Phil Cartwright's Poker Lunacy

Cash me out

2004-12-15T11:47:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday evening I played for a few hours but I was really there just to say goodbye to the regulars. Despite some of the bitchy things I’ve written about them they were usually pretty kind to me and I miss not being able to sit around a table playing cards with those guys. I even exchanged email addresses and telephone numbers with a couple of them. Round about midnight I packed in, had a final drink at the east-side bar and went to bed.

The next day was entirely taken up with travel. I took a taxi to the airport at 9.45am (the limo fell through) and the plane took off pretty much on time at midday. Along the way I saw the mega-hotels of Vegas, the Hoover dam, the Grand Canyon and the Empire State Building. I travelled a third of the way around the world and wound up at misty, chilly Birmingham airport at 9.30am Thursday morning. It was over.

Now I’m back in Coventry. When I leave my room in the morning I’m not confronted by row after row of slot machines, winking and bleeping at no-one in particular. And when I step outside my house the sky’s not blotted out by a giant TV screen that forms a four-block long canopy over the street. There’s no piped music, no security guards, no cowboys, no women with trays of drinks calling “cocktails!” every few yards. I can’t get steak and eggs for £4 at 3am. I can’t watch college football. And I can’t wake up at any time of the day or night and know for sure that somewhere nearby there’s a poker game going on. “Seat open; player’s checks on thirteen; you’re five hundred behind - would you like to buy the button?” Yes, yes I would.

Las Vegas is an unreal place - any fool can see that - it’s tough and dazzling and grandiose and absurd. But by the end of my thirty days there it felt familiar - not mundane, but comfortable. It felt like the right place to be.
So how did it go? Well, I returned with less money than I went out with, that’s for sure. I won at the poker table but it wasn’t enough to cover my expenses. My game has plenty of room for improvement, but there’s only one way that’s going to happen: I’ll be back.

Aces

2004-12-13T13:32:00.000-08:00

When you play no-limit poker your winnings or losses in any given session almost always depend on the outcome of two or three crucial hands (this is in stark contrast to limit poker where success is achieved through a process of steady accumulation). On Tuesday, my last full day in Vegas, it call came down to a single hand - about two minutes of play. My opponent was what I’d call a typical Vegas local: elderly, severe and tough as the desert mountains. I think he was called Dave and his severity was increased by the fact that he spoke using an electronic voice box. Unlike the usual models, however, his device was implanted or hidden in some way so that when he wanted to speak he didn’t have to hold the thing against his throat as if he’d suddenly decided to shave a spot on his Adam’s apple. Instead, he discreetly pressed a button near his left collar bone and out came the words like a dusty wind through a cheese grater. Normally Dave was pretty implacable, inoculated by long experience against the stomach-churning swings of the game, but on this occasion he’d suffered several bad beats in a row and I think it was getting to him. Anyway, he raised it up to $7, got called by a fairly loose Mexican kid on my right and I looked down to see two black aces in the hole. I reraised to about $40, which should’ve killed the hand right there, but I just had this feeling that Dave had strong cards and might be stung into doing something rash. When you’ve lost a few hands with the best of it and then find some know-nothing punk (ie, me) piling over the top of your initial raise it can really snap your self-restraint. And, sure enough, when the action came back round to Dave he peeled off two one-hundred dollar bills from under his chips and let them float disdainfully onto the pot. He’d drawn his line in the sand. The Mexican kid was clearly stunned by how the hand had suddenly exploded into war and quickly got out of the way. I paused for a moment before announcing that I was all-in for the rest of my money - about $800 in total. With Dave already in for two hundred bucks it’d be tough for him to lay his hand down and even if he did I’d still scoop a fairly healthy pot (they say that with aces you either win a small pot or lose a big one; two hundred dollars represents a more than respectable result with those cards). Dave stared at my money, ashen-faced. A few times I thought he was about to fold but then he rasped, “call” like he was saying “fuck you!” and started counting out the bills. Now, for the first time, I thought, “Christ! I hope I don’t lose!” and it also occurred to me that maybe Dave had aces as well, in which case we’d almost certainly split the pot and all that drama would’ve been for nothing. But the dealer started laying out the community cards in the centre of the table and when the turn card was an ace (giving me three of a kind) I knew I’d won the hand. Straight away I turned over my hole cards, shrugged and announced three aces. Dave gazed quietly down at them for a few seconds and then threw his hand into the muck. The dealer pushed the large pile of chips and notes towards me: a little over sixteen hundred bucks. Then, in a moment of spleen, Dave said, “I knew you had aces”. What he meant was that I was an obvious player - a guy who only bet when he was sure he had the best hand. This stung me a little because there was a large grain of truth in it.
“But I had kings,” he continued, “so what was I to do?”
“You could’ve folded,” I said.
“I still could’ve caught a king to beat you.”
“Well, if you’re willing to pay even money to hit a five to one shot, that’s your prerogative.”
“Yes it is, so why don’t you shut your mouth and count your money?”
And right away I regretted my comments. It was true that Dave’s call contradicted his claim that my game was obvious and easy to read, but he’d put his money in the pot - a lot of money - and lost the hand. He deserved a little respect for that, if nothing else.

Snapshots

2004-12-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

The sun setting over Mount Charleston; the mountains are smoky blue at dawn and dusk but a crisp, sandy brown during the day.... mild-mannered old Charlie plays with a smile on his face until he loses a big hand when he flings his cards at the dealer and cries, "fucking cocksuckers!" But the change is so incongruous that everyone else just giggles including, after a moment's reflection, Charlie himself.... the sinister elegance of Steve Wynn's latest mega-resort (imaginatively called "Wynn"). The hotel's sign features his signature in lights God knows how many stories high, so that it seems to float in the air above night-time Vegas.... Vinnie's "hate-face" when he squared up to a guy from the next table who complained about his bad language. "You don't fuck with me, pal," he snarled, "take a look around!" - meaning that his picture was on posters all over the casino advertising his comedy show.... drinking a Long Island iced tea in the Bellagio's Petrossian bar while a pianist tinkled through a medley of Beatles songs and visitors in jeans and gaudy t-shirts ambled through the ostentatiously elegant lobby. It looked like the aftermath of a very well-mannered proletariat revolution.... Americans: their mixture of toughness, gross sentimentality and blind, raging patriotism; it's like how I imagine Victorian Britons must've been.... deadbeat Mexicans in the laundrette on North Las Vegas Blvd (crossing north of Bonanza is like stepping into a different world and you'd best not do it at night, either). But even they're a step up from the barflies in the "Ukelele" across the road - drinking draft Budweiser from plastic beakers at 10am. Outside the laundrette a guy offers me 25c for a cigarette. I roll him one for free. "Thanks, homes - I'm broke," he says and shares the cigarette with his friend.... the uniform greeting from poker players who recognize me: "Hey! English! How's it going?".... Action Dan, a young guy who moved to Vegas from Pittsburgh about eight weeks ago; every day he buys in for the minimum $100 and painstakingly works it up to about $300 before quitting.... the obnoxious jerk from Chicago who got talked into playing a $1,000 heads-up freeze-out with Roberto. Against the odds he won the freeze-out but then, blind drunk, returned to the cash game and lost $4,000 in no time at all. For the next couple of days he was seen in the Horseshoe begging players for some money to get home.... being afraid to play after a daunting loss and likewise being afraid to play after a decent win.... in the restroom at the Horseshoe comes a voice from the cubicle: "John Wayne toilet paper: rough, tough and don't take no shit off nobody!"....

But Where are the Hats?

2004-12-06T14:13:00.000-08:00

On 1 December the National Finals Rodeo rolled into town and ever since then you haven't been able to move in Vegas for "hats". Everywhere you look there are wiry young men and pot-bellied middle-aged guys wearing black cowboy hats, denim jackets, jeans, boots and BIG belt buckles. Popular accessories include an arm in a sling and a severe limp plus walking stick. Now, I must admit I had some plans for these rootin' tootin' good ol' boys. I was hoping that years spent risking their lives on top of belligerent bulls would've given them a taste for the white-knuckle ride that is no limit Texas Hold 'Em. Hell, I thought they'd come riding into the casino on horseback, shoot a few rounds into the ceiling, lasso the poker room manager and shout, "sign me up for that there pokey game, mam - YEEEEEE HAW!" Unfortunately, most cowboys are actually rather poor and so far they've stuck to the gentle hills and valleys of $2/$4 limit poker. Only once has a cowboy strayed into my game and he played tighter than two coats of paint. Despite that, I've been doing pretty well lately. I won $300 on Thursday, $600 on Friday, lost $35 on Saturday (I only played for a couple of hours, went to the Steakhouse for some oysters and filet mignon then fell asleep in my room) and won $600 yesterday. As I mentioned before, I've lost track of my exact situation but I reckon that over all I'm about $500 ahead. To celebrate this life-changing triumph, this morning I blew $50 on a stretch-limo to take me to the airport on Wednesday morning. I really don't want to go back but I'm also quite looking forward to going home.

America vrs Britain

2004-12-05T09:48:00.000-08:00

Three things Britain does better than America:

1. Cheese. American cheese is probably the worst excuse for a foodstuff ever created. At some stage some of the ingredients may have been somewhere near a cow, but I doubt it. Most likely it's a by-product of the space race - I'm sure it would make a good heat shield for space craft re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Just don't eat it.

2. Newspapers. American papers (both local ones like the Las Vegas Review Journal and national ones like the New York Times) give accurate, in-depth coverage of US and world events. And they're dull. They're very, very dull. Jesus Christ, are they dull.

3. Vegetables. Americans complain that we Brits boil the shit out of our vegetables, and that's true. However, I don't know what Americans do to their vegetables, but it sure makes them a challenge to eat. Somewhere between the field and your plate they become tough, bitter and synthetic-tasting. Personally, I think there's something wrong with a meal if the vegetables refuse to go down without a fight.

Three things America does better than Britain:

1. Steaks. They're big, juicy and cheap. And even the chef in the crummy local diner knows the difference between "medium rare" and "burnt to a crisp". Outstanding.

2. Hotel showers. In Britain hotel showers emit a feeble stream of luke-warm water that usually evaporates before it reaches your body. In the US the shower pins you to the wall and sand-blasts you clean.

3. Ice. If you ask for a scotch on the rocks in a British bar the bartender pours scotch in to a glass using a pipette (which is the wrong bloody way round, for a start) and then grudgingly adds one or two ice cubes. You'd think they were diamonds, you really would. In the US they do things right: pack the glass with ice and then pour in a liberal measure of liquour. Note to British bar staff: ice is not an endangered species. It really isn't.

Cast List

2004-12-04T16:53:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the regulars in the Horseshoe's no limit cash game:

Vinnie Favorito: Italian American from Boston who looks and sounds strikingly like Joe Pesci. He's always getting into spats at the table because of his wisecracks (his basic approach is to mortally insult you then expect you to laugh along). A typical example: a slightly battered old lady was stood behind Vinnie at the table. "Can I watch?" she asked. Vinnie rather aggressively told her she couldn't stand right behind the players; she had to go behind the rail a few feet away. The woman backed off saying "I don't like you". "Hey!" shouted Vinnie, "I thought I told you to wait in the car!" The rest of the table cracked up and the old woman hurried out of sight.

Rene: plump thirty-something with boyish features. He plays a wild, unpredictable game and never comes to the table with less than $3,000. He talks non-stop and almost all of his talk is aimed at convincing you (and himself) that he's God's gift to, er, everything. He's a nice lad but I can't help thinking he has some self-worth issues.

Roberto: big, imposing man with a gay moustache who seems to be Rene's mentor and role model. Roberto never comes to the table with less than $5,000. He's as cocksure as Rene without the excuse of being too young to know better. Whenever he sees me he says "bloody bollocks" in an English accent that would make Dick Van Dyke blush. And I always reply "you wanker" in my best Bob Hoskins voice. But he's a good poker player and you fuck with him at your peril. Rene and Roberto both spend a lot of time hanging out at "Glitter Gultch", the local strip club that seems to be the focus for much of the wheeling and dealing that goes on in downtown Vegas.

Richard: early fifties (?), slim, shoulder-length hair, gigalo moustache, always dressed to the nines. No, Richard dresses to the twelves. The first time I saw him he was in his full black-tie outfit (including coat tails) with a red rose pinned to the lapel. I thought he must be working in a show somewhere. He never comes to the table without a wad of hundred dollar bills too thick for me to accurately estimate its worth. Ten thousand dollars? Twenty thousand? It could be more. But he also never plays for more than about two hours at a stretch. He's just there to be seen and admired.

Buffy: white-haired, stout old man with gimlet eyes set in a totally emotionless face. In his youth he made over a million dollars playing pool against a rich idiot and since then he's built that sum into a considerable fortune. He looks non-descript, almost dumb but in fact he's one of the best sports handicappers in America and regularly bets huge amounts on basketball and college football.

Ryan: aka The Eclipse. 350lbs of gentle giant, though he gets a little grumpy when he's been playing for 48 hours straight. Ryan's only been a regular while I've been here. He plays for two days and then sleeps for a day, thereby saving money on hotel bills. He's pretty good too, but pisses away a lot of his winnings at the craps table.

Paul the Fat Controller: reasonable poker player with a fondness for apple crisp. Paul's a nice fella but he's always laying down the law to passers-by who smoke near the poker tables. It's quite funny to watch this normally placid man suddenly get agitated, bobbing around in his seat shouting "sir! sir! - no smoking in the poker room". He's also quick to get his oar in whenever there's a dispute about the rules. You'd think the rules of poker were pretty straight forward but, believe me, the game is always being delayed by arguments about who did what when: string bets, acting out of turn, where the dealer button should or shouldn't be; such things provide endless scope for controversy and Paul is always in the thick of it so that you want to ask him to show you his badge.

We're not at the end of the world, but we can see it from here

2004-12-03T17:20:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the gap in updates (and hi Dave) but I've fallen into a routine of sleeping till 2pm, getting something to eat (steak and eggs and Binion's coffee shop for $7) and then playing no limit poker at the Horseshoe until about 6 or 7am. The game's pretty tough but there's just enough loose money flying about to make it worth the candle (especially at weekends), plus I know most of the other players there so there's a social aspect that's not to be underestimated. And, of course, it means I don't have the hassle of taking the CAT down to the strip casinos, I can nip back up to my room for a quick rest or a shower, etc etc. Basically, it's the game of choice for a lazy bastard like me.

And when I'm winning, like I did last night ($300), Vegas seems like the best place on earth and sat at the east-side bar at 7am drinking a beer and a Maker's Mark I was filled with the urge to spend the rest of my days playing poker with Vinnie Favorito (a stand-up comedian who looks and sounds just like Joe Pesci and one dated Gotti's neice) and Ryan the Eclipse and Paul the Fat Controller and Rene and Roberto and all the other degenerates who haunt the Horseshoe's poker room. Except, of course, that my results this month hardly justify the move. I've stopped taking detailed records, but I'm probably a few hundred dollars down over all. Still, that's pretty respectable and I'm sure I could improve my game with a few months' more practice. And I was mulling all this over when another beer and Maker's Mark appeared in front of me and Rob the barman indicated it was from a toothless old coot up at the other end of the bar who was buying drinks for everyone (ie, me and one other guy) so I thanked him and then he bought me another and then we got talking and then he took offence at something I said - actually, I think it was accent he didn't care for - and then he forgave me and rambled drunkenly on and on about his job helping down and outs in Vegas and how I didn't understand, I didn't know the truth, and I'm thinking, "Jesus, if this is who the poor have in their corner then they're really fucked" and I refused a third drink (Rob gave me an imploring look), shook the old coot's hand and staggered back to my room laughing my head off at the craziness of it all.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

2004-11-24T13:08:00.000-08:00

Three key hands from yesterday's blood-letting at the Horseshoe.

Hand one. I limp in with JJ. There's a player either side of me. The flop comes 8,9,J, two diamonds. Player 1 bets $10, I flat call and player 3, who's pretty solid, raises it to $70. We both call the raise. I'm hoping the board will pair on the turn or that player 3 will back off a bit. The turn's a 4. We check to p.3 who goes all in for about $400 (I have $300 left in front of me). Obviously he has QT for the nut straight. P.1 calls without hesitation - what the fuck does he have? It doesn't matter; if the pot's giving me 3.5-1 (the odds of the board pairing on the river) I have to call. So I ask for a chip count and the total comes to about $720. That only gives me a little over 2-1 and I fold. The 4 of diamonds hits the river. P.3 turns over QT for the straight and p.1 turns over two raggedy diamonds for the ugliest flush you ever saw. He scoops the pot. And I mucked the winning hand.

Hand two. I limp with AK hearts and one caller behind. Then the button sticks in a big raise. Me and the other limper call. The flop is low with two hearts giving me two over-cards and a nut flush draw. Player 1 bets $10 and I raise it to $70 hoping to win the pot right there. Player 3 thinks for a while and then goes all in. Player one mucks and it's time for another chip count. This time it'll cost me $85 to win about $200. With two cards to come I'm 2-1 to make my flush so I call. My situation improves when player 3 turns over a pair of queens. Now I have 15 outs: 9 hearts, 3 aces and 3 kings. I'm getting over 2-1 on an even-money shot. Of course, I miss both the turn and the river completely and player 3 scoops.

Hand three. I limp with 66. The flop comes: A,A,6 giving me a full house. An old, aggressive guy bets $15; I call, everyone else folds. The turn is a rag and the old guy only bets $10 this time. Clearly he's got an ace but is worried about his kicker. Actually, he should be much more worried than that because I've got him dead to an ace or whatever his other hole card is. I consider raising him, but I don't want to scare him away - I want to get him all-in. This is my "back to even" hand. So again I just call. The river is a 9 which straight off makes me a little queasy. A9 is the sort of hand a lot of people limp in with. And now the old fella suddenly bets $50. That by itself should've made me cautious. $15 then $10 and now $50 - what's going on here? But I've got it stuck in my mind that I'm going to hammer him and so I don't even call the bet - I raise it another $50. He goes all-in and I call before my brain has a chance to catch up with what my hands are doing. Of course he turns over A9 for the nut full house. I'd waited and waited until I was behind in the hand before betting. And what the fuck else could he have had? Short of turning his hole cards face up before he bet the river he couldn't have made things any clearer. And I called. No! I raised and then called the re-raise. What a rank amateur play!

Vegas moments

2004-11-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

One. Chicargo Joe is on the prowl in his small, family-run Italian restaurant. He doesn't so much serve his customers as stalk them. "How ya doin buddy? Anudder iced tea? Now I'm workin, now I'm workin! Naaa, I doan gamble no more sept for sports bettin. How bout dat Pistons game, eh?" And - BAM! - he plonks down a basket of garlic bread I hadn't ordered. "On da house" he says and slinks away in search of his next victim.

Two. In t-shirt and shorts, I'm enjoying the dazzling sunshine outside the Starbucks on 4th Street. My cardboard coffee cup has snowflakes on it and they're piping a disco version of Jingle Bells over the PA. The guy at the next table answers his mobile. "Hi. Nah, I'm in a meeting," he says and takes a sip of coffee.

Three. Waiting for the CAT on the strip at 2am. A fuck-off big SUV pulls up - shiny black with tinted windows. A young black woman gets out. She's wearing a skimpy white dress and her long, straight hair is dyed red. As she walks up the strip her hips sway exaggeratedly. It would be quite sexy except that she's painfully, painfully thin - especially her legs which look like they belong to a giraffe. An unseen hand in the SUV slams the door shut and the car pulls away with a threatening growl.

Local History

2004-11-22T13:55:00.000-08:00

I think I've mentioned that I update this blog from the Kinko's on 4th St, a few blocks down from Fremont. So most weekdays I leave Binion's Horseshoe, take a right down 3rd and then cut across to 4th. But while I'm on 3rd I pass by the packs of TV news reporters outside Clark County Courthouse where they're covering the Ted Binion murder retrial. Ted was the wayward son of Benny Binion - a former bootlegger and bookmaker from Texas with at least two killings to his name (self-defence in both cases) who moved to Vegas when his "friendly" sherrif lost the election. Benny founded the Horseshoe and built the casino into one of the great Las Vegas institutions, renowned as the place for serious gamblers where no bet was too big for the house to cover. He also invented the World Series of Poker along the way. Ted had two sons: Jack, who inherited his dad's gift for casino management (he currently runs a successful version of the Horseshoe in New Orleans) and Ted - bon viveur, playboy and all-round man about town. And an alcoholic. And a heroin addict. In middle-age, Ted started seeing Sandy Murphy, a sometime lap-dancer about half his age. Ted was also close friends with a wheeler-dealer called Rick Tabish. Sandy and Rick secretly became lovers and then, in 1998, Ted Binion died - apparently of a drug overdose. But a murder charge was brought against Sandy and Rick in which it was alleged they drugged and then "Burked" Ted. The prosecution claimed that Rick covered Ted's nose and mouth while Sandy sat on his chest and rocked back and forth to squeeze the air out of his lungs and suffocate him. It's called "Burking" because that's how Burke and Hare used to kill their victims. Murphy and Tabish were found guilty but due to a technical error by the judge the case had to be retried. That trial has just taken place and the jury are currently deliberating. You have to be careful about mentioning the trial in the Horseshoe, especially around old-timers, most of whom knew Benny or Ted one way or another. When the subject came up at the poker table on Saturday the fifty-something next to me growled, "those fuckers killed my friend. I went to school with Ted Binion and those fuckers killed him and now they've got a second shot at getting away with it. Someone ought to mark their card." The table fell quiet.

How to Win a Thousand Bucks

2004-11-22T13:12:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I went to the Palms because I'd heard that the no-limit game was pretty wild there. Things were certainly buzzing when I arrived at 6.30pm. Unfortunately I couldn't get a seat until 8.15pm by which time a lot of the juice had been sucked out of the game. Still, I won $95 ($60 of which I later lost again back at the Horseshoe) and, Helen, if you want to make your Boston correspondant jealous just tell him I was playing poker with star Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling.

Saturday's poker basically came down to one hand: first, in mid-position I limp in for $2 with KQ. Three of four others call. The flop comes A,T,8 rainbow giving me nothing except an 11-1 gutshot straight draw. The Hat (ie, a player in full cowboy get up) in the small blind leads out for $15. He's a solid player who looks like Robert Duval's wild west son, so I have to figure him for at least a decent ace. A weak player on my right (an old fella who spent the whole session bitching about anything and everything) also calls. I call too, figuring that $15 isn't so expensive compared to the money I might make if my long-shot comes home. And, sure enough, the J of hearts hits the turn as sweet as you like. The Hat bets $105 - he's got something pretty strong; top two pair? three aces or tens? Three tens is most likely - he wouldn't have limped so late with aces against three opponents. The bitcher bitches about the bet for a few minutes and then calls as well. But now I really give him something to moan about because I come over the top of them both, going all in for $300. The Hat thinks for a long time and reluctantly calls. Now I know for sure he's got a set of tens (two in his hand, one on the board) and he's got ten outs: 3 aces, 1 ten, 3 eights and 3 jacks. If any of those hit the river his full house will beat my ace-high straight. The odds of that happening are about 3.5-1. The bitcher also calls and I'm thinking, "don't pair the board, don't pair the board". The dealer burns and turns the 7 of clubs. I'm home and dry. The Hat has indeed three tens and the bitcher turns over Q,9 for a Q-high straight (what's known as the "ignorant" end of the straight). I scoop a $950 pot.

I managed to win another $300 after that and was delighted to find myself $300 ahead for the week. I got extremely drunk, had a superb porterhouse steak in the Horseshoe steak house on the 24th floor and took Sunday off to recover. It rained all day on Sunday, and it was see-your-own-breath cold. But I didn't mind a bit.

Cards and Strangers

2004-11-19T13:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I finally managed to check out the roof-top pool at the Horseshoe. The pool itself is a bit dinky and the surroundings are pretty basic but, 25 stories high, the view is truly spectacular and it's useful to have a place where I can just sit in the sun and read.

At about 1pm I went down to the Horseshoe poker room, signed up for the 2pm no limit tourney ($70) and then sat down in the $1/2 no limit cash game. These no limit games have sprung up all over Vegas and from what I can see they're a pretty soft touch. There's always a couple of young guys in there who've seen the six-handed, high blind play at the World Poker Tour final tables and think everyone's trying to bluff all the time. Just keep it tight, try a few trap-plays and always be prepared to run away at the first sign of trouble. When the blinds are as low as one and two dollars and each hand could potentially win you hundreds it makes sense to wait and wait and wait until the conditions are just right - even if that means mucking the best hand a few times. I was $58 up by the time the tourney kicked off and rather sorry to leave. The tourney itself was fun, I suppose, but those things are a bit of a luck-fest and mine ran out when the blinds and antes started killing me. In retrospect I wish I handn't taken part.

After that I ended up talking to Old Joe, a guant, seventy year-old fella with an east coast accent but a goofy deep-south laugh straight out of The Dukes of Hazard - possibly a legacy of the years he spent in Arizona. Joe spends hours sitting near the poker room, biding his time, waiting for the right game to develop. He loves to talk poker and you barely have to say "hi" before he's launched into a rambling anecdote about a game he was in or a player he used to know. He's a comic figure, but don't be fooled: Joe knows poker. He's got it down cold. He came to Vegas a few years back and for a while made a steady living from the $1-5 stud games that were all over town before the current no-limit Hold 'Em boom kicked off (the very same stud games I did so badly in when I first came to Vegas in 2002). He's a bit pissed off that those games have all but died out, but I guess he still does okay.

By the time I'd gotten away from Joe and had some tasty Chinese food in the coffee shop it was past 7pm and too late (I decided) to take the bus down to the Bellagio. Maybe I was just too lazy. Or maybe I was gun-shy after the horrors of the last few days (dropped another $108 there on Wednesday). Anyway, instead of playing $15/30 at the Bellagio I headed over to the $1/2 no limit game at the Golden Nugget (it's right next door to the Horseshoe). Without doing anything remotely fancy I managed to grind out a $195 win in four or five hours. That restored my faith in, er, myself I suppose, and I strolled back to the Horseshoe bar (cheap drinks and no video poker machines sunk into the counter - a real rarity in Vegas) for a beer and a shot. In next to no time I found myself chatting to a young couple - both social workers - from LA. We drank tequila slammers together and they insisted on taking my photo with them (by the time the photos are developed they'll be thinking "who the hell was that?"). When Lisa, the girlfriend, went to the loo the guy confided in me that he wasn't sure their relationship was working out. She wanted marriage and kids, didn't understand his gambling, etc, etc. I said I thought they made a good couple but I don't think that was really what he wanted to hear. Then, when Lisa came back she suddenly said to me: "you're here because a woman broke your heart". Wow! Where the hell did that come from? I had to admit she was pretty much right. Then she put her hand on mine and said, "but you're successful in what you do". I burst out laughing. Still, one out of two ain't bad.

Are we having fun yet?

2004-11-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

JESUS H CHRIST ON A BIKE DROWNING IN HIS OWN TEARS! So I hit the Bellagio at about 3 or 4pm on Tuesday, dressed in my best tourist shorts and t-shirt, and within a few hours I'm $500 to the good. I thought about quitting and basking in the glory of my fantastic play (the truth is I hit cards like a madman) but if I did that what was I going to do with the rest of my day? Let me tell you what I did with the rest of my day: I lost back the $500 plus $749 of my original $800 buy-in. It was, without doubt, the most depressing seven hours of my poker life. It was sick. When you take a loss like that it shakes your faith in the game and all you can envisage in the future is bad beat after bad beat and how the fuck are you ever going to win any money surrounded by luck-hounds and flush-monkeys defying the odds and hitting card after card on the river? They're like zombies: slow and stupid but there's so many of them they're bound to get you in the end. And after pissing off $60 in a hand where I knew I was beat but just had to see what these jokers were holding I cashed in the pathetic remains of my once mighty stack and headed off into the freezing desert night feeling both numb and hurt and on the very edge of tears. You see Vegas very differently at times like that. All those twinkling lights and hearty, chummy voices saying "come on in, have some fun!" Yeah, and while we're at it please stand still for a moment so that I can rape your ass. And now I understand a little of what Austin was telling me about guilt. I met him on Monday night at a bar in the Horseshoe; he's a poker pro and on-line bookie - a dirt-poor kid from Arkansas who's made millions at poker (and lost a few million too I dare say) and now feels guilty about the guys he's beaten in the past. It's not just skimming a mark for a few thou but strapping him to a wheel and crushing his spine. Rigged decks, signals, team play, Austin had done it all. And as for the other guy, it's not just his money he loses, it's his spirit, his dignity. Why do you think it's called going broke? Of course no one forces him to play and there's only one moral law in poker: it is your duty to relieve a sucker of his money. But another way of putting it is that the guy is just a normal, weak, greedy human being. And that's what poker is all about: overcoming your own humanity in order to take advantage of the other fella's weaknesses. Now, doesn't that sound like fun?

Sounds

2004-11-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

Here's what passes for gambling muzak in the Horseshoe these days:

There's No Other Way - Blur
Step On - Happy Mondays
Fool's Gold - Stone Roses
Big Mouth Strikes Again - The Smiths
Warm Leatherette - God knows (it wasn't the Grace Jones version)
Happy Birthday - Altered Images
Gigantic - Pixies
Here Comes Your Man - Pixies
On My Radio - Selecter
Lust for Life - Iggy Pop
Girl U Want - Devo
Sex Dwarf - Soft Cell.

Sex Dwarf?! Whatever next? "Hamlet Pow Pow Pow"?

It's all a blur...

2004-11-16T13:00:00.000-08:00

The poker sessions start to run together in your mind after a while and it's almost impossible to remember what day this or that hand came up and how long you played for and so on. But my notes are fairly clear: on Friday I won $421 playing 15/30 at the Bellagio; on Saturday I won $188 at the same game and on Sunday I lost $87. That gave me a Week One total of -$28. Not great but not a disaster either. The Sunday session actually took place between 6pm on Sunday evening and 11.30am Monday morning. At one point I was stuck $1,000 but managed to grind my way back to a modest loss. Most of my wins came when the game got short-handed (five or six players) and it was time to play "bet your ace" poker. The only reason I stopped at 11.30am was that I had to check out of my room at the Key Largo and head back to the Horseshoe. My new room is a double on the 16th floor looking out at the Plaza, the suburbs of west Vegas and the mountains beyond them. Monday evening I took a break from serious poker went to see "The Grudge" at the local cinema complex, but today it's back to the front.

How to lose a thousand bucks...

2004-11-12T11:05:00.000-08:00

Safe to say Wednesday wasn't one of my best, poker-wise. I got up about noon and mooched around the downtown area for a while before deciding to kill time playing a little $4/8 at the Horseshoe. As usual I was up against the flush-monkeys and the Any Ace Brigade and as usual they were hitting cards. By the time I packed in at 7pm I was $90 down after three hours' play. Now $90 is not a disaster, but it was a depressing little loss and, more importantly, meant I was a bit tired and negative by the time I sat down to play $15/30 at the Bellagio. All it took was for that session to start off badly when I had 2 pair go down in flames twice in four hands (and both times I stayed in far too long - a clear sign that my game was below par) and - hey presto! - a poker nightmare was underway. Chips evaporated from my stack - first one rack of red ($500) and then another. I couldn't help thinking that if things went on like this I'd be flat broke in under a fortnight. I was being unlucky (like when I had aces in the small blind against AT on the button and the flop comes: JQK for that 310-1 straight) and I was also playing badly (paying off even when I was sure I was beaten) and that's a murderous combination. But then, it's hard to play well when you've started to doubt everything you ever knew about poker. Was my strategy any good? Did a straight beat a flush or was it the other way round? Ho hum. I pulled myself together after a few hours and recouped some of my losses but I was still $700 down when I quit at 6.30am. That's a daily loss of $790 and an hourly rate of around -$80.

But you've got to keep the big picture in mind - losing $800 is a depressing thing, but in terms of $15/30 hold 'em it's no big deal. I lost my buy-in is what it amounts to, and that (and far worse) has happened to me plenty of times playing $2/4, $4/8 or $5/10 - games which I know I can beat in the long-run. So on Thursday I bucked myself up, plastered on my game-face and strapped myself back into the rollercoaster. This time things went reasonably well - I hit a few hands, had a little luck here and there and managed to come out $200 ahead. Mind you, there's plenty of room for improvement. That win could and should have been at least $400 but I still sometimes stay in hands too long and pay off even when it's clear I'm probably beaten. Of course, everyone does that occasionally - if you never called a hand down people would just run all over you - and you only have to catch 'em bluffing a few times to make up for an awful lot of wasted calls on the end, but getting the balance right, that's the important thing.

Anger Management

2004-11-10T14:36:00.000-08:00

So there I was at the Bellagio, breaking even in a 15/30 game I should've been killing (small mistakes really cost you at this level), trying to concentrate and keep my cigarette breaks down to one per hour (if I leave when two seats to the right of the cut-off seat I can have a smoke and get back before my blind comes round) but I'm also chatting to this guy called Tony. He was intelligent-looking, a solid player with a nice line in sardonic remarks. But then, when a cocktail waitress was talking about a road-rage incident he told a story that you'd simply never hear in a UK poker room: "I had a gun pulled on me one time. This Mexican guy cuts me up and I'm swearing at him and he's swearing at me and then he pulls into a 7/11 parking lot. He thought he was up against a soft touch, what with my glasses and tie and shit and of course when I get out of my car I dwarf the guy and then he pulls a gun on me. Right away I started running towards him as fast as I could - it's what we were trained to do in the marines. You shoulda seen his face. I kicked his car door so that it hit his leg - broke his shin - then I took the gun off the guy and pistol-whipped him till the cops arrived. They had to surgically reconstruct his face. He was totally unrecognisable. The only reason I didn't go to jail was that he was an illegal immigrant. They sent me to anger management classes instead. Got top marks right across the board."

Room to live and the phony war

2004-11-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

So I get into Vegas at 9pm local time - 5am GMT, tired and irritable and it's raining. Not some light drizzle but absolutely chucking it down. But I'm too knacked to be surprized, what with 16 hours in the air, three airline meals, 4 packs of Starburst, checking my baggage in and out about 25 times, immigration, customs and security - which more or less invloves a full-body strip search these days - plus I banged my head getting into the taxi, which was Vegas' way of saying "hello". "Take me to the Key Largo" I said and off we went. Now, I'd figured the KL would be reasonably cheap on a Sunday night in November - say $30 - and was dismayed to be charged $60 for a single room; that's roughly twice my daily acommodation budget. Still, there was nothing to be done but stump up and see how every thing looked after a little sleep.

Monday morning I checked out a few local motels (the KL is on East Flamingo, just off the Strip) which turned out to be even more expensive than the KL. Crap. Where do all the poor people stay in Vegas? The answer, of course, is Downtown - for the real "Freemont Street Experience" keep going past all the lights, chintzy Indian gift stores and Gentlemen's Clubs until you hit Trailer Trashville. Cheap, cheap motels and everyone you meet has been on Oprah. Fortunately, I didn't have to stoop quite so low because the Horseshoe was willing to put me up at a very reasonable $35 a night. I have a small, kinda dark but somehow quaint single room in the hotel's east wing. The wooden furniture and flowery wallpaper are supposed to suggest the Old West, but if it wasn't for the TV and on-suite bathroom I'd think I was in a family hotel in Bournemouth some time in 1978. I like it.

So after a rest (not enough - it never is), I rather reluctantly supposed it was time to play some poker. Too lazy to fight my way down the Strip on the CAT, I ended up in a dismal little $4/8 game in the Horseshoe. The stakes were low and the opponents were weak but I still managed to piss away $97 with no problem at all. For three hours I didn't win a single hand. My game wasn't terrible exactly, but I'd forgotten how much harder it is to concentrate live compared to the internet. On the net it's all laid out neatly for you; you can see at a glance who's still in the hand, who's raised, how much is in the pot, etc etc. Live play is much messier. People act out of turn, accidently cover their cards with their hands, and they're talking to you all the while: "hey, buddy, you from Australia? How long was the flight? How about that Man Yoooo, eh?" and you have to deal with the cocktail waitress - "water, please", "whaaaaat?", "er, water", "oh, you mean waaaaaaaada" and the slot machines are chirping away in the background, and so on and so on.

I took my lumps, had another rest and in the evening tried my hand at the Golden Nugget's $2/5 no limit game. That was a little better and I managed to quit at 1am $90 to the good. So the tally for the day was -$7. Ho hum. Today it's time to have a go with the big boys (well, the medium boys) down at the Bellagio.

Here we go, here we go, here we go....

2004-11-07T11:44:00.000-08:00

At least I've made it as far as Birmingham Airport, which is almost civilised at 10.45 on a Sunday morning in November. Checking-in was amazingly stress free and now I'm just killing time, waiting to board at 11.30am. Let me see... money? Check. Passport okay? Yup. Flat tidied? Well, sort of. "Tidy" is a relative concept. Oh crap - I forgot to throw out the few slices of bread I had left. By the time I get back they'll have evolved sufficiently to claim squatters' rights. In fact, they'll probably have changed the locks. Damn. Tobacco bought? Nope, but I just surprised the bloke at the airport WH Smiths by nearly clearing out their stock of cigarette papers - those things cost about $2.50 a pop in Nevada. Books? No, but I'm stocked up on crappy magazines. In just over 17 hours I'll be in Vegas. I'm feeling kinda nervous about that.

Some domestic stuff.

2004-10-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

Here’s a list of things I need to sort out before I head off to Vegas:

1. Decide how much money to take. As I operate on a cash-only basis, I can’t just take a few thousand dollars with me and use a credit card for the rest. I don’t want to be carrying huge stacks of bills around with me but if I run out of cash in Vegas I have nothing to fall back on. A few months ago I sketched out a rough budget for the trip:

Flight: £400
Motel: $25pd = $750pm = £400
Petty cash: £600
Poker bankroll: $6,000 = £3,500

Total: £4,900

The flight cost, including travel insurance, turned out to be spot on, but I think I’ve underestimated motel and petty cash costs. £6,000 would probably be a safer amount. I still have $1,427 (c. £800) left over from my last Vegas trip, so I’ll need at least another £5,200. I’ll probably change about £1,000 into dollars and take the rest as sterling to change at casinos when and as I need to.

2. Make sure of the US visa situation. I don’t think I’ll need anything other than the standard temporary visa (the one you fill in on the plane shortly before landing) but I’d better check that.

3. Ensure trains are running between Coventry and Birmingham International on Sunday 7 November. For years now travelling by train to and from Coventry at weekends has been something of a nightmare. If trains aren’t running I’ll have to fork out £25 for a taxi.

4. Sort out clothes. I’ve never been to Vegas in November before, but I gather it’s warm during the day and a bit cold at night. My wardrobe isn’t exactly extensive so I may have to buy some more bits and pieces. Also, it would be useful if there was a laundrette in or near the place where I’m staying, but that’s something I’ll have to sort out when I get there.

5. Buy sufficient tobacco and papers. Good rolling tobacco is nearly impossible to find in the US – because cigarettes are relatively cheap out there nobody roles their own apart from when they’re smoking a joint. Papers are available, but they’re very expensive – about $2.50 a pack. I estimate I’ll need about 750g of tobacco to last the trip. 250g of that I can get duty-free at the airport but the rest I’ll have to buy in advance. An alternative would be to save money by smoking US cigarettes, but I much prefer rolling my own these days.

6. Books to read. This trip isn’t really meant to be a holiday but I’ll inevitably have time on my hands without friends or decent TV – there are only so many reruns of the Drew Carey Show that a grown man can watch. I’ll be taking Sklansky/Malmuth’s “Texas Hold ‘Em for Advanced Players” and Brunson’s “Super System” but even so two or three engrossing novels might be a good investment.

7. Tidy my flat. As usual my flat is a bit of a tip. But while I’m away my landlord is going to fix a few bits and bobs around the place, so I’ll have to leave it in a reasonable condition or else my shame at the way I live will be overwhelming.

8. Pay various bills. I don’t want to come home to a flat that’s suddenly unfurnished and without gas, water, a phone line or electricity.

9. Research cheap motels/hotels. I’ve already dug up a few good prospects on the net but the better prepared I am the more likely it is I’ll be able to find a good deal.

The countdown has started....

2004-10-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

On Sunday 7 November 2004, and despite the mis-givings of friends and family, I fly out of Birmingham International Airport to spend thirty days playing poker in Las Vegas. The plan is to live cheap and win a bunch of money playing $10/20 and $15/30 Texas Hold 'Em. Whether or not things work out that way can be learnt right here.