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NewbSaibot United States. Jul 06 2010 22:21. Posts 4948

The wife and I just got back from vacation in North Carolina where I had the opportunity to drive to the Harrah's casino and finally play some poker in a real casino environment. I've never been to a casino before. This one is probably nothing compared to anything they have in Vegas, as poker only became legal last year. The casino has thus existed entirely on slot machine players, so it's basically just one big mammoth building with about 10,000 slot machines in it. Kinda weird looking at first, just row after row after row of degen fuckin slot machines. Their poker room looks more like an afterthought, tucked away to the side with about 10 tables. You wouldnt even know whats going on over there until you got close enough. The tables being used are those electronic PokerPro machines where everyone sits in front of an LCD touch screen, very internet friendly.

I had a hard time getting the fucker to work properly, it would never register my inputs or show my cards to me when I tried to peak. People were telling me to jab it with my finger, or flip my finger upside down and tap it gently with my nail, or use an ink pen, or use a credit card, etc etc. There were some serious FUUUUUUUUUUU moments where I'm gettin irritated making people wait and timing out and shit and people leaning over to help push buttons for me lol. They would tap my screen and presto it works, I do the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING and nothing happens. I finally got "good enough" using a combo of techniques that I could play. Over the course of an hour I tripled up sending 2 fish walking before I cashed out so my wife and I could go eat dinner. I was really just testing the waters and she sat right behind me watching, so I didnt want to make her wait.

The overall experience was awesome though, being in a casino that is. I was always skeptical about how I would view life living in one of these things, working a job as a professional player. I thought I might feel worthless, or like some horrible degen or matt damon wannabe, cursing myself for throwing my life away to play in an adult version of a video arcade. Thoughts of looking myself in the mirror and asking "wtf are you doing?" were always my worst fears. Well those fears have been officially put to rest. I loved every minute of that place. The lights, the sounds, the sprawling indoor campus, the restaurants, the faces, just the whole damn experience. It is definitely for me, and I think I would fall in love with Vegas casino lifestyle even more when I get a taste of that some day.

So where to from here? Well the question is how the fuck do I get to vegas playing professionally? There's always online poker, but me and the internet dont get along so well these days. Live play always keeps me cool and collected. Online im so quick to play back at people and trash talk (chat banned myself a year ago from ftp and stars) and just get tilted beyond belief that it really ruins my play. Because I cant be a total douche live, I play so much better. I really think the only way I'll ever be successful is through live play, just because of the anti-douche factor.

So the way I see it I really have no choice but to start grinding the home games in my city again to build a life roll I can use to migrate to vegas, like 10-20k I imagine. I have NL200 and NL500 at my disposal 7 nights a week. While nowhere close to being rolled for these, my edge is so huge vs these live fish that I think it should be doable with a little rungood/reloads over the next few months until I get some momentum and can play with a real roll. From there all targets need to be set on vegas, reaching that pivotal moment where I can finally hop on a plane and fly the fuck out there. There are other places to play, but honestly none of them really seem as good of a deal as vegas. AC is a shithole from what I've read, living near foxwoods is expensive plus the weather is completely fucked during the winter (i hate the snow), Florida is ridiculously hot/humid plus the people are all cocksuckers down there. Their casino scene still isnt as well established as others and is more like a vegas/AC junior, especially with the recently uncapped NL buyins. Oh it's also expensive as fuck to live in Ft. Lauderdale. So that really leaves no options other than vegas. The upside to vegas besides the superior casino environment is that home ownership is ridiculously cheap out there with all the foreclosures and what not. It's still hot, but not humid. It's reasonably close to some cool shit on the west coast, namely california and all the places it has to offer. Overall just seems like the best bang for your buck.

To date I have been kinda flaky with my poker ambitions simply because I just wasnt sure if I could do it and more importantly, if I wanted to. Now I feel the answer to both question is yes. So hopefully my euphoria wont wear off and I'll get back out there before too long.