Losing at the Wynn

I'm back from Las Vegas. It was my first trip out there. I didn't really have the debauchery-filled spring break that everyone else may have had. Sure, there was some drinking and I did leave the casino once or twice, but I spent most of my time playing at the Wynn. That's right, I wasn't out partying or going to strip clubs. I was in the Wynn poker room grinding it out. I played $15-$30 hold'em mostly. I also jumped into the $15-$30 mixed game when they had it there. They rotated razz, deuce-to-seven triple draw, stud eight-or-better, and Omaha eight-or-better. I'm certainly not anywhere close to an expert in any of those games, but it was a nice breath of fresh air away from hold'em. If I felt I was a total donk in the game I'd have left, but there was always the occasional soft spot that kept me afloat, plus it was a great learning experience. I also played some shorthanded $30-$60 right before we left.

How'd I do for the trip? They slaughtered me. It'd be one thing if I was tilted and playing badly, but the beat train just kept rolling over me. I played with my friend one day and he was wincing from the beats I was taking. I just kind of shrugged and carried on with playing. Ahh, the joys of live poker! Some might ask, if I'm a winning player how could I possibly lose all week long? Well that's the problem with live poker. You don't see nearly enough hands. Players a lot better than I routinely experience 20,000-hand downswings, 100,000-hand break-even runs. When you're playing live, you don't get to see that many hands, so in reality I just went through a completely standard 100-big blind downswing over 7,000 or so hands. Nothing out of the ordinary. The only difference is that instead of two days of online play, this was a week's worth of live play. It was a week's worth of folding cards, going to the chip window, bad beats, and coming home stuck.

Going through a downswing live rather than going through one online can be very emotionally brutal. It's less easy to see the long run, fewer hands get pumped out, and it's a lot easier to get annoyed or bored and change your play. You really have to be emotionally prepared to play live on a regular basis or else the tilt will get the best of you when you run bad for a week or two. You will run bad. Everyone runs bad. (Except my buddy Matt. Never goes bad to him. Ever.) You just have to outlast it with a level head. The problem is the same swing might take two weeks of live play where it would be two days of online play.

So why play live at all? You'd think the Internet is far superior in every way: more hands, statistic keeping programs, and you can play in your underwear. Online is better for lots of reasons but I think to be a completely successful professional poker player you have to mix in live play with online play to maximize your profit. Playing live has plenty of perks. Games have much better action live than their respective online limits. If you're playing at these limits, it's worth playing live and taking a shot at all the weekend gamboolers and the late-night drunks. Players' weaknesses tend to show more when playing live. Your normal tight-aggressive tough player might get bored when playing live and open up. You can see tilt a lot easier when playing live and adjust accordingly. There are tons of poker programs that process hand histories into stats that help get reads online. This crutch is removed when playing live and might give you the edge against a normally tough player who uses these tools online. Players see fewer hands, so they might get bored more easily and play relatively more hands. Not to mention, if you only play online poker, getting out of the house while still getting some play time in has plenty of value itself.

I got crushed playing live but as good as the games were, if I ever moved to Vegas, I would play live at night a few times a week, likely the weekend, when the games get good and short and play online during the afternoon when all the B&M (brick-and-mortar, for those unfamiliar) rocks are still hanging around. Of course, some of us don't have that option since a good live game that we want is hard to find. Like me here in Pittsburgh. But if you have both options at your fingertips, be sure to mix it up. If you only play online, go to a live game once or twice a week. You might find your patience, tilt tolerance, and hand-reading ability will improve for your trouble. If you're primarily a B&M player, sit home and play a couple thousand hands online one or two days a week. You'll find that the experience you get in the few short hours will be worth the monotonous clicking.

Luckily for me, I found a local $10-$20 game with a half kill that started up in Pittsburgh. It's the last of limit poker in Pittsburgh so I'm going to take advantage of it while I still can. I hope I can get in 1,000 hands online before I go.