Lesson Learned in Vegas

No, this is not a post about not mixing hard liquor with beer or wine.

I learned something about my live poker play while in Vegas. Disturbingly, it is the fact that I play better poker with sunglasses.

And MAN, do I hate guys who play poker with sunglasses.

I never wore sunglasses when playing live poker, mostly because I played limit poker and I didn't think sunglasses would make any difference. In my opinion, the only reason people wore them was to "look cool." I think they look retarded wearing sunglasses inside, so "looking cool" would be difficult.

But I decided to wear them in Vegas at the NL tournament at Mandalay Bay. It was reasonably bright in there, and there were a half a dozen other players wearing them. Granted most of them were donkeys wearing "Party Poker" hats (I kept thinking of ParPo and Fish from my comic) but I wouldn't be completely off base because a few of these guys seemed to be decent players.

Immediately the entire table said they were afraid of me because I was shuffling a stack of 20 and had a PokerSourceOnline Hat and glasses on. This might have been a good thing, people were actually laying hands down to me.

But what I really noticed is that the glasses made it MUCH easier to study other players as they were making decisions, especially in hands where I wasn't involved.

Maybe I am too self conscious to stare at a player when he knows I am staring at him. But I actually studied the players, looking longer than I would normally feel comfortable doing without sunglasses. And the info definitely helped me make decisions later in the game.

I continued wearing the glasses in the $200 NL game after the tournament, and it again helped me observe other players at the table.

I still never wore the glasses at a limit or spread limit game. I don't know if it would have made much difference, but it's something that I need to think about.