Trip Report: The Bike - Sept 1-5 - Lots of $5-5 NL

[TheStation]

I was out in LA from Sept 1-5 and played each day at the bike. I have been busy so this will probably be relatively short. 80%+ of my play was in the 5-5 blind game with $300-500 buy-in.

General Player Observations:
- So much IWTSTH (I Want To See The Hand) that I really wanted to hurt myself, seriously I have never seen it abused this badly even in Vegas, I asked a couple people why they asked and they said “I wanted to see what kinda stuff he played” – There was always one guy in the game asking to see 50%+ of hands – Most of the time not even in the hand at all – A couple times I was pissed losing a hand and someone would be like, I want to see his hand, I would just reach over and insert it into the muck as the dealers did a crappy job of protecting the muck from such an action
- Lots of crazy aggressive players floating people (Call flop bet, lead turn), also players check raising players every time they raised pre-flop and made a continuation bet
- Lots of big preflop raises to negate value of people calling with marginal hands such as raising to $40 preflop every third hand, got a lot of money into the pot quick and most players would simply call the raise, if they miss fold
- Lots of weak play – let aggressive players raise and would fold easily to them – never put them to a hard decision as anytime they showed any strength they had to have 2 pair or better and wouldn’t get action
- Not as much drinking as I would have expected – I see many more players drinking and playing back home in the Midwest
- Passive players not realizing who is tight or loose – the loose players seemed to always be well aware of who the rocks were
- So many players buying in for $500 once or twice, then going on a huge run up to $2500 and dumping it all back – I am convinced someone could really build a nice roll and make $40-60/hr in that 5-5 game without having any really bad swings as it’s a pretty easy game to play safe in – no big risks

The free food at the Bike was wonderful, really enjoyed it as I think I only paid for 2 meals over 5 days outside of the casino

I played almost 40 hours over the 5 days and had good results overall but had a bad stint in the 5-10 NL game due to a 2nd nut flush vs. nut flush situation that I really didn’t see coming, but that’s poker. The 5-10 plays really big there, my only other experience in 5-10 is the game at Bellagio but it has a $1k cap which changes things up drastically.

The players at the Bike were worse than most players I have played with in Vegas or any casino in the Midwest – so a great place to play – I think the rampant abuse of IWTSTH would keep me from ever wanting to play there. I talked to several people who were using it all the time in the games to ask why they did it and they responded with things like “to get information on the other players” and I asked them if they really knew what the rule was for, they had no clue it was originally made to cut down on collusion.

For those that watch Live @ the bike I played in a 5-5 game with Bostin for an orbit until he left and also Ronnie (The Card Boy) for 3 hours or so. Ronnie played a hand with a flopped 2nd nut flush terribly as Dave watched and it was pretty hilarious – Dave was close to having a Bartgasm due to how weak he played it.

Anyway, LA was fun and I was happy to get a chance to play at the Bike but I would prefer to play against better players who don’t ask to see every hand than put up with the players at the bike.

Also one hand to share, we had a guy muck his hand after a player showed pocket twos on a board of AA446 (so playing the board) and he mucks thinking he was beat because he was a moron – I think he felt bad because it showed he was just calling down to see what people had – full details on that hand can be found here

[eco74]

I'm guessing we crossed paths there...that's my regular game. Spent a number of hours in it that weekend too.

I've never experienced the rampant IWTSTH you mention, might have just been a bad weekend for that.

[TheStation]

Yeah with the holiday weekend it might have been worse than normal - I just experienced it in the 5-5 game, only one person asked once in the 5-10 game, basically due to the caliber of players i think - the one time in the 5-10 a person who sat in that game for the first time (they had only played 5-5 previous, or so they said) asked to see a hand and another person in the game informed them that asking to see it was inappropriate and not something that happens in the 5-10 and they should go back to 5-5 if they want to pull that move

It might have also been the tables I was at - the other 5-5 might have been fine - when I came in each day I looked for where bigger stacks were and watched the play and got into what I thought was the better game