Faced with a major dilemma. Need opinions, please. |
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Posted Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:25 am GMT by raisebot
This might get a little long, but please read in it's entirety before you vote or post a response.
This is regards to a local Las Vegas casino that will remain nameless for this post, but if anyone happens to be interested, shoot me a PM and I'll privately name the establishment I'm talking about.
There is a small local casino that runs daily tourneys and a live game afterwards that is definitely an easy game to beat. As always, the tourneys are somewhat of a crapshoot, as the blind structure and being a rebuy tournament it favors the lucky more than the experienced, however, the after the tourney there is almost always one of the juiciest 1/2 NL games to be found anywhere. Even if you don't cash in the tourney, almost always, the winners will always sit in the cash game with their entire winnings. Basically, the tourney is just a 'warm up' to the cash game.
A little info on the tourney-
$23 buy-in, 1000 in starting chips, blinds start 25/50, multi $10 rebuys allowed (a rebuy will get you an additional 1000 in chips); rebuys allowed if you have less than 1000 in chips, the first hour. 100% payout guaranteed to top 3 spots, absolutely no juice taken on the tourneys. It's a 2 table tourney, sometimes 11 handed. Blind structure is arranged to make it an approx 2-3 hour tourney, so basically there's a lot of gambling going on the 1st hour, with tons of rebuys (some people all in every single hand, etc). 1st place always anywhere from $500-$800, which will almost always go to the cash game afterwards.
The cash game-
Usually 1/2 NL, with cash ($20 bills and above) that plays. Minimum buy-in only $20, which sometimes f*ck up the game when someone buys in for the minimum, or close to the minimum. However, usual buy in is at least $100, average maybe 200-300. However, that grows quick. By the end of the night, typical loss for the average loser is anywhere from $500-$1000, sometimes much more. There's usually 2 or 3 players that buy in for over $500-$600, the rest buy in small, anywhere from $100-$200. Where these players are getting this money, day after day, is beyond me, but these players suck. Let me say it again, they are f*cking horrible. Picture the worst fish you've ever seen online, or in your worst home game, and think 10x worse. No bullshit, but I would tear up this game on average 5 out of every 6 times I played, for at least $500-$1000 each time. The 6th time, the fish would steal some bait and donk me out of $1000. But I can live with that, as it is easily a long term beatable game, and not even extreme long term, play every day for a week with any sort of a bankroll over a few thousand, and some common sense, and you WILL come out ahead. No exaggeration, but you see plays as bad as calling all-ins on a straight draw/flush draw with pairs on board and multiple players; calling huge overbets with 3 to a flush on board hoping to chop and get their money back with a straight, etc. People you'd normally call fish, but that would be giving them wayyyyy too much credit. Yes, these games DO exist, but there are downsides to it all-
The bad-
The dealers.
Fresh breakins from dealer school, that are f*cking stubborn and stupid as hell. Constant f*cking up of side-pots. As simple as it really is in reality, they just can't f*cking get it straight. How f*cking hard is it to just take the smallest bet, take that amount from each bet, and put it in the main pot? Well apparently, for them, they just can't seem to do it. And coach them through it (just take $25 from each bet and put it in the middle), and the shit hits the fan. "1 dealer per game!! Just be quiet and it'll be straight!" Well guess what f*ck, it isn't straight. Stop trying to calculate in your head what the sidepot should be, and just listen to me. Take the smallest bet from each. But no, even though I've been dealing longer than them, and even broke in at this joint, they don't want to hear it.
Counting the f*cking bank every 3 minutes.
They constantly count down their bank, and never come up with the same number twice. Now I know you're thinking that this is their problem, and not the players', but when they're counting down their bank after every hand and coming up with discrepancies, and blaming the dealer they just pushed, and trying to figure it out, guess what? As players, we're just sitting there, getting out 1 hand every 10 minutes, while they're trying to figure out why their bank is $1.75 short; and they're blaming each other on who should pay it. Really f*cking annoying, to say the least.
Not running the game.
Action is in the #2 seat. Yet dealer is talking to player in the #8 seat about what the f*ck they ate for lunch 2 days ago, not even paying attention to the game. So now, players number 1 and 2, realizing the dealer has no clue on, start talking, in spanish, about god knows what. And when you then tell the dealer to pay attention and run the game, the dealer will ask, the #8 seat, "what are you going to do... $10 to call..."
Blatant unenforcement of the rules/enforcement when they feel like it.
String bets are a particular problem, that seem enforced when they feel like it. Say you bet $50. Now, another player puts out a $100 bill and says absolutely nothing. The dealer says "call", and the player then says, "no, raise". Dealer then says, "ok, raise to $100". WHAT THE f*ck? "OK"??? So you're just guessing that since he has 3/4 stack of red in front of him, but decided to throw in the $100 bill anyway, that somehow makes it acceptable to throw in the oversize denomination without saying anything and that constitutes a legal raise? Because that's what he "meant" to do? And when you complain, same argument- "1 dealer per game". And don't even bother calling floor over- it's 1 floorperson, that runs both poker and the pit, and they are clueless on poker. So they always side with the dealer.
The rabbit fiasco-
Say there's 2 flush cards on the flop, and you put out a huge bet. Villain folds, yet asks for a rabbit hunt. YOU CLEARLY SAY "NO RABBIT". Yet, since the dealer himself is curious, he shows what the outcome would have been anyway. Again, what the f*ck??? I bet, he folded, end of f*cking story. You don't lose your last $0.75 in wheel of fortune slots, and ask management to see what "would have happened" on your next spin. Well, maybe you do ask, but I'll give you 100-1 they don't show you. Dealer's excuse after showing a rabbit anyway- "If I meaning the dealer want to see a rabbit, then we'll see one. I take care of my players". Well f*ck you, after tipping you all night and keeping a game running, if I bet and he folds, and I don't want to see no rabbit, then we shouldn't see one. What YOU want to see, I could care less. It's not your money getting placed on the table; deal the cards and keep your f*cking curiosity to your damn self.
No expression of gratitude.
I deal, and I'm used to living off of tips. So even if I hate the f*cking job they're doing, I still tend to tip well. Usually at least a $1 tip, even if I f*cking pick up $4 in blinds. And $3-$4 if I pick up a $100 pot. $200 pot or above, I'll almost always give at least a $5 tip. But shit, that's not good enough for them. I'll pick up $4 in blinds, tip a buck, and still not even get a f*cking thank you. What the f*ck?? I risk $10 making a raise, pick up $4, give you 25%, and that's not good enough? Jesus christ- it's not your dealing that I think is so f*cking spectacular that I think warrants the tip, it's I feel guilty if I don't give you anything. But no, you don't f*cking care, or at least you don't show it. So then, if I feel like getting even, and not giving them shit, the game gets run even slower and more out of control than it normally is. SO again, a no win situation.
So there's my rant.
I haven't played there in over 4 months now, and my bankroll has definitely suffered. I've spoken to people that have played there since I've been gone, and the say the games have been crazier than ever. One night there was over 15k sitting on the table, with people that are absolutely clueless, gambling it up like there's no tomorrow. I'm considering making a return and going back, but I'm still unsure. I've sworn off this place a bunch of times, but have always wound up going back. But this is the longest I've been gone.
The pros vs cons of playing in an extremely profitable, yet out of control game. No one enforces the rules, shit, no one even KNOWS the rules. And complain to floor, and no one even CARES to know the rules.
So bottom line- worth it to play there, or not?
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Posted Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:43 am GMT by exit music
The dealers put you on tilt, you have no reason not to play at this game if it's as ripe as you think it is.
Play play play
Posted Tue Jan 23, 2007 3:17 pm GMT by General Sal
Yeah, I don't know if I would want to play somewhere that puts me on tilt. Even if the action was good, you still have to not make mistakes. Well, if you're angry and can still play well, then stay there.
But, try some of the other joints... that 1/2 NL game is really popular all over the strip. I made a nice killing at the 1/2 NL at the Venetian.
Posted Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:21 pm GMT by raisebot
I just generally hate most 1/2 games because just about everywhere puts that stupid $200 cap on the games. Caesars has a $500 cap which I like, but if I actually make the trip down to caesars, I'll usually just sit in their 2/5 game which has no cap. If I'm going to sit down in a game with a cap on the buy-in, I'll usually just go to redrock. Plenty of gambling and fish there, especially on the graveyard and late swing hours.
Think about it, you find a game which is good and they gamble it up. But you're faced with a 200 cap on the buy-in, which somewhat levels the playing field. No thanks- even if someone has been extremely lucky and has built it up to over 1k, I'd rather be able to buy in right then and there for that 1k and hopefully take it all in 1 hand, or at least put the pressure on them.
Although I never played at the Venetian, so I really don't know what their game is like.
Posted Sat Feb 24, 2007 10:23 am GMT by Felting
If you think this is the best game profit wise for you, then yes play there.
Now here's my suggestion about the dealer's. If they are giving you attitude and not doing there job to the best of there abilities then screw'em, don't tip them. Better yet, take a role of pennies with you and tip the crappy one's a penny a pot. If they say something about it tell them that your just paying what they are worth. After all a tip is a way of saying thanks for doing a good job even though you don't get paid much.
Now understand I'm talking about the one's with the 1 dealer a game attitude. If they are novice dealers that are struggling cause they are new but are sincerely trying to do their best that's different. I'd cut them some breaks and give them a standard tip even when they screw up.
Posted Sat Feb 24, 2007 11:03 am GMT by raisebot
| Felting wrote: | | Now understand I'm talking about the one's with the 1 dealer a game attitude. If they are novice dealers that are struggling cause they are new but are sincerely trying to do their best that's different. I'd cut them some breaks and give them a standard tip even when they screw up. |
Shit man, I agree with that 100%. If it's a break-in, and they're genuinely trying to learn, then it's forgiveable.
But that's just not the case. These people have broken-in there, and just never left because they know they're not good enough to make it anywhere else, because they just don't try, and they're too damn stubborn. There's a lot of stuff I overlook that other dealers do that they shouldn't be doing, but I'm not their boss and I don't want to get them fired over technicalities, such as 'rolling the deck' (not keeping the deck parallel with the table when pulling in bets, it's amazing how many dealers do this constantly; it's just basically shows a sloppy dealer more than anything else), dealers having cards flip up while pitching them (anyone that flips up more than 1 card per hour definitely needs work, you shouldn't be having more than 1 flip up per night), dealers not being able to hand shuffle adequately (one guy, at the Sahara, I believe his name is Casey, actually BRIDGES the cards while shuffling.. WTF?!?!), but these mistakes just show their imcompetence more than anything else, unlike a dealer voluntarily showing "rabbits" whenever he feels, and not saying thank you.
Anyway, after making this thread, I played there once again, and it's definitely the last time. They f*ck me this time by letting a player "hide" his cash behind his chips, where they were visible to absolutely no one. And out of all the people to get screwed, it was me, after he went "all in" with only about $300 in chips, and I called with $1100. Except he had 2k in cash, folded, behind his chips, tucked halfway under the rail. No shot in hell I would have called knowing how much he had behind. So yeah, my mistake in not asking for a count, but when the rules clearly state that all stakes and cards must be clearly visible, then that's something that should be enforced.
Another new rule they made is when there's all in action on a cash game, all cards must immediately be turned up. Bullcrap. If someone doesn't want to show and feels like mucking, let them muck. This isn't a tournament.
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