Tournaments in the Southern CA area? |
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Posted Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:47 pm GMT by AHBrownell
I'm looking to play some live tournaments.
I tried playing live at Commerce Casino, but it seems like low limit NL HE is much more difficult to make money at because the casino rakes $3 every hand, you have to tip the dealer when you win, and the blinds vs buyin ratio is so small its difficult to not get allin with any sort of powerful hand. Very frustrating to have AK and realize that your only move is allin preflop because you are down to half you stack and a typical 3x BB preflop raise lets 6 players see the flop... But I digress...
I think tournaments may be a great situation to get some experience in live poker without much risk. I'm looking for buyins of around $100 or less in the Orange County / Los Angeles area in California. Any suggestions would be great!
Thx guys. 
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Posted Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:53 pm GMT by mackkie
| AHBrownell wrote: | | the blinds vs buyin ratio is so small its difficult to not get allin with any sort of powerful hand. |
What are the blinds v. buyin ratio? I play $1/2NL at foxwoods and the max buyin is $100 and its fine to me and seems to be pretty standard. unless you are playing limit, there is no rake there, just have to pay $5 per 1/2 hour of play. I guess i just thought that was pretty standard for a casino.
Posted Thu Apr 06, 2006 1:40 am GMT by AHBrownell
At commerce its $3/$2 Blinds with a $100 buyin. The standard raise is $15. This means that if you are at say 2/3 a buyin -> $65. You raise to $15 preflop with AK - you have $50 in your stack. You get 2 callers. The pot is $42 (3 gone for rake). You flop or don't flop an A or a K with two cards of the same suit on the board. You bet 2/3 the pot or $28. Your stack is now at $22. You can no longer protect your hand on the turn and if you are moved allin on the flop you pretty much have to call. 
I'm going to check out the Bicycle casino, so we will see...
Posted Thu Apr 06, 2006 1:12 pm GMT by groton
how about The Hustler or Hollywood Park
Normandie was also a decent room if I remeber.
Oceans Eleven in OceanSide is a bit of a drive buta great card room
Posted Thu Apr 06, 2006 1:36 pm GMT by Gunslinger
Hustler has daily NL tournaments, I think they are all $100-$300.
Hollywood Park has NL tournaments I believe 5 days a week, I think they are $25-$35 but they are all rebuys 
Doesn't Commerce have tourneys, it's the biggest out of those three.
I read about another place, Pacific Gardens, Hawaiian Gardens? Can't remember the exact name, I think it was somewhere near Long Beach.
All of these casinos have exact tourney info on their websites, real easy to find out.
Posted Thu Apr 06, 2006 1:49 pm GMT by Gunslinger
BTW, I know what you're saying about blinds/buy-in ratio. At Hustler, I wasn't going to play at the high stakes NL tables, the only other choice is $50 max buy-in with $1/$2 blinds. You make one decent raise with 2 callers, you can only protect your hand for one street.
Posted Thu Apr 06, 2006 3:31 pm GMT by AHBrownell
Thanks guys - I'm going to Bicycle tomorrow. I'll be sure to check out the ones you mentioned this weekend.
Posted Thu Apr 06, 2006 9:41 pm GMT by Phil14312
Just be prepared to buy-in for 100 dollars a couple of times, wait for a big hand, and move it in. When you get a bigger stack play some more hands.
Posted Fri Apr 07, 2006 1:42 am GMT by groton
Hawaiian Gardens
Posted Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:44 am GMT by AHBrownell
Okay, so I played a tourney over at the bicycle casino.
It was a $30 headhunter NLHE event.
Lame - it was a rebuy + addon with starting $200 and addons of $1000.
Basically an immediate addon was required.
I bought the rebuy - and got up to $2000 by the break.
Right after the break (where I purchased an addon) a table get broken up and a guy with $8000 chips comes to my table. :/
The blinds start racing up and the guy on my right (mr8000) makes nearly every pot 3-4x BB to go. I pick up AA and AK, reraise him and pick up both pots, but otherwise am pretty hand dead. Three blind levels race by - the blinds are now 100/200 with a 50 ante. My stack dwindled down to $2000.
I got moved to a new table. Two hands in, I pick up AQs in seat 5. I Raise to 600. Guy next to me raises me all-in. Another player calls, so I reluctantly muck my hand. Guy on my left shows KK and his opponent AK... Kings hold up. Good read and fold, but now I'm super-shortstacked.
The very next hand the hands fold around to me. I pick up ATos. I look down at my pathetic 1250 in chips and figure if I can pick up this pot I will be back up to 2100 and nearly be back in this (average stack was about 3000 or so). AQ in the BB calls me and thats it, I'm out.
I felt that the blinds became retarded. With the small blinds I was dominating. I had the chip lead at my table, a good image, and felt like I was playing good poker against weaker players. After 2 hours of play - the game changed into a crapshoot for everyone. Just plain stupid.
I'm going to look for better tournaments, but as it stands the only tournaments I like atm are the Poker Stars Deep stacks tournies online.
I'll continue to update this post as I find better tournies in this area.
Posted Thu Apr 13, 2006 3:56 am GMT by supafrey
Who would think that someone who's tagtagtag would only like if they have 10000000 chips to play with =)
Posted Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:38 am GMT by Johny
| supafrey wrote: | | Who would think that someone who's tagtagtag would only like if they have 10000000 chips to play with =) |
I prefer any deep stacked MTT over anything else, I like the skill factor.
I'm not saying I'm a good poker player in anyway, just saying that I like a lot of playing room instead of all-in fests.
Posted Tue May 09, 2006 6:40 pm GMT by Gunslinger
bump.
I'm going to try a cheap tourney at Hollywood Park, but it's a rebuy, and I've never played a rebuy before. I'm going to budget for two rebuys plus an add-on, if they offer one. Does this sound good? And how aggressive should I be during the rebuy period? Thanks in advance, I'll let everyone know how it went.
Posted Thu May 11, 2006 9:03 pm GMT by Gunslinger
Played the tourney at HPC today. It's $20 + $10, for 300 starting chips. During the rebuy period (including the start), you can get 500 chips for $10, or 1000 for $20. So before the first hand everyone puts up another $20 to start with 1300 chips. The first level, there are only 6 people at our table (late registration allowed), and it's not crazy, I win a couple small pots. At the second level, our table fills up, and it's all-in madness. The guy to my immediate left kept going all in with almost any two cards, even after he doubled up once, and rebuying. He rebought EIGHT times. Kept saying he would get the chips back after the rebuy period, we need more chips on our table. I kept waiting for a monster to trap him, but I was seriously card dead. They call last hand of the rebuys, and the maniac goes all-in blind. Two callers, he loses, and rebuys one last time. I did the add-on. FIRST hand after the rebuy was over, I'm on the button. Folds to me, and I look and see AKo. Blinds were 25-50 at this point, and I make it 200. Mr. Rebuy Maniac in the SB calls, BB folds. Flop is K44 rainbow. Maniac leads for 300, I smooth call. Turn is an 8 (no flush possible), he checks, I bet 600, he calls. River is an ace, and he immediately goes all-in hoping it scares me, but I call, and Mr. rebuy maniac goes home after dumping alot of money into the prize pool, and I have a nice stack.
Played pretty decently, increased my stack little by little, but after another hour and a half, the blinds started creeping up, and I was getting short. At this point I've had made it through half the field, about 35 left from 73 starting, final table only gets paid. I go all-in twice, don't get called, and maintain my stack.
When we were down to three tables, I get moved to another table, and the deck basically hit me in the face. I got QQ, all-in, no callers. Later, I was in the BB with AJs. Folds to the button, a healthy stack, who made a big raise of a third my stack. I pushed, and she folded her steal attempt. Just a short while after that, I get QQ again, and get all-in against AT of clubs. The flop came 10 high with 2 clubs, and he had 14 outs twice to beat me, but I dodge them and double up. Now we're down to two tables, and here I really saw a major difference of not playing online, in that I had no idea what place my stack was in the remaining two tables. It was pretty difficult to even tell exactly how much everyone had, just if they had me covered or not. This I'm sure you get much better at with experience in live play. With 15 or so people left, I'm in the BB. A guy with a stack just under mine goes all-in, and gets called by someone else who I also barely have covered. I look down, and see two beautiful aces. They hold up, I triple up, and I'm only three from the money with a nice healthy stack now, and I couldn't have been more excited.
It only took a few hands for the bubble to pop, there were some really short stacks who got knocked out quick. (One, on the other table had KK, got called by K3, and the flop came with 2 threes.) They move the rest of us up to this dais where their special final table for tourneys is. If you've ever seen that UltimateBet.net show on FSN where six online winners get flown to LA for a winner take all tourney for $10K, this was that same table. I was fourth in chips with around 35,000, but the 3000/6000 blinds with 300 antes gave me an M of only 3!  The first orbit saw only the short stack get knocked out, the blinds were eating everyone, all other raises were not called. On the second orbit, folds to me in MP with 99. I made a 2.5X BB raise, which was almost half of my stack. Folds to the button, who called. My stack is barely half the pot now, and I knew when he called all my chips were pretty much going in. Flop comes J83, two hearts, and I push. He calls, and shows AJo, and I'm crippled. Next hand I go out with A5, in 9th place.
I won $105 after putting in $70, not a huge win, but I was seriously happy for making the final table and cashing in my first live tourney. I probably could have tried to fold up a couple more spots, which paid another $100, but the blinds were insane, so I'm not upset about my play. I was pretty uncomfortable during the rebuy period, I need more experience there if I want to play more of these tourneys. It was very exciting, and I can't wait to do it again.
Posted Fri May 12, 2006 8:47 am GMT by UrAteUp
Good job Gunslinger.... . Sounds like you had some fun and be proud of yourself. After all you did make it to the final table... .
Posted Sun May 28, 2006 2:53 am GMT by AHBrownell
This was my experience in live tournies too. You just get owned too much by the blinds. I had a great tourney where I was making great reads - a few tough laydowns and had trippled up in the first hour - only to be a short stack via the blinds in the second.
Most decent players hate this "crap shoot" style blind structure. I'm not saying that I'm the greatest player - but I know I have an advantage against most players. Sad that the blinds make it more luck and little skill. :/
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quote="AHBrownell"I'm looking to play some live tournaments.
I tried playing live at Commerce Casino, but it seems like low limit NL HE is much more difficult to make money at because the casino rakes $3 every hand, you have to tip the dealer when you win, and the blinds vs buyin ratio is so small its difficult to not get allin with any sort of powerful hand. Very frustrating to have AK and realize that your only move is allin preflop because you are down to half you stack and a typical 3x BB preflop raise lets 6 players see the flop... But I digress...
I think tournaments may be a great situation to get some experience in live poker without much risk. I'm looking for buyins of around $100 or less in the Orange County / Los Angeles area in California. Any suggestions would be great!
Thx guys. /quote
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