The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

In a rush, but the local casino I play at has dried up considerably. The games are horrendously tight now, with even fish limp/folding AKo PF.

The games were awesome 4+ months ago, but now... it sucks.
The average 5/5 NL game has at least 4-6 people who play for a living, and while most do suck...getting 30 hands in per hour on live isn't enough to exploit them.

will clarify when i get back, has anyone noticed anything similar?

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

I play mostly in Vegas. Mostly 2/5 NL with some 5/10. Haven't really noticed anything broadly better or worse than recent months/years from July thru Octobre.

Just got back into Texas last week. The couple times I've been out the games are as good as ever. Very small sample size, but they've been pretty much the same way for the past 3 years down here.

it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

The room has become like a pool of pirhana after the floods have receded. All the big, slow, dumb fish have been eaten. Even the smaller, more minnow-esque fish are all long gone. No limit caused a feeding frenzy when all the regular fish were suddenly playing a game that was over their head. A few fat pirhana ate some big, easy meals, and the carnage drew even more predators into the kill zone.

But in an isolated pool, there were too many pirhana. No limit is a top predator's game, but an ecosystem without enough prey collapses. That's when things get ugly.

Even the stupidest small fish will eventually wisen up if they never win. If you've eaten up all the dead money, it's inevitable that as long as no limit is the main game spread, the games won't be good anymore. Games in more isolated areas, with fewer influx of new players (i.e. tourists), will see this effect sooner.

Inevitably, balance amongst the fishes will be restored, but where will poker be when that happens?

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

5/5 nl doesnt strike me as a beginers game.

I would guess the poor (skills wise) players who came to play have been sent to the poor house. So you are left with mediocre-good-strong players.

if the player pool was small to start with, not only have the better players stashed the winnings, the house has raked a considerale amount of money too.

I used to play in a private 1/2 PL game, that was the juciest game around. Consistantly seeing pots of between 300-500, where bottom pair or A high would regually win. The game was sustained by 2 fish from a player pool of about 25.
Only 4 players were long term winners, however now the fish have gone busto the good players ave deserted the game, all thats left now are the mediocre-good players. Only winner now is the house.

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

[ QUOTE ]
In a rush, but the local casino I play at has dried up considerably. The games are horrendously tight now, with even fish limp/folding AKo PF.

The games were awesome 4+ months ago, but now... it sucks.
The average 5/5 NL game has at least 4-6 people who play for a living, and while most do suck...getting 30 hands in per hour on live isn't enough to exploit them.

will clarify when i get back, has anyone noticed anything similar?

[/ QUOTE ]
Maybe there is a reason for that particular location. Where do you play?

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
The room has become like a pool of pirhana after the floods have receded. All the big, slow, dumb fish have been eaten. Even the smaller, more minnow-esque fish are all long gone. No limit caused a feeding frenzy when all the regular fish were suddenly playing a game that was over their head. A few fat pirhana ate some big, easy meals, and the carnage drew even more predators into the kill zone.

But in an isolated pool, there were too many pirhana. No limit is a top predator's game, but an ecosystem without enough prey collapses. That's when things get ugly.

Even the stupidest small fish will eventually wisen up if they never win. If you've eaten up all the dead money, it's inevitable that as long as no limit is the main game spread, the games won't be good anymore. Games in more isolated areas, with fewer influx of new players (i.e. tourists), will see this effect sooner.

Inevitably, balance amongst the fishes will be restored, but where will poker be when that happens?

[/ QUOTE ]

I have often stated that limit poker will make a comeback but I am 50/50 if limit Holdem comes back or HORSE or a mixed game of some type becomes the new NL Holdem.

I really hope O/8 in the next big thing but I am not holding my breath.

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

[ QUOTE ]
In a rush, but the local casino I play at has dried up considerably. The games are horrendously tight now, with even fish limp/folding AKo PF.

The games were awesome 4+ months ago, but now... it sucks.
The average 5/5 NL game has at least 4-6 people who play for a living, and while most do suck...getting 30 hands in per hour on live isn't enough to exploit them.

will clarify when i get back, has anyone noticed anything similar?

[/ QUOTE ]

What were you expecting? The supply of money is finite. Especially, the pool of money available for cash game no-limit holdem.

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

Al, can you draw a graph of the total mass of fishes in poker from 1850 through today?



f ___
i / \
s /
h __/\___/
e /
s| t i m e


Two plus Two won't let me accciii [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Al, can you draw a graph of the total mass of fishes in poker from 1850 through today?




[/ QUOTE ]

I can make the mostest awesome-est graphs on excel, a rollover skill from certain jobs I've held in the past. However, I'm not much of an expoit on getting various media types into posts on 2+2 :-(

Al

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

This why in the pre-boom days casinos would not spread NL. They started spreading it with the boom because people that had never played poker in a casino were coming in demanding it.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]


I have often stated that limit poker will make a comeback but I am 50/50 if limit Holdem comes back or HORSE or a mixed game of some type becomes the new NL Holdem.

I really hope O/8 in the next big thing but I am not holding my breath.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would love it if a mixed game like horse took over in the near future, because I'm sick of hold'em, especially no limit. I'd prefer stud-8 over omaha-8, but I doubt a split pot game would replace hold'em ever.

I wanna play "screw your neighbor pineapple." You pass one card left preflop, and fold one card on the flop. No split pots, high only. I haven't tried it yet, but I think it will be an action game, we'll find out soon enough.

Al

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

I'd like to see more limit, and if it's other games, that's great. But not really expecting it. Hold Em is the game that requires the least amount of "thought", and recreational types who come in for a fun bit of gambling are usually not wanting to think much (if at all.)

One of the great things about limit is that even the most gawdawful players will book wins sometimes, and those occasional wins keep them coming back for more. They can build up a nice stack at NL also, but it seems they all too often don't quit when they are ahead, and stack off. So instead of leaving the table with more than they sat with, they leave broke, yet again. Not too many people can continue that pattern indefinitely.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

I found nl @ MGM/Venetian on recent trip to be very juicy for a nut peddlar like me. Seemed fewer calling stations than previous trips, but they seem to be replaced by aggrotard/potbuilding average skilled players that continually tried to push me off big hands.

Yes it is boring way to play,but nitty play allows me to play drunk which is very fun. (1 week sample size)

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
One of the great things about limit is that even the most gawdawful players will book wins sometimes, and those occasional wins keep them coming back for more. They can build up a nice stack at NL also, but it seems they all too often don't quit when they are ahead, and stack off. So instead of leaving the table with more than they sat with, they leave broke, yet again. Not too many people can continue that pattern indefinitely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well stated. The NL boom was able to sustain itself for so long because there was a relatively large influx of new and/or weak players. That influx has slowed and the surviving players for the most part get better. Making $30 plus per hour in NL games with small blinds and a big rake simply wasn't sustainable.

Even if limit comes back the games will be tougher. There are so many young kids disconnected from the workforce that seem to be pot stuck on the poker life. When they start moving over to limit they'll adapt faster and make those games tougher, further speeding the exodus of mediocre players as their occasional gratifying wins becomes ever more rare.

~ Rick

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]

Well stated. The NL boom was able to sustain itself for so long because there was a relatively large influx of new and/or weak players. That influx has slowed and the surviving players for the most part get better. Making $30 plus per hour in NL games with small blinds and a big rake simply wasn't sustainable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where I play (Atlantic City) any rumors of the death of the NL boom would be greatly exaggerated.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

And the young kids are the ones who began their poker journey online. The speed of online play "compresses" experience, and tools like Pokertracker make it possible to analyze one's play in a way that was never possible before. For a player with the desire, online play can make a person very good, very fast. Inevitable that this will have an impact on B&M play.

Heck, I'm just an old fart who plays recreationally less than 10 hours a week, single table most of the time. (The sort of player who would play live if a card room was nearby.) Even with my leisurely approach, I see double the hands I would in a B&M, and don't have to rely on memory to review my play.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Well stated. The NL boom was able to sustain itself for so long because there was a relatively large influx of new and/or weak players. That influx has slowed and the surviving players for the most part get better. Making $30 plus per hour in NL games with small blinds and a big rake simply wasn't sustainable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where I play (Atlantic City) any rumors of the death of the NL boom would be greatly exaggerated.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would guess that the tourist areas--AC and LV--and large poker markets like LA will stay soft longer.

Areas where the potential poker player base is fairly limited, say riverboats and tribal casinos in locations with smaller populations and modest tourist business, may see games get tougher more quickly.

OP didn't say where he's is playing however, so don't know if this theory is applicable in his case.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

Yeah I agree, I wasn't doubting OP's claim so much as responding to Rick's suggestion that the poker boom is over. Rick, you play in LA, right?

My guess is that the boom will sustain best in tourist areas, and particularly where poker is one game on a full casino menu. A key driver of traffic in the AC rooms is people who aren't there specifically to play poker, and those people will always be around. By contrast, you really only show up at a California cardroom because you want to play poker.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah I agree, I wasn't doubting OP's claim so much as responding to Rick's suggestion that the poker boom is over. Rick, you play in LA, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, mostly LA with an occasional trip to Las Vegas and Foxwoods when I visit family. My results have been about the same over the last few years but that's in large part because I've learned a lot thanks to the good material now available from the smarter writers like Matt, Sunny and Ed. Most people whose opinion I trust also find the games harder lately.



[ QUOTE ]
My guess is that the boom will sustain best in tourist areas, and particularly where poker is one game on a full casino menu. A key driver of traffic in the AC rooms is people who aren't there specifically to play poker, and those people will always be around. By contrast, you really only show up at a California cardroom because you want to play poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point(s).

~ Rick

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
The room has become like a pool of pirhana after the floods have receded. All the big, slow, dumb fish have been eaten. Even the smaller, more minnow-esque fish are all long gone. No limit caused a feeding frenzy when all the regular fish were suddenly playing a game that was over their head. A few fat pirhana ate some big, easy meals, and the carnage drew even more predators into the kill zone.

But in an isolated pool, there were too many pirhana. No limit is a top predator's game, but an ecosystem without enough prey collapses. That's when things get ugly.

Even the stupidest small fish will eventually wisen up if they never win. If you've eaten up all the dead money, it's inevitable that as long as no limit is the main game spread, the games won't be good anymore. Games in more isolated areas, with fewer influx of new players (i.e. tourists), will see this effect sooner.

Inevitably, balance amongst the fishes will be restored, but where will poker be when that happens?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is why limit is soooooo much better for Poker than NL. At Canterbury the number of games IS most certainly dwindling, but the goodness of the games is not. Limit allows the fishies to bleed chips slowly over time. Some days, they even win, and win big, but over time they bleed.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
Where I play (Atlantic City) any rumors of the death of the NL boom would be greatly exaggerated.

[/ QUOTE ]

Give it time.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

I think the OP might be in Oceanside, where, yeah, the NL games are evil tough compared to anywhere else. But I play everywhere in SoCal and Vegas, and it's only O'11 that's like that.

As to the comments about limit vs NL, I don't think they apply to the pseudo-NL games that LA spreads, the 5-10 $500 max buy-ins, which are kind of a nice compromise between NL and limit.

And as to the net kids being tough, I think it's a myth. A million billion hands of online poker still provides 0 hands of real poker experience. I play 5/5, 5/10, 10/10 and 10/20 NL all around, and there are very few good young players in these games, and the handful that are good ARE good because they're smart and have good instincts, which they'd have without ever playing online. People either approach the game as something to be studied, or as gambling fun. A thousand hands live, well-thought out (which you have time to do, live), is better experience that a gazillion hands of 10-table click-click-clicking where you don't get to see you opps and learn.

What online does do is create legions of deluded young boys who think they're good at basketball because they win at tennis.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

Also, even if the OP isn't talking about O'11, I'll say the games are drying up a bit there anyway. San Diego is getting crunched by the real estate crash. Mortage brokers, real estate agents, flippers, contracters, and good old fashioned HELOC-to-play degenerates are disappearing from the games.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


I have often stated that limit poker will make a comeback but I am 50/50 if limit Holdem comes back or HORSE or a mixed game of some type becomes the new NL Holdem.

I really hope O/8 in the next big thing but I am not holding my breath.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would love it if a mixed game like horse took over in the near future, because I'm sick of hold'em, especially no limit. I'd prefer stud-8 over omaha-8, but I doubt a split pot game would replace hold'em ever.

I wanna play "screw your neighbor pineapple." You pass one card left preflop, and fold one card on the flop. No split pots, high only. I haven't tried it yet, but I think it will be an action game, we'll find out soon enough.

Al

[/ QUOTE ]

I would be estatic if I could occasionally GET a O8 game going here where I play.

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

The NL action in my particular, small CA casino is really getting alot tougher, overall. It seems as though the tables have a greater strong player to weak/fish ratio. The limit action, curiously, seems stronger than ever which probably indicates the fish have had enough of being beaten at the NL tables and have went back to limit.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think the OP might be in Oceanside, where, yeah, the NL games are evil tough compared to anywhere else. But I play everywhere in SoCal and Vegas, and it's only O'11 that's like that.

As to the comments about limit vs NL, I don't think they apply to the pseudo-NL games that LA spreads, the 5-10 $500 max buy-ins, which are kind of a nice compromise between NL and limit.

And as to the net kids being tough, I think it's a myth. A million billion hands of online poker still provides 0 hands of real poker experience. I play 5/5, 5/10, 10/10 and 10/20 NL all around, and there are very few good young players in these games, and the handful that are good ARE good because they're smart and have good instincts, which they'd have without ever playing online. People either approach the game as something to be studied, or as gambling fun. A thousand hands live, well-thought out (which you have time to do, live), is better experience that a gazillion hands of 10-table click-click-clicking where you don't get to see you opps and learn.

What online does do is create legions of deluded young boys who think they're good at basketball because they win at tennis.

[/ QUOTE ]

I couldn't disagree more. Live pro's usually suck.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
Also, even if the OP isn't talking about O'11, I'll say the games are drying up a bit there anyway. San Diego is getting crunched by the real estate crash. Mortage brokers, real estate agents, flippers, contracters, and good old fashioned HELOC-to-play degenerates are disappearing from the games.

[/ QUOTE ]

Brings up a good point. News story today is that Starbucks sales are down for the first time. This is attributed to the economy and fewer people having extra $$ to spend on $4 lattes. Poker is certainly impacted by the loss of extra money to have fun with.

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

[ QUOTE ]
This why in the pre-boom days casinos would not spread NL. They started spreading it with the boom because people that had never played poker in a casino were coming in demanding it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just like when cigars were hot. Time to start shorting NL.

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

I don't think so Al, but only time will tell. I think limit will dry up first. Then deep-stack NL. Middle-stack NL will be the last to go.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think the OP might be in Oceanside, where, yeah, the NL games are evil tough compared to anywhere else. But I play everywhere in SoCal and Vegas, and it's only O'11 that's like that.

As to the comments about limit vs NL, I don't think they apply to the pseudo-NL games that LA spreads, the 5-10 $500 max buy-ins, which are kind of a nice compromise between NL and limit.

And as to the net kids being tough, I think it's a myth. A million billion hands of online poker still provides 0 hands of real poker experience. I play 5/5, 5/10, 10/10 and 10/20 NL all around, and there are very few good young players in these games, and the handful that are good ARE good because they're smart and have good instincts, which they'd have without ever playing online. People either approach the game as something to be studied, or as gambling fun. A thousand hands live, well-thought out (which you have time to do, live), is better experience that a gazillion hands of 10-table click-click-clicking where you don't get to see you opps and learn.

What online does do is create legions of deluded young boys who think they're good at basketball because they win at tennis.

[/ QUOTE ]

I couldn't disagree more. Live pro's usually suck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Live pro's usually suck online and online players at least start out bad live. Different skills are often stressed. It's a completely different game.

I can't even post my most interesting live hands here because the reads simply don't translate well into these forums and standard strategy simply doesn't apply.

Reads such as, I knew she was an experienced player because she came to our soft table after requesting a table change and the floor person treated her like a long time regular. With 2 seats available she quickly eyeballed the stacks and players and chose the seat left of the aggressive big stack. Even though she was only 5 hands in I strongly felt that the check raise on the turn with that draw heavy board had to be the As5s for a monster draw with 6 extra outs she picked up. I called with only 2nd pair.

People just laugh at this kind of stuff on these posts.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
The room has become like a pool of pirhana after the floods have receded. All the big, slow, dumb fish have been eaten. Even the smaller, more minnow-esque fish are all long gone. No limit caused a feeding frenzy when all the regular fish were suddenly playing a game that was over their head. A few fat pirhana ate some big, easy meals, and the carnage drew even more predators into the kill zone.

But in an isolated pool, there were too many pirhana. No limit is a top predator's game, but an ecosystem without enough prey collapses. That's when things get ugly.

Even the stupidest small fish will eventually wisen up if they never win. If you've eaten up all the dead money, it's inevitable that as long as no limit is the main game spread, the games won't be good anymore. Games in more isolated areas, with fewer influx of new players (i.e. tourists), will see this effect sooner.

Inevitably, balance amongst the fishes will be restored, but where will poker be when that happens?

[/ QUOTE ]

Poker is fun and addicting and attracts sick gamblers. If the fish dried up and went away who is Las Vegas making their money off in games of chance with expected -EV? Game selection will always be key but I believe their will always be exploitable action in poker rooms to varying degrees.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
Poker is fun and addicting and attracts sick gamblers. If the fish dried up and went away who is Las Vegas making their money off in games of chance with expected -EV?

[/ QUOTE ]

The thing is that table games are more fun than poker. 85% of your time at the poker table is spent folding, sitting, waiting. Don't get me wrong, I like poker a lot, but the attraction is that it's fun and you can be an advantage player. However, if I could make the same amount of money playing craps and poker, I would spend all my time at the craps table.

So, when bad players figure out that they are, in fact, -EV at poker, they're more likely to go play table games instead, because they are similarly costly and more enjoyable. They're not "busto" in the sense that they are broke and have no money left to lose, but in the sense that they've finally figured out that poker is a bad investment.

That said, while I think the fish are not an entirely renewable resource, I don't think there's an acute overfishing crisis (at least in the northeastern markets). It's more coal than oil-- the world will eventually run out of coal, but I plan to be long dead by then.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
Poker is fun and addicting and attracts sick gamblers. If the fish dried up and went away who is Las Vegas making their money off in games of chance with expected -EV? Game selection will always be key but I believe their will always be exploitable action in poker rooms to varying degrees.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are assuming casinos will continue to offer poker. With a different demographic playing poker these days the casinos aren't in as much of a hurry to get poker players out of casinos, but when people quit coming in demanding to play "that all-in game on TV" casinos will cut back/eliminate poker tables. In general casinos don't like poker players. They view them as competing for their guests money and they are less valuable than a nickel slot player. They used to be valued about the same as a nickel slot player, but that was when they played 3 coins at a time instead of 45 or 100 nickels at a time.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Poker is fun and addicting and attracts sick gamblers. If the fish dried up and went away who is Las Vegas making their money off in games of chance with expected -EV? Game selection will always be key but I believe their will always be exploitable action in poker rooms to varying degrees.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are assuming casinos will continue to offer poker. With a different demographic playing poker these days the casinos aren't in as much of a hurry to get poker players out of casinos, but when people quit coming in demanding to play "that all-in game on TV" casinos will cut back/eliminate poker tables. In general casinos don't like poker players. They view them as competing for their guests money and they are less valuable than a nickel slot player. They used to be valued about the same as a nickel slot player, but that was when they played 3 coins at a time instead of 45 or 100 nickels at a time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Randy, I think it's a mistake to assume even that poker on TV is a fad that will end. Obviously it won't be as big as it was at its peak, but unlike your typical fad (say cigars in the late '90s) it wasn't a random resurgence of a specific product. Rather, it was that the innovation of the hole card camera finally made poker on TV watchable.

Occasionally, they show old WSOPs on ESPN Classic with no hole card cameras. They are incredibly boring, because you have no [censored] idea what is happening.

Do you still get people in the room where you work demanding "that all-in game on TV"? I feel like, in AC, I see very few players who are confused about the limit v. no-limit distinction.

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
Poker is fun and addicting and attracts sick gamblers. If the fish dried up and went away who is Las Vegas making their money off in games of chance with expected -EV? Game selection will always be key but I believe their will always be exploitable action in poker rooms to varying degrees.

[/ QUOTE ]

That exploitable action will be far harder to find in the future.

Keep in mind "the sick gamblers" have a lot more fun when much of the rest of the table also consists of sick gamblers. The reality is a uneducated gambler is a lot closer to breaking even and perhaps having fun at table games other than poker; especially as the games tighten up. As the poker tables toughen he loses both to the rake and the other players. In the simpler table games he simply loses to the house edge and is at least treated right by the staff (as opposed to being ridiculed by his opponents).

The kind of tourist I often see at the tables in LA are young kids from out of town who probably read these forums and beat online a couple years back sharing an apartment or hotel (often for the summer). Learning to handle chips and so on is easy for them.

Meanwhile the middle aged chumps (like me I guess) might have to go back to limit.

~ Rick

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This why in the pre-boom days casinos would not spread NL. They started spreading it with the boom because people that had never played poker in a casino were coming in demanding it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just like when cigars were hot. Time to start shorting NL.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cigars are making a comeback.

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

Ugh, people have been saying that this was going to happen for years. And they're absolutely right. There's a reason that NL was never played as a cash game anymore before the poker boom.

Limit games are going to make a comeback, thank god. I see this everyday at Canterbury Park. Just yesterday afternoon I was playing with an old guy that absolutely sucks. He's been playing there for years, and although I don't know his name I can remember playing with him three years ago. He was up like a rack and having a great time. This never happens in the NL games. He would have sworn off poker forever a long time ago if we had NL here.

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

Cigars never went away.

Re: The casino I frequent is drying up...
 

wow this actually turned in to a thread! This thread reminds me a little bit of that old school book i read by George Wallace about" poker a guaranteed income for life " Here in VA we have had very juicy games for a long time now but i have noticed a few more skilled players filtering in. thinkers still get a piece of the pie that has not grown big enough in relation though.
more on track with the thread almost all games here that were nlhe are now 1/2 nlOhigh 1/2 nlhe and i think this shows a trend (that is good) towards people being tired of only nlhe. We get more action in the omaha games and the pots are 70% LIMPED by 70% of the players (at 5/10 given).
I would love to see OESHT as the next big game myself as there is one mixed game now that i drive an hour to get to but its the most profitable game i play in (10/20 limit). that is in part my fault due to a thin bankroll not capable of playing the deep stack games here properly and having to short stack and nit it up. so cheers to limit mixed games being the next big thing:)
jason

Re: it\'s all about fishin\' man
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think the OP might be in Oceanside, where, yeah, the NL games are evil tough compared to anywhere else. But I play everywhere in SoCal and Vegas, and it's only O'11 that's like that.

As to the comments about limit vs NL, I don't think they apply to the pseudo-NL games that LA spreads, the 5-10 $500 max buy-ins, which are kind of a nice compromise between NL and limit.

And as to the net kids being tough, I think it's a myth. A million billion hands of online poker still provides 0 hands of real poker experience. I play 5/5, 5/10, 10/10 and 10/20 NL all around, and there are very few good young players in these games, and the handful that are good ARE good because they're smart and have good instincts, which they'd have without ever playing online. People either approach the game as something to be studied, or as gambling fun. A thousand hands live, well-thought out (which you have time to do, live), is better experience that a gazillion hands of 10-table click-click-clicking where you don't get to see you opps and learn.

What online does do is create legions of deluded young boys who think they're good at basketball because they win at tennis.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah the games at Ocean's 11 might be tougher than anywhere else, but the 5-5 at Ocean's is still easier to beat than .1-.25 on Full Tilt.

So not really that tough.