Well, here I am in Vegas! Played my 1st Holdem NL game tonight - $1/$2. Fun learning curve :-)

1st Thing I realised was that buying in the minimum was a big mistake. Everyone but one person at the table had $250+ min on them. Some had more (buy in = $100 min, $300 max). At this point I immediatly knew I was in a spot.

I don't want to gamble mroe than that in one session. I'm a tournie/SnG player at heart (and "at skill"). I've always sucked at ring games online and I'd never dream of playing 1/2 online in a ring game. I play $22 SnGs online these days, plus MTTs.

But this is Vegas and I thought I'd give it a crack for fun.

I started with AK off and immediately got a continuation bet put on me from a pre-raiser that was half my stack and the flop was junk. Fold.

After a while I played J9 off and hit 10KQ on the flop. I slow played it to the turn. Only two of us left. He raised. I pushed all in. He had 10 K - two pair. The board then formed a straight and we split. Arghh.

A little later my QQ with K kicker ran into 2 pairs (7,s and 9's) and I was out.

Funny observations:

The dealer knew the name of at least two players.
The guys who were winning kept winning.
Small buy in is no good live. When someone raises/bluffs it puts at least half your stack on the line.
One showdown with three people all in produced AA, KK, QQ - the guy with KK hit trips on the turn and the only guy with shades on was holding the Aces - he left in a strop :-) (Note: 20 hands in or less in my 1st ever live ring game and I saw AA vs KK vs QQ - that should silence the online conspiracey theorists!!!)
I was way out of my depth :-)


Going to focus on MTTs from now on - it's what I'm good at - the strategy, and not having the pressure of the possibility of buying more chips.

Great hotel room btw :-)