by Ashley Adams
 
Read Part 1 and Part 2
 
On Wednesday, my friend Andrei and I left the magnificent 65 table Winstar Casino poker room in southern Oklahoma ready to head back toward Kansas City, but wanting to play some more poker before our Friday morning flight. By Wednesday afternoon we had arrived at the major poker room in the Oklahoma City area—the beautiful, 24 table, Riverwind Casino (1544 W State Highway 9, 405.322.6000) just south of Oklahoma City in Norman.

by Ashley Adams
 
In my first part of this three part series I covered the journey with my friend Andrei to poker rooms in eastern Kansas. I continue my account in this second part with our Oklahoma poker adventures.

 Oklahoma is full of poker rooms—including some of the largest and best in the United States.

by Ashley Adams

I have my biases against the Plains States of Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. I’ve been conditioned with movies like The Wizard of Oz to think of this part of the United States as flat, gray, and … well, boring. Even so, the large number of poker rooms begged for a visit. So my friend Andrei and I set out for six days of exploration.

I’m happy to report that in just about all respects my biases were ill-founded and flat out wrong. Eastern Kansas, western Missouri, and northeastern Oklahoma are filled with rolling hills and scenic beauty. And the poker is at least as exciting in these states as anywhere else I’ve played. There is variety, action, and a lot of money to be won. I’ll spend the next three articles writing about my experiences.

by Ashley Adams

Part I of this article covered my trip to the Colorado town of Black Hawk and its five poker rooms. [Read Poker in Colorado, PART 1 OF 2 now] My trip continues with the adventure in Central City and Cripple Creek, Colorado.

 Central City is only about two miles northwest of Black Hawk. It was also a mining town back in the 19th century. But unlike Black Hawk, which now has little in it but large casinos, Central City has preserved much of its mining town character. The casinos are smaller— and they are interspersed with other small store fronts.

by Ashley Adams
 
When you think of great poker destinations in the United States you probably don’t think of Colorado. But you should. I’ve just gotten back from a trip there. It was filled with poker. Let me share with you what I experienced.

By Ashley Adams
 

by Ashley Adams
 
I had a wonderful poker playing odyssey, combining a visit to my poker-playing brother in Minnesota, with some stops in poker rooms to and fro. I was pleased to learn that poker is thriving in our nation’s midsection. In my last column I expounded on my delicious trip to Pittsburgh where I played at the relatively new rooms in the Pittsburgh area, the Meadows and the Rivers. In this article I’ll give you a taste of four other rooms I played in during the rest of my trip: Running Aces in Columbus, Minnesota; The Horseshoe in Hammond, Indiana, The Four Winds Casino, right over the Michigan border in New Buffalo, and Firekeepers Casino, 100 miles east in Battle Creek, Michigan.

I recently went on a poker road trip that took me through Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. I was pleased to visit two excellent poker rooms in the Greater Pittsburgh area: The Meadows, about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh in Washington, Pennsylvania, and The Rivers, located right in downtown Pittsburgh.
 
These rooms each have a lot going for them. They are in full service casinos with all the amenities, including excellent restaurants and other gaming opportunities. The Meadows even has a race track. Moreover, they are relatively new rooms with a high percentage of relatively unskilled players who have not yet lost their money or gotten discouraged and quit. This makes for good games!
 

The first part of this article explored four reasons why thoughtful, serious players may be losing. Here are five more reasons.
 
Reason No. 5: Your opponents may be much better than you think. Just because other players looks like they’re laughing it up and not playing skillfully, doesn’t mean they are bad players. Some of the best players deliberately adopt a happy go lucky attitude in an attempt to loosen up the game. Serious players tend not to get as much action as happy and easygoing players. Some players mix up their sound game with some deliberately bad moves just for the advertising it gets them. You might mistakenly identify someone as a wild and crazy player when he is really crazy like a fox.
 

“Why am I losing?” This may be the most frequent question asked by good, thoughtful, and skilled players. They’ve read the books and articles about poker strategy and keep meticulous written records. Despite that, they find themselves losing to players who seemingly aren’t nearly as smart, attentive, or skilled.

The thoughtful player is used to mastering whatever challenge he takes up. When he was a student, if he studied, attended class, and applied himself, he got at least a “B,” and often an “A.” When he worked at something he was generally successful. But here in pokerland, though he has applied the same approach, he finds that he’s failing more often than not—while others, so it seems, are succeeding.

I see nine possible reasons why the good player may be losing while the poor player appears to be winning. Let’s look at each in turn. This will take me a couple of articles—so please be patient. I think it will be worth it.