First Field Trip to Los Angeles (longish)

[mrcunningham]

In LA with some free time for the first time since I started learning poker last year, so thought I'd visit some of the card clubs. Since I am a 6-12 player in the Bay Area I tried the Bike, HP, and Hustler. I didn't make it to Commerce since I didn't have enough to play 9-18. My novice impressions:
1. The rake is higher than in the Bay Area. I think $4 rake and $1 jackpot at Bike and HP compared to 3+1 at LC and AJ. Given that I earn ~1BB/hour at 6-12 the extra 25% drop would seem to be significant.
2. I was very excited about playing with all of these LAG player in LA that I have read about on this forum. I was exceedingly dissappointed. Maybe just bad luck, but I played about 10 hours at the Bike on Friday 3-10 pm and Sunday 11pm-1am and I was surprised and dissappointed at how tight and passive the play was. Rarely do you see chopped blinds in the Bay Area, there was at least one chop per orbit at the Bike. Most flops were seen by 4 or fewer. Compare to AJ or LC 6-12 where during the same time periods generally flops seen by 5+. Also, except for a couple hours Friday when there were three good (i.e., better than me!) generally I was raising as much as the rest of the table combined. Most often people would fold to raises, and uncommonly would I get reraised. It was a little better at Hustler, and a lot better at HP with a few LAGgie players. I understand this is a small sample size, but is this standard for 6-12 at the Bike?
3. It was cool on Saturday afternoon at Hustler to see the table in the back with Larry Flynt playing with Phil Ivey, I think Ted Forrest and Cindy Violet. For some reason they were filming.
4. The food was good at the Bike, I had the BiBimBap and Thai fried rice. Cheap too. I didn't sign up for a players card. Didn't want to get junk mail and spam at home from these folks.
5. I was also surprised at how benign the locations were. Based on posts in this forum, you would think the casinos were located in war zones. People make Hustler sound like South-Central. Hustler is down the block from Gardena Memorial. This is an area that historically was settled by folk of Japanese descent from Hawaii. It's not far from the famous Gardena Bowl. This is really not the Ghetto. Also, the Bike has a Starbuck across the street. Starbucks does not build shops in areas where people will not pay for $5 cups of latte. It just seems people get more freaked out about LA than is deserved (see recent post from Lestat about where to live).
6. I was also surprised at how easy it was to get onto a table. I never waited more than 2 minutes during any of the 4 visits. This includes a Friday and Saturday. IN the Bay area we would be talking about a 10-60 minute wait. Were they all at Commerce?
7. In fact, one of the things I liked was the chance to play short handed. I would say that I had the chance to play 5-6 handed for 3 hours of the time I played, esp. at the Bike on Sunday night. In fact when I quit, that was the only 6-12 table, and the highest limit table in the joint. Anyway, it was wierd, since I don't play on line I rarely get to play shorthanded, but I tried to remember what I read in HFAP. Apparently that was enough, because the table didn't adjust. Multiple times I was shocked to find myself stealing blinds and pots with a raise. It has just never happened in the Bay Area.

Maybe just sampling error, but LA poker was not what I expected. Actually it made me feel fortunate to live on the Bay Peninsula where there are easy to get to good games with lower rakes.
MC-

[onegymrat]

Hi Mr. C,

Like many things in life, the wildness of L.A. games DO exist, but are less frequent and less wild than it appears. I haven't played at the Bike's green chip game for a while, but it was certainly not wild, since it used to be half populated by props, although the games were still good. I am amused at the talk of the Commerce 9/18 games these days, as if all you need to do was to walk in for a few hours and they would hand you a couple racks of chips. I think you'll need a bit more effort to beat that game.

As for wait time, yes, I normally do not have to wait long for my usual 20 game. Not sure how you got in so easily at the Bike. The last time I glanced at the Commerce 4/8 game on a weekend night (not sure if they even run the 6/12 anymore), there were 10+ tables running and 50 names on the board. Hardly a short wait. Perhaps the Bike patrons are all at Commerce?! [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[mrcunningham]

One-
From what I have gathered from the forum and from players at the Bike, Commerce has a gap from 4-8 to 9-18, so that's why I didn't get over there.

It did take me a while (and a rack) to adjust to the tightness. Once I was down, even after adjusting it took awhile to work my way back playing in that 6-12 game with the $5 drop with that particular tightish passive crowd. There didn't seem to be much money to be made.

[the_doantster]

Frankly put, the 8-16 game at the bike is tighter than my cornhole. I'll play anywhere else besides there.

[mrcunningham]

Now you tell me
Well at least I now know that I'm not crazy and I'm not so bad that I can't tell a tight table from a loose one.

[sternroolz]

[ QUOTE ]
Now you tell me
Well at least I now know that I'm not crazy and I'm not so bad that I can't tell a tight table from a loose one.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's unfortunate that some people on this board have chosen to state that the Bike green chip games($6-12 and $8-16) are wild lag fests. In truth, they are often as you state...way too tight. For these limits, I recommend HP's $6-12 or HG's. Hustler for a softer $6-12 game.

Also, as to the neighborhood these places are in....I also have kind of wondered why people slam the area around Hustler. Gardena is pretty nice with lots of good places to eat. The problem of course is if you drive on the otherside of the 110, or even 1 mile north on Vermont, the neighborhoods are amoung the worst in Los Angeles.

[shant]

Yeah, the immediate area of the Hustler is OK, but anything that is very close to Compton and Inglewood can be considered ghetto.

[ThaHero]

I always thought that the description of the areas in L.A. were a little exxaggerated as well, but figured it was just because I'm used to being in these areas, so I don't feel particularly threatened.

With that said, Hustler isn't far from Compton, and HP is in a bad part of Inglewood. I work in Commerce/Bell Gardens, and besides the big 18 wheelers everywhere(Commerce mainly), it's a nice area.

I keep hearing about people being robbed and stabbed at HP, but it is the LAGiest place I've been to(small sample though). I guess they're a different kind of aggressive player, they like to get aggressive in the parking lot as well lol