Re: Aruba Poker
Update on Aruba poker:
Radisson and the Holiday Inn, both in the high-rise hotel area, are the only casinos with regular poker games, and they don't start until after 7pm. Radisson had a couple 4-8 LHE and a 5-5 NL game going on. Holiday Inn had 4-8 too but I think their NL was 1-2. A casino in the low-rise area, Alhambra, advertised an electronic poker table for NLHE and I saw it roped off, but I heard no one ever plays there.
I played 4-8 at Radisson a couple nights. The rake is 5% up to $10, and there is a bad beat jackpot, as well as a house-funded best-hand-of-the-night nightly $100 prize. They also had some $50 Aces-cracked and 2-7-wins bonuses during select times, and if you're there between 7 and 7:30 pm and start a table, you get $20 in free chips if you buy in for at least $30.
The players were about 50-50 locals and tourists, with everyone playing pretty laggro. The locals have a habit of talking to each other and the dealer in Papamiento (local Spanish-Dutch dialect) during the hand, which got annoying but didn't seem to help them. Despite that, the dealers were very quick and competent.
It's not exactly spread-limit, but the Radisson does have a rule where you're allowed to bet or raise $8 on the flop instead of $4. So even if the first bettor bets $4, someone else can raise it to $12, then everything is in $8 increments after that. I thought going into it that people might only bet $8 if they were protecting top pair or bluffing with a draw, but $8 flop bets were the norm. Usually the only time someone bet $4 on the flop, they were slow-playing a set or straight.
In one of the Aruba tourist guidebooks you can get for free at restaurants, there are four or five matchplays ranging from $5 to $25. The 6 or 7 casinos I went into seemed pretty rinky-dink in general, like Ellis Island-sized. There's one in downtown Orangestaad that's open 24 hours, but the rest are closed until midday, and table games don't start until 4 or so.
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