Vegas Visitor

This June, I took a trip to Las Vegas in order to play in several World Series of Poker events. I lived in Vegas for 11 years (from 1983-1994), and it has been about four years since my last visit. Naturally, quite a few things are still the same, but there also have been a lot of changes. Let me tell you about my impressions of the “new Vegas,” especially in the poker arena.

I entered three open tournaments and two seniors tournaments. The open events were two no-limit hold’em events and one pot-limit Omaha event. I naïvely expected the opponents in those three events to be around the same caliber as those in the seniors events. After all, why should poker players in their fifties and sixties be weakened by age and unable to compete with younger players? There was, however, quite a gap in the skill level between my opponents in the seniors events and my opponents in the regular events.
At hold’em, I did not encounter an opponent in the regular events who was a weak player. There were not a lot of pots laying around waiting for a person to put in a bet and claim them. To be sure, not all of the players were aggressive, but I was never at a table that did not have at least two or three players who were constantly reaching out for unclaimed money. I also did not encounter more than a couple of players who I knew or who seemed to know me.

The seniors events, in contrast, were loaded with weak players. I would guess that a third to half of my opponents were pretty weak (though not inexperienced). There always was a player or two who would enter a lot of pots but did not do a lot of betting. They knew how to take a free card if you checked, but that often was not the optimum strategy.
People use the terms “smallball” and “bigball” to describe betting amounts in relation to the pot size, with the approximate meaning of smallball meaning less than half the pot size and bigball meaning more than half the pot size. The contrast in bet-sizing between the seniors events and regular events was decidedly marked, with many of the younger players making smaller-sized bets. My impression of the reason behind the frequent small bet sizes was they were doing a lot of probing, in contrast to simply playing tight. The seniors chose bigger bets to try to get opponents to fold right away, whereas the young-gunners bet smaller sizes because they thought they had a good chance to pick up the pot on later streets by outplaying their opponents.

My own opinion is that both styles may be made to work. I do a lot of probing on the flop. On the turn, I often put the hammer down, putting a serious decision to my opponent. Big bets on the turn get rid of all but the biggest draws, improve your read for the river betting round if you are called, and enable you to more readily win a pot on a bluff.

In the first regular hold’em tournament I played in, there was a young man with an unusual style of play. He played more than half the hands he was dealt, and he usually entered the pot with a raise when he played. He rarely checked if first in the pot, and he never checked it back if heads up and his opponent checked. Also, he was a smallball bettor; in fact, maybe we could say he played microscopic ball, as his betting range was between 10 percent and 20 percent of the pot size nearly every time. He had a mountain of chips very early, and the mountain kept growing. We had started with 4,500 in chips, and he had more than 60,000 when I got KO’d late in the evening of the first day. I didn’t know his name, so I do not know whether or not he flamed out.

This fellow (and quite a few like him) played at a snail’s speed. Perhaps he felt this was a way not to give out any information, but constantly taking minutes, rather than seconds, to act hurts your chances in an event — and also hurts the chances of everyone else at your table. Playing in an event that raises the blinds only every hour will normally give you enough at-bats to give you a chance of evading severe pressure from the increases to the betting structure. However, having snail-paced play can nullify the ease granted by the blinds going up at a leisurely pace.

I found that the 2011 WSOP tournaments were being run in a much more professional manner than even a few years ago. The events started on time with precision. The room was laid out with color-coding for the table numbers, so it was easy to locate your starting table. I talked to the fellow who was responsible for finding dealers sufficiently competent for working in a world championship, and found out the tough testing was raising the bar quite high to qualify for hiring. I thought most of the tournament dealers I encountered gave a solid performance, though there were a few lemons that somehow had managed to get hired.

The tournament event that I did the best at — though I did not cash — was the special seniors no-limit hold’em event that was held at Caesars Palace. That event gave us 20,000 in starting chips, even though it was only a $500 buy-in event. You could buy an extra 5,000 in starting chips for only $50 more, so the players were being made an offer that could not be refused. Effectively, we all started with 25,000 stacks. The initial structure was blinds of 50-100, so obviously we had plenty of chips to play whatever style of game we liked. However, the blinds were raised every half hour, so it would not be possible to sit back and relax after a couple of hours went by. I had a lackluster session up to the dinner break.

When we went back to playing, I was in dire straits. We were playing 1,500-3,000 with a 300 ante, and I had only 10 grand left. I fully intended to make a move before the big blind came to me. Unfortunately, every pot was raised until my big blind arrived, and I held garbage.

On my blind, I had 8-7 offsuit — I was on death row. By some miracle, everyone folded around to the small blind, and he just called. I checked, as I knew he would call an all-in raise. The flop came K-5-2 rainbow, and my opponent again checked. I went all in, and he folded. In my small blind, everyone folded around to me, I went all in on a total crapper, and the big blind folded. On my button, I held a K-5 suited, welcomed a “real hand,” and bet all of my chips again when everyone folded. I then caught a great run of cards, and I had a quarter million in chips in less than an hour. This was the biggest move that I have ever made in a tournament in my life — but it went for naught. ♠

Bob Ciaffone has authored four poker books: Middle Limit Holdem Poker, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Poker. All can be ordered (autographed to you) from Bob by e-mail: [email protected]. Free U.S. shipping to Card Player readers. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons at a reasonable rate. His website is www.pokercoach.us, where you can get his rulebook, Robert’s Rules of Poker, for free. Bob also has a website called www.fairlawsonpoker.org.