Best poker rooms on Strip for Vegas virgin ?
Peter Smith
capable, and has played a fair amount of poker at home "with the boys" but
never before done so in a casino situation. Can anyone suggest places on the
strip where he might find a congenial and unitimidating game before he moves
up to Bellagio where I guess the level is fairly high and experienced.
Thanks, Pete
plumbob
Excalibur has 1-3 and 2-4
Imperial Palace has 2-4
Walt
<jock...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Here's a good site to learn more about LV poker rooms...
--- Walt
Brian K
Go to Bally's, ask for Tommy Korman. He loves private games.
--
Brian K
LV T-34
If quitters never win, and winners never quit, then
who is the fool who said, "Quit while you're
ahead?"
For Brian K's Las Vegas & Pictures Go To.......
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Shores/3591/
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Frank
"Peter Smith" <jock...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:nthVf.7970$qX6.3...@news20.bellglobal.com...
limit players in Las Vegas are some of the worst players that I have ever
encountered. They are easy to read and easy to intimidate. Don't worry
about where you play; just worry about what and how you play.....Frank
John
So what if they are some of the worst players. If the most you can bet
is $2 or $4 how are you going to intimidate anyone?
I would think everybody is chasing in low limit games.
In no- limit games people try to buy the hands.
I have watched Texas Hold-Em tournamnets on TV and it doesn't look
like you need any skill to play the game.
You only get to see your two hole cards and five up cards.
You never see any other cards.
So how are you going to have a strategy?
Auggie
"Peter Smith" <jock...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:nthVf.7970$qX6.3...@news20.bellglobal.com...
IIRC The Luxor offers lessons twice a day on poker and poker room basics and
then afterwards goes into a low limit game for real money.
Mr. V
at home, like all poker games it takes skill and experience to do well.
Why?
A big thing is reading people, looking for tells, trying to gauge the
strength or weakness of their hand via observing them.
Another necessary quality is to look at your cards, look at the flop,
and be able to quickly estimate your chances of drawing a better hand
and improving, or staying the same.
On the surface, it may seem easy, but it ain't.
Like Kenny Rogers sang: "You gotta know when to hold em, know when to
fold em..."
roll dem bones
Gregg Cattanach
> I have watched Texas Hold-Em tournamnets on TV and it doesn't look
> like you need any skill to play the game.
>
> You only get to see your two hole cards and five up cards.
>
> You never see any other cards.
>
> So how are you going to have a strategy?
The pattern of when and how much others bet (and your bets), your position
at the table, what the communty cards are, etc. all create strategy decision
in this game.
--
Gregg C.
Frank
>>low
>>limit players in Las Vegas are some of the worst players that I have ever
>>encountered. They are easy to read and easy to intimidate. Don't worry
>>about where you play; just worry about what and how you play.....Frank
>>
>
> So what if they are some of the worst players. If the most you can bet
> is $2 or $4 how are you going to intimidate anyone?
>
> I would think everybody is chasing in low limit games.
>
Learn which players will refuse to throw a hand away .
> In no- limit games people try to buy the hands.
>
This is true at any limit.
> I have watched Texas Hold-Em tournamnets on TV and it doesn't look
> like you need any skill to play the game.
>
IGNORE TV POKER. Watch it for entertainment not education.
> You only get to see your two hole cards and five up cards.
>
Learn what makes a quality starting hand and play ONLY those cards.
> You never see any other cards.
>
> So how are you going to have a strategy?
>
Always consider the number of outs; odds of hitting the out; return for
the investment and options if you don't make your hand. Understand the value
of position and know the other players
The most important thing for an experienced player to do is find a table
with no more than three or four very loose players. You need these to build
the pot but too many loose players will make it nearly impossible for
quality cards to hold up.
VegasRex
strip where he might find a congenial and unitimidating game before he
moves
up to Bellagio where I guess the level is fairly high and experienced.
"
Not sure why everyone is intimidated by the Bellagio. The place is 80%
tourists. The pro's and high-rollers play in a seperate area. You
won't be playing against them. Unless you buy in for over $5,000, you
will most likely be playing against other tourists who are playing at
the Bellagio because of it's name (not because they are superior
players).
If one was to be intimidated by anyplace, it would be Binion's or
another Downtown joint. Not the Bellagio. The games there are fairly
soft.
If you really want more of a home-game feel, then the Luxor might be a
good starting point. You can cut your teeth on the $50 no-limit game
before moving on.
There are definitely more outright fish at the Mandalay Bay.
But seriously, if your goal is to play Bellagio .... proceed directly
to the Bellagio. It is not "intimidating" by any stretch of the
imagination. If anything, it can be annoying due to the long waiting
list and overcrowding. But most of the people at the low limit tables
are just like you. Home poker players who want to tell the people back
home that they played at the Bellagio. There is nothing to be afraid
of.
The room is crowded, and it's hard to move around, but the game of
poker plays here like it does anywhere else. You'll play pocket A's
and 7-2o the same way here as you would play at home (assuming you are
trying to win).
Good luck and enjoy your trip!
--
VegasRex
http://www.vegasrex.com
Las Vegas Poker Rooms
sinistersteve
"Frank" <Fr...@cox.net> wrote in message news:4JUVf.325$kT4.56@fed1read02...
>>
> Learn what makes a quality starting hand and play ONLY those cards.
>
In limit poker, A-K suited is about as well worth starting with as a 2-7os.
VegasRex
2-7os. "
It depends on what limit, and who you are playing with.
If I have A-K in 8/16 limit, and I raise to $32 (or re-raise to $64),
almost nobody with 2-7o will call me. Actualy 6/12 limit is more or
less where Bingo ends, and poker begins.
That is the point where you can start pushing people off of hands with
check raises, etc. You lose a $100 bankroll in 6/12 in one hand, or a
$200 bankroll in two hands.
As the limits increase, the games tend to play more like no-limit, with
the exception that people cannot bet arbitrary amounts. This can work
both for an against you. You don't bust someone out if you win, but
neither do you lose your whole stack on a bad beat.
There is a legitimate place for both variations of poker, IMHO.
As for 1/2, 2/4, 3/6, and 4/8 ... I tend to agree with you. These tend
to be played more as games of luck, and people will chase an inside
straight to the river. It is hard to learn proper poker strategy at
limits that are too low to force a bad player to walk.
John
>>>I'm sure that many will argue with my opinion but I have found that the
>>>low
>>>limit players in Las Vegas are some of the worst players that I have ever
>>>encountered. They are easy to read and easy to intimidate. Don't worry
>>>about where you play; just worry about what and how you play.....Frank
>>>
>>
>> So what if they are some of the worst players. If the most you can bet
>> is $2 or $4 how are you going to intimidate anyone?
>>
>Establish credibility.
>
>> I would think everybody is chasing in low limit games.
>>
>Learn which players will refuse to throw a hand away .
>
>
>> In no- limit games people try to buy the hands.
>>
>This is true at any limit.
Not really true.
As VegasRex said:
"As for 1/2, 2/4, 3/6, and 4/8 ... I tend to agree with you. These
tend
to be played more as games of luck, and people will chase an inside
straight to the river. It is hard to learn proper poker strategy at
limits that are too low to force a bad player to walk."
>
VegasRex
>Not really true.
You are right. I stand corrected. It was a matter of opinion, and not
a fact.
I should have stated it this way:
"In my thousands of hours of playing live poker, I have observed that
4/8 limit and below tend to be played more as games of luck, and people
will often chase an inside straight to the river. Therfore, I believe
that It would be hard to learn proper poker strategy at limits that are
Frank
"sinistersteve" <sinist...@goto.hell> wrote in message
news:c4GdnWiobeets7XZ...@comcast.com...
two cards, every pot will be worth winning. If there are five or six loose
players, then 2-7os is as good as A-K suited: not because the value of the
hands are the same but because any five random hands combined will have a
higher value than any one hand.....Frank (PS) I want you at my
table
Frank
"VegasRex" <veg...@vegasrex.com> wrote in message
news:1143492579....@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
find the proper mix of loose/solid/rock players is critical. If you are
just going to play for a couple of hours, it isn't worth the effort. If you
play nearly daily for three plus hours each day, it is well worth the
effort. There is one point that I will disagree with, however. I have many
times found the same mix of players at 10/20 than I have at 4/8. If I were
limited to a 1/2 ,2/4, 3/6 game, I would rather pitch quarters to the line.
It's fun to argue poker strategy. This is a good thread.....Frank
sinistersteve
"Frank" <Fr...@cox.net> wrote in message news:WF0Wf.343$kT4.56@fed1read02...
>> In limit poker, A-K suited is about as well worth starting with as a
>> 2-7os.
>>
>> (PS) I want you at my table
LOL...I wouldn't go in with a 2-7 os (unless I was in a blind), but the one
time I do muck it, BAM 7-7-2 comes on the flop!
VegasRex
>times found the same mix of players at 10/20 than I have at 4/8. If I were
>limited to a 1/2 ,2/4, 3/6 game, I would rather pitch quarters to the line.
>It's fun to argue poker strategy. This is a good thread.....Frank
Oh, I will grant you that there are loose games played at every level.
I've seen guys waiting to catch a plane in an hour go all-in on every
hand in N/L (regardless of what they were holding), and simply reach
for their wallet to buy back in when they were beat.
Some people bring X amount of dollars to Vegas, and they intend to
wager every last penny of it right up until the plane lifts off from
the runway. They can and do play poker like a slot machine.
Around here, we call those "Going out with a bang on sunday" games, and
it's often a good way to make up what you might have lost during the
"real" games on Saturday.
Between 12:00 noon and 5:00pm at Strip hotels, if you sit down with
tourists that are headed home soon, at least half of the people are
going to call you all the way down. And why not? They have to leave
soon. They can't exercise patience. They cannot play textbook poker.
In 4 hours they are going to be back in Madison, Wisconsin - Nashua,
New Hampshire, or South Dakota. It's now or never, if you only come
once or twice a year .... it has to be now.
I always talk to the folks at the table to get a good idea who is
leaving, and when. When they tell me where they are from, what they do
for a living, and when their plane leaves, I can make a really good
guess as to how these guys are going to play. And I'm right more often
than not.
Locals games are a bit different. We approach the game from a yearly
profit/loss standpoint. We'll chase straits, flushes, and improbably
hands in 4/8 that we would never think of calling $100 to catch ..
simply because the $200 casino bonuses that are paid out make the
risk/reward worth chasing the straight flush for eight bucks.
The pot odds can get really out of whack in low limit games, and it's a
really, really poor way to learn "proper" poker, IMHO. Assuming one
cares to master the game. Some people simply play to have fun ... much
like Blackjack. And there is nothing wrong with that.
But, I have to stand by my opinion that, IN GENERAL, High Limit and No
Limit Poker is a completely and utterly different animal than low limit
poker.
The former requires more luck, the latter more skill, IMHO.
If someone has pocket 8's in 2/4, and you have junk, you aren't going
to scare them off the hand with a $4 raise. It just doesn't happen in
Las Vegas. At least not often.
Frankly, from a pure profit and skill standpoint, you may be better off
playing Video Poker ... because your odds are about the same and you
will get many more hands per hour.
Is low limit a fun game? Sure. Is it work playing? Absolutely. I
love to relax with some 4/8 when I only have $50 and 45 minutes to
play. I get to yap with the other players, watch the game on TV, have
a drink or two.
But, am I looking for tells, betting patterns and bluffs? No.
Everybody pretty much plays a given set of cards the exact same way.
Anyone who has played no low limit for more than 2 months knows when to
fold, call, or raise. It's like Blackjack. You stand when have 12 or
greater and the dealer has a 6, double down on 11 no matter what, and
hit soft 16.
You know what to do with the hand you are dealt, and you know what to
do when you see the flop. You don't try to bluff (nobody is scared of
a $4 bet), pocket Aces are only slightly better than pocket 2's when
you have 6 callers, the small and big blinds always call unless they
just have complete and utter crap because they are getting greater than
2:1 pot odds right off the bat, etc, etc.
Low Limit is a great game. A perfectly legitimate game. It's a fun
game .... a social game. A game to get comfortable with. But it's not
a game you want to spend too much time playing if your goal is to
become a better poker player and sharpen your skills, nerves, and
discipline. It just isn't likely to happen.
As the stakes go up, more sets of the entire game of poker come into
play.
IMHO, I would say that only a subset of poker skill is truly employed
until you start playing $5/$10 NL games with $500 minimum-buy cash
games.
Usually at this point, you are playing poker, and you need to know
everything there is to know about the game to walk away a winner on a
consistent basis.
Anything less than this, and you are playing a subset of the game of
Texas Hold'Em.
Of course, that is just my opinion, and many will disagree .... but I'm
sticking to it ;-)
Note that I can't always play at the "full" level. As a local, I
can't afford to walk to the table with $400 every day and I am forced
into the lower games by sheer economic realities. I can't afford to
take a bad beat all-in with pocket KK's and get sucked out by trip 2's
very often. Howard Lederer I ain't. But ... I play a lot, and I need
to make my bankroll last, and I try to grow it in some of the more
amateur games.
But when I buy into one of those real cash games once or twice a month,
I gotta tell you, it's a different game. A very different game.
And I am honest with myself. When I am playing mid-limit, I know full
well that I am not playing pure Poker. I take it for what it is. A
"sort-of" poker game that I enjoy it immensely, and I spend far
more time calculating outs and pot odds more than looking for tells and
trying to push people off stacks while holding garbage.
When play mid-limit, I do everything possible to sharpen my skills and
increase my bankroll so that I can buy into "The Real Game" more
and more often, and enter some of the higher-stake tournaments more
frequently.
salmo...@aol.com
> strength or weakness of their hand via observing them.
In low limit toursit poker in Vegas, you can ignore all that. If your
opponent is dumb enough to have an obvious tell, he is probably too
dumb to know whether his cards are any good or not. Basic rules for
playing tourist poker in Vegas
1) Ignore everything you see on TV
2) No fancy sh.t. If you've got the cards, bet them. If not, fold.
3) Buy a book. Read it. Do what it says. $15 and a couple days of
learning will *drastically* improve your play. If you want to play
limit, get Lee Jones' book. If you want to play no-limit, buy Russell
Fox's. As a corollary to #1, don't buy any books written by people
you've seen on TV (yeah, I know, there are 1-2 exceptions - for now,
stick to Jones and Fox).
4) The most important skill - by far - in Vegas poker is table
selection. You will be a 100x better player against drunken idiots than
you will against the local sharks. If you are playing at a table with a
couple good players, and no obvious fools, SWITCH TABLES OR GO
SOMEPLACE ELSE. There are about a zillion poker tables in Vegas these
days. There is no excuse for playing at a "tough" table. Note that is
probably the easiest rule to follow, but the one most people ignore.
5) Finally, the rule that trumps all others: Have fun. you aren't a
pro, you aren't doing this for a living. If you are having fun, you can
ignore all other rules. If you are obeying the rules, but still not
having fun, do something else.
Blackjack
2) No fancy sh.t. If you've got the cards, bet them. If not, fold.
3) Buy a book. Read it. Do what it says. $15 and a couple days of
learning will *drastically* improve your play. If you want to play
limit, get Lee Jones' book. If you want to play no-limit, buy Russell
Fox's. As a corollary to #1, don't buy any books written by people
you've seen on TV (yeah, I know, there are 1-2 exceptions - for now,
stick to Jones and Fox).
4) The most important skill - by far - in Vegas poker is table
selection. You will be a 100x better player against drunken idiots than
you will against the local sharks. If you are playing at a table with a
couple good players, and no obvious fools, SWITCH TABLES OR GO
SOMEPLACE ELSE. There are about a zillion poker tables in Vegas these
days. There is no excuse for playing at a "tough" table. Note that is
probably the easiest rule to follow, but the one most people ignore.
5) Finally, the rule that trumps all others: Have fun. you aren't a
pro, you aren't doing this for a living. If you are having fun, you can
ignore all other rules. If you are obeying the rules, but still not
having fun, do something else.
Good stuff Salmone, thanks! I'm still a fish but slowly improving (I
think, LOL!). You're tip about finding a good table can't be stressed
enuff.