From: hebo@hp850.mbari.org (Bob Herlien)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Trip Report - Poker at Tahoe
Date: 29 Jul 92 20:39:48 GMT
Organization: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

My wife and I also went to Tahoe last weekend, July 25 - 27 (incl Monday).
I played poker almost exclusively.  Although I normally concentrate on
hold-em (low limit), this time I split my action between 7 card stud,
7 stud hi-lo, and hold-em.  I played at Harvey's, Harrah's, and Horizon
(the only three places that have poker in Tahoe, as far as I know).

I started out Friday evening at Harveys playing 1-4 7-card stud.  Normally,
this is a slow action game in Nevada, and results in low wins and losses.
This weekend, however, I lost a bundle at stud (high version).  It seems
that I kept getting two pair against what was obviously a flush draw, heads-up,
and kept trying to drive my opponent out.  Of course, this play will lose
1/4 of the time (on sixth street), but you should more than make up those
losses when it succeeds.  But these guys wouldn't get out, and they kept
making their flushes.  Oh well.

On Saturday and Sunday nights, I found the 1-5-10-10 7-stud hi-lo game at
Harrah's.  I have this love-hate relationship about playing at Harrah's.
Since they play slightly higher limits (1-5 or 1-4-8 versus 1-4 stud, etc),
they attract two kinds of clientele at their games:  the more affluent
gamble-as-a-lark players, who don't mind dropping some extra cash, and
the better professionals.  It seems that you either get easy pickings or
soundly thrashed here; but as long as you can tell which situation you're
in, it's ok.  My observation this time was the Harrah's hold-em table had
the really good players, and was unbeatable, but stud had tourists with
extra cash.

The stud hi-lo game was very generous to me on both nights.  In fact, it
covered my losses at stud (Fri. night) and hold-em (Fri & Sat), and still
left me ~$250 ahead.  I think it was Chip Reese in his chapter in SuperSystem
who said that 7-stud hi-lo is the game where you can make money the fastest
against poor players.  I believe it.  The major error novices make is 
not taking into account what the split pot does to the pot odds.  When it
gets down to 3-way action, which is common by fifth street, you'd better 
have either a two-way hand or a very good hand in one direction.  It also
helps that my luck was as good at this game as it was bad at normal stud :-)

On Sunday, I entered the hold-em tournament at Horizon ($15 buy-in, $10 rebuys).
I had to buy in 4 times because the cards weren't coming in the early rounds.
But, right after the break that ended the rebuy period, I got on a streak.
It ended too early, but still left me with enough chips to make 3rd place :-)

Monday, it was 1-4 hold-em at Harveys.  Got some good cards again, and ended
up $65.  It would have been much more, except for the two times I got
pocket AA and lost a bundle.  I've read (was it Sklansky?) that pocket rockets
should win about 50% of the time in real games.  The secret to making them
very profitable is knowing when to release them.  I agree with that statement,
but it can be very hard to do in practice :-(.  It was obvious that I was
beaten, in both cases, by the turn; but I still kept throwing in chips.
I'll learn.  These were compensated for, tho, by the hand when I had
KK, my opponent had QQ, and nothing higher than a J came on the board.
Very profitable :-)

--------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Herlien
MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)
hebo@mbari.org
"Limit congressmen to two terms.  One in office.  One in jail."