Trip Report: Potawatomi Bingo Casino (Milwaukee)

[PokrLikeItsProse]

Potawatomi is an off-reservation Indian casino right by downtown Milwaukee. The 15-table poker room is located at the far end of the bingo hall in an enclosed area with glass windows and little seating room. You can call the poker room in advance to put your name on a list, but must check-in within a certain amount of time after calling (1-2 hours, I forget exactly how much).

The bingo and poker is upstairs, along with the non-smoking slots area and the buffet. Ffeatures include a seafood buffet with crab legs and oysters among the offerings on Wednesday and Friday and a "soul food" buffet on Sunday nights. If you want to park on the same level as the skywalk, find a spot on level four. Not all parking spots are available in the garage due to construction. I don't know the exact times, but there are occasional mass exoduses of bingo players. Try not to leave at that time becausing exiting will take forever. The card room is, I believe, non-smoking. There is limited seating available.

Those are some of the non-poker details you might find useful. On to the poker.

I'm fairly lazy to my own detriment and don't like to change seats. I am reluctant to put in for a seat change if a better seat opens up. So, I took the first available game, which was the 1-5 no ante spread-limit stud game. And I stayed there the whole night. If you are a low-limit player, this seems like a much better game than hold em. I didn't even bother to think about moving to any of the limit or no limit games in the room because I was having no fun.

The players were basically clueless. Multiple times, it was seven-handed on third street for one dollar, with me as the only fold. As this was the shortest waitlist in the room (and I had immediate seating when I came, despite not calling ahead), you see a lot of player sitting down while waiting for a hold em seat to sit down. I only noticed two players who struck me as competent.

Your initial reads are pretty easy. Anyone who looks blue-collar or older is someone who is waiting for a no fold em hold em seat to open. They'll draw to a boat with two small pair against someone who paired his door card, another with three or four consecutive cards showing, and a third with three or more suited cards showing.

If your opponent instead looked like someone in college or who had a job that required a college degree (and he didn't look old enough to be retired), then he was probably waiting for a no limit game. These players typically bet aggressively with their big hands early and made it easy to fold correctly.

You could also look at their chips. Players with a lot of white $1 chips were usually waiting for the small limit games.

Players were insanely easy to read. They also made it easy to play correctly by raising with strong hands at inopportune moments. More than once, I correctly folded a very live big pair plus a flush draw on fifth street because someone decided to charge me two full bets with his full house rather than let me chase my obvious flush drawing dead. Value betting the river was also easy because I only saw one player ever check-raise on the end and

Interesting players included an African-American gentleman who would buy chips $20 at a time, go to the felt, complain about his missed draws and outdraws. There were the players who were watching basketball more than the cards. Showing sports in a poker room is awesome. One gentleman informed me that the stud game was safe, but that I had to watch out for partners cheating in the hold em game. Many players talked about how hands were played after the fact. Hmm...how can I put this? You know the stereotype of the African-American who makes loud commentary while watching a movie in a theater? Well, they weren't talking during the hands, but they were certainly talking afterwards about the hands. Sure, the table was often 25-50% black, but it wasn't just the black folks who were yapping about how they knew what their opponent had, but they felt obligated to chase. One guy beside me was a bit offended that I wouldn't join in and tell him the order in which I received my down cards. If I'm playing in this game, how should I reply? Let him guess what I had and nod at whatever he says?

The next time I go to Potawatomi, this is the game I will play, as I train myself to be acclimated to playing live rather than online. I still don't feel natural sitting at the table and I think that will harm me in a game with observant players. As it was, I did get a lot of comments that I had an obvious big hand, even as they made overcalls on the river with two small pair or aces. If some otherwise bad players are noticing these things, I still have a lot of practice ahead of me, although I was able to pick the right spots to use my tight table image to bluff and win a handful of pots.

I should be posting strategy-related stud-specific thoughts to the stud forum.