Commerce trip report

[TS Clark]

I was in Anaheim a couple of weeks ago for a conference and decided to take off a bit early on Friday to make a visit to the Commerce. I'd heard a lot about it and I wanted to make the trip to the poker mecca.

The neighborhood was better than I had heard -- I had expected sketchy from previous narratives. I thought it was fine (though I grew up like 15 minutes from Oakland and lived near Washington DC for eight years, so my definition of sketchy neighborhoods might be a little different than other folks).

I was amazed at the size of the place, as I imagine most people are the first time they see it. I spent the first little while I was there just walking around and seeing what was what. The sheer variety of odd smells (though mercifully not the smell of smoke, unlike Vegas), people, and the jumble of languages caused me to call the place the Galapagos Casino to my wife when I described it later. Darwin would have been amazed.

I am also pleased to report that the reports of game quality were in no way exaggerated from the posts I had read. As the NLHE buy-in/blind structure is a joke (and I didn't have enough cash on me from my bankroll to play the bigger NLHE games), I played limit. It was absolutely off the chain. Capped six way pots, people cold-calling multiple raises with any two cards, etc.. Even with the ridiculous rake, I think a properly bankrolled person (who had considerable emotional control) could make a good little side-living playing lowish-mid-stakes LHE here, just because the pots you do win are resneffulous. I walked away loser from my game after a few hours after having been rivered in three huge pots by two and three outers, but if I had had more time to play and brought more cash, I am sure I could have made a smallish fortune eventually.

I played for only a few hours, then took a break to grab something to eat. When I was done (and the food was quite good, by the way), I decided I would walk around the higher limit room for a while, rather than jumping back into a game.

I was genuinely amazed by the access you had in this room. I stood by a $100-$200 NL game for about 15 minutes (and there had to be several hundred thousand bucks on this table) before I was asked to move on by a floorperson. I watched Jeff Lisandro play in a 400-800 razz game for quite a while without anyone saying boo. Very different from the Bellagio or Borgata, where you are strongarmed and grumped at almost immediately if you aren't already sitting at a table in the high-limit section.

A couple of other notes:

-- Saw Gavin Griffin buying into a decent-sized NLHE game. He had his girlfriend with him sweating him. They seemed like very nice, quiet folks.

-- Had a James Woods sighting at a 20-40 NLHE table. He was there with his inappropriately young blond girlfriend (and, yes, that is jealousy you're hearing).

-- My one bad experience at the Commerce (that was very different from the hours I have played in LV) was the propensity for players to request to see other players' hands. This happened several times in only the few hours I played. I was shocked at the frequency. The guy next to me requested the dealer to see my hand shortly after I sat down, but after I stared at him for about five minutes after I showed my cards (and considering the fact that I was about twice his size), he seemed a little less anxious to do this again, though we were in several large pots together. Is this particular brand of rude behavior common in SoCal casinos? I'm used to players being morons about dealers (though I didn't see any of the extreme dealer abuse I'd heard the Commerce was famous for), but I had never seen this kind of IWTSTH nonsense before. I'm amazed there aren't more regular fistfights.

All in all, I thought it was a very interesting experience. I mostly play online and non-HE games, so I don't make a ton of casino trips. But I was glad I made time to drive to the Commerce. If you have some time, money, and emotional fortitude, I highly recommend you take the journey to the Galapagos.