Fascinating story. Scintillating in fact.

That's just the math of it. IRL (especially if he runs bad), he's never winning that pot. Good fold by him imo. Why slow the game down unnecessarily?

nice

Hey dude, Im down. Im up about 10 minutes away from oceans 11. Im usually there everyday M-F in the evenings. What did you have in mind for a poker group?

Just saw the original OP was banned. Has anyone actaully started a local group in SanDiego area. Preferably IVO Oceanside?

Hey im in town in SD for a few days and would love to play some poker. We were thinking about making a trip out to Baronas tomorrow (friday). Would oceans 11 or Baronas be better and which games are spread at each. I would be looking for a 1/2-2/5 nl game preferably or some kind of mix game that isnt just lhe.

Oceans

Went with my brother out to Ocean's 11 like 6 years ago when I was 21 (and looked not a day over 15 or 16). My brother is 5 years older than me. We were BOTH carded, and the guy ID'ing us looked at our Iowa ID's like they were from another planet. Was afraid he wasn't going to let us in actually.

Yep, you're right, Linda Vista. I'm actually moving out there at the end of July.

Any of my fellow San Diegans wanna carpool to Commerce this Friday for the $1,000,000 guarantee tournament?

I'm curious as to how this went and if you have any more info. I'd love to play an event like this. Pala has a deep stack coming up, but I saw that it had 20 minute blinds .

I received an email yesterday that starting on 7/9 Oceans 11 is running deep stack tournaments Saturdays and Sundays at 10AM. $120+15 for 10000 chips and 30 minute levels. $10K guarantee. This isn't showing on their website yet....

Also - if you're looking for something today, there's a deep stack at Harrah's Rincon at 1PM. $100+25+20 for 13000 chips, 30 minute levels. This is also a $10K guarantee if 60 or more people sign up.

Well I asked them specifically for that and we'll see how they run it. The current one is 25 minute blinds, 12000 starting stack (as everyone gets the addon anyway) but the structure is HORRID. After 4 levels the average stack is 10 BBs. Good job "deepstack".

If the only thing they did was to increase the levels from 25 to 30 minutes they haven't done squat.

Congrats to Kim a former LHE reg at oceans 11 for her 2nd place finish in a wsop limit holdem event last week!

Yeah, it went ok, but it still needs some tweaking. They took *some* of my advice, but not all. The trouble is, all these local places are soooooo pressured to end the tourneys quickly, not only by the casino, but by the PLAYERS! They get so many complaints from people if the tourneys aren't over in 3-4 hours, and they obviously want to please their customers.

So my struggle is to come up with a structure that will go fast but not eliminate all real play by the 6th level. That's why the blind levels are 20 minutes, unfortunately.

Gonna work with George a bit more, i think, see how it shakes out.

The whole point of a "deepstack" is to be able to play post-flop for a long amount of time. At 20 minute levels no matter how you do it, unless you do the commerce reverse-turbo structure you're not going to achieve that.

As suspected here is the structure of the so called 30 minute level deep stack

http://www.oceans11.com/tournaments/...poster_img.jpg

What a joke

yup, this is what i am trying desperately to convince Pala to avoid. The real problem is, the players all come in and love the starting stack they get, but they whine if the tournament lasts longer than 6 hours.

So I really don't know how to balance that. Obv. the Ocean's one becomes a shovefest after level 5 or so.

obv the venetian DSE structures would be a great model, but it's hard to cram a 2-day structure into a 6-8 hour tournament. *sigh*

Thinking about a California trip in mid-October and it might include a San Diego visit. I'm a weekend warrior here in Florida at 1-3, 2-5 and MTT's in the $200 range. There's a show I might want to catch at Harrah's. Sentiment seems to be that Ocean's is better, all around, but is Harrah's worth a stay if I want to get a room for a couple of days so as to make it to the show and grind in the meantime?

And, are there hotel options for Ocean's if I did that and went to the show on its own?

Unfortunately, I think Harrah's has really gone down the tubes since moving the poker room. Seems that the only thing ever running there is 3/6 LHE. I was there this weekend (my wife was in a tournament there). There were three tables of 3/6 LHE and one table of 1/3 NLHE. I waited over 45 minutes for a seat at the NLHE, and despite having over 100 people signed up for the tournament, they could never get a second NL table going.

Oceans is where the action is for North County. But the drive from Harrah's to Oceans can get long timewise - especially on weekends. It's about 35 miles or so - but the roads are two lane type roads and traffic can be a bear. If you want to stay near Oceans, the nicer hotels will be in Carlsbad - just down the coast.

Another option might be Pechanga just over the Riverside County border. Pala is also nice, but there's usually nothing other than passive nit 1/2 NLHE that runs there.

Thanks for the reply. I've heard good things about Pechanga, as well, not just from poker perspective but generally nice.

35 miles on two lane roads in SoCal .... So what's that, like 3 days?

LOL! Naw. Just on weekends when the inlanders head out to the beach. Can take an hour or so if you're heading west.

IMHO, Pala is the nicer hotel with better food. It's just that there's no action at the poker tables there. But, if you're considering Pechanga, there are a ton of options in Temecula - hot air balooning, wine tasting, etc.

If you have any other questions (re: games in North County) PM me. I'll send you games/drops, etc.

Thanks. If the trip ends up heading there, I'll drop you a line.

Still up in the air. I'm in Florida which means that between here and there I might be detoured to this town I heard about in Nevada ....

There's no balancing. A tournament has to last a long time if it has a good structure. Look at the Commerce structures. They start their tournaments at 2pm too lol.

The current structure for Oceans 'Sunday Deepstack' has a jump from 200/400/25 to 400/800/50. The new structure seems slightly better and at least it runs twice a week now