Recently, though, I took a trip to Atlanta, Georgia for Thanksgiving, and played in an unusual 50-100 hold'em game that convinced me I'd been buying in to a little too much professional player arrogance, because most—not all, but most—of these so-called amateurs had plenty of skill. There were a couple who would get eaten up in the higher stakes games that the pros frequent, but I wouldn't have minded taking a piece of the action of a number of the "amateurs."

ANDY THROWS A PARTY…UNFORTUNATELY, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN CHEAPER JUST TO BUY THE FOOD AND DRINKS!

Perhaps my results had something to do with my revised attitude, because (thanks in part to two unfortunate river cards on the two biggest pots of the night) I wound up being one of the fellows "throwing the party" as we say, but I saw a lot of advanced players being made by players I used to have few problems with back when I lived in Atlanta, was a much weaker player myself, and we were playing 10-20 or 20-40.

So what happened during the seven years while I was off in California playing with the hot shots you read about in every issue of Card Player magazine? I have a few theories.

First, as we all learned back when we read Alice in Wonderland, sometimes we have to run as fast as possible just to stay in the same place. Put into poker terms, Lewis Carroll's line means that if you don't keep improving, you find yourself falling behind those who do. The weakest of my old "Atlanta gang" had dropped out of the game (especially as the stakes had increased), and those who remained had improved. Also, I didn't play 50-100 back in those days, and so I hadn't been exposed to some of the players who didn't bother with the lower stakes games.

Second, it is far easier for a player who doesn't live in a poker hotbed to learn sophisticated play these days than it used to be. The quality of poker literature has increased by an order of magnitude, and the web offers quite a few resources like discussion forums and information sites. If you want to make an effort to improve in a manner other than the expensive "old fashioned way" (playing against superior players, losing, and gradually figuring out why), it's far, far easier than it used to be.

NO MORE "PASS THE TRASH"

Third, the games these players are now playing—at least in Atlanta—are the same games found in casinos. This game featured hold'em, stud eight-or-better, Omaha, and Omaha eight-or-better in rotation. Seven years ago, we were playing such bizarre home game variants that my poker experience wasn't of much use to me when I started venturing into California cardrooms, and the literature that was available about those cardroom games wasn't much use in the bizarre home game variants.

The bottom line is that if you play home game poker and entertain visions of competing against the big boys and girls in Vegas, you can indeed prepare yourself if you're willing to take advantage of the information that's now available to you, and if you adjust your home games so that you are gaining experience in the same games you'll be trying to play against the pros.

Why did I decide to call this column "A Poker Rarity: Good News for Everyone"? Because the home game players can probably venture into Vegas without the intimidation factor that so often dooms many of them before they ever play a hand, while the pros who are sitting there, waiting for the "tourists", will probably thank me for encouraging more tourists to come into their high stakes games.

The pros probably won't thank me TOO much, though, because I don't want to encourage everyone to venture into these dens of iniquity. The truly raw amateur, or the veteran of non-standard games, will get eaten up alive, and I don't want any part of encouraging people who aren't ready to jump into those games.

If you're not sure where you belong in the Las Vegas pecking order, start out in lower stakes games and see if you can win there. If you can't win playing 15-30, you shouldn't expect better results at 50-100 or higher. Rich, clueless tourists who would be bored playing 15-30 do show up occasionally, but generally, the players' skills do improve as the limits rise.

On the other hand, if you are serious about learning, take advantage of the resources available to you, and play the same kinds of games at home that you'll be playing in Vegas, you can indeed have a chance. If you don't take all three of those approaches though, you'll probably be better off trying your luck at the craps tables, because the Vegas pros DO take that kind of serious attitude about their games, and you'll be fighting a seriously uphill battle.