Thanks guys for all the heads up, I took it seriously and played 2 different night sessions at the Orleans Casino, mainly because that was the place I had a room - but it turned out the games were pretty amazing. Turns out I read that the $3 rake and $1 that goes to a jack-pot is not all that un-reasonable around town and compared to other live casinos.
Monday Night At The Orleans
The first session was Monday night & into Tuesday morning. I never really played 1/2 cash for more than a few hours live before - so I decided to watch the action from the rail for about 30 minuets to see if it was right for me. Turns out the play was decent that night - but a little wild considering most everyone was drinking. I recognized Hal Lubarsky playing in the game, who, if you don't know by name, probably know better as the 'blind poker player' who was featured on the Main Event coverage on ESPN a while back. I actually liked having him on my right because naturally it takes a little longer to act - so it gave myself more time to think and get comfortable playing that night.
Anyway - I don't really remember the exact hands or anything like that, but I remember sitting down and playing for about 2 hours earlier in the night and I left with $157 after buying in for $100. I remember the number because I tweeted it so I'd remember what my first score was in a live cash game was. My biggest hand was a flopped set of jacks where I got 1 guy to go all in on the turn when he made top 2-pair.
That's not really the interesting part though. I noticed a fairly broad shouldered guy that was one seat to my left who was friendly chatting with everyone. He was also somewhat the table captain at that point although there were at least 4 other solid players in the game. The guy had friends on the rail and one ended up joining the game near the end of my first brief session that night. The other guy wore a blue sweater - and they were both drinking tons.
I left the game to regroup with some friends, but they were playing black-jack so I decided to re-join a different table probably around 3 or 4 in the morning. I watched the game from the rail, the broad should guy is in there mixing it up and I see this guy in the blue sweater basically playing almost every hand and he had a few backup drinks on the side-rail. I buy in for a $100, and after a few hands the girl next to me says this is not the game to buy into for $100. I make the point that I'd rather short-buy because the guy in the blue sweater was literally making it $22 or $32 every hand ... and I'd much rather ship for a small number because he was quickly building up a stack into the low $1,000's. The strategy actually pays off when I wake up with a pair of Jacks again and ship for about $100 and he called with 5-10 or something like that because it was only about $60 more for him to call - and no one else at the table is going to ship $100 in pre-flop without a top hand. Anyway, I win that hand but stayed in the game for about 2 more hours before blinding away and having to call big raises when I did make hands. I walked away with maybe about $110, but not anywhere close to the $200ish I had it up to at it's peak. The guy in the blue-sweater was just abusing the table .... but surely if I had more experience - or if there was a top flight player at the table, his money would have been gone. And it might have, I left with my buy-in because the $1/2 game was now playing much closer to 3/6 or 4/8 and I'm not comfortable playing for that kind of money ... even with crazy drunks in the game.
The one hand I remember well from that 2nd session was one where I had AK and the girl that made the comment earlier played heads-up. The flop was AKJ rainbow. She checks, I bet like $30 or $35, she calls. Turn comes 10 .... she leads out for like $50. I pick up my cards, the broad shouldered guy now directly to my left sneaks a peak and I muck. He knuckles the table and I ended up making an easy fold, and one I've made 100's of times online, but it was nice doing it in a live game. Just the hour or two playing with her, she'd never bet there without the straight.
Tuesday Night At The Orleans
The next night I was really excited to play so I went over to the room a litter earlier, probably around 9pm ish. I see a game with 3 old guys lined up in a row, a really weak lady player and few other guys that weren't really that good. I decide to play an aggressive game because there was much more limping and there was no strong player at the table. It works pretty well and I remember raising in position to limper and taking down a few pots pre-flop. I kind of played it like an SNG where you try to pick up small pots early to build a stack for later. I think I build my $100 up to about $140 ish pretty quick. I get some pretty bad hands for a little while, then I had a really interesting hand come up with the previously mentioned Hal Lubarsky.
Right before this hand Hal moves to our table with about $80. The dealer calls the floor over and says he needs to buy-in for the min of $100 because the table didn't move ... he switched tables. After a tiny bit of confusion Hal says that's fine he'll buy-in for $100. The very next hand I get dealt AQ of hearts. Hal raised it up pre-flop and I call in position with 1 more player in the pot.
Flop comes Ax 9H 6H
I have AhQh - and kind of feel like going all the way with this one.
Hal bets something like $25 on the flop and other dude in the hand goes all-in for only a little more ... like $45ish more so I just call and Hal calls.
Turn makes it Ax 9H 6H Jx
Hal leads out again for like his remaining $35 and I obviously call.
I'm not really liking my hand anymore.
River makes it Ax 9h 6h Jx 10x
There's a side pot and I'm disgusted and flip over my cards thinking I just went busto. Hal says 'Straight' and flips over K-10
Dealer lines up the cards, he has no straight ... and quite possibly not being able to see the cards made him somewhat confused on what his hand was, because he bet it like he had the straight. I loose a side-pot because the guy binked J-10 for 2-pair on me.
I'm happy with the win, play a few more hands and walk up about $50 ish for the second night in a row.
Then I pulled an Eric Lindgren and bet my profits on Masters, NBA O/U's and even a few 2013 Super Bowl predictions.It's super cool you can mail in your tickets, and being from California I might as well have some added sweat even when I come home!
That's about it, I strongly considered playing in a tournament as others suggested but buying in for $100 to the right $1/$2 game is actually not really a bad move if you have some skill. Fergie72 brings up a great point in that you should really find a good game and not settle if you can, because the spots would have been really good if I felt like playing all night. Next time, I'll keep an eye out for the good tables and be more aggressive as I get more experience with the game flow.
If you're like me used to play lots of .25/.50 type games online ... the couple of times I played $1/$2 at the Orleans, it was almost like the same game except you can see the person. Sometimes you get those crazy guys that raise it up every hand, and sometimes it's a bunch of nits acting like it's the main event. Super fun, but thank god I don't live in Vegas - I'd play everyday, and maybe loose the 'for fun' attitude that you have when it's a privilege to play the game live at a casino.
Hopefully I make a few trips to local casinos in California sometime this year and I'll try to report back on what I see there.
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