that I'm shutting out everything but premium hands. This is a delicate balancing act, and one that varies from table to table, and even within a single table from hour to hour. But it's a skill worth developing.

Near the end of the game I was down a bit, even after winning a $50 table share on Miami's last dagger into the heart of my New England boys, but then I pulled off an interesting river bluff on the only aggressive old man at the table.

I have my hand recorder app back on my phone, and I will try to post that bluffing hand, but not today, as I'm heading out for work in a few minutes, and from there I'm going to the card room for Monday Night Football. I do occasionally write posts at work, and I'll be editing this one there, but breaking down a hand requires the sort of sustained concentration that would probably get me caught posting on the Internet when I should be working.

Springfield MGM: 3.5 hours
+$31.00

Running Total: 16.5 hours, +$382.00

I'm surprised at the age demographics of your table. How much money was on it? What was the median stack? Looking at NL tables, I always hope to see a "Beats & hoodies" crowd.

It was an unusually old table. A couple of players were sitting on $100 OMC stacks, but a few bought in for the full $500. The median was around $250.

The game started Sunday at 1pm and the room was crowded with more walkers and mobility scooters than usual. I think the old folks caught on to a decent low-variance promo--starting just after church got out--and turned out in force. Also, the room usually has a $2/$5 game going, and that game had the standard collection of hoodies. I'll see what Monday Night Football brings us.

Yeah promo and also relatively early in the day you tend to see the older crowd

PROFIT IS PROFIT. I'll think of another Euro-destination. Maybe the Sheep can help.

The median age for Monday Night Football was around 45: guys in their twenties through their sixties--and by guys I mean the place was 95% sausage. A nice-looking girl on the MGM maintenance crew walked through the room and you could almost see the heat pouring off her from the collective Male Gaze.

The player on my left was a motormouth, but I let that pass, as he told everyone over the course of the night exactly how he played. Behold:

I open A3 from UTG+1 for $11 (there was almost no preflop 3-betting at the table, making this a good hand--even from early position--to set my price for mining wheel straights and nut flushes) and motormouth calls in MP1. Folds around.

(Pot $25) - heads up

Flop: 568

I check, MP1 checks.

(Pot $25) - heads up

Turn: Q

I bet $15 and MP1 folds

MP1: I had the Jacks. It's obvious that you had the Queen. Once you bet that, I was done.

Me: Did you have a club?

MP1: No.

Me: Then you were drawing dead.

MP1: I thought so.

Me: Good fold.

MP1: Thank you. Nothing I could do there.

Me: You know, they're having a football promo starting here in half an hour? It's pretty good.

MP1: Really? What's it about?

Table: [explains the promo etc...]

And on that promo I won a $75 table share, in spite of us being robbed of several payouts by turnovers in and near the end zone. That's one of the many reasons why I don't bet football: the PLO of sports betting.

Springfield MGM: 4 hours
+$338.00

Running Total: 20.5 hours, +$720.00

Nice session, Suited!

How about Klitmøller?

Thanks Sheep!


Not interested in listening to all that gargling that goes into Danish.

/Is that racist?
//That might be racist.

I haven't been to Barcelona in years. Apparently there are problems.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2...=pocket_mylist

I think maybe something like Porto as a Barcelona alternative. I guess no Gaudi and the great artists but probably much cooler these days. I went to Barcelona like 20 years ago off-season.

I'm good with Klitmøller. We can have a klit and a møller then a nap!

As much as Sammy would disagree, I'm fairly certain it's not racist. Maybe.

My vacation time is already spent for this year, but I've been thinking about islands...a lot...somewhere that's not being swarmed by cruise ships landings.

Back when I was dating the Mormon girl, she received a job offer in Malta, and we were considering moving there. Seems like a cool place. English is one of the official languages, there's a unique history there stemming from an admixture of many European cultures over a few thousand years, and they have card rooms.

Has anyone been there?

Tonight, our table was not blessed by any football promo payouts, but I did have an action player on my right who seemed to love getting his chips in. I was able to take some of those chips back out.

Springfield MGM: 4 hours
+$263.00

Running Total: 24.5 hours, +$983.00

I had a house sit in Malta that ended up cancelling.

Still pissed about it 7 years later.

I believe BigWhale or MuckPls lives in Malta. Maybe PM them.

Bad move.

Relocate to Sicily. You should trust me on this. I know more than you think I do!

I've never been to Malta, it usually doesn't get the greatest reviews, but yeah it's still a Mediterranean isle and they have the pokers so not too shabby.

Thanks for the info, golddog!

Sicily is an island, rich with millennia of history and too big to be overwhelmed by the cruise ship culture. It's definitely on my bucket list.

It's the rave reviews that bring the tourist rot.

Today I've been thinking about how the Romans called the Mediterranean Sea "Mare Nostrum," or "This Sea of Ours." As an American, I admire their conceit. They did, after all, put their stamp on every square mile of land in and around it.

I'm a fan of Roman history, though not so much a fan of the aspects of slavery, forced conquest, their late-period love of autocracy and their public capital punishment spectacles.

I've read Gibbon's six volume history of Rome a few times; partly for the history, and partly because the man could rip out a slew of eight-jointed sentences, each a paragraph long and each of them balanced delicately on the head of a pin.

Check it:

"The Narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture, the pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the fortune, and hastened the ruin, of Athens and Sparta. The aspiring genius of Rome sacrificed vanity to ambition, and deemed it more prudent, as well as honorable, to adopt virtue and merit for her own wheresoever they were to be found, among slaves or strangers, enemies or barbarians."

After posting, I came upon this TR in my subscriptions.

MuckPls on the way to Vegas as we speak. Get on a plane, connect with him, get the info!

I had plans to visit Malta as a potential place to live back then - think poker destination combined with no taxes on winnings -, but after visiting other poker destinations a la Playa del Carmen and parts of South East Asia, I feel that it be more of a young man's playground, sort of speak, and perhaps a bit less culturally inclined that I usually strive for...

Ironically - and pardon my blunt POV -, citizens of USA#1 naming themselves "Americans", does not fall on deaf ears in Latin America. In fact, most countries will call them Estado Unidenses - or Unites Statesmen - as opposed to Americans which, lest not forgot, was the dream of Simon Bolivar that extended to what, 6 countries back then...

Fixed. I hope it was worth the trip!