Summer to Fall: Leveling in Las Vegas
Past and future trips to Las Vegas
Listen to an audio version here or the pokergrid.com.
Last time I was in Las Vegas, I played in a tag team poker event1 with my friend, author and science writer Alexandra O’Brien.
We went as the “write-offs.”
Besides bringing a suitcase full of snacks, Alex also spent the first day of the tag team amassing a castle of a chip stack for our team. Being a terrible team-mate, I left her by herself for over six hours.
My excuse: I was giving final table commentary of the WSOP Ladies Event alongside the legendary Lon McEachern.
The WSOP Ladies event finished up at around midnight, with Shiina Okamoto taking gold, while my friend Jamie Kerstetter scored a career best cash of 100K+. Afterwards, I rushed over to Alex’s table to tag in and give her a break.
Almost immediately, I got into a pivotal hand.
A player (in the lojack) raised, and I re-raised with ace-nine suited on the button. We both had very healthy stacks of over 50 big blinds. Unexpectedly, a third player in the big blind, called with a stack of just about 25 big blinds, while the original raiser folded.
The flop was J87 rainbow, with one diamond. The big blind checked to me, and I checked back. The turn brought a king of diamonds. He checked again, so with my diamond draw + gutshot, I jammed to put his stack at risk, which was a little over pot. He folded after some thought.
After the hand, the table agreed there’s no way I could have been bluffing as it would be so rude to come and destroy the stack that my charming and witty friend Alex had spent all day patiently amassing.
This made me sure that I should jam: I’d get even more folds because what kind of jerk would stroll up at midnight and ruin my lovely team-mate’s work? Like throwing coffee on a newly painted wall. Who does that?
A core poker principle is to bluff more when people think you won’t bluff2, like the end of the night or perceived exhaustion, hunger or risk aversion.
Even if you don’t play much cards, this type of logic can come in handy when deciding what to throw in a simple game like Rock, Paper, Scissors3. Throw Paper, if you know that most players, especially men throw rock more often than they should. But if you know that they know you know this, you better throw Rock. And if they know that you know that they know you know this, it’s time to go for Scissors.
This type of thinking is one of the purest skills in poker: can you guess whether your opponent is on an odd or an even level? Generally, people default to odd numbers, as this viral short video by chess master and precocious filmmaker Wesley Wang leads with. And in particular, seven is massively over-represented when asking someone to guess a number from 1 to 10—it’s perceived as the ultimate “odd number.”
The seven of poker, if you will, is defaulting to the basics: acting strong when weak, and acting weak when strong.
Both WSOP events I played this year were seamless in merging strategy and socializing. Sometimes finding this balance feels like a miracle. There are tables where it’s hard to get a conversation or stack going, let alone both. But in Vegas, such luck does strike more often.
In the Ladies, we even took a group photograph after we bagged up.
I head back to Vegas soon, for the PokerStars North American Poker Tour at Resorts World. Beyond the 5K Main Event, there will also be a Women’s Event4 with a lot of added value, and a Mixed Game Series. Hope to see some of you there in November5. May we all find the right level!
The rules are simple: players tag in and out as they like, with the only requirements being that teams register together and that each player complete an orbit before late registration ends. I fulfilled that obligation by playing the first couple levels of the event.
Plenty of caveats on this one: they need to be willing to follow through on their read. Some players will think you’re not bluffing, but call anyway, either because of curiosity, lack of discipline, or even something as mundane as re-entry period being open. Another big one is that there are times in poker tournaments where losing your stack is so painful (i.e- the bubble) that appearing less likely to bluff may not be a good enough justification to do so.
AI famously defeats humans in Rock Paper Scissors due to the difficulty we have in randomizing. Try it here: https://www.essentially.net/rsp/
The winner of the women’s event gets a package to the inaugural Women’s Winter Festival in London, which spans from Nov 20-24.
A pivotal time for America as well, as I head from swing state to another. I voted early in PA. If you plan to play the NAPT, be sure to vote early too!
good luck in vegas