jrbick
01-09-2006, 07:31 AM
Recently spent a week on Los Angeles and managed to grab a night in the card room at Commerce.
Played 4/8 which seemed perfect for cutting my teeth playing live. Shakey start as it was somewhat difficult to follow the action at first and twice when my seats were next to the dealer. Sometimes I could hear someone say check and sometimes I couldn't and there weren't always hand gestures to move the action. Probably just me though. Once I worked out the various internet-prone kinks and got my head in the game things went smoothly and I really enjoyed myself for the remainder of the 9 hr. session.
One thing I was wondering about:
Got there at 7:30pm-ish and stopped playing a little after 5am. I saw 5 different tables over the course of the night due to breakage. Was this normal? It was Monday night, Jan. 2nd I think.
The staff was very accomodating to my wife. She wanted to be there with me for at least a few hours to sweat my hands (she gave away no information as far as I could tell not that it mattered much in these incredibly juicy games) and they always made sure she had a chair to sit at (she was there for 3 of the 5 tables... 1 broke after 20 mins or so). One of the dealers kept her supplied with candy which was nice.
There were two obvious regulars (knew the staff by name) that I sat next to and they were very helpful in answering questions that I had. I was clearly a newbie. One lady even ordered my coffee for me and she also protected my hand for me when I would forget to.
One interesting hand that happened near the end of the night/morning (I wasn't involved). The table was incredibly juicy. Was able to spend about 3.5 hours at this one. 9 ppl for the majority of the time, 5 handed almost every flop featuring your typical loose/passive fish. Guy on my right (GoR) has been there for about 2 orbits orbits so far and had demonstrated solid play in 2 or 3 hands so far.
I don't remember the order but I know that he 3bets preflop and it goes 5 handed. Flop comes T39 rainbow. GoR bets all call. Turn is irrelevant. GoR bets and gets raised, gets called back to him with one person yet to act. GoR is clearly frustrated, has suffered several bad beats already (all large pots). GoR announces, "O.K., I have a theory," and he tables his hand showing TT for the set of T's. GoR says in a dramatic yet relatively upbeat, not-so-dickish as it looks in writing-way, "Everyone see this? I have a set of tens and I'm going to raise." 1 fold, 2 call and then there's drama. Dude on GoR's immediate right hadn't finished calling the 2nd bet before GoR's Oscar nominated 3bet and decides that he doesn't want to finish betting. More drama ensues yadda yadda yadda the rest of Dude's money goes in thanks to Mr. Floor and Dude folds to GoR's turn 3bet. SO, amazingly it is still 3 handed to the river which is a 7. Fish # 1 checks clearly dejected, Fish # 2 bets, GoR calls, Fish #1 folds. Amazingly fish #2 tables 86o for the rivered gutshot. Fish #1 shows his 88 and complains of missing his 8 (not joking). GoR turns to me and asks, "Do you smoke?"
I'm gonna write this last part sort of intending to gather feedback about this kind of thing. I'm wondering if I was just a pussy worry-wort.
There's a recent post floating around about "safety at the casino" or whatever. Not that I was playing an incredibly significant limit or stuffing thousands of dollars into my pockets, but I can understand this to a certain degree. Even at the 4/8 there were still plenty of losing degenerates. A guy on my left at the end of the night kinda kept casual conversation with me and talked fish-strategy most of the time kept saying "last hand, I've got to go to work soon." 2 hours later and he's still sitting there complaining to me about every time he misses a draw (which was a lot, I'll admit). He had dropped a good amount and just kept buying in for 20 here and there with the remaining cash that he still had in play on the table (this is dropping 3 racks). He asked me quietly several times how much I had started with as I now had mulitiple rows of stacks of 40 and a fat wad of 20's (from cash put in pots) sitting in front of me at this point. I just kinda shrugged off the questions and said that I had been up and down. At one point, in an effort to squash the topic I told him how much I had dropped recently (online but I didn't get into details) which had been several thousand so that might've thwarted money requests unless he'd think for some reason (that I never gave him) that there was more where that came from. Anyway once 5a.m. started to roll around I was trying to plan a quick exit that would have me walking out of the room w/o my new buddy. Not that I was afraid of being robbed, but I really wanted to avoid any kind of private requests for some spare cash or something. I racked up and waited for the guy to play a hand and then I bee-lined to the cage and booked for the elevator. I kind of feel like I might've been over-reacting since it was my first time live... I dunno. I guess I like not having to deal w/ that kind of thing online.
Anyway...
All-in-all I liked playing live and will certainly do it again sometime. Nice change of pace from playing online all the time. Wish I lived closer to a card-room.
Played 4/8 which seemed perfect for cutting my teeth playing live. Shakey start as it was somewhat difficult to follow the action at first and twice when my seats were next to the dealer. Sometimes I could hear someone say check and sometimes I couldn't and there weren't always hand gestures to move the action. Probably just me though. Once I worked out the various internet-prone kinks and got my head in the game things went smoothly and I really enjoyed myself for the remainder of the 9 hr. session.
One thing I was wondering about:
Got there at 7:30pm-ish and stopped playing a little after 5am. I saw 5 different tables over the course of the night due to breakage. Was this normal? It was Monday night, Jan. 2nd I think.
The staff was very accomodating to my wife. She wanted to be there with me for at least a few hours to sweat my hands (she gave away no information as far as I could tell not that it mattered much in these incredibly juicy games) and they always made sure she had a chair to sit at (she was there for 3 of the 5 tables... 1 broke after 20 mins or so). One of the dealers kept her supplied with candy which was nice.
There were two obvious regulars (knew the staff by name) that I sat next to and they were very helpful in answering questions that I had. I was clearly a newbie. One lady even ordered my coffee for me and she also protected my hand for me when I would forget to.
One interesting hand that happened near the end of the night/morning (I wasn't involved). The table was incredibly juicy. Was able to spend about 3.5 hours at this one. 9 ppl for the majority of the time, 5 handed almost every flop featuring your typical loose/passive fish. Guy on my right (GoR) has been there for about 2 orbits orbits so far and had demonstrated solid play in 2 or 3 hands so far.
I don't remember the order but I know that he 3bets preflop and it goes 5 handed. Flop comes T39 rainbow. GoR bets all call. Turn is irrelevant. GoR bets and gets raised, gets called back to him with one person yet to act. GoR is clearly frustrated, has suffered several bad beats already (all large pots). GoR announces, "O.K., I have a theory," and he tables his hand showing TT for the set of T's. GoR says in a dramatic yet relatively upbeat, not-so-dickish as it looks in writing-way, "Everyone see this? I have a set of tens and I'm going to raise." 1 fold, 2 call and then there's drama. Dude on GoR's immediate right hadn't finished calling the 2nd bet before GoR's Oscar nominated 3bet and decides that he doesn't want to finish betting. More drama ensues yadda yadda yadda the rest of Dude's money goes in thanks to Mr. Floor and Dude folds to GoR's turn 3bet. SO, amazingly it is still 3 handed to the river which is a 7. Fish # 1 checks clearly dejected, Fish # 2 bets, GoR calls, Fish #1 folds. Amazingly fish #2 tables 86o for the rivered gutshot. Fish #1 shows his 88 and complains of missing his 8 (not joking). GoR turns to me and asks, "Do you smoke?"
I'm gonna write this last part sort of intending to gather feedback about this kind of thing. I'm wondering if I was just a pussy worry-wort.
There's a recent post floating around about "safety at the casino" or whatever. Not that I was playing an incredibly significant limit or stuffing thousands of dollars into my pockets, but I can understand this to a certain degree. Even at the 4/8 there were still plenty of losing degenerates. A guy on my left at the end of the night kinda kept casual conversation with me and talked fish-strategy most of the time kept saying "last hand, I've got to go to work soon." 2 hours later and he's still sitting there complaining to me about every time he misses a draw (which was a lot, I'll admit). He had dropped a good amount and just kept buying in for 20 here and there with the remaining cash that he still had in play on the table (this is dropping 3 racks). He asked me quietly several times how much I had started with as I now had mulitiple rows of stacks of 40 and a fat wad of 20's (from cash put in pots) sitting in front of me at this point. I just kinda shrugged off the questions and said that I had been up and down. At one point, in an effort to squash the topic I told him how much I had dropped recently (online but I didn't get into details) which had been several thousand so that might've thwarted money requests unless he'd think for some reason (that I never gave him) that there was more where that came from. Anyway once 5a.m. started to roll around I was trying to plan a quick exit that would have me walking out of the room w/o my new buddy. Not that I was afraid of being robbed, but I really wanted to avoid any kind of private requests for some spare cash or something. I racked up and waited for the guy to play a hand and then I bee-lined to the cage and booked for the elevator. I kind of feel like I might've been over-reacting since it was my first time live... I dunno. I guess I like not having to deal w/ that kind of thing online.
Anyway...
All-in-all I liked playing live and will certainly do it again sometime. Nice change of pace from playing online all the time. Wish I lived closer to a card-room.