[Hagar]

Felt like a little change of scenery so I did a little run to CC for the day.

I put myself on all lists (3/6, 4/8, 6/12 and NL). Got in a 3/6 game after a 1/2 hour wait and moved up to 4/8 after about 1/2 hour on the 3/6 table. The 6/12 and NL never spread as of about 6:00 when I left.

The session it self was mostly unremarkable - I ended up ahead $85 (thanks to getting an Aces cracked $100 bonus) and watched the same crap. Luckily someone else seemd to have "my role" (nothing but bad luck) and it's just as painful to watch someone else go through it as it is to experience it first hand.

As has been real typical my last few sessions, there was someone at each table that was just flat out running over the table. "Any 2 cards" were truly winning a lot of time and sometimes they would get good cards and really stick it to the table.

At my 4/8 game there was one guy who saw every flop and just kept dragging pot after pot. When I sat down (12:30ish) he had about $150 in front of him. By about 1:30 he had about $600 in front of him. He bled about $200 away in the next 1/2 hour when he finally picked up and left. (He came back to the table at about 5:15 with a fresh stack and promptly started collecting pots again. Just once I want to have a day like that...)

I was running real average. I caught a few hands and avoided most trouble when I didn't. My only complaint was that many of the hands that I made were far from the nuts so I just couldn't hammer the pot with them. I made several straights where my straight card also paired the board AND put a 3 flush. All I could do was call it down.

The big hand of the session for me was a kill pot. I'm in the SB with QT suited. A solid player raised from early position. There were 3 or 4 callers ahead of me so I felt compelled to call despite my own advice to just get away from it. The flop brought 2 hearts (of my suit) and I had 2 over cards. Check, bet (raiser), call, call... I don't like chashing flushes, especially when it's not the nut flush, but checking put me in the position of closing the action and the pot was gonna be huge, so I called. Turn brings a T. So now I have top pair and a flush draw - just what I needed another reason to keep chasing. I didn't think that TT was good, but 3 Ts? Could work. Check, bet (raiser), call, call. River brings my flush card. But.....it also paired the board. 90% of the time I'd bet this or check/raise it, but luckily my pokervision saw something really ugly hanging in the haze. Honestly I was worried about a bigger flush, but I check/called to find that the PF raiser had TT. He turned a set and rivered a boat. The other guy in the hand had KK so my flush would have been good for all of the other 8 hearts. The combination of his 1 outer on the river and the 1 in 9 hearts to make a boat won the raiser the pot. The guy with KK played his hand terribly, but probably lost the minimum with the unlucky board. This was easily the biggest pot of the session. I was in it and lost. No surprise.

Anyway, the point of this post is not so much a game report as it is couple of heads up items regarding the current rule structures. First, they have this new betting rule that I still can't figure out why. If you take your hand into the pot with more chips than the call and it's at least half a bet more, you just raised (unless you declared call before you moved in). It is the most fucked up thing I've ever heard of. Most experienced players load up with chips before moving ionto the pot so they can raise if they choose with out having to worry about a string raise. I could never get a straight answer out of anyone why this is in place, but I guess it has something to do with angle shooting. If anything, this adds a different way to shoot angles ("Oh dam. I didn't mean to raise, but I guess I have to now.") The only time it was enforced was when it was heads up which makes even less sense. The only thing it does is slow the game down becuase we all started counting our chips out on the felt behind the pot line before betting so we wouldn't accidently raise. Just be aware.

The second thing that is new is the time you can be away from the table. Once you miss 2 blinds they pick you up. I wanted to grab some lunch so at 3:00 I ran over to the deli (I was able to run the whole way, so you know it's really close) oredered a cold sandwhich, sat and wtached 7 cooks stand around and gab for 10 minutes rather than make my lunch. (Didn't make me very happy, but I know beeter than to harrass bartenders, dealers and shortorder cooks - they have a lot of power.) You can't eat at the poker tables, so I inhaled my lunch and ran back to the table. I see that I've missed one blind and the blind is on the guy to my right. I didn't know about the new rule, so I decided to go use the restroom while I was up - I'd post my blinds when I got back. I get back just as they are dealing the next hand and the floor is lurking over my chips with a rack and is going to pick me up. "Whoa, hey, wait. I'm right here. What's up?" "You can only miss 2 blinds." I was away exactly one orbit and they were gonna pick me up. This place sure goes out of it's way to annoy poker players.

OK. I do have a topic for discussion. Mon-Wed 9-5, they have a promo that pays $100 to anyone who gets AA cracked. The universal plan of attack is to just limp and call them all the way down, hoping somoene can suck out on you. It's a very strange deal, but it's the way it is. I got them cracked once and then I caught them an hour later. I limped and got a few callers. I had the misfortune of flopping a set so I knew it was very unlikely that I was gonna get beat. I checked the flop and nobody bet. The turn brought another blank. So I start to think, if I'm not gonna get sucked out, I might as well build a pot. (AA is a very strange hand in this environment.) There was a bunch of rags and 2 clubs so I guess it's possible that someone had some chance of sucking out, but I decided to get a little money. If someone had a draw, they would have called. I took the $12 pot and flipped up my AA and said something like "what a shame..".

Some old crochety rock critisized me for not checking it down hoping to get sucked out for the $100. I figured that I might as well get something for my hand if I could so I was fine with my decision. I figured I was being deceptive ("Who would ever bet with AA in that spot") - I was hoping to get called by someone with a pair of 6s. It was the kind of table that if someone had anything, they would have called. Why not get an extra $8 or $16 (or more) out of my hand?

Anyone have any thoughts on the play of this hand?

 

[Stockton_Dave]

Anyone have any thoughts on the play of this hand?

I'd play the aces. The jackpot is simply insurance to me. If I got AA and under the jackpot amount in front of me, I'm betting the hand to the max as long as I feel my AA is still top dog. AA does hold up sometimes If I think I'm beat, then I'll go into call only mode to try and preserve as much of my stack as possible to maximize the jackpot payoff.

In your case I would of bet em also. But I wouldn't of shown em after.

Jackpots are nice, but I come to play for your money, not the jackpot. I'm sure not everyone feels the same as exhibited by your table mates reactions.

 

[Hagar]

The popular strategy there is to check-call aces down during this promo. Period. If someone raises before the flop, you know that they don't have AA. It's a real odd feeling when people are rooting for their AA to get cracked. In general I agree with the plan, which is why I decided to try to build a pot. You're right I shouldn't have showed them, and I got "WTF you doing" looks from the 5 players that had half a brain in the game. Very odd.....

 

[Quads]

Good info in your report.
Makes me want to catch something in the other direction knowing that a) if I'm going to make a drive, it's not going to be for a $3/6 table. I can play $3/6 in 8 card rooms within 20 miles of my house. Everything I've heard about the place lately has just been off.

Funny, I had them cracked last night. This is seemingly fresh in my mind. However I wasn’t at a $3/6 table. Aces cracked wins a rack!! The Bike down in LA does that, and the only place it can make any sense to get into that scenario is on a $3/6 table or less. And at best, on $3/6 you end up making about $12 bucks when it's all said and done. The math doesn't work out in $6/12 or higher. You figure what ever position you are in, someone will raise you, it's limit, some jackass has a pocket pair, and he's gonna raise you. You have the best pocket pair, so you, obviously, reraise. 9 to go. Flop, you pump it again, same thing, another 9. Turn 12, River 12, possibly 18 or 24. This of course is worse case scenario with everyone jumping on in a pot like a sailor in a whore house on nickel night. So, you are $42 or so bucks into that hand, possibly more. You get them cracked, you get the rack. It’s 50 bucks. Because, remember, you have to lose $50 to win $100. Same odds as BlackJack. On $4/8 it gets you closer to the $75 invested in the hand with a wild aggressive table.

On the other hand, you can limp them all the way down. Murphy’s Law will tell us that when we play Aces like a pussy, they will win a substantially smaller pot and we will not see the proper return on our investment nor the appropriate value of the cards, respectively. So it’s a no win situation in my book. Play them like you normally would at a $3/6 table. Pump this shit out of them and bet them to beat the band. What’s the worse thing that could happen? You break even? On $6/12 you barely get even, if even at all.

The more than 6 chips in your hand before you go out to call is the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. That is absolutely ridiculous. It makes no sense at all, if not by killing one angle, opening another in a huge way. How common is it for someone to take the entire stack of 20 out in the palm of his hand and peel off what ever the bet is. Or better yet, do the “fake you out” thing and take the stack out to tap it on the felt with a verbal “check” to try and annoy the table. Not that I’ve ever done this, but I’ve seen it done. 8) And further, they only enforce it when you are heads up? Silly. Sounds like someone got into a swinging dick contest and flipped a table over out there one day and now all of a sudden they have their poker experts come up with this rule. Such poker experts that they can’t run a friggin’ tourney that will bring hundreds and hundreds of people out there to spend money, (because we all know, there isn’t a damn thing close by to spend money on, once your there, buckle in, your trapped) yet they make up these silly rules such as the “You can’t have 9 or more chips in your hand when betting preflop” Makes me want to say "call" and take my chips out one by one, every single time.

On top of that, they put a timer on your seat for two blinds? Rather than say, 20 minutes like most everyplace else does? Vegas usually does 30 minutes. Sure, you post them all when you get back, but you have your seat. Let alone, there isn’t service in the poker room where you can at least get a punk ass sammich? And in order to get a punk ass sammich, you have to bolt across the casino to inhale one and do the 100 yard dash to get back in time to find out that some fat ass aging bald guy and hubble telescope glasses and the power of a clip board and "the list" of names is hovering over your chip stack like a jackel.

Not a shocker that they can’t get a regular $6/12 or NL game running. Those (most of) that are out on the $3/6 table don’t know any better. (other than on the weekends, which is a given. Shit, you can get a game together in WALMART on any weekend afternoon, let alone at CC)

Drive an hour and 20 to CC?
Drive an hour and 20 to Tahoe
Drive 2 hrs to Reno.
Drive 20 miles in any direction from my house and get a game.
(how long do I get to think about this?)

 

[Hagar]

So it’s a no win situation in my book.

It's actually much closer to a no lose than a no win. If you're playing higher than 3/6 (4/6 is marginal) then yes, you have to play the hand vs. promo. But in 3/6, you DON'T pump the pot. You just sit back and hope that there isn't crazy betting (2 guys pumping the pot) unless it looks like you have the pot locked up. It's very funny when you see someone dispointed when they didn't win the promo. but drug an $85 pot and you see that a lot. Either way, you know you're going to get something out of the pot - you just don't want to put more than $100 of yout own money into it.

I pretty much agree with you that it's just not worth the trip. I do like the NL game (usually pretty soft) there but that's always a crap shoot (that it will get spread) during the week and I don't think I've ever seen them spread the 6/12.

But CC seems to go out of their way to insult poker players:

-You can't eat in the poker room, it takes forever to get fed and you usually have to wade back through 3/6 to get backinto the 4/8 (or higher) game if you get on the dinner list.

-They have more convoluted betting "rules" than I've ever seen anywhere else.

-You can't get any comp points (towards a room or something) playing poker

-Their rooms are expensive

-Their poker staff is marginal at best (as a whole - they have a couple of very good dealers)

-They'll spread 8-3/6 games but only one 4/8 most of the time

-The place is noisy

I didn't drive down there for the 3/6 game. Like I said I just wanted a change of scenery and I probably won't be making too many more trips down there during the week. It's clear they don't care about my business.

 

[Ender]

I'm not sure if anyone played poker at CC before it got all big and mighty, but it was a lot different. They have a smallish 6 table room, with a separate waitress, good service (still no food ??) good tourneys, and all and all a pretty good place. Then the super casino opens up, and the poker room goes to shit. Loud, in the middle of the casino, bad service, no more tourneys, and now all these shitty rules! They've lost me as a customer, because, like Jasen said, why drive 1 1/2 hours there when you can play limit anywhere within 10 miles or go over the hill for a true casino??

On a side note, I was playing a tourney at Derby, and happened to sit next to Buddy. Not sure if anyone knows who he is, but he used to be the manager of CC's old poker room. He was there when the new one opened, but ended up quitting because they didn't do many of the things as promised (like having their OWN room, eating, etc.) Things that regular poker players want. Also, and I guess him quitting is the reason for no more tourneys, is that they were mistreating the dealers and not giving them good enough breaks, wages, etc. or something like that. SO after Buddy left, I guess the new guy that took over decided on these stupid-ass rules like crossing the line with $ counts as a raise!? Cya Cache Creek, I'm not going back unless forced to. And playing NL with $1 chips? WTF? Buddy is a dealer at Capitol now, and says he makes more $ there than he did at CC. Go him.

-David

 

[Quads]

I did play at CC when it was in the tent and their 6 table room sat off to the side. The action was good, the staff was decent, things were humming along smoothly. Then came the poker boom and they missed the mark all together.