Questions! -- Vegas in 4 Days!!

If you don't have the answers to ALL the questions in this post, that's okay -- ANY answer to ANY questions would be great!!


#1) I am a complete newbie and will be playing no more than $5-$10. Are there certain casinos I should avoid? Maybe where good players play low-limit just to take money from newbies? Plus, which casinos would you recomend?


#2) What kind of bankroll do I need (assuming I am a semi-intelligent player)?


#3) Are there "comps" for Hold'em players? If so, what's my best way to get as much as possible? (sorry to sound so greedy.)


#4) When calculating pot odds, do you do it seperately for the turn... then river. or do you go with turn/river odds? Here's what I mean:


Let's say you have a pocket pair and get no help on the flop. I know I'd be a 22.5-1 underdog to pick up a card on the turn. But I also know I'd be a 10.88-1 dog to get it by the river.


So when calculating pot odds, what has to be in the pot -- 23 times my bet or just 11?


#5) Once you've bet... say three dollars, then someone behind you raises. To call you need to put only $3 more in...


Would I calculate pot odds against only my 2nd $3 contribution - being that my 1st $3 is now part of the pot?


I really appreciate ANY time ANYone takes to answer ANY of these questions.


Kindly,


ezinestein

I dont know much about Vegas, but the other questions:


"When calculating pot odds, do you do it seperately for the turn... then river. or do you go with turn/river odds?"


Depends what you have. With flushdraws or open-ended straight draws on the flop you almost always have the odds to draw until the river (i.e. you have a lot of outs). Therefore you call on the flop depends on your odds of making your straight or flush on turn OR river (so combined odds). With gutshots, overcards, pocket pairs, etc etc, you make your play based on the odds of getting it on the next street because it's far less certain that you still get the odds on the next street. So generally with not very much outs, or not certainly clean outs, then you make your decision based on odds of making it on the next street; with a lot of outs, where you can be certain that you have on every streets enough odds to call, you use the combined odds by making you initial decision (you use the combined odds, because when you have enough opponents to call you can even value bet a draw. When the pot is very small however (with very few opponents) you should not look only to the odds that you make your hand, but also the chances that you pick up the pot if you bet).


>>


"Here's what I mean:


Let's say you have a pocket pair and get no help on the flop. I know I'd be a 22.5-1 underdog to pick up a card on the turn. But I also know I'd be a 10.88-1 dog to get it by the river.


So when calculating pot odds, what has to be in the pot -- 23 times my bet or just 11?"


You should use the 22.5-1 figure in this case.


>>


") Once you've bet... say three dollars, then someone behind you raises. To call you need to put only $3 more in...


Would I calculate pot odds against only my 2nd $3 contribution - being that my 1st $3 is now part of the pot?"


Yes, your 1st $3 is not yours anymore and belongs to the pot.


Regards

2) That depends. Because poker is at heart a game of chance you are NEVER absolutely 100% guaranteed that you won't go broke on a bad run. You can make that chance as small as you like, though. I would say 50BB to sit and 100BB to not go broke in the time that you are there.


4) You calculate for each card in turn, so you need 22.5-1 on the flop and on the turn. In fact you can make do with a little less than that if you are drawing to close to the nuts because of the extra bets you will pick up if you make your hand.


5) You shouldn't call if you think it will get raised behind you because you are effectively putting in two bets for the new pot size, ie if the pot is $18 at the start of the betting round, you call a bet and it gets raised behind with 3 players in, the pot will be $36 after that and you've paid $6 at 6:1 as opposed to the 8:1 you thought you were going to draw at.


Chris

Low Limit Vegas: No low limit games you need to avoid. What you want to do is avoid tables where you see 8 retired old men sitting around waiting for jackpot hands. Such a table can be fun to play at if you can be very agressive, but as a newbie I'd avoid these and look for games with a lot of passive action.


That said, I sat down in a 1-4-8-8 with a friend who was playing for the first time last week to make him feel more at ease. We played at the Flamingo. The game was astonishingly soft. A crappy cardroom though.


I think that Mandalay Bay has the best low-limit card room in Vegas. Very nice room, the best tables in Vegas (in terms of physical quality), and very nice floor people.


You could also play 3-6 at the Mirage which can be pretty soft (my friend later played in this game and did okay in it).


I think the 1-4-8-8 games are nice though because the blinds are only $2 and $1 so if you are at all nervous you can play pretty tight (and you you should) and get a feel for the game at minimal cost.


Good luck, let us know how things go.


Paul Talbot

I just got back from Vegas and played the $4-$8 at the Bellagio, the $4-$8 w/ Half Kill at Mandalay Bay and the infamous $1-4-4-8 at the Horseshoe.


By far the best was the $4-$8 at the Bellagio. You have a mixture of locals, off duty dealers and tourists. I played early am 5:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. one day and found the game to be much more lucrative than any other time. Most people were pulling the all-nighter so coming in mentally fresh and prepared helped my decision making. There was one maniac at my table who kept "gambling it up" who I coined 1-800-build-a pot. Needless to say he gave away all his chips to everyone else including myself. I walked away up 30 BB in basically playing tight and being aggressive when I was in a hand and capitalizing on others peoples mistakes when I had the opportunity. I loved the chairs at the Bellagio and found the cocktail service to be superior. This a real nice poker room.


I found the Mandalay Bay $4-$8 w/ Half Kill to be very weak-loose with an average of 7 people calling the flop. I guess with the blind structures being $1 & $2 and people don't care about putting their chips. Again mostly people staying at the hotel with a few locals. Very beatable but you better bring some extra strength Excedrin to combat the headache you're going to get with people calling your raises and chasing to the river. Once the Kill was activated people forgot the concept of anything resembling poker and played their 2 cards like is was their last hand. Card room staff was very friendly and attentive. Dealers for the most part where on top of things. I'd like this room better if it wasn't smoking.


The $1-4-4-8 at the Horseshoe was hilarious. Nighttime definitely attracts a different crowd than the old timers and rocks who sit in on the day shift. At my table during the course of the evening I had one guy who had been a permanent fixture for about 36 hours who kept dozing off in his seat when it was his turn to bet, as well as a drunk who actually leaned back and fell over (which prompted security to haul is ass out of the game) and several others who claimed to play poker full time. I had a Russian dude sit next to me who raised A6 offsuit and other junk UTG and in the blinds almost every hand. Not only did he smell like hadn't taken a shower since the last millennium, but also he proceeded to tell me how he routinely plays in the $30-$60 at the Bellagio! Yeah -- pull this leg and it plays jingle bells.


The game was very lose, very wild and almost every flop was capped. This was my first time playing in an unstructured game and I did not care for it. The dealers were friendly and for the old time experience as well as the entertainment factor in the other players the shoe is the place. Also I got comped for a meal in the coffee shop.


Just my 2-cents worth of info. Have a great time!

Thanks for the information. What the heck is half kill though?


Also, is a 1-4-8-8 game played any different than a 6-3 or 4-8?


Kindly,


ezinestein

Typically, the stakes being played for are doubled (kill) or increased by half(half-kill) for a temporary period of time (one hand) when certain conditions are met. In the case of my game, someone won 2 pots in a row he/she obtained the "kill" button and then the limits were increased to $6-$12. With $1 and $3 blinds.


Binion's 1-4-8 is 1-4-4-8 rather than 1-4-8-8. As strange as this sounds, it's actually a smaller game than most 3-6 tables I've encountered. I think the blinds are 1&2, compared to the 1&3 for the average 3-6, and you can often see the flop for $2. The last $8 round is offset by the $4 turn.