TR: Microer's first trip to B&M (Long and LC)

[Sirasoni]

Cliffnotes: Hero goes to Morongo after turning 18, drops 5 BBs playing an unintentionally rocky style against the loosest players in the world. Hero enjoys it and thinks other microers should go too.

I had originally started making this post, then about a paragraph in I wondered to myself "What use would this be for the forum?", "Would anyone even care?", etc. but a day later (now) I decided to post it anyways because I have nothing else to do. So enjoy [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Preflop

For those that don't know me (I am confident this is all of you who are reading this sans two people on this board whom I know in real life), I just turned 18 a couple weeks ago. Yesterday, Sunday the 17th, I ventured to Morongo Casino in SoCal (Indian Casino so it's 18+) with two of my friends, Andrew and Danny. I just moved into my dorm at UC Irvine the day before, and was also reeling from a break up with my girlfriend for the past 9 months so I was determined to gamble my problems away like the degenerate I am.

We get to the casino after an hour drive. On the way there we saw a huge smokestack covering the sky and a forest fire burning in some rural-looking place not far from the actual B&M. This would be an omen of bad luck for me. We also decide that whoever is up more after today would be the one that drives home.

I walk into the casino and give my initials to the check-in. I wanted to play 4/8 here as the 3/6 game was a kill pot (if a person wins twice in a row, no SD required, it turns into a 6-12 game until he maintains the streak), but to my dismay 4/8 was also a kill pot. While there was a huge waitlist for the 4/8 game, I was told it wasn't going to be starting anytime soon so I switched to the 3/6 waitlist and waited for at least 40 minutes before sitting at a newly opened 3/6 table.

The first person to sit down actually was an old lady who was clearly here to enjoy being a 90 vpip fish. I sat a seat to her right. The seats around me began filling up, with mostly old people and not a single young player in sight. I was actually afraid of any "young players" sitting down at a fixed limit table. I felt that young players were either random donks or people who actually studied the game, and if there were young donks, they would usually be at the NL tables, not fixed limit.

I sat down with a stack of 180 dollars, organized my chips very neatly in packed columns of 20 dollars each. Aforementioned old lady accidentally kicks the leg of the table and all my chips collapse (second omen of bad luck).

At the tables

Immediately after the first hand started, I was dealt AQs and I heard over the intercom that a new 4/8 table was starting (third omen of bad luck). I don't want to rack up my chips and leave because it was too much of a hassle. My AQs whiffed and I threw it away.

Amazingly, I was not nervous nor shaking at all. I thought I would be because it was my first time at a B&M, but assorted 5 dollar buy in donkaments with friends at my high school prepared me for the live environment I suppose.

To make it short, I ended up establishing a very tight, aggressive style after getting KK and propelling myself up past the 220 dollar mark easily. On that hand however, I made the grave mistake of tipping my dealer THREE dollars (an SB!). It was only after the KK hand when I realized the rake at the casinos was humongous. At the very least, the SB was literally raked no matter what, right after the cards were dealt.

After KK, I hit a dry spell of cards. Understanding that I was only going to be seeing like 3 hands an hour at the rate live plays at, I decided to play a pretty loose style (which was also pretty easy if you think about it, as there were normally like 3-5 people limping preflop). Unfortunately this added vpip did not allow me to play hands such as 52o, 63o, J2o that I was getting for at least 3 million orbits, along with the occasional raises from loose passives on my right.

It was so bad that I eventually feared that once I had acquired a good hand, a raise from me would freak everyone out (and by this I mean give heart attacks to the 3 elderly people sitting next to me). I would later find out that no one really cared about "table image" except for maybe me (I made mental notes like "hairy cowboy on my right does not raise AKs in ep", "sick-of-work-and-hates-life lady two seats to the left likes to slowplay high PPs" etc.). The table was filled with wacky play, which made it very very different from online.

In all, with no exaggeration, I think I played a rocky 10/7 game. Times I decided to be like "oh what the hell" and limp K5s because I was sure my postflop skills were superior to these monkeys, I would completely miss the board with absolutely no outs.

During my 5 hour session I had a few young players sit down. Only one was decent, but he left quickly thankfully. Another, some Moneymaker lookalike with shades planted (possibly permanently) onto his forehead kept winning kill pot after kill pot. I think he was up at least 300 dollars during the time I was there, winning with utter crap like J5 and getting lucky trips on the river etc. My fears about people thinking I was a 2 vpip nit who played only AA and KK were smashed by this ridiculous player who called my open raise in MP in the big blind, he had A2o and I had KQo. This was my first preflop raise in 5 orbits. He ended up hitting a gutshot for his straight on the river (he was ahead of me on a completely whiffed boared anyhow), but I thought he would give me a bit more credit. It was also pretty funny because before each call he made when I had c-bet and followed up on the turn, he would stare into my eyes. I thought it would be quite humorous if i stared back, with the same intense glare, but I just continued looking at my chips.

A young player also sat down an hour before I left. He literally did not play a hand. I think he was so tight that when it was limped to him on the BB, he insisted that he'd fold instead of check. Of course I exaggerate, but to be honest he made me feel better about my dry run of cards since this guy was seriously some 0 vpip rock who must have just enjoyed sitting down at the table for the sake of sitting down.

Showdown

Overall the vpip at the table was at least five thousand percent. It's funny how we pray for these sort of table conditions online but I still couldn't turn a profit. The moment I saw who my opponents were, I thought to myself that if I could not beat this game, I have disgraced myself and everything I've learned the past 9 months here at 2p2.

Unfortunately I ended up being down 30 dollars. I believe I mistakeningly spewed/missed possibly 6 or 7 bets in my time there (it's easy to count due to the pace of live play and the lack of multitabling) over 5 hours of play.

I later learned that my friend Andrew went up $1530 at the 2-5 NL table (with 1000 donated by "some girl on tilt"), and my friend Danny ended up being down 400 dollars after some standard beats at 1-3 and 2-5 NL. Andrew drove home that day.

Final Thoughts

I figure that if you really wanted to make the casino trip worth it in terms of EV, you would either play incredibly high stakes (at least in terms of your current online stakes), or No Limit. Due to the slow rate of hands per hour, a winning 3/6 player would probably be a very small winner over time compared to a 1/2 grinder. I was told by one of my better friends who plays midstakes that I should probably be trying at the very least 5/10 at a B&M.

Overall it was very enjoyable playing at a B&M, the atmosphere (sometimes) is fun compared to online (where the only chat that goes on includes fish berating), and the casino staff was incredibly polite and helpful throughout my stay.

Well that's my trip report. Sorry if it's tl;dr status, but I hope this would encourage other microers to go and try casino play. We complain that the micros have been getting tighter over the past year, and we all wish we could find that 40 vpip goldmine to isolate (btw, isolation raises are not smart at small stakes B&M). The casinos are filled with these loved ones.

[train.]

nice read

[marchron]

[ QUOTE ]
I figure that if you really wanted to make the casino trip worth it in terms of EV, you would either play incredibly high stakes (at least in terms of your current online stakes), or No Limit. Due to the slow rate of hands per hour, a winning 3/6 player would probably be a very small winner over time compared to a 1/2 grinder. I was told by one of my better friends who plays midstakes that I should probably be trying at the very least 5/10 at a B&M.

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree. If you're only 'rolled for 3/6, play 3/6. Unless variance is cruel to you, you will clean up. I played live 3/6 on Labor Day and finished down $41, but that was because I had AA, KK and QQ all cracked.

Live play is much slower, but your winrate in live 3/6 (especially with the occasional kill pot win) will trounce online 1/2 because it plays like online .01/.02.


Arrgh.

[Ignignokt]

[ QUOTE ]
Live play is much slower, but your winrate in live 3/6 (especially with the occasional kill pot win) will trounce online 1/2 because it plays like online .01/.02.

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I agree with this. These are games you can truly crush, which more than makes up for the higher rake.

And kill games rule: they make people play even looser. (For some reason, many people who have won a pot will play a lot more hands when they have the "Off" button in front of them, just to try and get a kill pot.)

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Arrgh.

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Yarrr, I agree with this too, matey.

[kiemo]

Hope you learned the first rule of low limit live poker: DONT BLUFF, LIKE EVER!


Your first trip and unless you get serious about playing live poker should be more about having fun playing live poker then about making a profit

[OrigamiSensei]

Nice report. Although the higher stakes look very daunting it's unbelievable how soft live games are. It's also more fun to have some interaction and put your live reads to work.

[marchron]

[ QUOTE ]
And kill games rule: they make people play even looser. (For some reason, many people who have won a pot will play a lot more hands when they have the "Off" button in front of them, just to try and get a kill pot.)

[/ QUOTE ]
Hmm. It's been my experience that people don't get looser until they earn the kill pot, and then all they want to do is keep it. Making it a $6 call instead of a $3 call tends to put off the fish from limping in. And if s/he gets a chance to open-raise, the player on the kill pot will usually make it $12 with any two, putting insane pressure on the blinds (which are still 1/3 or 2/3 depending on venue).

At my last B&M venture, I got a kill pot in LP and stole the blinds twice in a row, once with 33 and another with . . . I forget, but it stunk.

And I whooped someone's ass on his kill pot when he opened, I reraised with AK, flopped top two and slowplayed the flop — he was a thinker and I thought he'd pay me off on the $12 streets. He did, even when I boated up on the river. He said after the hand that he had QQ — I think he folds if he didn't have the internal pressure of wanting to keep his kill pot.

[Sirasoni]

Sorry for the late response, been busy with college movein and all that.

I may be wrong about that statement (not to mention my post is infested with exaggerations [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])


I had two decent hands during a kill pot, KQo and TT, but they ended up being against AKo and AA respectively (I didn't take my hands to showdown as the flop always missed, but other people gladly went to showdown with their mid pair). I felt those hands were a huge blow to my stack, just from preflop play alone because of the double blind.

You're right about the crushable softness of the games though. I feel like we just lose a lot of our edge based on the fact that we can't multitable (we expand on our edge by increasing the amount of times we get to play against poorer players and have higher hand equity).

Thanks for the responses, I can't wait to go back. Anyone around here go to Morongo?

[Barrin6]

Where are you dorming at?I just moved into UCI also at middle earth. I have to say morongo is ugly in comparasion to Barona which is probably 20 mins farther. If you are going to be playing at a B&M rarely, I would recommend playing a little above your limits to make it more worthwhile, or else just stay at home and play online.

Last time I went, I played 2/5 uncapped buyin. I didn't even want to touch the capped 30bb buyin at 1/3 nl. If you want to see more of a detail report, check out my livejournal in my profile. Btw if you see me on campus give me a heads up.

[Buzz-cp]

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I played live 3/6 on Labor Day

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just curious--did you play in NW part up there--uh Trump's casino, or whatever that is near the stinkytown? Either way, what limits do they spread? You, bobbyshaftoe, buck & train should meet up for some live fun sometime.