Viva Las Vegas

So we went Thursday PM to the LV... mostly to see the Saturday Buffett show, but of course I heard the tables calling my name.

I decide on the Bellagio. Why not. I fully expect to be sitting down to a 2/5 NLHE table, but am pleasantly surprised to see that there's an Omaha game going. 7-handed Max $5/$10 PL O-high. Interesting. That's a little on the big side for my piddley bankroll, but after some hemming and hawing, I sit it.

I quickly learn that everyone at the table but me and one other guy are Swedish. One even has a WSOP bracelet. All of them are obviously loaded, judging by the way they're dressed. All of them are obviously poker pros. All of them have about $3K in front of them in a couple stacks of $10 chips, more stacks of $25 and $100 chips, and a pile of green $100-bills. All of them are straddling pot, and then a pot sized restraddle. So except for a couple of hands where me and the one guy beside me are blinds, we're pretty much playing $5/$120

I sit with $600. And I immediately decide this could be to my advantage. I folded alot. On the occasional time there was no straddling, and I get into the pot late position, these guys tended to check to me, and would fold to my pure-bluff pot bets. Obviously this guy (me) was only playing the nuts, so we have to fold. I also picked up a couple hands when calling the $120 bet preflop. Missed a few too. But these guys were nuts. They would pot and repot with 2K pots, and 2 pair would beat A-high at showdown (with the re-potter on the river having A-high).

It was a time-rake, so everyone owed $7 every half hour. But this table had an agreement where the first pot after the time call would be raked $7*7 = $49. So the first FOUR times after I sat down and there was a time call, I won the pot. How's that for bye-bye $200. One pot was $55, so I actually LOST money by winning a pot.

But after it was all said and done, I beat the game pretty easily, up about $1000 before the Swedes all got up to go out drinking...

And so, for the next 24 hours or so, I played a good deal of $1/2 NL HE, and managed to lose back my $1000 plus another $1500 to boot. There were suckouts that *I* still don't believe I saw. And stupid $250 1:1 calls with a flush draw that hits. A few donkey plays by me, but mostly just a bad run of crap cards. I'm convinced of 3 things. 1) Hold Em is a boring ass stupid game that I'm probably going to avoid like the plague 2) I suck at HE 3) Omaha rules.