'It's always good to be underestimated.' - Donald Trump
Exceptionally I fully agree with you, Donald!
As long as you don't reveal your complete power you are able to take your competitors by surprise.
Surprises are a smart weapon!
Being a young blond girl sitting at a poker table full of dominant alpha males loaded with too much testosterone is definitely a good strategic position ;-)
All-In: Or You Win Or You Learn
Before starting this trip to Las Vegas I predefined a "poker budget" separated from my main vacation budget.
One of the most important things in such an environment where huge amounts of money are lost every second, is to define your own limits BEFORE starting to play.
People don't lose their whole existence in casinos because they were not lucky. They fail because they get crazy.
You know why I was the only female sitting at that poker table? Because girls usually avoid stress.
Playing poker is constant stress.
You need to control your emotions in situations that increase your blood pressure in such way that you feel as if the cervical artery at your neck is going to explode.
You need to make smart decisions that can have a considerable impact on your wealth all the time. You know that every single decision counts.
Man, what a thrill!
I sat down at the table and got two good hands right away.
Guess what I did with them?
I folded. I consciously missed two chances to increase my stack because I was still too nervous at that point of time, haha!
No problem at all.
I was lucky and these two weren't the last opportunities given to me in that game.
However, they were not enough to save me from losing the whole stack.
Poker Room | Home of Adrenaline
How I lost $400 bucks in two hours and still am the happiest girl on Earth :-)
That was my today's limit: $400 dollars in a 1-2 unlimited game.
I bought in with $100 and then constantly topped my stack up when I got down under $70.
Actually that wasn't a small budget for this type of games. However my table was extremely strong and that was probably one of the reasons why I lost my money too quickly.
It was the classic situation I would have loved to avoid: two high testosterone professionals with stacks of about 5-10K in front of them sitting to my LEFT (oh boy) fully controlling the table.
I folded the two nice hands I mentioned before because I needed time to analyze their behavior and position.
The bad players of the table were sitting to my right. Three guys that revealed every single emotion, complaining loudly about their bad hands, even showing their folded hands to other players.
They played like almost every hand, even if they were holding the worst pair of cards in their hands you might imagine.
What a strange disequilibrium! And me sitting right in the middle of these two chairs.
I played tight. But obviously not tight enough.
It was extraordinarily expensive to play a hand in this game since these two at my left were raising quickly when they had something. To call them required me to go all-in all the time.
Whenever the two cracks were not in, and I played against the other ones, I won. Every time. However, these hands were cheep so I couldn't win that much with them.
So I constantly lost small amounts of money.
I went all-in two times and don't regret my decision, because I had strong cards. I simply wasn't lucky enough to monetize them in the end.
That's another rule of poker: if you make the right decision and lose, then it wasn't a question of strategy but simply bad luck.
Guess who taught me that much about poker? Yip, my very best buddy and friend 
who's with me in Vegas these days. He is up while I am currently down, so that's a classic situation: boy earning money and girl spending it 😂👍
The rest of my day is going to be relaxed. I need to decrease the adrenaline level in my blood, haha!
Tomorrow I'll be back at the tables with the second half of my poker budget.
So cross your fingers for me, Steemians! I'll keep you posted on my second try ;)
No risk, no fun...
Marly -