Trash Creek snatch game---Injun casinos can be ripoffs too

[mkl54321]

Wandered into the poker room at Cache Creek in CA. The casino is in the absolute freakin' middle of nothing and nowhere, about 1 1/2 hrs from the Bay Area. The casino is big and opulent. It's a far cry from when I was there some 15 years ago, when it was basically a big inflatable tent with cheating video poker, and BJ tables that charged 5% a hand whether you won, lost, or pushed. (The VP was almost funny, so blatantly did the machines cheat.)

Well, they've gotten religion. Or respectability. Or something. Anyway, it's now a Vegaslike carpet joint. (Although: it's still an Injun casino, so you have NO guarantee that you'll be paid if you hit a jackpot, or for that matter if you'll make it back out the front door.)

I wanted to warn everybody about the cardroom. It's a monster, with 28 tables. There's the usual smorgasboard of games---BUT THE RAKES ARE HORRIBLE. It's LA-style preflop-grab, with rakes as high as LA, even though it's just a glorified Injun card barn out in the middle of Dirt Land. I suffered through a couple of hours of 2-4 NLHE; they dropped the whole pot preflop ($5/$1 JP). They were "nice" enough to put $5 back in if there was no flop.

Amazingly, the players/bozos wouldn't chop to save the rake. Many was the time that some cementhead was the first limper from the cutoff or the button, leaving the BB to roll his eyes as he prepared to fight over a $4 pot (or, more accurately, a $10 pot that had been raked 60%; I consider the JP drop to be just another element of the rake as only about 3% of that money ever gets returned to the players).

I would up losing my $60 buyin when I faced just such a limp-hole on my BB, who just couldn't RESIST playing A6 offSOOT; naturally, I had J9 of the same SOOT (spades) as his A, and naturally, I flopped a flush, and naturally, he called my all-in for his six-outer (I had an inside SF redraw) on the turn, and naturally he hit. And the addled cretin will go on to REPRODUCE...and VOTE.....

I urge everyone to stay away from this worthless toilet, although barring a deliberate, misguided trip there, the only way you might ever wind up there is if your plane crashes.

[JP OSU]

WTF is a snatch game??... you could have combined your two terrible posts into one terrible post...

[redfisher]

A snatch game is one where the dealer steals as many chips out of the pot as he can get away with.

[Jimmy The Fish]

Methinks the last five digits of OP's screen name came from his personal Meltdown Countdown... [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Serious question: Are Indian casinos in CA allowed to choose their own methods of raking pots (i.e. percentage-based), or are they subject to the same restrictions as the non-Indian cardrooms?

[Dennisa]

Its called competition and the free market. In California, we have neither since their is a current moratorium on new card club licenses. We also have a law that against house banked games and income must not be based on pot size.

A quote from a Pechanga poker dealer a few years ago, I asked about the drop and the delaer said the "Indians get paid first."

I have only occasionaly played at Indian casinos, the following take their money as a Los Angeles style drop.

Chumash, Pechanga, Spa, Agua Caliente and for the Most part Morongo. IIRC, Morongo takes most of it but adds a buck based on a large pot size in their no limit games. I have never read a California Indian gaming compact, but I believe since they do have house banked games, they could take their drop based on pot size.

[crashjr]

Colusa and Jackson used to take a % rake. Both switched to a standard California drop within the last 2 years.

[sternroolz]

FWIW, I think the extra dollar drop renders even the ultra loose Los Angeles games $4-8 and lower to be unbeatable.

It cuts the profit opportunity at $9-18 by about 25%.

$15-30 and up are still juicy, with $20-40 at Commerce(no jackpot) being outstanding.

I only play limit hold em and can't comment on the impact on NL, but I imagine its pretty harsh at the 200 and lower buy in games.

[uclaben]

[ QUOTE ]
FWIW, I think the extra dollar drop renders even the ultra loose Los Angeles games $4-8 and lower to be unbeatable.

It cuts the profit opportunity at $9-18 by about 25%.

$15-30 and up are still juicy, with $20-40 at Commerce(no jackpot) being outstanding.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not that I disagree with you - in fact my intuition says that you're probably right - but could you explain how you came to these conclusions?

[mkl54321]

[ QUOTE ]
WTF is a snatch game??... you could have combined your two terrible posts into one terrible post...

[/ QUOTE ]

>>>I'm so glad you liked it--silly me to not have submitted my post to YOU for approval first. I'll be sure to repeat that mistake in the future.

>>>A snatch game is a game where the dealer snatches as much money out of the pot as he can get away with.

[mkl54321]

[ QUOTE ]
Methinks the last five digits of OP's screen name came from his personal Meltdown Countdown... [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Wow. You pitch some kind of snarky insult and then pat yourself on the back for your cleverness. Internet rudeness is amazing in its pervasiveness.

Serious question: Are Indian casinos in CA allowed to choose their own methods of raking pots (i.e. percentage-based), or are they subject to the same restrictions as the non-Indian cardrooms?

[/ QUOTE ]

Serious answer: they can do whatever they want re "collections", "rakes", "drops", or whatever. The Trash Creek operators evidently concluded that they could get away with CA ripoff-style games. Don't know if that'll blow up in their faces or not.