Suitedjustice's Ongoing Mid-life Crisis

Late yesterday I was at a table with a drunk maniac to my left who was crushing souls. He opened or 3-bet every hand except for the ones that I opened. Those hands he folded :(. I considered the limp/reraise, but I didn't pick up a hand that was good enough to pull it off, given that everyone else was coming along for whatever price whenever the maniac was in the hand. A premium hand would have been nice at some point, but it never showed up.

I lost $130 to other players. I made $70 of it back on the slots, to go with the $130 I made on the slots on Wednesday.

Smarter readers than I have been telling me for years to give up the poker table promo-nitting in favor of late night/early morning whale hunting, and up until now I have disregarded their sound advice.

I've stuck with the promo-nitting more out of a sense of grievance than anything else—why should I have to pay hard-won promo rake when no promos are running?

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I need to get over that. Promos add $3-$12 per hour to EV, but a table full of nits will suck that EV back up without a trace. Whales, as a rule of thumb, don't show up during promo hours, they stroll in around 10 pm, and by midnight they're half drunk, with steam issuing from their temples.

Whales also carry the added value of turning bad regs into much worse players, players who adjust into city-clearing nukes in spots where precision-guided bombs are needed.

Last night I did well against the whales, +$411 at poker in 1.5 hours, and I did well on the floor, +$338 in 4.5 hours.

Speaking of whales, I tracked a video poker player on an X machine for six straight hours, as that was the only machine that I didn't get to check, since he was on it from 10 pm, when I got there, to 4 am, when I left.

The whale played 10-handed $.25 video poker for the full 10 coins (you need 10 coins instead of 5 to activate the bonus). That's $25 a hand, 10 hands per minute, 60 minutes per hour, for 6 hours. That means he ran $90,000 through the machine.

Now, Ultimate X does not return 99% like the old-school video poker machines. With the X payout table, a good player will be lucky to get 95% back. So our guy was looking at at least -$4500 in EV from that night. One might think that he was racking up a shitton of slot points with that sort of krill munching, but slot point payouts on video poker are skimpy as hell; always have been. They're based on the old 99% returns, which hardly exist anymore, and the casinos never sweetened their rakeback as the machine payouts got worse, as they know that VP addicts are basically the freebasers of gambling.

As Mr. suited correctly mentioned the problem with being a promo-nit is not that you are a promo-nit, the problem is too many peeps at the table doing essentially the same thing. That was a useful strategy as long as you were like one of the first to discover that there is some juice by the casino available. But that was like 20 years ago or something, not sure. Nowadays, and like since long, because of all the other promo-nits, to maximize your EV at those tables you'd have to play mostly the opposite, which is LAG, which is high variance and not something many people are very good at playing.
Easier money is usually playing the occasional whale where you can play mostly straightforward. I understand playing late nights has its own set of issues esp if you are not a late night guy.

I can usually do well against promo-nits, who will get upset with you if you raise pre, or raise flop, etc. However, one thing to note (at least in my games) is many of them will limp every pocket pair, and check-call every set until the river. One lesson I've learned the hard way is that the river lead by them is almost always nutted.

Fire pretty much nails it here; well done sir.

That's a good read, TopGun in VA. And I don't think that the promo nits are sandbagging those sets for strategic purposes; they're trying to make high hand quads by the river.

So let's take a quick and dirty look at the math.

It's one out to make quads on the river, so give that a 2.2% chance. Say that the high hand is $500, but reduce that to around $350, given that your high hand quads can still be beat by someone with better quads or a straight flush.

The value of seeing the river for the promo then sits at $350 x 2.2%: $7.70. Compare that to an average $40 turn bet or raise that's going to be called at least 30% of the time: $12.00, not to mention a larger pot for the river bet or raise that's going to be worth more than an additional $12.00 in EV, and these nits are hemorrhaging EV by checking the turn.

When I sleep, I have very few nightmares; it's been this way for at least 30 years. For this, I credit my video game addiction; at some point I realized that in my dreams I can just pull out any weapon I want and blast away anything that comes at me.

When I'm attacked in my dreams, my feelings lean more towards annoyance than terror. Last night, I woke up and wrote down the first thought that I found bouncing around in my head: I'm just trying to manage an efficient doom arena here; I don't see why I have to fight so many damn fiery ghost robots.

Yes. I am a video game addict. But I have not fired up the PS4 now for 14 days, and during that time I have managed to get out to the casino much more often than last year, or the year before. Yesterday I made $130 on the slots in two hours; I did not get on the poker table.

Today the poker promo is $500 high hands every 20 minutes. On big promo days like this the waiting list is usually around 100 players. I might go late, after the promo ends, and see if there are any whales swimming around.

can confirm it's super common in seattle - which is dominated by promo hh grinders to never raise any pocket pair or suited connectors and never raise any set, two pair or straight flush draw because they are chasing that high hand

so a river bet from them that doesn't make any sense is actually extremely nutted

but also agree with you that it's dumb - i never did the math like you did but am glad you did

in seattle however a boat is sometimes enough, so there's more outs as you just need the board to pair, you don't need quads

and yes, there's been a lot of big pots where i had nothing but hit running cards to catch a straight or flush and then when they suddenly bet the river on my gut shot completing river which gives me a straight on a rainbow non paired board i just shove back into them and often get called to stack em because i know they have a set that they think is underrepped but i know exactly that's what they got

All the promo talk reminds me of your days in Vegas where you ended up being a promo chaser and it not working out for you.

The biggest problem, in all cases, is me not putting in enough hours. The only thing I can do about that is to head out to the casino, which is what I'll be doing in a few minutes.

get it!

As to the bolded part, you're spot-on, SJ!

(Apparently, this new version (which I hate, btw), doesn't directly quote and bold the referenced post. Here's what I had bolded...And I don't think that the promo nits are sandbagging those sets for strategic purposes; they're trying to make high hand quads by the river.

The math's a slight bit different if they flop a set of aces, as some of the high hands are insta-pays ($100 for aces full, $200 for quads, $300 for straight flushes, and even more for royals, depending on the street made). Nonetheless, the math proves that this is a poor play, especially with draws present when players can chase for free. One of my minor joys is hearing the promo-nits bemoan how their villains "got there" when they had such a great hand. Ummm, you limped aces, you check-called flop, turn went ck-ck, & he hit the flush you let him chase unencumbered. HE didn't get lucky, YOU played poorly!

I sure hope none of my game's promo nits ever see this. They MIGHT (but probably still won't) change their playing styles!

Good luck at the tables and the slots, SJ!

Thanks Morph!

Thanks, TopGun in VA! I still have the old style slick skin and forum thread setup. I don't remember what I did to keep it.

I admire you for making attempts to be friendly with other slot grinders. I have some trouble with that.

Last night, I was playing at the poker table and I noticed an Ultimate X reg going through the machines next to the poker room. I let him get to the point where he had 6 or so machines still to check, then I got up and sauntered over and said, "I already checked all the machines in both rooms an hour ago."

He said, "Excuse me?!" in an offended tone, with the interrobang at the end.

I thought, Don't play coy with me, you prick. I'm the big swinging dick around here tonight.

I said, "You're checking X. I've already checked everything within the last hour or so." Then I walked back to my seat at the poker table without looking back. But I knew he could see that I was playing poker, that I had something to fall back on whenever I found myself as badly scooped as he'd been on the machines. That I didn't have to go home wafflecrushed and dispirited, that I'd be watching to see if he didn't believe me and instead fruitlessly wasted his time checking those last 6 machines (he didn't, as I'm sure that he'd found very little in all the machines he'd checked before.)

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Of course, we know how that worked out for Drago. But Drago never learned how to diversify. I mean, he was a captain in the Soviet army, but do you think he'd ever make major after losing such a high profile fight?

A few minutes later, I realized that I hadn't yet checked the bartop games, so I cashed out (-$50 on the poker, 1 hour of play) and sure enough, I found Villain at the bartops, so I established myself on the other end and competed with him for those machines.

A third grinder, a woman, was also checking the bartops. I had heard that a married couple checks machines at MGM, but I don't know if the two of them were together or not. I made $98 on the slots over 3 hours, but then for the third time in two years, I found a $100 bill on the casino floor.

Perception Check Pass: +$100

my go to thing is when i'm playing a machine and see someone checking the bank i'll ask them what their number is - if they play dumb or just don't respond - which is standard - they are dead to me

but occasionally it'll get an answer which then leads to a discussion where i give mine - i'm still not sure if they are telling the truth or not

there's a few people i give a regular head nod to but most i don't like

i ended up taking a regular job at the start of the month so will only be going out to casinos about once or twice a week now

Yeah white male blackjack APers stick out like a sour thumb. I believe Richard Munchkin and several of his guests have stated that Asian women fly under the radar the best. They often are known table games degens but aren’t known to AP.

I finished it. I wouldn’t consider it exactly light reading but I really enjoyed it and I’m now going through the whole Cormac catalog.

Made me think you’re a great writer, you now have a bunch of free time giving up the gaming. A good week of work for you in the casino is still maybe 30 hours? Write a novel. A semi autobiographical book that incorporates a lot of your stories from when you first moved to Vegas to count cards and when you where living one meager step above living on the streets.

Larry McMurtry Would write 10 pages a day every day. If you make a point of writing 5-10 pages a day you’ve got a first draft in 3-4 months. You’re probably not getting published by Random House or something but there’s places for a book about the seedy side of Vegas from that time period and living on the edge of society. Definitely has some Suttree vibes especially if you add in some crazy characters and flashbacks of stories where you get high or drunk like the random times Suttree gets super drunk and wakes up in random places or the part where he gets lost in the woods high on wild mushrooms.

Talk to the folks on Fark for publishing options. Does Two Plus Two still publish new books.? This book is right up the alley of Huntington Press that does the Las Vegas Advisor. P Moss guy that owns Double Down Saloon has published some crazy Vegas books try his publisher.

An amazing idea And many of us following the thread would line up to purchase your book, obviously

At 5 pages per day, it would only be a month or two to get a first draft initiated!!!

As far as publishing goes, I would recommend reaching out to Miikka Antonnen who has/had some great ideas as far as potential sales goes and where to publish it - disclaimer : you start by self promoting it and thus getting near 100% on the sales initially, to only then reach out to known publishing sites who sure keep near to close 50% of the sale profits a la Amazon, but who definitely put your book out there and exponentially multiplies the new potential reader eyes on it!!!

I am sure Ben Saxton would have some idees about how to approach publishing in 2026, right Ben???

biggerboat has also published a couple of books. Not in the genre being discussed. I can't speak for him being willing to advise, obviously, but he might be someone to reach out to.

Hey, I even bought his fancified (is that a word) BBV story in book form, I'd totally buy everything suited is publishing. Preferably not via that devilish rainforest but whatever.

Oh for sure. I assume one reading this blog would want to put (near to) 100% of the book's value directly into Suited's pockets, but what Miikka previously informed me about - keep in mind this was almost a decade ago... -, is that Amazon surprisingly get him EXPONENTIALLY unexpected more visibility/sales!!! So it has a greater reach than one would assume - or at least that I did...

Speaking of rainforests, Amazon and to go on a complete tangent - but well worth it! -, Lex Fridman's latest podcast with guest Paul Rosolie, is absolutely worth the listen!!! It speaks of (almost mythical) encounters with a tribe leaving like before the rock age (no kidding!!!) in the Peruvian Amazonian as well as being threatened by Narcos that have recently established themselves in the middle of the jungle :

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/489-paul-rosolie-uncontacted-tribes-in-the-amazon-jungle/id1434243584?i=1000745040953

Apple Podcasts

#489 – Paul Rosolie: Uncontacted Tribes in the Amazon Jungle

Work?! Pardon the 65-year-old meme.

Good luck! I'm sure the gf is happy. Happy wife; happy life. What will you be doing?

You guys are the kindest Gentle Readers a person could ask for. Thank you! I'm getting verklempt.

I write because it makes me feel better. To have someone who reads this stuff and likes it makes it several orders of magnitude better.

That said: I'm not ready for a novel. What will it take? I want to have 3-4 months when I don't have to do anything else, and when the wolf is not at the door.

For that, I need $25-$30k behind me in order to take the time off. This is achievable through either hitting a big score on the slots or vp, or through hard work and overperforming on slots and poker for a few months.

Having that behind me, I would use the Stephen King method of work: time. I would write—or think about writing without distractions—from 8am to noon every day, and let the page count take care of itself.

I also very much appreciate the publishing suggestions above, and if I ever get to that point, I will track back to them.

What kind of book would you want to write?

I think reworking Nit-tastic tales as fiction might be the way to go. People seem to like it. I would work some sort of Big Score into the plot as a character motivation; maybe Suited, chasing after the $1M reward, calls the FBI on a fictional version of Whitey Bulger, and hijinks ensue from there.

Think the Big Lebowski, but with Poker instead of bowling. Or mini golf.

Nice! Holding two aces of diaclubs and the squiggle of rorschachs, I can't possibly lose.

I just recently rewatched the Big Lebowski; it holds up great. I think it gets better every time I see it.