Steel Foot Memories - # 91

Here's an endeavor that will likely go nowhere; like Lamb of God's latest, this is Set to Fail. However, you can't fault a man for trying.

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Something To Look Forward To. STLFT. Steel Foot. There are exactly 13 weeks between now and the WPBT Vegas trip. It's the 5th anniversary of the first time we got together back in December of '04. In an attempt to bring some level of anticipation to this forthcoming trip, I will post a quick memory of Vegas trips past on a daily basis. That's the setup. The payoff will be commensurate with your investment....

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"Not long after I see Otis and what I originally thought was one of his Missouri posse hanging out on the rail. Oddly, this other guy seemed to be staring at me in a way that made me slightly uncomfortable. He was staring with this wry smile and at first I thought he was sizing me up so he could kick my ass later. Being on the friendly side, after I folded a hand, I went to introduce myself. I asked Otis if this was a friend of his. Otis replied, “I just met him.” Odd. Nonetheless, I introduced myself and he mentioned something about being a fan of my blog. Even more odd. My blog’s not really anything to write home about, unless you like heavy metal and strippers.

So I went back to my seat and again watched as this person stared at me. Finally, after a couple more minutes, this guy mouths the words, “I’m Iggy.” Ok, now my pants weren’t dry, for I shat them. The man, the myth, the non-dwarf??? I cashed out and immediately went with Iggy and Otis to the Sherwood Forest for drinking and drinking and more drinking."

It's The Final Friday

It's not always you can book your next trip to Vegas before you finish a trip report from your last visit, but when your blogging rate drops to the G-Rob levels, that's what happens. I've also become a bit lazy too. Combine that with my work-based free time approaching nil (that's British for nothing; remember, I'm bi-lingual), and these posts become about as infrequent as AlCantHang's sobriety.

Rather than bore you with my take on day 2 in Vegas, let me simply re-direct you to this.

I'll jump right into day 3 if you'll allow me to. Hopefully I can remember it all. I do know that it was a Friday.

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The plan was to perform the impossible. Take a regular run of the mill Procedure and improve it. I felt that the only way to improve something so well-refined would be to make it something that could only happen in Vegas. After all, you really can perform a Procedure anywhere. Even in your own house. If you know the right people.

But what to add? I'd debated for months on how it could be done, but somehow, someway, the Procedure needed to include Sushi and a Steel Panther show. So with that in mind, Friday in Vegas became Final Friday and those of us who were there were on a mission the likes of which General Patton couldn't have completed.

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From my perspective, the cornerstone of Final Friday was the drinking phase. There is a fine line between not drinking enough and drinking far too much such that often times, you fail to optimize your enjoyment. Watching a pro like AlCantHang for the past five years, I figured that his method was finely tuned. Sipping hard liquor with a water back seemed like my best bet. And thanks to being in the Venetian poker room (seriously, why play anywhere else) I decided upon the following: The Glenlivet and 4/8 Omaha 8 or better with a half-kill.

I know what you're thinking. Limit poker? Yes, limit poker. I had already won a buy-in at 1/3 NL before the Final Friday gang showed up and I figured I'd book that win. Because the plans for this day had been detailed so painstakingly, I felt it was the best choice. I really didn't want to sour my mood in any fashion by making a donk, lose-my-stack play at the no-limit tables. Cautious, yes, but boring, no. Not with the company who was trickling into the room.

For a while, the game was going strong with 2-tables filled with bloggers. Me, Otis, Al, CK, F-Train, Amy Callistri, PokerShrink and even Change100 made their way into the game. Pauly was busy elsewhere in the room, stacking foreigners ruthlessly. We even got the Venetian to deal a mixed game of Stud8, O8, Razz, Badugi, and 2-7 Triple Draw. When it was time to pack up and go get some sushi, I was riding the crest of the perfectly buzzed wave and cashing out a Drizz-like 7 racks of whites. I ran sick good. Phase One and Two complete.

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CK and F-Train being locals, and more importantly having a car, graciously helped us with our sushi dining experience. They made reservations for us at Naked Fish and off we went. In the twenty minutes it takes to get from the Venetian casino to Durango Drive we probably passed 50 Asian massage parlors. And I'm not exaggerating. Some day we'll include a Rub 'n Tug to the Procedure, but not this time.

Dinner was quite frankly one of the most amazing dinners I've ever had. I'm no Boy Genius foodie type, but I'd say that it will be tough to top that sushi anywhere else. If you've not ever gone, give it a try if you're into the raw fish.

Phase Three complete.

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We were a bit pressed for time. Phase Four would have to be quick. We had to get to Green Valley Ranch by midnight for Steel Panther and didn't want to get shut out of the show. I won't go into details here because not everyone completed Phase Four. Based on my expenditures on Day 2, even I didn't purchase any "experiences" at Phase Four. Pretty amazing. It almost brings up a philosophical question: If you go to a strip club and don't get a lap dance, did you really go to a strip club? Questions like this have confounded philosophers and degenerates for ages. We'll table the debate for another time.

So, while all of us where there, not all of us were there.

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Finally, we arrived at Phase Five. We were almost complete with the nearly impossible Final Friday. We were still a bit later than we wanted to be and the line out of Ovations where Steel Panther play was growing long. We made a command decision and I greased the floor to let us in and secure us a table. We were required to drink at least $150 worth of alcohol. I think Al said, "That's it?"

Earlier in the day (warning, this might be a little gay), I sent a Tweet to Steel Panther's guitarist to play Asian Hooker during the show. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Instead, intermingled with all the cover songs they were playing, we heard Death To All But Metal and Community Property instead. Fair exchange. I did actually get a reply the next day from Satchel saying to text him earlier the next time. I nearly dropped my BlackBerry when I saw the reply. Ah. Being a fanboy. It's the little things that matter.

When the show was over, Otis caught up with some Stars folks who also had attended the show. If I recall correctly, Evelyn Ng, Maridu, and Adam Levy were there. Evelyn is tall. Very tall. That's all I really remember since I hadn't stopped drinking at any point during Final Friday. Being caught between super-buzzed and the beginnings of obliteration, I felt the only logical thing to do would be to attack the Green Valley poker room.

You could call it Phase Five A.

Since it was late, the poker room was nearly empty. We were all seated at the same 4/8 limit hold 'em table. Yeah, I said limit hold 'em. More limit poker? Why the hell not. Collectively, we tilted the hell out of the locals. They were horrible anyway, but by the time the session was over, only me, Al and F-Train had chips.

Somehow, I had won over $700 for the day at 4/8 limit poker. That just sounds dumb. But it's true. It made for the perfect conclusion of a perfect day and night in Vegas.

Final Friday. I'm not sure it will ever be topped.

But of course, that won't stop me from trying.

Day 1 Nears End

Rub. I'll admit that upon first glance, I wasn't thrilled to be eating BBQ. Obviously had there been an "N Tug" appended to the name, I'd have sprinted to get there. I wasn't too far removed from my lunch, so I intended to eat light. Ha. Eat light. At Rub. The portions are pretty damned big. I ordered the smoked turkey, coleslaw and shredded onion rings because that's what people trying to get shredded do. If I were a connoisseur (did I just use that word?) of BBQ food, my opinion on the meal may have carried more weight. However, even still, based on what everyone else ordered, and the quality of the meat, I'll give it a thumbs up. Price tag was about $30 per person, give or take.

Interesting side note. AlCantHang turned down prop-bet money to eat the remaining 9 pieces of bacon he ordered. Yeah, I just outed you.

After dinner, the gang from media row went back to work, thinking there'd be another six or seven hours of play until the Noviembre Nueve were established. Sick bilingualism right there. Especially with the French word used 2 paragraphs ago. I'll pause here so you can digest it sufficiently. There.

I went back to the Rio poker room and sat my outclassed self at the 1-3 game. Even though I was outmatched at the 2-5 game that was still running, I nonetheless found that the 1-3 game continued to be easy and boring. I cashed out because when I looked at the LCD showing the available games, I saw something pretty inspiring. PLO. I bolted for the open seat.

I didn't win or lose much, but I had a ton of fun. It was the first B&M PLO experience for me, having only played it live at local home games. There was, and I kid you not, a blonde guy named Lars from Sweden raising every pot. Just like online. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't very good. At showdown, when his opponent tabled top two pair, he showed his 4 hole cards thinking he'd win the pot. AAJJ, with neither of those ranks on board. "I have a higher two-pair," he said. When he finally went bust (he had about $900 in front when I sat down), and I didn't get any of it, the game lost some of its flair.

Then, to pretty much every one's surprise, the Main Event was over before 11pm local time. That only meant one thing, off to the Hooker Bar and -EV games at the Gold Coast.

More Day 1

If you've ever listened to Bart Hanson's "Cash Plays" poker podcast, you'd be aware of one of his common themes while talking about playing no-limit hold 'em. Value. Every action you take, every bet, should be designed to earn you some value. I happen to agree with this concept and think that nowhere in the course of a hand is value more important than on the river.

The pots are bigger on the river. The decisions are therefore more important, especially when you are playing deep stacked. When I sat down at the 2/5 table at the Rio and bought in for $500, I committed mistake number one. While I certainly covered most players, there were two others with nearly $2000 in chips and $100 bills positioned in front of them. Both players were extremely aggressive, but the play of one of them stood out to me for the reason mentioned above. He was the best player I'd ever played with when extracting value on the river against his opponents.

He raised very frequently, opening for $20 if folded to him. Continuation bets were the norm and even when his opponents played back at him post flop or on the turn, he seemed to know exactly where he was in relation to their holdings. He must have made over $1000 on river bets alone in the time I sat there. Nearly each time he'd fire out a river bet, I was praying for his opponent to call because I was sure he was effectively bluffing. But each time he'd get called, flip up middle pair, 9-kicker, his opponent would simply muck. It was amazing, and I'll admit, a bit inspiring.

Meanwhile, I was sitting there making more mistakes.

I lost half my stack with AQ suited all-in preflop against a short stack who I felt was shoving out of frustration. Turns out he had Queens and I failed to suck out. The rest of my stack went away when I flopped top two pair against middle set. No 2-outer for me and I reloaded. I then just watched and learned since I was card dead and couldn't do much against the two aggressive players without putting my entire newly reloaded stack at risk.

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Thankfully, I got the text from Otis that they were going on dinner break and eating at a place called Rub. Rather than dwell further on my miscues, I took the opportunity to join them. Missing out on eating with friends is one mistake I didn't want to make.

Preamble - Day 1

Day 1 as it were. The travel began early, I was up at 4:30 am to catch a 6:00 am flight out of friendly GSP. Thankfully, by the time I'd reach Las Vegas, absolutely nothing of note happened. I like that. No complications. I was travelling alone with a backpack and a carry-on and figured my free room hookup, otherwise known as Otis, would not yet be awake. After all, it was about 11:00am and when I boarded the plane back in Greenville, I was reading tweets from Pokerati and Pauly about some late night/early morning bowling. Surprisingly, Otis was awake and managed to beat me to the check-in line at Harrah's. With the room all taken care of, we ventured back to the Rio wherein the final day of the Main Event was progressing from 27 to 9 players.

Media row was pretty far removed from the action, but due to flat panel displays and relays from those close to the action, they could still keep tabs on the action. They were all there. Pauly, Al, Otis and his co-workers Stephen and Howard, Mean Gene, F-Train, Change100 and Jen. I hung out for a bit with no real rush to do anything. With the past year that I've gone through at work, just sitting around and relaxing was something I wasn't used to doing. What a welcome change that was.

Sensing that most everyone needed to get back to work at some point, I slithered away with plans to meet up later. I made a quick phone call to my grandmother who turned 97 that day. It's the small things that people appreciate and she certainly did enjoy talking to me from back in Florida. She wished me luck, I accepted it, and then I went to grab some grub at the All American Bar and Grille. First gambling of the trip was the video poker machine at the bar. Down a quick $20 with a steady drain of nothing cards. I sighed inside, but not too loudly. I did earn two free Heinekens. Like I said. The small things.

I found my way to the Rio poker room, a room I'd actually never played in. My only Rio poker play prior to this trip had been in the Amazon room. However, with just the Main Event going on, all poker action was relegated back to the normal, year-round location. I put my name on the 1/2 and 2/5 lists and waited.

I truly hate waiting. I am the worst at being patient when I have a pocket full of bills and a head full of monster pot daydreams. I couldn't sit down fast enough. And then when I did finally grab a seat at the 1/2 table, my anxiousness didn't go away. You see, the players at the 1/2 table I sat at were horrible. I can't describe to you how bad, but if you'll trust me enough, just understand that there was really no poker being played at the table. Mistake after mistake after mistake. I just sat there, not doing much of anything, except watching all the players make bet size and positional mistakes that would make you cringe.

Within the first orbit I was already up over $100. "That was easy," I thought, envisioning me pressing G-Rob's tilt-inducing Staples button. In fact, it might have been too easy. It bored me. I gazed over to the corner where the 2/5 game was playing and saw a seat open. My name got called, and I decided to rack up from the "boring" and "easy" game and sit at the 2/5 game.

Did I mention word mistake yet? Oh yes, just a few sentences ago. Luckily, I'm a pretty self-observant type of guy. I see myself making mistakes all the time. Even when I don't make mistakes, I over compensate and attribute them to myself anyway. Switching tables was a mistake. A big one. Word to the wise: Never play in the biggest game a poker room has to offer during mid-afternoon on a Wednesday. I failed miserably at table selection.

More to come...

Forthcoming

I have a trip report to write. Suffice to say, it was an "ultimate" good time.

Spock's Brain

It's a conundrum of sorts. If you're out to make the best decisions, you need access to the correct data and a process to filter it, manipulate it, and correctly choose from a well-defined set of options. You don't want to guess. Guessing involves hope. Guessing is a conscious effort to ignore some of the data. Why would you ignore valid data? Because it leads you to a conclusion you simply don't want to be true.

Spock would be a great limit poker player. Decision after decision based purely on his logic-driven conclusions. No-limit? He might be pretty good at that as well. He wouldn't tilt, that's certain. His success would be based on his ability to read other players and their emotions while hiding his own. We know he can do the latter, but only the true Trekkie would know about the former. After all, he's no Troi.

I battle with myself each poker session. I make an attempt to train myself to ignore emotionally-driven feelings at the poker table. The lament of a crushing bad beat. The disappointment of a 5th straight losing session. The martyrdom of inevitably getting it in bad and not sucking out like your luckbox opponents seem to always do. All of those things, if they occupy any of your mental energy, detract from your ability to make the best decision.

Lately, I sure as hell know what the worst decision is.

Call.

It's horrible. In theory, I want a smooth call by yours truly to frighten my opponents. But lately I've been calling too much and you can't scare everyone with a call when your frequency is so high.

Back to the conundrum. When can you take emotion completely out of your game? For one, by lowering the stakes. If you play at stakes far below your norm, your interest in the results go down. You've eliminated the negative emotions associated with losing when the magnitude is irrelevent.

But unfortunately, you've also eliminated the positive emotions of winning. And there's the catch. Why do you play? Do you play to win, or simply be right? Because you can be right and lose. A lot. So if you get no satisfaction from being right, then you're going to run into situations where the reason you're playing gets lost and the negativity of the results has no positive counterbalance.

Each action at the poker table is like a question on a test. What's the right answer? Can you figure it out? Why are you taking the test? To get a good score, or because it's an opportunity to learn?

Poker for me is a dichotomy of searching for that satisfaction of being right which requires me playing at stakes that mean something and the quelling of emotions that cloud my ability to make the best decision.

I need risk to feel the reward, but I don't want the feel of the risk to effect my ability to earn that reward.

Crazy game.