--- NL Holdem ---
LC the players are bad. They are not completely clueless though. I saw a 70% vpip player actually fold face up A6o when a non-threatening card came on the turn to a bet.

In NL @ LC you really cant steal from the CO with any 2. They take $2 out of the $4 in the pot pre so you are risking min $5 to win $2 and 3 players left to act which certainly the BUT will call.

Best steal bet is $5 from the BUT ($4 cost) to win $2. Makes the SB call $4 to win $7 OOP which is bad. BB should call $3 to win $7 but you got position. I do think that if its a limped pot you can limp on the button for more hands than usual. $3 to win $2 from the blinds +$4 for each limper.

I havent been there enough to completely feel out the players and the general play. I did see a girl Limp RR AI preflop ~$65 stack vs me with J3o from UTG. There were some callers in the pot that actually gave me 2:1 to call with my AQo. I would have folded but her tells gave away the strengh of her hand which was weak.

The bad players do bluff but from what I am understanding is that usually they dont like calling large bets. But you have to pay attention. Most players give off lots of tells including the regs. I took down a huge pot with a hand that if I had been online would have been a check down hand. But the 2 players in the pot (including one reg who just got bad beat twice by a bad player real ugly) basically flipped up their hands face up with the tells.

I think you have to watch your targets and see where they fold. The players call too way too much preflop and from my experience float a lot. But thats when it ends. On the turn they choke and fold OOP, maybe the river.

I have been dying to go the casino to play but I got sick for a week and I dont play sick.

--- Limit Holdem ---
I dont think you can beat the rake in this game @ LC assuming fair players.

If the game is No Foldem Holdem then you can beat the game. I usually follow "Izmet Fekali » Playing With the Fish" article I found a number of years ago. Where if your game always have a ton of callers its right to raise high equity hands to build a pot.

His general idea: Lets say you are UTG and you saw the BBs hand which is AA. You know that guaranteed there will be 6-9 players to the flop that dont fold to preflop raises. You can raise T9s get reraised by AA and cap the pot and have more equity than an average hand. The large pot with a nut str8 hand can allow for weak draws.

Ive used this tactic years ago in very loose games and I dont think once I ever lost. Its definitely a lot more fun that playing tight and the fish go on monkey tilt when you flip up your hand and rake in a huge pot after a big score.

But the game has to be very passive and TONS of limpers.

Call me crazy, but they're dropping 2 for the jackpot and 4 for the rake. that's 6 every hand. every orbit, that's 54 bucks off the table. If players are playing below average in the 1-1-2 game, then it should be nearly impossible to beat. If the players are playing wild and you can just wait for AA and KK then you could probably do Ok in the game, but those game conditions are simply not there all the time. Bay 101 FTW

Beating the rake at the 1-1-2 game becomes easier if you sit at a table where other people kill it every hand, and you play tight. I am not a fan of the extra dollar they take for the jackpot drop, I believe they changed from taking 1 dollar to 2 dollars if the pot is more than $20 a year or two ago. While they have been taking the extra dollar I have not seen the jackpot get significantly bigger. They have increased the frequency of the rack attacks though.

1. Grinding 3/6 for anything but practice is foolish. The rake is pretty brutal, and you're dealing with roughly a -2.5 BB/hr "current" against you. If you're a really strong "swimmer," you might be able to achieve modest victories (+0.5-1.5 BB/hr) but honestly even most people who handily beat the game can't beat it by enough to overcome the rake. You have to be truly expert to make any money at 3/6 with a $5 drop. Like, if there were an Olympics of 3/6 LHE, you'd have to be a strong contender for a meal.

2. Assuming you're only good or worse than just good, $500 really isn't enough for 3/6 in light of that. Strongly consider saving money rather than trying to grind up your bankroll - a second job working night shift at McDonald's is going to pay 2 BB/hr variance-free; you can probably do even better if you take lolawful jobs like jizzmopper or something. This will also give you an awesome quitting story should you ever become a named poker player and tell people how you got started.

3. Consider Artichoke Joe's or Oaks. The rake is lower (3+1 vs. 4+1 at LC, Bay, or GC) and both have 15/30+ games (which means that the 6/12 tends to be softer than 6/12 where it's the highest limit spread). Cal Grand is even better, but it's pretty far from San Francisco and even further from the peninsula.

4. Post in SSLHE.

Maybe the PAD PLO epi gives PLO some momentum

Would anyone be interested in getting a 10/20 NL up and running at Lucky Chances? I know they run it on Fridays but it would be nice to have it every night.

I've been there every Fri/Sat night for the past month or so and pretty sure I've only seen the 10/10/20 game running once.

Imagine LC is going to be packed this weekend with the BBJ approaching 140k.

is the rake beatable at the 1-1-2 NL game? Also, what's a kill pot?

Kill Pot is where a player buys the button preflop from any position (only for preflop) and he pays 2x the min bet. In LC its $8 since the limp is $4. So now its $8 to limp.

1-1-2, $4 rake post flop no matter the size of the pot, $2 BBJP from what I heard, $4 limps. With 1/2 the table playing short from $40-$100. With $4 limps thats effectively 10bbs-25bbs which means it favors more bad players and not skill.

No wonder. In Florida its 10% rake + $1 BBJP. 1-2 blinds $2 limp. People would buy in for $100-$200. No wonder I racked up there. In Bay area Im getting pounded by all the flop shoves on me and limp reraises with 99 vs my AK.

I think LCs 1-1-2 is not beatable with its format and the buy ins. Even if you manage to get on the correct side of the flops you are still losing. I got into many All ins post flop vs shorties with the right equity. I averaged 60% equity vs all of them. But with a $6 rake Im already losing.

Not sure how you could play?!? If everyone bough in for $200-$300 then it would be beatable. But racing vs shorties when the casino takes your profit just blows.

when you say it's not beatable because of the buyins, do you mean the average player there buys in short or the buy-in/blind/rake structure makes it unbeatable? what about AJ's in this regard?

I live a lot closer to LC than AJ's, so i would like to know which room is more "beatable" for 200NL.

Both.

1/2 the table that buys in is short.
The limp is $4 which makes their stack effectively 1/2 the size of already short stacks
The rake + BBJP is auto $5-$6 no matter the pot size from the previous posts. (if BBJP is $1 or $2 Im not sure someone said $2)

So scenarios...

You limp in position 76s vs 4 limpers ($6 already gone from the pot)
#1 a shorty in the blind shoves or raises, you cant call lose $4
#2 its limped you play for less odds than you should because stacks are short and limps are expensive. A shorty bets you cant call.

You raise preflop $8 everyone folds you win $2 (they only take $2 no flop)
You raise preflop $8 and a 2 people call pot $28. You c-bet $18 and take it down. Of the $26 you risked you only win $14 ($4 rake + $2 BBJP).
You raise preflop $8 AKs get shoves on by a shorty with a pair for $60 and for whatever reason you call. Equity if -+$3 and $6 is already gone from the pot. Lose - lose if you have QQ vs AKs or AKs vs a pair.

These are very common scenarios.

If you could get notes on people and accurately play the player... maybe its beatable. But they are too many players to be confident with your notes.

If most players bought in for $200.... then I think its beatable.

Currently I think its not beatable.

You could play REEEAL tight and only vs large stacks. But I think the winrate will be lower than normal and it would be better to play somewhere else.

Im going to try oaks. Maybe even Haywood. Someone says its timed there for $14 per hour. That sill favors stealing and playing. Also there is no buy in cap.

As for AJs their 1/2 plays like 3/5 or 5/10 depending on the kill which is most of the time. Blinds 1/2/2 with $5 min bet

its beatable because the pot is much larger and you have less shorties... I think. I dont go there anymore.

Anyone confirm the above? Anyone a consistent winner @ LCs 1/2 game?

I used to play a lot at LC circa 2004/2005 and beat the hell out of the 1-1-2. I imagine its a little tougher these days but not ridiculously so, still plenty of donks, bad regs, and people there to have fun.

Yes the $2 jackpot drop (and $2 drop with no flop) is pretty brutal, but to be completely honest i feel you might get at least as much or more for your money with the $2 drop at LC than u do with the $1 drop in LA because the jackpot is much bigger (yes i know its also harder to hit) and they also do a fairly insane amount of "rack attacks" and "aces cracked" promotions in which they are constantly throwing the money back at the players in random ways.

I've been back twice since black friday and both times played the red chip 3-5 NL game, which after being a long time FR msnl grinder i feel vastly overqualified (yet underrolled (THANKS DOJ!)) for, and i think this game is probably quite beatable too. I'm 0-2 in the game so far, but i see all kinds of poor fundamentals from the regs and few players who i imagine could be consistent winners.

I frequent LC regularly, thought I'd chime in.

Can confirm that 10-20 has been running with regularity on Friday nights for the past month - two tables with a small waitlist this past Friday.

3-5 and 5-10 run nightly, usually with 2+ tables apiece depending on the night.

The tag for PLO rotates between 2-3 and 3-5 PLO but rarely collects many names. Either could run with a little organization, most likely on a Tuesday night, when the Omaha jackpot is doubled until 6AM Wednesday morning.

I think those PLO games are 100-500 and 400-no max buyin, respectively.

HE BBJ was 140k last I was in there. Reverts to 100k when hit, and LC runs "double jackpot" promotions at various times during the week.

Looking back at my records I think its just variance. In the last 30 hours of playing I have stacked someone once, not even for a full stack with a set. All other allins have been coolers (two nut flush over my 2nd nut flush), bad beats (AK vs A7o All in preflop vs a maniac), or racing with shorties for $40-$80 and losing over ~3/4 of those races.

Im playing this Saturday if anyone wants to meet me @ LCs.

I'll be in the area. I'm a reg at Oaks and GC. My friend and I are going to either AJ or LC this saturday because we haven't been to the SF card rooms in a while. It's nice NOT to be known on a first-name basis from time to time...

We're gonna check out AJ first. Our decision to go to LC depends on the action at AJ. I usually use the board name "K.X.L" so look out for me

Cool I will.

would anyone happen to know where can i find the structure for their upcoming battle of the bay tournament series? i found a calendar on their website listing buyins, start time, chip stacks, but couldn't seem to locate the blind structure.

I have decided I am going to try to "beat" the 1-1-2 game at LC. I don't have the roll for 3/5 yet...and am going to try to build it there. So far I only have 30 hours play...but am trying to play 15h/week. At this rate...we will all be destroyed by 2012's natural disasters before I get meaningful numbers.

Don't have it off the top of my head but don't expect much. They never post it online but have small flyers around LC. Usually 30 min levels, I think they may be starting w/ 10k chips now though. Usually it's been 6k (or 8k?) and if I remember right, start at 50/100. Blinds go fast though. They are very similar to let's say Venetian Deep Stack's $215 buy ins, but with less chips.

LC caters waaaaaaay too much to their regulars. It's kind of annoying, even with a 1k buy in they keep the same structure as their $350's. They only want their regs to win because most of them don't know how to adjust to deeper stack play

LCs you can only played tight and with big cards. Too many shorties which are even shorter with the $4 limps. I played Oaks with $2 limps and less shorties and I have a lot of playing room. I didnt bleed nearly as much money with speculative hands and I got paid handsomely. Unfortunately I ran into my 3rd - 2nd flush into nut flush, and got bad beat in for a full stack on the river. Man am I running bad.

I am guessing they don't know how to shove/call that well when short either. I'll prob go for the 1k main and the 330$ limit/NL partners event. I was able to obtain a copy of the structure via email. I'll post in case others are interested. You were correct about 30min blind levels btw.

^^^do you know how many chips they're starting with? I was thinking about playing until I guess I forgot how bad the structure is for a 1k event.

LML, this is at LC? They have SNG satellites for the main. I ran like crap as usual at the last one I tried, 3b a button raise w/AK from the small blind and calling a shove from A4. AK no good, of course.