How To Save The Post Office Money

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I have been reading a lot of articles lately about the demise of the United States Postal Service. The articles are of particular interest to me since by late grandfather was a rural postal carrier in Iowa and I know a number of postal carriers.

The basics behind the demise are simple: people do not send as much mail as they used to send (thanks to email), delivering mail is a huge and expensive process and there is very little progressive thinking in how to fix the archaic business model.

The failing of the U.S. Postal Service is one of those hot-button topics that politicians do not want to touch. Postal service began in  1775 with Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general. He might be the second most-famous postmaster general behind Wilford Brimley in Seinfeld. The people that care about mail the most — the retired and elderly — don’t have much to do but complain about days gone by. And vote. They can change elections just by their sheer numbers. So messing with the postal system can leave a congressman jobless.

I actually use the post office quite a bit — sending out packages of stuff I sell on eBay and mailing out apparel orders from one of my side businesses. I don’t write letters. I don’t mail bills, save for my car payment which goes to a massive processing center in Illinois that doesn’t take online payments.

Today I went to the post office to send out a  package of electric football players I sold on eBay. It was a small box that only weighed 2.3 ounces. I was sending it from Las Vegas to Ohio by first-class mail. The total cost with delivery confirmation was $2.80.

I have no problem with the price. After all, I had built the costs into the eBay listing. My problem is with the receipt. I mailed one small item. Yet, the receipt is 13 1/2 inches long! The actual information about my transaction was only the first five inches. After that was 8 1/2 inches of USPS advertising: Buy greeting cards at the USPS. Order stamps at USPS.com. Get your mail with a Post Office Box. All sales final on stamps and postage. HELP US SERVE YOU BETTER at postalexperience.com.

How many transactions do all the postal offices across the country register per year? There was more than 3 billion pieces of mail delivered last year. Even if only one percent of those pieces was brought into the postal offices for the mailing transaction, the receipts would add up to 390,000,000 inches of paper based on the receipt I received. It seems like the U.S. Postal Service is not only inefficient and costly, but pro-lumber industry, as well.

I know from experience I can buy 10 items at Kohl’s and not get a receipt this long.

In fact, after I left the post office I went to Fresh & Easy to buy groceries. I purchased 10 items and spent more than $38. The receipt was only seven inches long.

Fresh & Easy put a logo on its receipt and absolutely no marketing sayings or promotional links.

And Fresh & Easy faces a lot stiffer competition in Las Vegas from Vons, Smiths, Albertsons, WalMart Grocery and Target than the U.S. Post Office does anywhere.

I am not one of those people that care whether or not mail service is reduced from six days to five. I live on a street where the mail is all delivered to a central box, not to a box on my house. Therefore, I only bother to check my mail every 2-3 days. When I do get the mail I am not sure whether or not it was delivered that day, the day before or even over the weekend. I really don’t care.

However, I don’t want to see the postal service go away completely. Maybe reducing the amount of wasted paper produced in every receipt won’t fix a bloated, broken, deeply in debt system. But it’s a start.

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Play Like A Donkey And Your Ass Goes Home

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It’s been a rough week on the poker table for me. First, I got crushed in my own home game, including getting doubled through by this guy on the second hand of play AK vs JJ. It’s perhaps what I deserve for trying to sit a table with a guy who’s had more than $720,000 in just tournament cashes since last summer.

Despite the loss in my own home Wednesday night, I decided to spend Thursday night at Aria grinding in the $1-$3 NL game and make back the money I had lost the night before and try to win some more to play in the Friday night tournaments.

My bad play made sure that wasn’t going to happen.

Poker is a game of information. With that information a player can make the right decisions at the right time to maximize wins and minimize losses. Even a momentary loss of focus can lead to failure. Here’s how.

I was down about half a buyin from early in the game. By the time this hand came up I had folded 20-25 hands in a row as my cards were not worth playing.

In between hands I was changing a song on my iPhone to something else when I didn’t notice that under the gun (UTG) +1 had raised the $3 big blind to $15. I also didn’t notice UTG+2 call the raise. I am not sure how I missed both of these actions, but I just didn’t see them.

A mid-position player called the $15 and the player to my right folded. That’s when I looked down at Q-Q. Since I had missed the first raise and the flat call while fiddling with the music on my iPhone, I believed there was only $19 in the pot (the $15 flat from the player to my right and the two blinds). With that incorrect knowledge I raised to $35, a raise of not even 3x the previous bet.

If I was heads up with one other player, he would have to lay $20 to win a $54 pot. But there was $30 in the pot I didn’t even know about. I had just bet $35 to make the current pot $84. All three players with $15 in the pot would surely have to call with those odds.

Unfortunately for me, it gets worse.

The last player to call $15 before I raised said something to me, only I didn’t hear him due having my headphones on. I pulled off one earpiece and told him I hadn’t heard what he said. He told me an oft-heard phrase at the poker table, “I wish you had told me you were going to raise before I called.” We both laughed and I put my headphones back on.

As the action moves back around the table both blinds fold. The original raiser goes all in for $175. Again, I miss this action completely. And that is really hard to do at Aria, because it is one of those poker rooms that tosses out an ALL IN placard when a player goes all in.

I look up to see the 10 seat, who was the second caller, ponder a call. He’s Hollywooding it a little bit but then he also elects to go all in for around $300. That is more than I have left.

The joking tourist to my right folds. I was still thinking I was heads up with just the 10 seat for all my chips despite the fact that there are now two ALL IN placards sitting on the other end of the table when I decide to go all in.

This is a terrible play for the following reasons:

A. These two players were the first raiser and a flat caller of a 5x preflop raise.

B. Both of these players are all in, and they both have me covered.

C. Neither player apparently thinks much of my tight image or the fact I have folded every hand for the previous 20 minutes.

D. Q-Q cannot possibly be the best hand here preflop.

E. I’m only into this hand for a total of $35. If I fold I still have plenty of chips left to play in this game.

None of those thoughts even crosses my mind as I push my stack in the middle.

There was no more betting since all three of us were all in. The board ran out K-10-2-Q-J rainbow.

Player A had K-K for a flopped set. Player B had A-A for a rivered nut straight. Player C (me) was in third place before the flop, third place after the flop, second place on the turn (when I hit my Q) and third place again on the river.

I had disobeyed a basic principle of poker: I didn’t even bother gathering all the information I needed to play this hand.

A great player — even an above-average player — would have flat called the preflop bets with QQ and/or folded to the two all-in raises preflop.

Because I didn’t gather the correct information to play the hand, all I was left with was a long walk to my car and a simmering drive home from the Strip to my house in Henderson.

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How A Guy Is Supposed To Spend A Weekend

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I live in Las Vegas. More accurately I live in the Las Vegas suburbs, but since there is only two of them (Henderson and North Las Vegas), I just say I live in Las Vegas. Plus Las Vegas is tiny town. Bellagio isn’t in Las Vegas. Neither is Mandalay Bay. Nor is Caesars Palace. They all say they are in Las Vegas, but they aren’t. They are in unincorporated Winchester, NV and unincorporated Paradise, NV. If they can claim Las Vegas, so can I.

Vegas is supposed to be all play and no work. I do work pretty hard. But I like to play. And since I have successfully avoided getting married or having kids, I can play hard when I have a weekend. Like this weekend.

First Hole

The first hole at the Boulder Creek Golf Course.

Thursday (which is my Saturday) started off with a golf outing at Boulder Creek Golf Course.

Golfing. At 9AM. In January.

Me and three buddies — Jameson, Chris and James L. hit the links with some friendly per hole wagers that increased on the par 3s.

Did you see the view in the photo. That’s the first hole of one of the three nine-hold courses. Nothing but blue sky and mountains as far as they eye can see. I’ve golfed in worse places.

After a long round — the four of us all carry bogey handicaps — we retired to the clubhouse for a late lunch, to finish off the beers from the round and settle up money-wise. I lost $9 to Chris, but won a combined $9 from Jameson and James L. so the wagering came out just fine for my tastes.

After the short drive back to my house it was time for a nice 90-minute nap.

After the nap it was time for a shower and get ready to head to the Strip. Gambling adventures with my friend Ben at Mirage. The poker room is hosting a $50,000 freeroll next month and we are trying to qualify.

A pretty successful ‘Saturday’.

Sunday (a.k.a. Friday) meant giving my weekly tour at the Neon Museum. The tours were packed this Friday with close to 25 people on each tour. I had a good mix of Midwesterners, a few locals and the usual contingent from southern California. It was also the first time I have had a tour that included a bride-to-me and bridesmaids, already decked out in full regalia.

After the tour I had time to stop by Sushi Twister for a to go order on my way back home. The weather is perfect for enjoying my patio table and chairs and having lunch outside.

After plowing through my domestic duties and another brief nap it was time to head back to the Strip. This time Ben and I had a gambling adventure from Hard Rock Hotel to Aria to Mirage. He won, I didn’t. It didn’t matter.

It was still another great weekend in Las Vegas!

 

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Hidden Vegas: Sushi Twister

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If you’re a tourist coming to Las Vegas, all you probably know is The Las Vegas Strip or downtown Las Vegas. I know. I was a tourist here for 10 years before I moved here.

I would go to the same restaurants, the same bars, the same casinos, the same poker rooms over and over again. I would go to places I could walk to since I would rarely rent a car when I was in town and cabs are expensive and time-consuming. If you’ve ever tried to catch a cab outside Caesars on a Saturday night you know exactly what I mean.

True cab story: on one of my last visits to Las Vegas before moving here I really wanted some good barbecue. I had lived in Kansas City for 17 years, a city that is a barbecue Mecca. (What a terrible analogy…roasted cow/pig meat and the holiest city in the religion of Islam, a religion that doesn’t allow the consumption of pork!). I once took a $50 round trip cab ride from Bellagio to Memphis Championship Barbecue for a $11 meal. But I’ll save that story for another time.

Sushi Twister at Boulder Highway and Tropicana.

Back to Sushi Twister. I’m from a rural town in Northeast Iowa. Sushi doesn’t exist in rural towns in Northeast Iowa. I didn’t experience sushi the first time until I was in my 30s. I may not be an expert on the subject.

However, I have consumed a lot of sushi since then. Great local sushi like Jun’s in Kansas City. I’ve had tourist sushi at Kona Grill on the Country Club Plaza. I’ve sampled great sushi all over Las Vegas, from downtown to the West side to central Strip to Henderson and all stops in between.

I place none of them above Sushi Twister on Boulder Highway.

The service is incredibly good. The staff is always quick to get you seated, quick to take an order and quick to get you served. This is a staff that is passionate about what they are doing, not a bunch of people punching a time clock.

The $21 lunch buffet is one of the best-priced in town, and at dinner the price does not go up significantly.

A few of my faves include Salmon Loves Lemon (or as my friends call it — Chad Loves Salmon Loves Lemon!), the Oh My God roll, the Spiderman (a spider roll with a twist! Get it? Sushi Twister!). The mussels are very good, addicting!

People will pack into Yama Sushi on Flamingo and wait more than an hour to get a table because it is so much closer to the Strip. Yama is good, but no better than Sushi Twister with no wait and better prices.

The only downside for you as a tourist is it will be a long cab ride from the Strip to the corner of Tropicana and Boulder Highway. But it’s worth the price!

Don’t believe me? Yelp it!

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You Are Playing Too Many Hands

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A few months ago I had the opportunity to meet one of the top poker players in the world. He’s a former World Series of Poker Player of the Year and full-time professional poker player.

In my discussion with him I told him I was running badly at the poker table. I asked him if he gave poker lessons. He did. Before I could ask him when, where and how much he gave me a free piece of advice I will never forget.

“You’re playing too many hands,” he said.

Now this player had never seen me play a hand. We were talking at a party, not in a poker room.

With that thought in my head – you’re playing too many hands – take this advice to play better poker immediately.

Are you playing A6, A7, A8 or A9 from any position on the table besides the small and big blind? You’re playing too many hands. Suited or unsuited those four hands are bad hands. They are called one-card poker hands. If you hit the ace on the flop, you are playing one-card poker and are likely outkicked by a better ace.

Are you playing connectors below 10, like 9-8, 8-7, 7-6, 6-5? You’re playing too many hands. When you play 6-5 suited, you’re playing 6 HIGH! That means two of the three cards on the flop and probably all three are going to be higher than your 6. I’ve heard the excuse – ‘what if I flop three sixes?’ First, it’s unlikely that you will flop trips. Even if you do it’s likely you are beaten by a six with a better kicker or a full house.

Are you playing K-10, Q-10, A-10, K-9? You’re playing too many hands. I love it when a player has K-10 and I have A-K. When the king flops the player pays me off to the river with an inferior king and I win a nice pot.

If you are playing low buy in poker (2-4/3-6/4-8 limit and $.50/$1 NL) such is spread throughout The Shopper coverage area you are probably playing too many hands. Limit your starting hands to only 6-6, 7-7, 8-8, 9-9, 10-10, J-J, Q-Q, K-K, A-A, A-K and A-Q. Throw away every other hand except the big blind when getting to play for free. You can mix in those danger hands when you are winning.


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Freerolls Are Rarely Free

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All the talk amongst the Las Vegas poker grinder scene the past few weeks has been freeroll tournaments at the various properties around town.

A freeroll tournament is offered by a casino to reward player loyalty. By playing a certain number of hours each week, month or quarter, a player is placed entry fee free into a tournament for prize money.

The concept, while quite simple overall, is actually quite complicated for the players involved.

Station Casino’s will host its $300,000 Poker Plus Tournament in January. To qualify, a player must log 50 hours of live play from November 1-December 31, 2011. Of the rumored 3,000 players who have qualified, each will start with 1,400 chips.

Each player is guaranteed $75 no matter their finish. By reaching day 2, a player is guaranteed $200. The prizes escalate the further a player advances in the tournament, with a top prize of $40,000.

The question that most players in this field cannot answer is, “How much did I spend to achieve 50 hours of live play?” Since most recreational players don’t track their wins/losses they have no idea how much this freeroll cost them. For a player who is a retiree/2-4 limit grinder this tournament can be expensive. A typical 2-4 limit game will average around 26 hands per hour. That means a player will have played about 1,300 hands of 2-4 limit to qualify for the freeroll. Have you ever played 2-4 for a long period of time? The only winner in a long 2-4 game is the casino. There is rarely more than $800 on the table. Once a player is down even as little as $60 it’s hard to make your money back. With approximately $4 coming out of every pot to cover the house rake and the promotions rake (including the freeroll), roughly $104 is coming off the table every single hour. There is almost no way for even the best 2-4 limit players in Vegas to turn a profit in the game over 50 hours. The low stakes of the game by a recreational player almost demands playing well over 40 percent of the hands dealt.

I run a poker room that spreads 2-4 seven nights per week. The average “regular” spends about $200 per week playing 2-4. There are some winning sessions and some high hands, but you can safely say a 2-4 player is going to buy in for between $150-$300 per week playing 2-4 limit on a regular basis. Even if you generously say the player is getting 15 hours of play in for this cash investment the player is probably in the “freeroll” for a “buy-in” of around $1,000.

To recoup this $1,000 in the $300,000 Poker Plus Tournament a player would have to finish top 20…out of 3,000 players! That’s right, you have less than 1% of a chance of breaking even if you’ve spent $1,000 over 50 hours to get in this freeroll.

In addition to the 50 hours played, how much more money did the average player tip the waitress for a drink or a bottle of water? Play a slot machine and lose before, during or after the poker session? Spend in gas to and from the casino? All these questions translate into real dollars that has to be tracked to figure out if a freeroll is actually free.

Now this concept doesn’t apply to all players. Some of the freeroll players will be 1-2 and 2-5 no limit players. In a no limit game you play many less hands per hour and many less hands overall. If you can have just one big night such as a $2,000 winning session you should be able to cover the buy-ins for 50 hours of play.

I will simplify this freeroll concept for you.

Club Fortune Casino, where I serve as Poker Room Supervisor, has a $500 weekly freeroll for up to 30 players who log 10 hours of live play during the week. This freeroll attracts an average of 12-18 players, though its been as high as 26 and as low as four players during Christmas week.

Club Fortune spreads mainly 2-4 limit hold’em and $.50/$1 no limit hold’em. Again I will err to the generous side and say the average qualifying freeroll player spends $150 in buy-ins for a ten-hour week. Although some players have spent at much as $700 to qualify (during a nasty NL session), some players do manage to stay close to even for the week or even turn a small profit. The strictly 2-4 limit players rarely turn a profit for the week, unless they hit a high hand or win one of the other weekly tournaments.

So in an average week, 12 players qualify for the freeroll having spent on average $1,800 combined to qualify for the event. The total prize pool is $500. And, the tournament is almost always chopped five-handed or four-handed, giving players a pay out of either $100 (five-handed) or $125 (four-handed)

Exactly how much did this “free” tournament cost?

The only solution to the solving the complexity of the freeroll is by tracking every single dollar spent at the casino during play. Every buy in, every cash out, every tip to the dealers, every tip to the cocktail servers, every dollar put into a slot machine. If you spent $150 playing poker on the week, tipped off $40 to the dealers and wait staff, put $100 in a slot machine and won an $1,800 jackpot you have a profit of $1,510.  You are definitely freerolling the freeroll. The only way to know this is to track it all, since we tend to remember exactly every big jackpot we have ever won, and tend to forget about the $20 here, $40 there we lose in the casino.

I am currently trying to qualify for Mirage’s $250,000 Freeroll Championship Series. To qualify, a player must play at least 25 hours between November 1, 2011-January 31, 2012. This gets the player a spot in the $50,000 Quarterly Tournament. There are also bonuses for playing 50 hours, 75 hours and 100 hours.

I have played three sessions of $3-6 limit hold’em so far. My results are +$31, (-$33) and +128. In 11.3 hours played, I have profited $126 and am more than 1/3 of the way toward qualifying for the freeroll. By using the Poker Journal App on my iPhone, I know this exactly:

Total Buy Ins: $420

Total Cashed Out: $546

Total Hours 11.3

Total Dealer/Wait Staff Tokes: $57

I have not figured in gas/food yet but as long as I am positive on poker profits I can play this freeroll figuratively free. That is, if I am still profitable another 13.7 hours from now.

 

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Hidden Vegas: The Neon Museum

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If you have followed by Facebook or Twitter for any length of time you probably know I am always prattling on about the Neon Museum. It is simply one of the coolest places in Las Vegas. Every Friday at Noon I serve as a volunteer tour guide at the museum. And, every Friday I love it!

The Neon Museum Boneyard Park stores more than 170 signs from Vegas days gone by. The hour-long walking tour takes people from old downtown Las Vegas, thru U.S. Highway 91 — now called the Las Vegas Strip — and into the newer properties of Las Vegas.

The tour is nothing but “Wow!” You get to see up close and personal the large neon signs that reshaped Las Vegas: the Golden Nugget, the Moulin Rouge, the La Concha, Stardust, Showboat, Desert Inn and more.

Every tour comes with a history lesson — from the mob ties to the properties on the Strip to Howard Hughes purchase of the Desert Inn to the intricate neon tube bending of the Yucca Motel to the great changes people like Binny Binion made in how Las Vegas does business.

I don’t want to give away too much of the tour in his blog, because you really need to go on the tour to truly appreciate it.

I will show you a couple of my favorite signs.

One of my favorite signs: The Green Shack restaurant circa 1932. The downtown restaurant -- closed in 1999 -- was famous for its fried chicken.

The Green Shack restaurant is the oldest sign in Boneyard Park. This sign dates back to the 1930s. A woman named Mattie Jones came to Las Vegas from Colorado and opened a restaurant called “Colorado” on Christmas Eve 1929. When the restaurant expanded in 1932 it was renamed “The Green Shack.”

This restaurant was located downtown where Boulder Highway meets Fremont Street and was famous for its fried chicken.

Can you imagine how many Hoover Dam workers came downtown in the early 1930s, got a great meal at The Green Shack, then stayed for all the fun an frivolity of Vegas’ famous Block 16 of gambling and prostitution?

The Green Shack was on the National Registry of Historic Places from 1994 to 1999, when it was finally closed and demolished.

My other favorite sign is The Moulin Rouge. Opened in May 1955 in Las Vegas.

My other favorite sign is that of the Moulin Rouge, a truly giant sign inside the park.

The Moulin Rouge was only open from May-November 1955, but it has a huge historical significance on the history of Las Vegas.

When it opened it was the first integrated hotel in the United States. Performers like Pearl Bailey, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr. and Louis Armstrong all performed there.

Unfortunately the combination of skimming and threats from the white casino owners led to a quick demise of the Moulin Rouge. However, five years after it closed, the Moulin Rouge hosted a meeting between the governor of Nevada, local city leaders and leaders of the NAACP. The meeting was to head off a planned march by the city’s African American residents down Las Vegas Boulevard. From the meeting, all Las Vegas hotels and casinos became integrated.

This is how the Moulin Rouge looked back in the day. The sign is now in the Boneyard.

Here is how the sign would have looked on the Moulin Rouge building when the building still existed.

The Moulin Rouge Corporation still owns the sign in Boneyard Park. However, most of the buildings at 900 Bonanza Road have been destroyed during a series of fires, including at least one arson.

The Neon Museum is a great secret to tourists and local alike. If you want to go on a tour, please plan ahead. Tours are usually sold out 2-3 weeks in advance.

Of all the gambles you will take when you come to Las Vegas, the $15 spent on a tour of Boneyard Park is a sure thing!

Don’t believe me? Check out Yelp!

 

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No New Year’s Resolutions

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The headline is a little misleading because I am vowing to contribute to my blog/website more often in 2012. But I don’t consider that a New Year’s resolution as much as I consider simply paying more attention to the people, places and things that are important to me.

I am coming up on my two-year anniversary in Las Vegas — January 7, 2010, was the day I packed a 24-foot truck and departed cold and snowy Kansas City for sunny and warm Las Vegas.

In just two short years my life has changed immeasurably. Some of the people that came into my life when I first arrived in Sin City are only casual acquaintances now. Others are not even a speck in my rearview mirror.

In the meantime I have met a number of good friends, purchased a house, been promoted a few times and am looking hopefully toward 2012.

A few things I have learned along the way…

…Don’t give up on your dreams. No matter how frustrated you feel about not achieving all that you want don’t give up. Don’t let others dissuade you. If you are surrounding yourself with people who think your dreams are dumb or not attainable, you need to rid yourself of those people.

…Begin anywhere. This comes via my friend Lori in Kansas City. It’s so easy to get caught up in things that have happened to you in the past. Those bad experiences can eat at you and make you doubt yourself. Leave the past in the past and move forward. Learn your lesson and keep your foot on the accelerator.

…It’s better to burn out than fade away. I know it’s cliche…and a cheesy song lyric, but I believe it. If you are going to fail, fail spectacularly. Go out with a bang! Right before I moved to Las Vegas I lost $50,000 on a business endeavor in just six months. Trying to start a small business as the economy was failing and aligning myself with people that didn’t share the same amount of passion or investment that I had was a terrible idea. I failed spectacularly! But I would rather have tried and failed than live my whole life with the regret of never trying.

…Pack lightly. When I moved to Las Vegas I packed all my essentials in a 24-foot truck and drove across the plains of Kansas, the Rocky Mountains and south central Utah to my new apartment in Las Vegas. Then I had to fly home, get my car and my beloved dog, Pirate, and drive out again. After I finally bought a house 20 months later, I had to have another truck bring out my non-essentials from a storage unit in Kansas City.

I have learned an agonizing lesson in for being one guy with one dog (no spouse, no kids), I have way too much crap that I am hauling around: outsized and outdated clothes, old board games I will never play again, dozens of books, knick knacks, DVDs, electrical cords, artwork, sports equipment, etc. Get this excess stuff out of your life. No hoarding! Stop hanging on those two racquetball racquets because you used to play 10 years ago! When was the last time you actually hung up that piece of art you bought from somebody else’s garage sale? Are you really going to use your old dishes again someday?

Have a garage sale and dump this crap on somebody else (and put a few bucks in your own pocket). Give to Goodwill or a homeless shelter. Advertise it on craigslist. Or just put it out at the curb with a big sign that says FREE! I have been in my house since May and I am still working on getting excess stuff out of my life…especially baseball cards and electric football teams!

Happy New Year 2012 to all of you!

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Five Dollars A Day

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I was flying back from vacation to my home in Las Vegas when I started flipping through the SkyMall catalog. It’s the catalog on every Southwest Airlines jet that offers you everything you could ever need but didn’t know you wanted. While barely glancing at the hammock for my dog, the fake boulder you can place over the unsightly telephone box in your yard and the crossword puzzle the size of my first apartment and I saw something that caught my eye. It was the $5 A Day Automated Bank.

This is the description that comes with the item:

Put away $5 a day, five days a week, and at the end of the year you’ll have $1,300. Could it really be that simple? Yes — with this handsome laser-carved wood bank. An automated mechanism pulls in your deposited bill and holds it safely inside, while text on the exterior keeps you motivated to stash that cash. Great for a Christmas fund, vacation goal or just a rainy-day buffer. Requires 2 AA batteries; not included.

As a lower-limit grinder and poker pro wannabe I am always thinking about bankroll. Thirteen hundred dollars could go a long ways in the 2012 World Series of Poker — the $500 Casino Employees Event and some satellites for sure.

And it’s $1,300 a day if you only put away $5 a day, five days per week. What if you participated seven days per week? Saving $5 per day for 365 days, you would accumulate $1,825 in one year! That’s not chump change.

Now you don’t need this $49.95 box to make that happen. I have a small box that looks like a miniature treasure chest tucked away in my house. It’s where I throw all my loose change every day. In addition, I drop in $5 in cash every day. Sometimes it’s in ones. Sometimes I drop in a twenty-dollar bill and make change. If I feel like I have a little extra cash on me, I throw the whole $20 in.

It’s not about how much you’re putting away. It’s the fact that you are training yourself to make the effort to save a little for whatever you want. For me, it’s poker. That’s my dream.

Put away $5 per day for your dream.

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Station Casinos, Wynn Choose Sides For Online Poker

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By Chad Harberts
Wasted Aces Poker

Though legalized online gaming in not approved federally or in Nevada, it hasn’t stopped some of Las Vegas’ biggest players to start lining up partners.

Exactly one week after uber casino owner Steve Wynn announced he was teaming up with PokerStars, Station Casinos honchos Fertitta Interactive jumped in bed with Full Tilt. Wynn is Las Vegas’ dreamweaver, from his early work with the Frontier and Golden Nugget downtown to Mirage/Treasure Island/Bellagio triumvirate he sold to build Wynn and Encore. The Fertitta brothers own the Station Properties set, including Green Valley Ranch and Red Rock, in addition to majority-owning the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)

This means nothing to the estimated 100 million online poker players — including an estimated 50 million in the U.S. — right now, but it could be huge for online and brick-and-mortar poker going forward.

Federally approving and taxing online poker is not something poker players are against. In fact, the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) would settle for just approving it in Nevada if it could lead to bigger things. Approval should lead to an increase in jobs and revenues both federally and in Nevada. In addition, online qualifying tournaments could significantly increase the participation of live poker tournaments throughout Las Vegas. If the legislation went one step further and allowed players to register for live tournaments online, brick-and-mortar play could really take off.

Legalized and taxed online poker is inevitable. In a country that allows people to wager on horse and dog races across state lines, forbidding legalized online poker is hypocritical at best and ludicrous at worst.

 

Chad Harberts is the co-founder of Wasted Aces Poker. You can follow him on twitter @chadharberts or @wastedacespoker. He can be reached via email at chad.harberts@gmail.com

 

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