johnny

So the games online have been pretty meager lately. That combined with playing some $2/$4 and losing to a rivered 6 high flush and having my boat beat by quad 2s on the only loose table I could find gave me one of those not-so-fresh feelings. However, the local charity charity games are running. That's the closest thing I have to poker without playing in some strangers basement or driving 2 hours. You can see my previous experience with this room where I probably ended it with something like "I'll never step foot in here again" here.

So, I'm working downtown all day so I'm just about 5 minutes from the room. Internet poker has been rough and I don't feel like getting on tight tables and juicing them up. They moved the venue into a permanent building and will be running it year round now. I figure I'll at least go and scope it out. I leave work 40 minutes late though as I had a bunch of really strange customers to deal with.

It's just across the river in a building that used to be an electric plant but has been converted into an entertainment-orientated facility for a few decades now. The third level has a pretty great microbrewery and another restaurant. The second level has one of those places where there are two guys with pianos and they make eveyone in the place sing along to stuff and there are a couple more clubs there. The poker room shares the bottom level with the Cleveland Improv. Nearby buildings house bars, restaurants, a pool hall, and one of the cities few remaining strip clubs.

So I walk into the room expecting the worst. First you walk into a hallway with a security guard there. ... timeout... fuck me ifn nsdjjis if one more fucker hits fucking quads on me aftger we get it all in i'm going to fickign jill somehting. fuck... ok ....

no, it's not ok...

fucking quads over aces full of kings... fuck.

Ok, so I walk into the fucking place and there is a hallway with some fatass secutiry guard. You go down to where the hallway turns and there is another security station this time with multiple fatasses. Then you walk through the snack bar, which is quite nice. I look above the snackbar and there is a large flatscreen with all the waiting lists on it. My eyebrow raises. They have..... technology?

OH the fucker leaves the fucking table with my buyin the fUFKC

Like the ahahahahahahaha shiiiiiiip it! wasn't irritating enough fucks

another berak....

Ok... walk through the snack bar and into the poker room. OMFG it's epic. The walls are brick. It's carpeted. TVs against the walls. Hanging lights. Air conditioning. Lots of tables. I didn't count them but I was sitting at 19. The tables are nice. The chairs are functional, padded this time. Lots of room. There is a host's counter with a computerized list and lots of big screens showing the waits. They show you the waits and the game types but not how many tables are running of each type so it's difficult to gauge the wait. The lists are long. The place is packed. It opened at 4 and runs til 10pm or midnight or something and it's now a little before 6 PM. The tables that I can see from the rail are playing with cash, no chips.

Best of all, I look up at the screen and they are spreading $1/$3 NL... none of this being forced into $10 limit for preflop, and flop with a $10 to $100 bet on the turn and river in increments of 10 bullshit. Just straight, lovely, NL. It says on their website that they do not offer it. There was also limit... $2/$2, $5/$10, and $10/$20. There were also $60 and $120 SnGs and a $120 MTT. The host, as it turns out, used to babysit my sister.

I wait for a while and then sit at a $1/$3 NL table. I go to the table wondering where I can get change because all I have are large bills and I see they are playing with chips. Oh, there is a cage! I ask the cashier what the max buy in is and she says "max? huh?" Oh ok! I buy in for $300, could have gotten away with more.

I sit and notice people that I've played with before both from the local underground games and from the MTT fiasco from a year ago. I sit at 6:40 and have to pay $10 rake for the 20 minutes left in the hour. The tables are filled with a wide variety of people, young to very old, men and women.

Our table was very racial. Seat 1 was some guy, somewhat hispanic he was hard to place. Then there was me, plain white toast. Next to me was a fat white guy who was a fucking loudmouth, calling out the amount in people's stacks, always touching the chips. Next to him is a puerto rican guy I've played with before. ( All this racial shit becomes relevant later. ) Next to him is an old white guy, then another hispanic guy that somehow looks like Elvis, then an elderly white lady, then a black guy, then an Indian (India) guy, then Juan, hispanic.

I sit and do not have to post out of turn. I get no cards and watch the table The Indian guy goes all in the first three hands I'm there, winning each one. His first hand was with 89s for a little under $100. Then with JTs, then with K8o. Two of these hands are against the old white guy who has QQ each time, and the third is against the Puerto Rican. Each time he sucks out the win the table has a lot of banter, whcih is when I get my first hint of the racial stuff as the Puerto Rican puts on an accent like Apu from the Simpsons and tells the Indian guy his head looks like a sheep.

Overall the table is very lively... tons of talking and laughing and ribbing. The dealers are good. In the second round I figure I should play something and so I limp with something or another on the button. A few people in the pot check and I take it down with a continuation bet. I raise AT and get reraised and dump it. I limp with some suited connectors and fold after the flop or take the pot with a continuation bet. I raise 9Ts on the button and the old lady calls. The flop brings two of my suit and I take it down with a bet. None of my hands ever got past the flop.

The table was just full of suckouts though, enough to make anyone playing online scream RIGGED! The Indian guy was largly the benefactor, which made sense as he played the worst hands. He's in a hand with the Puerto Rican and the flop comes 678. The Indian goes all in, the Puerto Rican lays down, the Indian shows J8. The Puerto Rican goes "You go all in with that? You fucking sheephead! Hey, how about we go out for a nice porterhouse, eh Haji? Delicious steak. You Indian sheep! And nice shirt."

A guy takes a cell phone call at the table. A city police officer comes over and tells him to hang up and leave. A county sherrif's deputy comes over to back him up. I guess they have security covered.

During this the floor comes around and collects another $20 in rake. A while later I get 99 in late MP, aka my best starting hand of the night, and limp because nearly everyone is calling. The flop brings three undercards. I bet $50. One chip drops and I go back and put the stack on it after dropping 1/2 the stack and the Indian guy screams "String bet! String bet!" They make me take back 1/2 my bet. The whole table folds anyway.

Next hand the Indian raises and the guy next to him goes all in. The Indian calls with JJ, other villain shows AA. The flop is blanks, turn a J, river a J for quads. He starts screaming and the Puerto Rican lays into him for another round of racial abuse. He wasn't the only guy giving out racial stuff though, he's just who I remember the most.

Several hands later it's getting to be 8:00 and I'm going to have to pay up another $20 in rake. I promised to bring Spammy dinner on my way home and decide it's a good time to go. The old lady just gets busted by the Puerto Rican, KK vs. AA. She wants to rebuy so I offer to sell her chips, saying that I'm leaving, so she doesn't have to get up. The Indian says "Oh, a hit and run" and looks at me like I killed his pet dog. I say "No, I've been playing for an hour and a half - and you'll see me again." Then he smiles and says "I made an impression on you!" and then I softened and smiled. When I did that his face hardens again and he looks at me with darts coming out of his eyes then turns away. Whatever...

I cash out at $359.00. So, I played to a $89 profit in 80 minutes less $30 in rake and $3 in parking.

All in all it was a good experience....

Pros...

just a mile from one of my work locations, about 20 minutes from my house.

Great looking, comfortable room.

Lots of tables, electronic lists on monitors

High buy ins

Wide variety of players, some bad


Cons...

Only open Thursday through Sunday for several hours each evening, and not every week.

The quality of the service, hosts, and dealing will vary from week to week because they are all volunteers from the benefiting charity.

The rake is ouchie

Indian guy thinks I'm a douche.


A far better experience than before and it looks like I'll be hitting it up quite a bit this summer.

Ugignadl

Thanks for the report. I'm pretty sure you can crush that game .

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puckhead23

Good job Johnny. I nominate you for understatement of the year:

$30 in 80 minutes? DAAAAAAAAAMN!!!!!!!!

Ugignadl

Did they rake pots as well?

$30 for eighty minutes is not bad.

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Carrera

at $20/hr with 10 people, that's $200 an hour. Say 3 minutes a hand, that's like $10 a hand. I guess more than you are used to.

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johnny

It seems different when you take $20 off the top of your stack every hour instead of having the dealer deftly putting chips down their rake slot. I suppose if they would rake $4 max per pot it would be equivalent to winning 5 large pots per hour and so it's a little more expensive than that for me. However, dealer tipping is against the rules so that's another $1 or $2 per pot saved. Still, I'm used to getting players points and rakeback.

The play is slow with a lot of banter, thinking, persuading but they also have automatic shufflers and run 2 decks so I'd say that if the average hand takes more than 3 minutes it's not by much.

johnny

One sign of thinking players at this table... at one point Juan picks up his chips and gets up. We think he's leaving. He has the seat on the immediate left of the Indian guy. Instead, he switches seats to my immediate left. .... boner move.

Now, you can see the thinking players. Once everyone realizes the table Jesus seat is vacant about 4 of us look at each other and go to push our chips to that seat. Free Mason guy, who I didn't mention but he replaced Black guy and was the one who got is aces cracked by Indian guy, wins the race for the seat because he's the closest, moving from one side of Indian guy to the other. He looks happy with himself... until Indian guy cracks his aces with those quad jacks. Now Juan looks pretty pleased with himself.

Carrera

At the french casinos near me, they randomly assign you a seat, and you can't change during play even when free seats are available...

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johnny

eeep... can you put in for a seat change if you really hate your seat?


I checked out the rules sheet they gave me. There is no max buy in. Heh. the MINUMUM initial buy in is $300.00 for $1/$3 NL, so no one can shortstack. They let the old lady buy $200 of my chips, so I don't know if they let you rebuy for less or if they were just being nice to her.

As for the SnGs, which I was seriously considering but not now, the vig is $15 of the $60 buy in, or $20 of the $120 buy in. They are 10 seat tournaments and they pay out the top 2. The MTTs start when they get 40 registrants and pay out the top 4

4th = 5%
3rd = 15%
2nd = 30%
1st = 50%

20 minute blinds, $25/$50 first level, no mention of starting stack size.

Tonight's tournament is a rebuy, so is Sundays. A $120 rebuy MTT paying 4 places is outside my comfort range.

So, I'll stick to the cash games...

Snickers99

Nice!
This I might move to pros.

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