I am on vacation this week, but I still have a thought. I stopped by the Mirage on Friday afternoon to meet with a student. After the session, we wandered through the poker room where I noticed a $40-$80 hold’em game with an open seat. The game was incredibly lively and action-packed. The players were laughing and kidding with each other; clearly having fun. I was short on funds since I was not thinking of playing (I almost never play in the afternoon). I had brought only $2,000 with me. I converted that into chips and sat down. I played tighter than usual, and my few operations went bad, so I really had to screw down (which was the right approach for the game, as it happened). After some wild swings, I managed to escape with a profit of $600 after three hours.

I have been biased against Las Vegas afternoon games for years. When I moved here five years ago, the afternoon games were tough and not very profitable. I have not looked since. The game I was in today made me realize that I need to re-examine the games in all of the casinos every so often. I may be missing out on some very nice action. Even though I enjoy playing at night, as a professional I owe it to myself to go where the money is.

Now I do not know if the game I was in was an aberration or an everyday occurrence. But I will check it out when I get back to playing in a week or so.

So that is my thought for this week: Whether on-line or live, occasionally check out other games and limits. Something may have changed and you may be missing out.