Vegas, Baby!?

In two days I leave for Sin City, and to be honest, I'm a little nervous. Although I want to go have a Tiltboy type experience, I'm experiencing a lot of trepidation. Here's why:

1. Variance has been kicking me in the junk the past couple days. Last weekend up, I was up. Way up. In the money in every SNG I played (probably 7 or 8 SNGs), and even finishing in 30th place in a 547 person freeroll on holdempoker.com on 1/13/06 (I cashed a little under $21.00). This week, I'm fighting just to keep my bankroll even. I was hoping to build it up enough to have a comfy bankroll when I go to Vegas. Well, unless I can go on a complete tear, it ain't gonna happen.

2. I have never, ever played casino poker before. The only live poker I've played are friendly home games with friends and a lot of beer. I've done amazingly well in these little home games, but I've never sat in front of a dealer, with 9 strangers trying to take my money before. It's a little daunting.

3. I suck at Limit Hold 'em. Terrible. Brutally terrible. I like NL because I can read players online by their bets. I can usually tell whether they're full of shit or not. In low-limit NL, it's hard to put anybody on anything. Granted, it's easier to chase flush and straight draws because of the limits, but I like to know what I'm dealing with.

4. Beer. I drink a lot of beer. A LOT. I can shake the Magic 8 Ball and see "It is decidedly so" appear to the question: "Will BP have to be taken to the emergency room with alcohol poisoning while in Las Vegas?". I think that this may affect my play at the tables most of all. But, we'll see. Online, it seems to be different. Have you ever seen the WKRP in Cincinnatti where a cop comes in to show Dr. Johnny Fever and Venus Flytrap how alcohol can impair your judgement? Well, the more drinks he gives them, the more wasted Venus gets, and the more coherent Johnny Fever gets. I play the Johnny Fever role when I play NL SNGs and drink beer.

So, how do I remedy the above? I've had a few thoughts:

1. Bring in the priest from "The Exorcist" and have him purge the demon that is Variance out of my body and soul. Or, be more aggressive with my hands. Either/Or.

2. Play in the fucking casino and stop being such a pussy about it...

3. Keep practicing micro-limit holdem. I've been playing 15 cent/30 cent limit games lately and have done so/so. I end up down at first and then usually crawl back to eke out a small profit of a buck or two. I'm also going to play the absolute lowest limit tables possible. I don't want to be the scared money at the table.

The Luxor has a $1/$2 game that I'll probably try to play and see how I do. I'm also going to buy into as many $25-$100 NL tourneys that I can, and there are a ton.

4. Try to only have 2 beers an hour. It's a start anyway.

Vegas, here I come...(yikes)

BP

Confidence

(This is an older post I submitted at a different site, but thought it would be a good start here)

Being relatively new at online poker play, my confidence takes swings bigger than my chip stacks at the NL tables. I was on top of the world this past weekend, playing ring games and making my (tiny) bankroll swell from roughly $10 to $50 and some change.

The I got the crap kicked out of me, went on tilt, played terribly (loose/aggressive), and lost $25 of my $50 in about a half hour in a couple of NL ring games. Ouch.

Obviously, I don't have the bankroll of Suck Out or Chris Halverson or whoever, as I'm just starting out in the poker process and want to keep my wins and losses low for the time being. That said, even these small financial losses at the tables shakes my confidence something fierce.

Last night, I decided to take a break from ringing it, and entered a NL $5 + $.50 SNG on Hold 'em Poker. I've played quite a few of these over the past few weeks and have done fairly well. I've gotten knocked around a couple times, but overall, I'm usually in the money, finishing 2nd or 3rd. The endgame is what usually knocks me on my ass, because I'm still playing very tight with only one or two players left hacking away at my chip stack/blinds.

Last night, however, I ended my "always the bridesmaid, never the bride" mode of SNG's by taking down my premier first place finish. And it felt good. Real good. Seeing the window pop up saying "Congratulations! You have won the tournament. $25 will be added to your account." or whatever it says gave me a little tingle in the swimsuit area. I'd finally broken the seal.

I won the tourney by getting pocket rockets pre-flop and enticing my opponent to go all in with his short stack. I'd been blinding away at him for about 10 minutes, but when I got the near nuts, I raised his chip stack (which was about 1/3 of mine) and he called.

Beauty, mate.

After walking around the house preening like I had just won the WSOP, I decided that I was on a hell of run, so why not play another SNG? I threw in my $5+ and started it up.

This time notsogood. I couldn't catch any cards, and it was a pretty tight table. Long story short, I got in the money when someone went all in with a J4o against the chip leader who was hold (I believe) QQ. Bye bye. Thanks for the monies.

I got kicked out in third place when I was dealt K10s. There was a whole lotta checking going on. The flop was Xs-Xs-Xo. All I needed was one more spade. I was literally chanting "one more spade! one more spade!" in my kitchen.

The turn came. Heart. SHIT. Another round of checking.

The river turns over a 8s. Praise be to Allah and the baby Jesus! A King high flush! I push all in hoping that someone has the Qs or Js or whatever and challenges me. I get one taker.

Yeah, he had the Ace.

Ouch.

Oh well, $25 profit for about an hour and a half of work ain't too shabby for this newbie. I'll take it.

And the confidence to boot.