Reality Check in Vegas

[flapgreen]

Well, just got back from Vegas tonight. I played in the 1/2 nl games at the Alladin. While I have limited experience in live games and have never played in Vegas before, I still felt like I could do alright. Boy was I wrong! I found out I dont't have a clue what I'm doing yet. Although I hate losing, it gave me a good slap in the face reminding me of how inexperienced I really am. I played way too tight and wasn't really getting any cards all night. I ended up about $90 down. The bad part about it is that I knew most of the people playing weren't that good. I just couldn't do anything about it. I played almost all premium hands but I didn't catch anything on the flop all night. Someone would bet in to me and I felt like folding was the correct move most of the time. However, I don't think they had good hands the entire time. I'll chalk this one up as a big learning experience and work even harder to improve. The problem is I just don't know where to begin. I've read Cloutier's nl book and I tried my hardest to apply it but I really felt like he left a lot of things out also. Adjusting my playing style depending on the players and how to bet correctly against other players are two things that I can't seem to grasp at this time. I think playing nl with a very limited bankroll also hurt my play. I bought in for the max at $100 but I still didn't bet like I would've if I had a few more hundred to play around with. Just when you think your starting to understand something, such as nl, you realize that you don't know squat. I'm taking a couple of days off now but I'll be back at it online to try and figure out what I need to do to improve. I also think playing the microlimit's online may have had a negative effect on me.