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.

I just came home from the final day of BARGE. This is the most fun event of the year for me as we play a lot of slightly strange poker games and a number of low buy-in tournaments. The players are typically very good to excellent, with several major tournament winners, notesd authors and other strong players there to compete and have a great time. Buy-ins are low but prestige is high. I made the final table in two events (Charity Pot Limit Omaha and Draw Lowball) out of five. You can learn more about BARGE at the BARGE website if you are interested.

If you are a frequent player, professional or not, it is not only useful to take some vacations away from poker, it is also nice to actually find a way to have fun with poker, so it does not become just a repetitive way to make money. BARGE works for me; something else might work for you. But try to have fun with poker sometimes.

I just learned the 2005 World Poker Players Conference will be held in Foxwoods on November 12. Details of speakers are still being worked out. I have been invited to speak, and have accepted, so I will be there. I will post more details as they develop. If you have not yet purchsed the 2004 WPPC DVD, you can buy it here.