5 athletes from different era’s that I wish played today.

1. Randall Cunningham - He came along to early. In today’s game with the Pistol offense and the Zone Read Randall Cunningham would be the Ultimate Dual Threat. A faster version of RG3 combined with a Laser arm. In his day coaches were still hung up on 3 yards and a cloud of dust. With today’s wide open spread offenses he would be pretty much unstoppable.

2. Isaiah Thomas - I am still made about a comment that I heard earlier in the year stating that Jason Kidd had a better Career than Isaiah Thomas. In his prime Zeke was un-guardable 1 on 1, was money from 18 and in and made everyone on his team better. In today’s NBA without hard fouls and where he wouldn’t have to worry about getting his head bashed in by the likes of Karl Malone, Zeke would be putting up a cold 30 and 10 a night book it.

3. David Thompson - The main reason that he is on this list is because I am hoping that he manages to stay clean in this era. The man was an absolute freak of nature. A 6’4 shooting guard with a however high I need to go Vertical. He should have won the first Slam Dunk Contest against Doc. I today’s game his above the rim style would flourish.

4. Lynn Swann - Did they even have Slot Receivers in the 70’s? I just imagine every team lined up in 2 tight with a fullback halfback and 2 ends. Did you know he only had 51 career TD’s it feels like half of them came in the Super Bowl. He would be perfect in today’s game with 3 and 4 wide sets allowing him to get free underneath on quick pick and rub routes.

5 Greg Maddox - Seriously if all these guys were on steroids and he wasn’t he was a serious Bad Ass. Maddux dominated the mid to late 90’s at the height of the Steroid Era. He finished with a 3.16 ERA and 355 total wins. Can you imagine what his numbers might look like if he wasn’t facing contestants from the 1988 Summer Olympics every game?

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Your South Strip Poker Destenation (Luxor Poker Room Review)

Luxor recently moved their poker room closer to both the sports book and the self parking entrance. I think this will prove to be a good move on their part as the location of the room should provide the game with a few new players who wander in from the book, or bar. When these players do get there what they will find is tough 1-2 game made up of local grinders. Even though it is located on the strip, the game at the Luxor is a favorite of regulars. On most nights the room gets about 2-3 games, it helps that they also run small buy in tournaments throughout the day. If your staying on the South end of the strip, this is your place. The likely hood of getting a game going when you walk in is over %90. The Weekend action can be great as well as provide a nice view of the club - goers headed out to LAX. I do really like the staff here as they do a good job of informing you about promotions as well as schedules and structures of daily tournaments. Their daily tournament is a turbo, but it does include 20 minute blind levels which is a nice change of pace from some of the other daily’s . Luxor is also home to some of my favorite dealers, Francis and the guy that looks like John Fox. When provoked they can be pretty entertaining and they contain a wealth of knowledge about Vegas Poker History. They received a 5 from us on our Poker rating scale. Overall Luxor is probably one of the more under valued poker rooms in town. However when most people do visit what they get is a great game and amazing atmosphere.

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The Gold Standard (Golden Nugget Review)

                                                                       

                                                                   Rate the Golden Nugget now!                                               The Golden Nugget is home to perhaps the best nightly run 1-2 game in the world. The no cap buy in makes a huge difference. Once the game gets going, and players start getting busted, the stack sizes become large. New players are almost forced to buy in for 200 - 300 bb stacks. The daytime game is very good but at night is when the freaks come out. The three best 1-2 games I ever played in took place at the Nugget. and they all happened at night. The proximity to Freemont street (AKA “Freak show Central” ), brings in a variety of local characters and drunk tourist. The poker room cocktail service is also the best in town, receiving 5 stars on our Poker review system. It doesn’t hurt that the bar is located right next to the poker room. The waitresses are attentive and come around about every 5 minutes you can set your watch to it. Daily tournaments are run here everyday, and the Sunday Morning 5k guarantee is the best value tournament in town. The cash games are 1-2 NL and 2-4 Limit games, but as I mentioned earlier the 1-2 game is insane and features a No Cap buy in. Guarantee that the Friday/Saturday night game plays like a 2-5, and on the right night it could play like a 5-10. Love this place and believe that it is one of the most undervalued properties in the world.                                                                                                                                                      

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Bellagio Poker Room Review (A Love Hate Relationship)

I was once told that you can not love something you are not willing to hate. This describes my feelings of the Bellagio poker room. There are so many great things about playing poker here that I love. The professionalism of the poker staff, the valet proximity to the poker room, and the game selection, I could go on and on. Personally I play a lot of limit poker and Bellagio is the only place in Vegas where you can consistently get a 10-20 20-40 and 40-80 limit game going. However some things about this place drive me crazy. I hate that when you call in you get transferred to about 20 different people and it’s 50/50 whether your name will even be on the list. (except when Boba is working). I hate that the games don’t have a 3rd man walking rule and people take ridiculously long dinner and lunch breaks. It sucks even worst because many of the red chip (10-20 or bigger) limit games only have 1 or two tables going. Players waiting have to wait 30 - 40 minuets sometimes just to get a seat. Those two are bad but nothing tilts me more than the wait staff at that room. Again part of this is because I play there so often. But the other part is that they are genuinely terrible, I mean like Charles Barkley terrible. It takes forever for them to come around and when they do get to you your lucky if you get what you ordered. You know how I know the staff is bad because I can point out the good ones. I estimate that I have seen at least 15-20 different waitresses there. Out of those there are only two good ones, oddly enough these two aren’t just good they’re Tony the Tiger great. They get to you in a timely manner, they are very polite and courteous and Even when it’s not “their table” they make sure to let you know that they will get your waitress for you, now I don’t know if this is true or not, but at least they make the effort. To this day it is the only room in Vegas where I bring my own bottle of water just in case it takes forever to get a drink. Despite this I do love the room. If you can eliminate all of the outside distractions it’s one of the purest and best poker rooms in the world. The attitudes of everyone from the poker staff, to the Valet and in many cases even the players, is world class. The energy in the Bellagio is something that is difficult to explain or duplicate. The closest thing I can think of would be if your local men’s bball league game was held in the same gym as the US Olympic team, lot of high level poker players in that room. The table side food service is a nice bonus, the fact that it is free with your M life card points makes it great. The best thing going for them is that every day you play at Bellagio you are sitting in close proximity to some of the greatest poker minds in the World. I think in the case of the Bellagio the pros’s out way the cons. Overall Bellagio is the nuts, from the players, to the staff, the Bellagio poker room is the cream of the crop when it comes to Las Vegas Poker Rooms.
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Poker Should Drive You Crazy

 

  What Genius looks like 

        Years ago I used to play poker with this older guy, let’s call him Mike. Everyday Mike would come in to play looking an absolute mess. His hair was always scattered over his semi-bald head, and his clothes looked like he slept in them the night before. If one were to describe him the words Mad Scientist  might come up a lot, and believe me his antics at the table would confirm your suspicion. He was always talking to himself, always gyrating he acted like he just escaped from the Nut house. However despite his appearance Mike was a Genius poker player. He had great instincts and understood the math of the game better than Rainman at a Vegas casino. One day I finally got up the nerve to ask this crazy looking human being why he was the way he was. His answer surprised me. He simply stated, “ Cause I’m good at the game” At that time I didn’t quite understand what he meant. Years later as I began to take the game more and more  seriously, I started realizing exactly what he meant. Poker should drive good players crazy. It is a constant war between minds. Successful players are always asking themselves difficult questions at the table, sometimes they do it out loud. All of this madness in an attempt to go one level above their opponents. This is why it is often called leveling. Mistakes from previous sessions are constantly being replayed in the head like a sports highlight reel. The intense pressure of trying to make the correct decision over and over can be a drain on anyone. In fact after a long poker session many times all I feel like doing is having a drink and sleeping for 20 hours. As the hands and the years add up good players begin to skew the line between the felt and the real world. Often times in very innocent situations I will find myself interrogating someone, Studying their every move in an attempt to decipher if the Salmon really is good here. One of my favorite rappers of all time Nas once said, “The noise in my head is the curse of the talented”. Boy was he ever right. Anyone can sit down at a table and play the game, but to be good at the game takes a certain bit of crazy. I believe that the truly great players rarely get a good nights rest. In fact add that to the list of question you ask your opponent at the next table you sit down at. “Hey how did you sleep last night“? If their answer is, “ Like a baby“, Then feel free to exploit, Poker can be fun and enjoyable, but if you want to become great at it  be prepared to be committed, literally.

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9 Reasons why Online is Better than Live Poker

1. Multi- Tabling - If you’re a winning player at poker it only stands to reason that you want to play as much poker as you possibly can. Multi tabling fits that standard perfectly. I can win more money by simply opening up another table.

2. Very Low Overhead - One of the most frustrating things about Live play is the amount of effort that it takes to play. You have to drive to the venue, You have to wait for the game, you have to tip the dealers, you have to tip the waitresses, You have be civilized to the fish. All of that and then you have to try to beat the game.

3. Game Variation - Have you ever tried to learn how to play PLO or Budugi or any other form of poker before? If you go to most casinos chances are they don’t even spread these games, in fact they probably only spread Hold ‘em. Online you have the opportunity to learn these games many times for pennies, combine this with the multi - tabling aspect and you can now learn at an exponential rate.

4. Don’t have to hear other people Bad beat Stories - Now I’m not saying that you don’t ever hear bad beat stories online, but at least online you have the ability to turn off your chat or simply tune out the storyteller. Good luck doing that in live poker, how many times have you sat down at a game and the guy to the left of you starts telling you about this horrific beat? I never know how I’m supposed to respond when that happens. Sometimes I give sympathy sometimes I provide positive re-enforcement, and sometimes I pretend I’m on the Beach in the Cayman Island. One thing is certain though, I never want to hear YOUR bad beat story unless you are going to Pokersteamroom.com to post it.

5. No Dealer Errors - I guess it is possible for the machine to mess up every once and a while, but for the most part online has very little dealer mistakes. I thought of this this past summer when I was playing in an event at the Golden Nugget Casino. My opponent had lead into me on the river and I was trying to figure out what my odds where to make the call. I asked the dealer if he could spread the pot for me. The dealer looked directly at me and said, “I can’t do that” It was just then I realized that sometimes in live poker you can have very little control over winning and loosing.

6. Very little criticism - I was playing in a live tournament recently and was short stacked (under 10bb’s) when I picked up J-10 off on the cut -off everyone else had folded and I decided to take my stand. I was called by the SB who happened to have A-Q I spiked a 10 on the turn and won the hand. I could instantly hear the whispers from the players at the other end of the table. “How could he go all in with J-10” among other comments. I ignored it but it got me thinking. I went through all this work (see #2) to get here and play in this game, and I have to listen to this nonsense?

7. No waiting for a game - I absolutely hate waiting to get into games, I play a lot of limit poker at the Bellagio and it is one of the most frustrating things in the world to me sitting and waiting for an opportunity to play in a game. Online I can take my time search out the right game for me and sit on down. Time is money and there is no bigger waste of time and money IMO then waiting for a chance to beat a poker game.

8. You know the situations every time - This kind of goes back to my Dealer Error statement. Online all I need to do is look at the screen and I can tell how many chips you have, what the amount of the bet is, and how much is in the pot. In live poker your better off asking someone if you can have sex with their spouse than getting a straight answer to some of these questions.

9. No where for the fish to hide - This is a very intricate statement, when Im playing live and there is an inferior player at the table, I only have this one opportunity to beat them. If it’s a tournament and he bust me, then I’m done playing, if I bust him then he is done playing. I got no other chance to exploit this fishes weaknesses. In a cash game the same thing goes. Yes it’s true that you can reload but you still are waiting for the opportunities to exploit this opponent and these opportunities are far and few between. Online I can play this same opponent as many times as I want. If this player is in 5 cash games I can now exploit him by a factor of five same goes for his tournament play. In fact I can design my entire session around finding where this fish is playing and exploiting him.

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Passive Lines against Drunks at the table.

Recently I wrote a discussion post on a social media site describing a hand that I had recently been involved in. If your not familiar with the hand click here to view the discussion. The gist of the story is that after 3betting a reckless loose aggressive player, He 4bet shipped for my stack. The question I asked was what would you do differently in this spot. Several players that responded felt as if the best line against this opponent was to just flat instead of 3betting him pre-flop. While I respect their opinions let me make sure my position is clear. If I am ever lucky enough to rule the world people who just flat this type of opponent in this spot will be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison. That is how criminal of a decision I believe that calling in that spot is. Before you begin to call me an unfair dictator at least listen to my reasoning.

1. Your putting yourself in a tricky spot after the flop:
By just flatting here your putting yourself in a guessing position after the flop. Let's say the flop comes 10 high, what are you going to do, check fold? Check Call? You could bet fold, but if you were going to do that you should probably just 3bet pre anyway to make your hand look stronger. Also what happens if the flop comes weird like 2-3-4 of spades and your holding two red 99’s? You should understand that if you do just call your opponent is going to continuation bet every single flop so essentially from what I heard your only playing back if you happen to flop a set. IMO taking these kind of passive lines, makes it very hard to win at NL Hold’ em consistently. Your opponent is hyper aggressive and it has been folded to him on the button. What did you think he was going to do? You should be expecting him to raise and a hand like 99’s is to strong to take passive lines with in this spot.

2. Missing out on Value:
One of the things that surprised me is that when I asked people in this discussion what kind of hand you thought he had? Most put him on two big cards. What if this guy has a hand like 44? He certainly will be raising with that hand from that spot. By just calling here you might miss out on a golden opportunity to extract value from your opponent. Remember just because you flop a set doesn’t mean your going to get paid off. This is where I believe that the inexperience of some players comes in to play. Instead of simply extracting value from this opponent where you can. They believe that they have to play every hand for stacks. A hand like 99 is probably going to be crushing this opponents button opening range, plus it is a very good chance that he is going to be playing every other pocket pair below nines in exactly the same fashion. Let’s say you do decide to flat and the board comes 8 - 2 -2 high and you decide to lead because you believe that is a good flop for your hand. Your opponent then tanks and decides to fold a hand like 33 or 44. You just missed out on extra value you could have made by putting in the 3bet Pre.

3. No Commitments :
"Your pot committed" I keep hearing that by 3betting in this spot I have made myself pot committed to calling. Um..... Let's think about this I started the hand with $200 My 3bet only made it $55. If I really think that my opponent has a better hand I can easily fold my hand. I have always hated the term "Pot Committed" anyway because it makes it sound like it's correct to call just because of the size of the pot. This is an easy fold if I believe my opponent, think about it would you take a $100 bet at 1000/1 that Mitt Romney will win the 2012 election? Probably not.

4. Play to win the game:
The main reason that I hate calling here is that I know that I have the best hand. Isn’t it ironic that you hear this statement all the time at the table and someone usually responds “Why didn’t you raise then”? Well I did. Sometimes to be a winner you have to throw the stats out the window. I recognize that it is very unlikely that this opponent has a “real hand” Let alone one that is better than a top 7 hand. How do I know this? His double fisting of Jack and Cokes, was a dead giveaway, and oh yea he has raised every single time it has been folded to him. So I think if you want to get it in with 99’s this just might be the spot. I agree that there are different sizes you could make your 3bet, but for this specific opponent I decided to error on the size of a larger bet, knowing that his button range will be wide I want to make a bet that will at least get him to think about folding a marginal hand like any two big cards, but not so big that he will fold a smaller pair.
In the end he did neither he shipped it with Q- 8 and missed. Making one thing not debatable, the winner of the pot. Me.

Bruce Williams is a professional poker player from Las Vegas Nevada. You can also follow him here

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