Ten Years in Las Vegas
In my tenth year in Las Vegas, I put my hard earned bankroll to serious work taking a couple shots in the 2010 World Series of Poker and eventually in the biggest cash games I’ve regularly played. By the end of my tenth year, I experienced both my biggest winning month shortly followed by a demoralizing losing month. But, my days of playing safe small stakes games were over for the time.
In May of 2010, I spent a few weeks in Massachusetts visiting my mother. I reflected on where I was in poker since I was late in writing ‘Nine Years in Las Vegas’ (just like this update is late). Usually during these times of reflection, I start thinking of doing something new. The World Series of Poker was going to start shortly after I returned to Las Vegas and I was getting a tournament itch.
I very rarely play tournaments. They simply aren’t good for a live player looking for anything resembling a steady income. But, the thrill of winning a tournament, like the big freeroll tournament I won in 2007, can’t be matched in cash game play. So, the competitor in me occasionally wants to wade into that pool.
I played event #4, the $1,500 limit Omaha 8 or better tournament, and ran like God on level 1. I even made my first Royal Flush in several years and nearly doubled-up, something which is very hard to do on level 1 of a WSOP limit tournament. Level 2 was almost as good and I had the early chip lead at my table. However, by level 6 I was card dead and sent the last of my chips to my tablemates.
Less than a week later, I played event #12, the $1,500 limit hold ‘em tournament. My results were basically the same. I ran good early, went card dead, and was going home shortly after the dinner break on Day 1. Though, somebody at the table who said he played a lot of limit hold ‘em tournament claimed this was the toughest Day 1 table he’d ever been at. The O/8 table had actually been great.
After two quick exits and $3,000 donated to the WSOP prize pool, my tournament itch went away. I scrapped plans to play the $1,500 seven card stud, stud 8 or better, and H.O.R.S.E. events. If I get the itch again in the future, I hope I won’t spend $3,000 scratching it. But, I haven’t had even the slightest desire to play a tournament since then. It’s just not worth it for me.
I didn’t take advantage of the diverse cash game action during the 2010 WSOP. Instead, I spent the summer months at the Venetian playing the same games I had been playing for a while- the 8-16 hold ‘em and O/8 games. However, the hold ‘em game was definitely becoming unsatisfactory. The game had become populated with competent players (they could beat a 4-8 game) who I could beat, but wouldn’t offer me the winrate which the game had when it started running nearly a year earlier.
I’m okay with playing a smaller game than I’m capable of beating if it’s juicy enough to offer a big expected winrate. I’m not embarrassed to be ‘playing small’ (which in the past I’ve sometimes felt). But, as the summer turned to fall, I accepted that the 8-16 hold ‘em game was simply not worth it for me anymore. If I was going to play limit hold ‘em, I was definitely better off playing higher.
However, the 8-16 Omaha 8 or better game was almost always a very good game and I was becoming more drawn to O/8 as I kept getting better at it. For a game which is simpler than hold ‘em or stud, it’s amazing how much worse the typical player is at O/8. Perhaps it’s because learning resources for O/8 are so fewer than hold ‘em, including basic information you can get from a WSOP or High Stakes Poker TV show. Or, maybe it’s because a lot of O/8 players are former losing players at hold ‘em who have changed games hoping to find better luck. Whatever the reason, O/8 games at all stakes I’ve played have always been better than their hold ‘em or stud counterparts.
By the end of the autumn of 2010, I was playing 8-16 Omaha 8 or better exclusively and putting in substantial hours. I was definitely feeling a mastery of the game, though the competition was admittedly mediocre at best. This game had become easy money and I naturally started thinking if there was more easy money to be made at higher stakes.
Unfortunately, the 15-30 O/8 game never ran at the Venetian, so there was no intermediary game between the Venetian’s 8-16 and the Bellagio’s 30-60. But, I had played the 30-60 O/8 game occasionally and fared well. However, that was a couple years earlier and I was a far superior player now. It was impossible not to think I should take a serious look at moving up.
Despite my 9 1/2 years of playing poker to this point, I’ve never regularly played a limit game bigger than 20-40 (the Mirage hold ‘em game). The biggest no-limit hold ‘em game I regularly played was 2-5 (which is about equivalent to 20-40 limit in expected winrate). I think when I’ve hit these stakes, something kicks which says ‘this is plenty of money to be making with minimal risk’. I’ve played a fair amount of 30-60 limit and some 5-10 no-limit, but I’ve never made either my regular game. I always moved back down to what seems to be my comfort zone.
In January, I decided to move out of that comfort zone and make an extended stay in the Bellagio’s 30-60 O/8 game. It wasn’t going to be just a shot. I was going to plant myself in the game for a few months and see how I did. Since the game plays with a 1/3 kill to 40-80 and the pots are killed often, it was going to be the highest stakes I’ve ever made my regular game by a lot. In addition, the 30-60 Omaha/8 game tends to play big. I’d say it’s a bigger game than the Bellagio’s 40-80 limit hold ‘em game simply because the O/8 game has so much more action. And, that would be true even without the kill to 40-80. I knew I was entering a game where I would have to deal with about double the $$$ swings I’ve ever experienced in my career.
And, the only way things could have gone better is if I put in more hours.
Right out of the gate, I was not just winning but also assessing that I was one of the better players at the table and often the best. I was identifying mistakes made by my opponents, often very fundamental mistakes, and knew that very straightforward play was certain to get the money from them. Against the better players, I thought I was at least equal, though I certainly had room for improvement. Even when the game was tough, I kept playing and found myself up to the task.
Of course, I was running good too. I won my first 8 sessions, 15 of my first 18, and 22 of my first 26. And my wins were much bigger than my few losses. It culminated with a $5,000+ win whose size was only matched by expanding ego.
I was winning so consistently and so easily that I was already thinking ahead to the 2011 WSOP where the Rio always has 75-150 O/8 games. The subject of those games had come up occasionally at the table and a couple players who said they played and beat the 75-150 were opponents who I thought I was as at least equal to. If those guys could beat the game, I expected the game was much softer than I would have guessed and something I could easily handle. In just a few months, I had gone from being a regular 8-16 player to assuming I was going to fairly easily beat a 75-150 game.
I wasn’t completely enamored with myself. I was well aware I had great room for improvement and took a step to do exactly that in preparation for the bigger games. After years of relying on books and the 2+2 forums, I decided to expand my resources and got a subscription to an online training site- Deuces Cracked. With somewhat limited O/8 information available in print (and also not quite satisfactory in quality to me), DC seemed like the smart choice. Also, I was expanding my game selection a little bit and definitely wanted help there.
By that time, I was also playing a 40-80 mixed game (O/8, stud/8, razz, TD 2-7, badugi, badeucy, badacey) with good results. My experience in these games, especially the draw games, was very limited. Yet, I could still see where my advantages against certain opponents were. It was just a matter of plugging my more considerable leaks relative to the games I was more accustomed to playing. So, I was also wondering what mixed game stakes I might venture to play during the WSOP.
It reminds me of June, 2002 when I first played the Mirage 20-40 hold ‘em game and crushed it immediately. As the wins piled up, I assumed I would move up in stakes and probably take on the old 80-160 limit hold ‘em game at the Bellagio, a game which I never sat in and have been reliably told was a very tough game.
But, just as I felt I was at the peak of my winning potential and about to climb an even higher peak, reality decided to check in.
Just one week after my $5,000 win, I left the Bellagio scratching my head about how I could lose $3,000 in such a soft game. Then, I started trading small wins for big losses. After that, the small wins were rarer and the losses became even bigger.
April was a complete disaster. With just a few exceptions, everything that could go wrong at a poker table probably did for me that month. In $$$, I’ve never lost nearly so much in such a period of time. Measured by big bets, it’s about equal to my biggest downswing. But, losing a large # of big bets comes much easier when the $$$ are smaller.
It was disheartening. Even with ten years of playing, reading and thinking about the game, the monster downswing is still a bit soul-crushing. When everything goes wrong no matter how well you play (and I was never upset at my overall quality of play), it’s easy to lose faith in yourself- at least for a short while.
I had been thinking about attacking some fairly big games in just a couple months at the WSOP, but now I was getting crushed in my new regular game. My perspective had changed radically.
So, I took time away from the game. May was mostly a relaxing month of playing a little less, playing smaller, and getting my confidence and focus back.
Because, while my disastrous April may have been soul-crushing for a short while, it wasn’t bankroll crushing (just a bit damaging). I tend to play almost any game over-rolled. It always makes me play more comfortably and I think that usually makes me play better.
As I post this, the 2011 World Series of Poker Event #1 starts in just over two hours. Following it will be a flood of cash games for the next month and a half, including the 75-150 Omaha/8 game and several other upper mid-stakes games which I’ve got the bankroll to at least safely take an extended shot at.
For ten years, I’ve mostly played in safe and comfortable games. But on a few occasions, I leapt into bigger games and tested myself against tougher competition. So far, I‘ve always been able to pass those tests.
The 2011 WSOP is going to be my biggest test yet. I’m not going to play any small games. I’m throwing myself into the unknown again and seeing what happens. If my results are as bad, measured by big bets, as I had in April, I’ll have to give up and protect my bankroll. If my results are good, I don’t know what happens next.
