Hmmm … I wonder if I’m a lark or an owl …

I’ve joked since even before this show began that guys like Andrew ran with a bunch of thugs — grinder thugs I like to call them, for the way they go after tourist money in Vegas — and sure enough, a 5/10 Vegas reg we know just got out of jail. Find out how a presumably responsible family man poker coach pro like John Kim could end up in in the clink — sharing a cell no less with a former friend/sketchy acquaintance of Chris Moneymaker.

And speaking of jailbirds, or just birds I suppose … are you a lark or an owl? New(ish) scientific evidence suggests the nocturnal nature of many poker players, Andrew included, is genetically coded and comes with distinct evolutionary advantages.

Meanwhile Dave tries his hand at $2/$5 NL for a score … but not before sitting next to Michael Phelps in a drinky 1/3 game at the Palms, where the supposedly cool Olympic megachamp kinda sorta turns out to be a Tobey Maguire-like dick when it comes to unlicensed photography.

All that and how you may or may not want to play KQ-suited when sizing up future action on subsequent streets!

Vegas Grinders 1.8

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Our little low-stakes show continues to take shape. In this episode Andrew talks about making the shift to daytime play, Dave looks for Presidents Day booziness at his tables, and I learn too much about Planet Hollywood after not taking a proper piss break during the iGaming North America conference going on upstairs.

Also this week: Our favorite Vegas grinder poker apps, with a special look at the new addition of MGM Resorts to Bravo Poker Live; a preview of the upcoming Wynn Classic and its opening $250k guarantee; a $10k early morning freeroll at the Palms; and various jackpot promos and bonus offers that may or may not be floating your boat any particular casino’s way.

All this (more or less) for only some 30ish minutes of your time!

Vegas Grinders 1.2

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All Caesars poker rooms across Nevada launched the Mega Beat Progressive Poker Jackpot earlier this month. It started with $200k to be paid out if some luckbox got his quad aces cracked. For every $100k more dumped into the drop, the qualifying hand also drops. So at $300k, all you need to lose with is with quad kings, at $400k quad queens …

I tried to hit it last week — flopped quad bullets at Planet Hollywood with two fish betting into me — but couldn’t lose to win.

After I relayed the story to a math-minded pro friend who told me that, because of the board, there was no possible hand that could have beat me and I should have raised at some point prior to the river.

Meanwhile, Yahoo Answers told me the odds of losing with a hand as weak as quad eights (see: $800k on the Mega Beat scale) are “not good.”

But for this new Caesars Megabeat Jackpot, it doesn’t have to be you: 20 percent of the jackpot goes to the player with the losing hand, and 10 percent to the player with the winning hand; But 70 percent is distributed to players at all Caesars properties in the state. Because of this promo, they’re not offering high hand bonuses. Which means I was a few days late for being good enough to actually win with quads. Is that a bad beat?

Goodbye Rakeback
For most of last year, poker players in Las Vegas could find at least one place to earn something of an hourly wage on top of the chips they collected at the table. But that trend has all but vanished in 2013. Poker rooms have essentially stopped encouraging grinders to fold all day long.

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