Hello and welcome to LVM's Blog of Poker Degeneracy!

The BPD will be the poker/life blog of your Forum Moderator, LasVegasMichael: a Vegas local, and part time semi professional poker player.

A little background:

I moved to Las Vegas in early Summer of 2004. I am 31 years old, married since August of 2000 to a wonderful (and supportive) poker wife, and have 6 year old twins (boy and a girl). Aside from my AVP duties, we own a small home business and I play cards nearly every day. Scheduling can be trying at times as I take care of the kids while the wife is at work (wife is a manager at a large retail store), and she watches them when I am playing. I play cards an average of 25-30 hours a week, usually every day for at least a few hours.

I have been playing poker since January of 2000. I was mainly a limit player until 2005, when I made the slow transition to No Limit as my primary game.

It took me over two years to become a winning player, but thankfully, I have been in the black every year since. I started keeping copius records from very early on, as I wanted to justify to the wife that it was worth the time and effort I put in. The wife is very supportive of my playing and even plays every once in a great while herself (always 2/4 or 3/6).

I am a cash game player. Though I do play tournaments on occasion I know that there is a LOT of work to be done on my tournament game. I have not studied tournament play anywhere near to the extent that I have studied cash game play. My general style of play varies from Tight Aggressive to Loose Aggressive to Loose passive, depending on my table. I change up my play quite a bit at the table.

My primary game of choice is 1/2-1/3 and 2/5 No Limit Hold'em. I occasionally play 4/8LHE and limits up to 15/30. I also am a fan of mixed games, and I sttarted the weekly 3/6 Mixed Game every Sunday night at Imperial Palace at 7PM where we play a 10 game rotation. I don't play online very often, but I do occasionally play on Stars or Full Tilt. Though I do have favorite casinos, I make the rounds around town quite often, so you will see various rooms making their way into my blog.

The title of this blog is a joke referring to a trip report I wrote a while back located HERE. Though I do play seriously the vast majority of the time, I also enjoy my degenerate sessions where I am donking in the 3/6 Mixed Game or touring different low limit rooms with Perry. Being a Vegas local, general poker degeneracy comes second nature.

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I do hope that you find this blog interesting, a little entertaining, and real. I will post as often as I can. I may not post all cash game results (with regard to figures), but I will be honest about my game, and solicit for help from the AVPers (and give any help where I can). I will post a few hands every now and then, and always welcome criticism and critique. I will also post about life in Vegas, and family stuff on occasion.

See you on the felt!

--LasVegasMichael

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Incessant Twitter Ramblings available here: LasVegasMichael

Mark posted the above elsewhere, and I wanted to address it here.

Thank you for the kind words. The OP of this posts states my personal background of playing.

I used to post hands of relevance when this board first started (I posted some hands in the Strat forum as well as in the AVP Member journal).

I got away from that not because of exposing my game to the public but simply because it takes a lot of time and thought to post specific hands, and when the board was in its infancy, I had a lot of other things to do on the board that kept me away from it. Also, I did not feel that my hands were all that interesting to read. Now that I have a blog, I will definately be posting more hands and soliciting feedback.

Also, to address another thing that I know is on people's minds: Yes, a catalyst behind me starting a blog was due to Yappy Dave's voluntary departure. However, I have been meaning to do one for quite a while now, and simply never got around to it. The YD announcement was the impetus that finally convinced me that it was time.

I will not even attempt to replicate or mirror his style of blogging, as that is simply not possible. My blog will be going its own direction, as we are two very different types of players. I wish David the best, and do hope he posts in my blog, and offers his signature style of criticism and critique.

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Incessant Twitter Ramblings available here: LasVegasMichael

I think this blog could become helpful to a large ammount of the AVP readers, most of us are people with a 9-5 who love poker, and seeing how someone with a "real Job" approaches the poker life is a great idea.

I did enjoy Yappy's Blog, but I know I could never make it as strictly a poker player (I am way too impatient). However supplementing my income and seeing things through you eyes might help me in my poker quest.

I look forward to the Blog of Degeneracy, keep up the good work!!!

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The Man....The Myth....The Minton

Hey Look I have a BLOG and I TWEET as well

Thank you for the kind words, Minton. I was hoping to have "mass appeal" to the AVP core audience, which is recreational players that love the game. Though I am a bit above the "recreational" level, I do work full time, have a family, and still manage to play cards about 20 hours a week or so, and I look forward to sharing my insights and minutia here.

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Incessant Twitter Ramblings available here: LasVegasMichael

I agree with Minton about this blog being helpful for us part-time players with a 9-5.

I've been a lurker for quite some time on here and, along with Assani's and the rest of the poker trip reports on here, Yappy's blog was one of my favorite sections of this site. So it's good to see another one pop up to replace his.

P.S. I think we might have gone to high school together. Actually, i'm almost positive once i saw your pic on some of the other posts. Good luck on the blog LVM...i'll be checking back daily to read up on your poker playing experiences.

I believe this is the start of another great thread on AVP, and just another reason to keep checking the site every 5 minutes while at work.

I really enjoyed reading your previous trip reports and think this might just be more enjoyable. Like minton said, great to see someone who just plays part time and has other responsibilities and how they handle it.

I hope I get the chance to meet LVM himself at the next meetup!

South Point 7/10/08

(In order to better sort out incessant ramblings from actual poker content, I will be bolding and enlarging the location and date of actual poker session posts).

Played at the South Point poker room last night for about 2 hours. They had about 3 or 4 NL games going, and I was able to get a seat within 10 minutes of getting there.

The game is 1/2NL with a $300 max. The South Point is a locals casino, but has action that would rival most strip casinos. For a locals casino, it has BY FAR, the best NL action. Straddles are common, and the locals that frequent here are often the gambling types (many casino employees play here).

I bought in for the max (which is my standard MO).

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At first I was in the 1 seat, directly to the right of the "table captain", a drunkish Australian guy with a $700 stack in front of him.

He called many preflop raises, and while I was sitting there, he also showed more then a couple of bluffs. He overbet often, and raised often.

I did not play a hand for about a half hour, when a seat directly to his left opened up, and I immediately took the seat. Having position on this guy was definately a +EV move.

Because he was involved in so many pots, I had to go with Tight Agressive as my proper manner of play. I was waiting for a good spot. I noticed that he liked to announce a hand he could have, and bet when said hand improves. He usually lied about his hand, but there was one time when he told the truth about being on a draw. That is important when taking the following hand into consideration:

Villian: Cutoff with $800 in stack (Australian mentioned above)

Hero: Button with $350 in stack. I have not played any big pots so far. Won some small pots by betting flops in position (steals). My image is tight, but not necessarily aggressive, as I have yet to raise PF in a single hand at this point. This is about a half hour into my session.

Rest of table: loose passive. Many raises are called but the players generally fold on the flop to a C bet.

It is limped around to the villian who also limps (my range for him is asseninely wide for a limp, though he more then likely does not have two big cards, as he would have raised with a hand as weak as 10Jos). Including the villian, 5 players have limped so far.

I look down at KsKd, and raise to $17 ($15 on top).

Both blinds fold, but every other limper calls. We go to the flop 6 handed

$105 in pot.

Flop: 10h3s6c

It is checked to me, and I bet out $60. Standard continuation bet here.

It is folded to the villian that says "Four five will catch up. You wait. Four five is gonna win this pot. You didn't bet enough to keep me out."

Villian calls.

Pot: $225

Turn: 2c (completing a straight and putting a club flush draw out there). Table starts to chuckle. Opponant quiets down. I immediately say "well look at that four five got there".

Opponant reiterates that I didn't bet enough on the flop. I say: "Oh well, you bust me, I just rebuy. No big deal". He looks at me, smiles a little bit, and bets out $40.

This was a very small bet into this pot.

Mistake or not, I decided to flat call here. I did this mainly for pot control. I wanted to see if the flush completes on the river, and to see what he did on the river as well. The $40 bet could easily be a blocking bet on his part, which would normally constitute a raise here, but beign in position, I thought I could afford to simply call, see a river, and reassess.

As soon as I flat called, he said "Oh, a non believer, eh?"

Pot: $305

River: Qh. No flush. 45 is the nuts.

He says, "Four Five is good here". I said, yes it is, but I don't think you have that. I think you have Queen 10. He looks at me, and picks up a stack of reds while staring at me. He then holds them over the betting line and says "Check".

I immediately announce "Thirty!", to which the table chuckles, and he angrily mucks. I muck without showing. The $30 bet was both for mocking and for value. The pot was laying him insane odds to call with anything, but he knew he was no good. It was risky on my part, but I was fully ready to call an all in should he checkraise, as I was pretty confidant in my holding.

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This hand was read dependent. I realize that KK is a strong hand, but on this board, I did not love my hand that much. My opponant was outplaying the table, and he knew it. The talk and drinking was part of his game. He knew exactly what he was doing.

He racked up shortly after that hand, as he said he was going to dinner.

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I played for two hours and won three decent pots. One with KK (above), another with AA, and another with AK off that was raised preflop, and everyone folded to a 9 high flop continuation bet.

As I accumulated chips, I started to raise with small suited connectors in position, and won a few tiny pots that way as well. Thankfully, I did not lose any big pots last night, though like I said, I only played for two hours, from 6 to 8pm.

I will be playing at South Point again this weekend, as well as TI, and possibly Orleans, plus the Excellent Adventure on Monday night with Perry. Stay tuned!


South Point on opening night (back when it was called South Coast)

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Incessant Twitter Ramblings available here: LasVegasMichael

Small world! Judging by your location and e-mail, I think we did!

Servite High School, Class of 1996. After that, I attended USC, and graduated in 2000.

Thanks for posting and saying hello!



Definately! I look forward to meeting you! Glad you like the premise. I also feel that it will appeal to the masses due to the intermingling of work/family life with poker life.

See ya soon!

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Incessant Twitter Ramblings available here: LasVegasMichael

Yeah man...definitely a small world! Servite High School's the one. Glad to be following along with a former classmate.

The KK hand made me chuckle.

Your blog will be a nice addition to the board!

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Follow me on Twitter as I tweet from the felt: http://twitter.com/AlaskaGal1