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Leaving Las Vegas

Ah, the 4/8HE game at Bellagio. My five-year-old brother could beat this game. Not many memorable hands – except for one where I bluffed at a pot with ten high on the river, got called in two places, and won – but I did work on value betting on the river, something I don’t do enough of, especially in a game where people call with worse than ten high (huh?).

I met a woman in one of the games who is the wife of a pro who lives in town. I was bummed when she told me she lived in Vegas because I’ve been hoping to meet more poker couples to hang out with in NYC. I guess the chance of meeting a poker couple from New York in Vegas is pretty unlikely. [Hey Matt, I guess we’ll have to convert Ivy, eh?] It would be great to know some ladies at these poker events. While I certainly don’t need any chums to sit at my poker table, it would be nice to have company at the pool or the spa.

I’m setting a goal to move up to 8/16 next trip, which probably won’t be for a while unfortunately. But that will give me time to work my way up online and build my bankroll. Being around all these people who play so high has definitely put my “big wins” in perspective. I go to the cage to cash out a few hundred, look to my right, and one guy is cashing in three racks of $100 chips, another guy is talking about how he’s up $13K in a game he’s playing, and a girl at an empty table is shuffling four flags and a several $1K chips with a bored expression on her face. I slide my racks of blues and reds over to the cage, hoping no one sees them.

On a different subject, Chris and I are decorating our apartment and it only seems natural that we would have some poker-themed art hanging somewhere. Only thing is, everything we’ve seen is the tackiest shit in the universe. Anyone have a line on some decent poker art? Somewhere between the “My pair is bigger than your pair” T-shirt and the the impressionist painting of Phil Hellmuth throwing a tantrum that I saw at the “Poker Lifestyles Expo”?

3 replies on “Leaving Las Vegas”

An interesting option for “poker art” is to hang framed antique cards. I saw this done once in poker room, and it looked quite nice. Plus they’re collectors items. You can find people on the web selling antique playing cards.

i really like nieman’s stud poker and can be found online for 1500-3000 unframed b/w or the color version is about 5k… has sklansky/brunson etc in it from 1980 signed and numbered.

I’ve been reading Chris’ blog and just browsed yours. I was playing in the 4-8 game at the Bellagio the night of July 12, and absolutely crushed the game. You are right, it was totally weak. I wonder if you were there?
– schneid

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