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.

[uuDevil]

Don't beat yourself up over poor results in a single session. Dealing with losing is a big part of poker.

There's always more to learn, whether you're winning or losing. I'm not much of a NL player, but Harrington on Hold'em has helped me quite a bit. It is geared towards tournaments, but should be somewhat applicable to ring games. Ciaffone's Pot Limit and No Limit is also often recommended.

[BUD]

everyone can lose. especially if you get bad cards and the flop does not cooperate. some of the worst sessions i have had were against poor players. it is hard to take. definitely play within your bankroll. they reccomend 25 to 30 buyins.
sincerely
bud

[Absolution]

It sounds like you just caught bad cards. Against weak players in NL, there's nothing much you can do in that case. As long as you weren't just playing AA/KK/QQ/AK, you might have been playing decent poker, but just couldn't get anything going. If they aren't respecting your raises and continuation bets you just need to catch a few strong hands and show down. That might open up some moves for you later, and if it doesn't that's even more money to you since you'll always get action with your big hands. If you're suspicious just call down a couple flop bets and see if they slow down on the turn. Some will fire again on the turn if they are bluffing, but most don't have it in them. One of my favorite things to do against online LAGs is to lead out with a 1/2-2/3 bet on the flop whether I hit or not because I know they don't respect those bets. If the turn isn't scarey and I hit my hand or had a pair I sometimes check and call their obvious all-in on the turn. This won't get you as much respect online as it will live though so I just continue to milk it.

Short term results mean nothing.

[flapgreen]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Dealing with the losing side to poker has been the hardest thing for me to deal with. Whenever it happens, I always seem to question some of the things I thought I knew. I also played in a small tourney in Vegas with about 50 people. I went all in with AA after about half an hour and got knocked out by a guy who called with 1010 and hit a set on the river. There's nothing I could've done about that one though.

In the cash games, however, I felt like I could've made some stronger moves at the table. That's just hard to do when your not getting the cards though.

[Larimani]

Exactly. Yesterday I was sat at 15/30 with a bunch of fish. Their stats & play were *awful*. I'm talking about 60+ VIPI, no aggression. & I still managed to leave $1K down... It happens. It's painful because when you sit down with fish, you *know* some of their cash is rightfully yours - but that's poker & that's why we love it [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[lighterjobs]

stay in the limit games for a while.

[AngryCola]

[ QUOTE ]
stay in the limit games for a while.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you trying to set a record for the most short posts by a first day poster?

Seriously.