[wiper]

evagaba...i'm glad to see i'm not the only one to notice literally every one of your points.

saturday was literally my first time playing live in a casino...70,000ish hands online (nothing), and 4.5 years' worth of homegames and local tournies...

i played for 4 hours (got bored and went to donk off on keno) and ended up down $50...within an hour and a half, i was down $250, but won 2-3 medium pots and then stacked someone with AA vs. AK on an KT2 board...

so yeah, lost money.

however..

the only thing i could talk about on the way home was how short-term my results were. there were literally 4 people that sat at my table at at one time or another over 4 hours that lost an entire $150 buyin in 30 minutes then left..my only problem was that i never had a hand..

card-dead for probably 2 hours...

the level of play shocked me. i always considered my regular homegame to be sub-par...8/10 of those regular players would be winners long-term at mountaineer.

there was a slight hesitation on my part, partly based on nerves and the whole 'scene', to play anything but snug, abc poker over my time there..the stakes were higher than i've ever played, and it just took some getting used to raising to $12 pf and getting 4 callers...$60 pot, which is about an entire buyin for me online or at a homegame...

anyway, off topic.

i definitely will be back regularly. i took my last cashout of $500 in $100 chips, to make sure i go back soon. the level of play was below what i'm used to even at $25 online, but it took me a minute to get used to the stakes. to a casino newbie, every new player looks like a shark in his own way, but it only takes one round to realize otherwise.

i will stay properly rolled to play 1-2nl there (and all it's beautiful variance) for the short-term, and probably look to move to 2-5nl eventually, after railbirding a couple 2-5 games...

tl;dr