Thanks Limon, interesting read.

Not sure what Limon meant but I assumed he meant, and if so agreed, that anybody with a gamer's mind (and minimal other issues like tilt, etc.) can succeed in poker, but that's not necessarily true in the real world depending on your circumstances in life like race, attractiveness, who you know (or don't know), etc.

Hollywood Park may get a stadium and a football team as it's neighbor, a mall, and a bunch of hotels will follow I'm sure so the action may start spreading out more over the next 5 years.

Someone needs to compete with commerce for bigger games/get them to chill the **** out. Hotel rates up (including $5/night valet fee lol), you lose your rewards points if you use the casino rate (which also went up obv), not only charging for food now but also charging for water, high rake to begin with and now more for straddling, 2 dollar drop b4 the flop in 5-10 lol, garbage hourly player points, unhappy employees all over the place (because they are getting squeezed too), etc, etc, etc.

But then again the one time I played at Hollywood Park I wanna say I was paying $20/half hour for 25-50 lol. Maybe they are all in on it together, idk.

Limon I know you've got a reputation for knowing live poker/rake. Just wondering, this is my first foray into live poker.. are games like this (assuming neutral players forget about skill level, as i know it's a function of winrate, but purely in generalities) are they even beatable? This is the poker room that I will be playing (if i go play)

No Limit Hold'em
Blinds Buy-In Rake Time Charge
$2/$3 $100/$300 10% Pot Capped $10 $5 PPPH
$2/$5 $200-$500 10% Pot Capped $10 $5 PPPH
$5/$5 $300/$700 10% Pot Capped $10 $10 PPPH
$5/$10 $500/$1,000 10% Pot Capped $10 $10 PPPH
$5/$10/$20 $1,000/$3,000 NIL $25 PPPH


ppph means per person per hour? so 10/hour + $10/rake.. or 25/hour with no rake. Are these the industry standard or how do they rank to commerce/vegas?

Looking forward to the response but my first thought is that this is beyond the highest I've ever seen. Saw 20rake max on a cruise 10yr ago but I think this is close to that

cruise ships like norwegian charge 10% rake up to $25 now, on one of those electronic poker tables.

btw i do agree that commerce is getting wacky. high rake, charging for everything including food and water... terrible. and the food contrary to what people have told me is absolutely garbage. everything's been super bland or super mushy/watery.

I heard next they plan on charging $1 for using the bathroom sinks. Okay, this was supposed to be 'A level' but clearly wont be, as most people at commerce dont wash their hands to begin with.

POKERSESH! Sklansky was on this week.

#1 is things like nepotism, sexism, racism, etc. that dont really exist in poker.

#2 if one can afford to kick up games thats fine. prob is many cant but do it anyway by making side deals, staking arrangements, swaps and chops. This is greedy, self destructive and shortsighted. we see this all the way up to the biggest games as in the flynt and guy lalliberte incidents.

#3 i think there are gonna be too many poker tables in los angeles for a LONG time.

below 5-10 prob not worth playing unless games play very deep and you can straddle from any position. where is this?

It's at a casino in Sydney Australia. I'll probably try playing a few nights just cause I've never done live for the experience.. but it seems ridiculously high rake based on research I've done

Guess im the Averna of poker writing...

i heard the games in sydney are really juicy.

Hi Limon,

What's do you think is a good (above average) 5/10 NL player's hourly win rate in LA poker rooms (Bike, Commerce or Hawaiian Gardens?)
Any range of income would be helpful.

Also, is there more money to be made playing 5/10 PLO? I have been seeing the PLO games going at HG more frequently.

the most money to be made is to be prepared to play any game. a crazy big-o game popped out of nowhere at HG for 3 weeks and a good friend of mine easily won 25k in that span, many other regs were afraid to play (game is still going sporadically i think). A joocy PLO game went at HP for a few months, some ******ed games are going tues and thurs at bike. a really good player (not the best) can still realistically make 150k+ playing mid/hi 5-10 (some 20) level but you need to work a little. just sitting at commerce 5-10nl and expecting 150k income isnt gonna happen anymore unless you are one of the top 2 or 3 players in that pool putting in full time+ hours nights and weekends. talking about hourly rates is sort of worthless because you can have a high hourly if you only work peak hours but your yearly will be low because you dont get in the hours. Friday and Saturday nights theres still $150/hr games at 5-10level for the best players. weekday days are prob at the $50/hr level.

In the current poker climate I think anyone can make more in the real world than they can from poker. poker shrunk faster than the overall economy and is recovering much slower (if at all). you need to love something about the poker lifestyle to cut off ties to the real world and do it full time because its a bad decision if youre doing it for the money.

your twitch call in sessions r hilarious as ****

where do u play (if at all) live these days? i might have to come in and teach u how to drink

I play at the bicycle casino most every day (even weekends!) from about 1pm til about 7. COCKTAILS!

theres usually only limit poker when i show up then the uncapped No limit or PLO game starts around 3pm. Great games as you can see on live at the bike, those games come right off the casino floor.

Very cool post.

which one? hopefully it wasnt the stinger88 post where he said no one has a reason to multi account online....lllloooooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllll llllllllllll

**owning scumbags since 2009**

Legitimately impressed as I always am.

Look forward to reading anything you put out for the rest of your life.

BTW, Last time I play at Hawaiian Garden, I was playing EO mix (o8stud8)
the table behind me is playing 5/10 plo
I had a little chat with them before they start playing
about more than half table(5-6) are regulars, The game is wild, chip are flying. I think they straddle too.
2 players on my EO table who went broke multiple times, went to than plo table wishing to get their money back and they went broke again....
another player on my table who seems to know what he is doing went to that table and by the time I m done, he has same rakes of chip but they went from green to red (400-->2000)

game of the future!

I feel there is a "team" going on in that table.
All regulars straddle...... Which actually bump the game to 5/10/20.
And the regulars are "grabbing money" from the Saturday recreational fish

I havent played at HG in years but ill say there's a near 0% chance of any sort of team play by those regs. The same regs play at Commerce and Bike when we have big tourney series, they all straddle and most are losing players. Straddling is huge in PLO, nearly every pot a bike is straddled as well.

yeah
They are not running scam, but they seems to have arrangement to straddle which really bump the game.
I enjoy listening your podcast (with Brat H), and on Liveatthebike...
BTW I dont know if you familiar with the BIKE E/O game (8/19 20/40 half omaha8 half stud8) (upper section corner)

Last time I visited LA, I find out that the E/O game in hawaiian garden is getting bad once they switch to $2 ante(I used to play there). So i m looking for alternative
Thank you

Its called peer pressure

You wanna be a man? Straddle it up