[Rottersod]

So, for the past year or so I've played a lot more games at people's homes than I have at my local rooms such as the bike, hustler, etc. Typically, I used to play in one regular game and we played once or twice a week. Things started changing about a year ago when I got involved with a crazy, wild group of players and the money was coming in so fast and regular it was like I had my own printing press (do a search in this forum for detailed posts from late 2006 for more info). That game eventually broke up and I found myself getting invited to more and more games through contacts I had made at that game.

Back in the spring this year the local card rooms here in LA raised their drop by a dollar to cover the new minimum wage laws and since then I've seen a mass migration to these home games. We used to get 8 people to a ring game or 15 to a tourney. Now we are getting 30 for cash and 100+ for some tourneys and many of these people say that they are fed up with the casinos and the high drop and arbitrary rulings that seem to be handed down every day.

As expected the home games have become much more competitive, even at the lower stakes that many groups like to play. I've played in tourneys where the buyin is $50 and there are 100 people entered but because the blinds are set to go up every 20 minutes or so to accommodate peoples wishes to end at a reasonable time (these are mostly people with regular jobs and families who are not quite at the degen stage yet. LOL), it negates a lot of the advantage more skilled players have. By the time you get down to 2 tables it is an all in shove fest. But that's OK because there are so many of these tourneys every week and many of them are followed by sit n goes and cash games.

I'm pretty sure poker in places like Vegas will be OK although there will be a shakeout. Vegas attracts tourists who want to gamble it up. The local scenes in Los Angeles have been drying up though. The other day I went to the bike for the first time in a while and saw how few players the top section had even though it had recently expanded. And the limit section down below was half empty.