So on PokerVT there was a post yelling at me to make more blog posts so I’ll make an effort.  It’s not like I’ve forgotten about the blog, but rather that anything I want to write has another platform for it.  Strategy stuff I pretty much limit to the PokerVT forums.  In fact, I’ve made over 900 posts there in under 4 months.  I really make an effort to answer everyone’s questions.  Now that I finally have a Facebook account there’s a spot for a little bit of BBV there.  I just really don’t like to talk about myself much, especially to the world.  As far as what I read, I don’t check any regularly, per se, although anything that JCarver, Unamuno, MTC, or StefanProdan write are pretty good mostly because of a good amount of humor.  I absolutely detest blogs that are updated daily with results.  I can understand how it can be useful to keep a journal, but keep that stuff to yourself.  What really bothers me is that some people actually attract a following through self promotion, and despite being busto stakes/breakeven/bad players, use it as a platform to essentially scam people into wanting to get coaching.  Not naming names, but there are many people out there like this.

Anyway, evang spent a few days out here and I went with him one day to play poker at Treasure Island.  Their poker room is small and only had one table of 2/4 going.  A few of the players were there playing to try to accumulate 200 hours so they could play in some freeroll.  The rake as well as the players were atrocious and after about 3 hours I was ready to cut my wrists.  We hit up the Rio, my first time back since WSOP, and played some Texas Hold’em Bonus.  Going to casinos, aside from going to say hello to JCarver for WPT Festa al Lago at the Bellagio, kinda got me interested in killing some time there occasionally.

So, I got the awesome idea that I would go grind video poker and get up to a higher tier level of rewards at the Boyd group of casinos (The Orleans, Sam’s Town, Gold Coast, etc.).  I also took some sports picks from someone I know that has a pretty good record in this stuff, and was on my way.  Well I basically made over $1000 playing video poker while occasionally checking lines, placing some smallish bets, etc.  Then after maybe 10 or so hours of playing video poker across 5 or 6 days I realized it is the most boring thing ever.  I don’t even understand how people get addicted to gambling in that way.  Yeah, punting off your paycheck over 10 hands at the blackjack table is one thing, but I would see people grinding 25 cent video poker (be it +EV on full pay machines or -EV) for the entire day, several days in a row.  I actually even caught some woman surreptitiously pulling out a cheat sheat from her purse every 2 minutes or so to check on a hand.  Really, if you have to check that often, you’re not doing it right.

Anyway, about 1/3 of the way towards the next tier level I decided that was enough for me and quit video poker.  I’m definitely going to go check out some other sportsbooks though.  The NBA lines at the Boyd casinos were OK, but the vig on the MMA lines was pretty bad.  I don’t know if that’s standard or what, but I guess I’ll find out as I visit other books.  I’ve actually wanted to get more into sports betting for some time now, even buying some of the better known advice books, but I’ll just stick to going off other peoples picks that I trust until I get my feet wet.  Drop a comment if you have any tips on sportsbooks in Vegas.