Gambling Results With Jeff

I came back from Vegas +/-$14,200 winner. Time to give all of you the rundown of my net losses and wins. I rounded to hundreds, so it might not add up to the detail, but you’ll get the general idea.

Texas Hold’em Poker: +$4,800
Punto Banco / Baccarat: +$5,900
Blackjack: -$1,100
Pot Limit Omaha Poker: +4,900
Roulette: -$2,100
Craps: +$300
Stud Poker (against the house): -$600
Slots: -$100
Casino Hold’em: +$2000 (got extremely lucky and quit ahead hehe)

I’m happy.

Alright guys sorry for not posting too much in the past few days but I’ve been in Vegas and I’m winning good so I decided to stay another week. Might be backin a couple days from the hotel lobby with some results but right now I’m just having fun playing…

Wish me luck — I’m off to the Baccarat (punto banco here!) table!

Pocket aces are great. I play poker every single day, thousands of hands each week, and looking down at two Aces in the whole is still awesome. Yet, I’ve seen many people lose their complete stack in a single hand — the tightest players on any table will go broke with their aces, blinded for possible drawing hands that probably have them beat.

Here are my most favorite ways of seeing people lose with their Weapons Of Mass Destruction:

1. Slowplaying Aces pre-flop.
   Don’t make a habit of slowplaying Aces. As Dan Harrington said: just call only a marginal percentage of the time, and when you do — try to do it with aggressive players behind you. You don’t want 5 people limping in to a pot. You want one, maximum two players in the hand. This is VITAL for the strength of your aces after the flop!
   
   
2. Not keeping your head straight.
   Yes, your aces are strong — but you can’t stop paying attention. Keep studying the board and the players around you — trying to stay on top of the game. Think about what kind of hands beat you, and if they’re likely to have called your raise pre-flop. Keep in mind that against aces, looser opponents are more dangerous than people playing only premium starting hands. With a J94 flop, the solid player made AJ tops (or a set). The loose player may have flopped J9 — and your aces might be in serious trouble.
3. Checking after the flop.
   With aces; BET. Make a continuation bet if nobody has bet the flop, and raise if someone else has bet into what seems to be a safe flop. Define your hand. Checking is giving free cards, and it’s stupid. Not raising is stupid to, unless against a very aggressive opponent, who might keep bluffing at a pot when he thinks you’re weak. Keep in mind though — he’s getting free cards too, so you’re taking a risk.
4. Putting someone else on a set.
   Yes, someone may have flopped a monster — but it’s unlikely. Decide on the flop whether or not you put someone on a set — it’s the right time. If he bets out, you raise, and he comes over the top. Make your decision based on his image and your instinct. Same when you get check-raised. Don’t second-guess, it’s the wrong play. Once you feel he hasn’t flopped a set, stick to it.
   
   
5. When it’s obvious your aces are beat — lay them down!
   4-card flushes and straights on the board are typical situation you don’t want to see. Let your hand go if you are facing a big bet in these situations. Yes — the other guy might be bluffing, but he’s probably not.

Aces are great — don’t spoil the fun yourself!

I feel sick. Came home last night feeling sick. Played poker for about 3 hours, turned $750 into $3500 — donked off all my profit in half an hour at the blackjack table….

I’m usually quite the disciplined player, but for some reason I failed yesterday. Feels so stupid once you walk out of the casino. DAMN.

I just got out of bed after a long night at the casino, and I’m still somewhat shaking after playing in the most action-packed poker game I’ve ever been a part of… Not only did I end up a winner, I also ended being at least in the top-3 of the tightest players throughout the evening. That’s a record for me – seeing as I’m usually one to play quite aggressively from close to any position at certain points in a cash game…

Yesterday, that wasn’t necessary. The poker game was so über-live that I decided to play lock down poker, only get involved with wired pairs and AQ+ — and it worked out. Pushed every TT+ from any position strongly with pre-flop raises of 5BB (getting multiple callers each time) – and pretty much moving in on any flop that hit. The best pot of the night saw me holding AQ of spades, the flop coming AJ4 with two spades – me checking, one guy moving all in, other guy calling – me thinking it over and moving in over the top. Second caller calls my hand and shows…. A pair of jacks. The first shover showed a lower flush draw – which was a sick play at the table….

Anyway, ended up close to tripling up in that hand, beating two hands that were in a pot they probably never should have entered.

Final result: buy-in * 7. Good night, but… not good for the heart.

Splitting pairs in blackjack gives you the chance to split a pair and play two separate hands with one new card for each.

The dealer will then deal you an additional card to each hand, and you will play each hand individually. It is important to know the different splitting pair types when you play blackjack. Not every pair should be spilt.

You should ALWAYS split a pair of Aces. Just over 30% of the cards in a single deck have a value of 10, so you have a good chance of hitting two more 10 cards and to improve both your hands into a blackjack. (Although the house may not pay out 3:2 on Blackjacks that come from split Aces).

Don’t split 10s you numpty. 20 is a winning hand. If you split 10s the dealer is morally obliged to slap you with a wet fish.

You should always split 8s. A total of 16 is not good enough to stand but you are likely to bust almost two thirds of the time if you hit. With a large proportion of the pack being 10s you have a good chance of ending up with two hands with a total of 18.

For other hands the decision should be made based on the dealer’s upcard.

Action: H = Hit S = Stand D = Double P = Split

I would stress that like doubling up; splitting pairs can also affect the effectiveness of your betting strategy. This is especially true if you are using the Paroli or Martingale system. You should make the decisions about when you are going to split pairs and the effect it might have on your betting system and stick to them.

Luck Doesn’t Last
Don’t start betting your mortgage because you have won 16 hands in a row (although you might want to go out and buy a lottery ticket), you cannot predict a lucky streak so don’t change your betting system because you are feeling lucky. The minute you overbet you can guarantee you’ll loose. Conversely, don’t get the hump because you have lost 16 in a row. You are not unlucky; you are just fortune challenged at present.

Avoid Distractions
Don’t drink while playing. We all know alcohol makes you do silly things. Some casinos will offer winning players drinks. This is not to be nice. The naughty casino people know if you drink you start to make mistakes. If you are playing online don’t sit and watch TV or the children whilst playing. You should be concentrating on what you are doing. If you are tired stop playing. You will only start making mistakes. Get some sleep, some exercise or some food or all three.

Use the Basic Strategy
Always use the basic strategy. Always. It is maths and you can’t argue with it. (Well you can but the maths will win) Even those times that you are dealt a bad hand, for example you have a 16 and want to stand when the dealer is showing a ten. By not using the strategy you increase the houses edge and we don’t want that!

In the end playing Blackjack is like anything else. Be disciplined and it will pay off.

How much did you make last month? Last week? Yesterday? If you don’t know then you are probably leaking cash faster than a sinking ship. If you want to be a profitable player then you should be keeping accurate records of your play. Keeping records makes you focus on whether you are actually losing. If you don’t keep them you may not notice you are not really winning until all your cash has gone. It will also give you an accurate reflection of how good you actually are.

Records you should be keeping include the following as a minimum;

Where: the site or casino. I would also think about adding days and dates. Knowing where you play best is important. Some sites will have players that you can crush easily. Other sites will have players that can crush you.

Type of game: This is important as not every type of game will suit you. Are you better at cash games or tournaments?

The profit: Not how much you won but the real profit. Winning $100 in a tournament sounds good but if you paid $99 to enter in reality it isn’t that good.

Time played: It is easy to while away the hours. If you made $50 dollars yesterday that is good but less impressive if it took you 16 hours to do it. Honestly you are better off working in Mc Donalds

You can record all your games/sessions/tournaments in a simple spreadsheet or you can a program like Poker Tracker or Hold’em Manager to help you.

Chinese Poker is a fascinating version of poker that’s very different to most other poker variants. It is rare to find, but when you do you might be pleasantly surprised. Chinese poker is fourhanded as a maximum as having been dealt 13 cards face down, you must separate them into 3 different hands. The first hand (a hand of five) must better then your second (another hand of five) and your second better then your last (three card hand).

You have one minute to arrange your hand then hands are scored. Yes that’s it just a minute.

The objective in Chinese Poker is the same as normal poker but you playing with 3 separate hands. As you can imagine there are a lot of different combinations in Chinese poker, which is what makes it so interesting.

After arranging the hands all players compare their hands to each other and the winner in each individual game receives a number of points, determined by how many hands they have won.

This is how you score points after each round:

• Player A vs. Player B
• Player A vs. Player C
• Player A vs. Player D
• Player B vs. Player C
• Player B vs. Player D
• Player C vs. Player D

A point for each winning player. Confused? There is actually a more popular method of scoring; ‘2-4 scoring’ where you win 2 points for beating two players and 4 points for beating all three.

With no draws, betting or bluffing Chinese Poker is more about the luck of the original hole cards, but with a minute to arrange them you can find that the speedier you are the better you are.