After getting partially busted holding AK against Seat 1 holding Ax (hitting the turn three outer after my flop overbet) in a later hand from this thread I decided to relax by dropping by a struggling casino to visit an old friend working as a host of sorts.

Since the nightly tournament hadn’t finished the re-buy period the club had only three small cash games going with open seats everywhere. My friend “GI” was in a 40-100 spread buy NL game with 1-2 blinds. So I bought a rack and took a seat next to him so we could talk shop a bit. At this point the game had GI, one real loose donkey who was running hot, perhaps one or two sort of normal customers, and what appeared to be four or five props or quasi-props. Not a game to make money, but sometimes just playing small and chatting/relaxing can be +EV for personal reasons.

After playing for a while and watching/playing several small to medium sized pots, the hot, loose donkey went for a walk. I took my $2 BB anyway; I wouldn’t want to hurt my friend’s game by taking an out button when the game needed my “action”. Plus I already ordered cocktails and couldn’t leave.

So with my menacing presence in the BB a woman in the cutoff open limps for $2 and the button and SB fold. Sometimes we LA players go for the chop/collection save after an early limp is uncalled but I was curious how a game with 1/2 blinds and the infamous LA drop would play out. I also wondered if a late limp might mean a big hand. Plus with cocktails coming it just seemed like goofy-fun to play against the single late limper (generally we LA players discourage with peer pressure any sort of cutoff or button open limp in small games).

Anyway, after the flop the pot contains five $1 chips. But the dealer has to take a $3 collection and $1 jackpot drop so he goes into a stall of sorts; even a dealer hates to see the coming collection fiasco clearly visible to someone (me) whom he probably assumes is a potential new, badly needed customer. Meanwhile the props roll their eyes and look bored; they are starting to understand that most of their salary is disappearing down the box and only the strong survive.

So I stall too just to bust balls and help the props (I’ve been a prop and managed props) and finally after an embarrassing delay the dealer breaks down and takes the $1 jackpot drop. He still has to take the $3 collection drop as required by procedure but tries to stall again, probably hoping for a pot size bet by me or a pot sized bet by my opponent after my check. Then the remaining $3 drop wouldn’t be so darn obvious. But I decide to keep putting on the pressure and continue to stall. So the dealer finally, with lowered eyes and shame penetrating to the depth of his soul takes three more dollars out of the pot and puts them down the box. Now one lonely, isolated $1 chip remains in the pot. But it is a beautiful $1 chip.

Now that the pot is correct I have two cards and check. The woman at the other end of the table tries to make a pot size bet of $1 but the prop sitting next to her points out that with a $2 big blind, the minimum bet is $2. So she corrects her bet to $2. This is an over-bet so I need a big hand here.

Since I normally don’t talk during the play of the hand (I’ve been voted the most boring player by announcer Dave Tuchman on Live @ Bike) I decided a little 1 /2 NL game is a good time to experiment so I stroke my chin and say, “I don’t think I can call a bet twice the size of the pot.” But I shuffle my stack around a bit to consider. The props are content; my stall slows down the rate they are losing money. There are no action players in the game to upset. After a few more seconds of WSOP final table type contemplation I fold. I had garbage. My opponent takes in a $3 pot, $4 of which is her own money.

Welcome to LA B&M.

~ Rick


PS This casino (Crystal Park) has to be commended a bit for being the only one in LA having a no flop, no drop policy (not even a jackpot drop). The game got pretty good later when the props were replaced by young kids who seemed like they were out to have fun. I booked a nice win for a small game despite drinking my limit of three cocktails. The place is a pretty pleasant place to play small games.


PPS I wrote this for fun. Later I might make another attempt at presenting my arguments for a serious, probably legal solution to this “drop on flop” problem if enough of you guys are interested.

A nice read. I like the "2x pot bet" line.

LOL Very funny

playing low limit games in california is depressing. ive seen way too many 1 dollar pots with 5 dollars of rake preflop...

rj

It's going to get worse as the influx of donks slows and the existing player base improves. But for now the sick full drop on flop sort of nit-proofs the games, unless you have a game full of props that can't leave.

Thanks for posting BTW. Your avatar always dresses up otherwise depressing threads.

~ Rick

Had no clue LA raake system is soo bad

impressive, you made me laugh out loud at 3:45 AM and im stuck!! good job

It's not just L.A., NorCal has 3 blinds in spread limit so it doesn't look so bad. The 2-2-4 game (which is never spread anyway) takes a $4 rake, no jackpot, and a $1 rake even if there's a pre-flop chop.

Good stuff, Rick. Very entertaining.

Andy

Yep.

Was playing 3-6 one night when one guy lost most of his buyin, all but one chip. He threw his $1 into the pot from EP without looking at his cards. There was a lot of betting and raising, and 5 people made it to the flop with around $30 in the pot. One-chip guy is happy there were so many callers. Then the dealer splits out the side pot (most of the chips) and the main pot (5 chips). Then he takes the rake ($3) and jackpot ($1) out of the main pot. Meaning if one-chip guy's 2 random cards can hold up against 4 opponents he gets his chip back... which would make for a nice tip after winning the pot.

There was nothing to do but laugh.

I like the possibilities of the all-in-for-$1 wrinkle.

What if in Rick's story the LP player and BB were both all in for $1? Would the winner have to pony up an extra buck? Would the SB be obligated to match the BB? Lots of potential here...

I was only there a couple of months after they switched to taking it from the pot and I dealt quite a few hands at 1-2 where there was no pot. I also remember a hand I dealt where Rick was in the blind and there was a single limper and he moved faster than I had ever seen him move to keep me form flopping so he could see if the limper wanted to chop.

I've never seen the clubs go so far as to ask a player to reach into his pocket for an extra buck. But usually you can't take the BB unless you have the amount of the BB (I could be wrong on this BTW). In any event, limit games below 2/4 (and even 2/4) are very rare in LA.

Randy - Keep in mind even the upper level managers (when they played) would do this in the case of the single limper.

~ Rick

Yes I know. When they first put this in it was even worse becasue there was only one blind in those games.

I was horrified when I first started working at the Bike and saw the single blind in the smaller holdem and Omaha games. What was even worse was that the $1 "modified" drop and $1 jackpot drop was taken BEFORE the hand was dealt. So what you saw in the bread and butter low limit game of 3/6 holdem was a single lonely $1 blue chip and the button. Even the normally loose low limit players were discouraged from entering the pots early and no action hands were common. Get a few of those in a short period and the games often break.

After I gained a little (and I mean little) influence I went on a tour of every cardroom to see EXACTLY how they collected. I wrote a detailed report and recommended that the club go back to two blinds, stop taking a jackpot drop on no flop (they didn't go for no flop, no drop), and don't touch the pot until after the flop comes down. If there is no flop the SB pays the $1 modified drop. So instead of looking at one lonely chip in 3/6 you now had four chips in play before the hand started and some action. It was my observation that business improved shortly after, but we did have to take some heat from nits (which I told my boss to expect so we were prepared).

Keep in mind at this time the Commerce was taking $4 in a 3/6 game if someone open raised and the blinds folded.

~ Rick

good story, the rake here sucks and I hope one day someone opens a percentage rake casino... but
this is the only 1/2NL game ive heard of around town that has a 100$ cap. also in cardplayer I saw an ad saying that for just 5 hours of poker play you get a free room. why is this place not packed?

It's worse. Hollywood park is a $4 rake and $1 JP rake for 3/6. Others are $3 rake and $1 JP rake for 3/6 or 4/8.

And they all take at least $1 even if you chop.

In 3/6 and 4/8 you can expect at least $150 to leave the table an hour for rake and tips. If yyou are at a table where everyone is evenly matched, watch as everyone's stacks slowly dwindle down at the same rate, like a candle burning.

Fortunately, LA is full of donks, able to pump the pot.


AB

It's a tiny room in the middle of the ghetto.


AB

You can take the BB short if it puts you all in. But any callers must call the full BB.

AB

First hold-em hand I ever played I flopped a full house, didn't lose the pot, and lost money. My big blind, all fold to the small blind who called. I had Q-J. By the river the board was Q-J-J-2-Q and he had Q-7. We chopped, but with the rake, we both lost a few chips.

Any rake/drop based on pot size is definitely illegal under current California law. But I believe you can get around this a bit by triggering the drop on an event not directly related to pot size. If you feel you need to take the full drop all at once, I'd make that trigger a called bet post flop. But it may be possible to take the drop in pieces (e.g., a called bet post flop takes half the drop, a second called bet takes the other half). The Normandie actually did something like this a few years ago.



I believe Crystal Park has some potential. They need to do just about everything right but the market for this type for place is there. The ownership led by Haig Kelegian is pouring money into restoration, and the card room looks nice. They have some very good people who are trying hard. But given the past history of CP, they have a lot to overcome.

I think the cheap/free hotel rooms will help as long as they go to action players and their girlfriends rather than busto poker players (as was the case in the past).

~ Rick

Regarding tiny room - The card room has about fifteen to twenty tables and they have a tournament room at least that big. The other downstairs area is quite large for other table games, a nice bar (undergoing renovation) and large meeting and banquet areas.

Regarding ghetto - Although it is Compton, the room is off the freeway in an unused light industrial area with good parking lot security. There is no loitering on any street between the club and freeway. I'd say it is as safe (or unsafe) as most clubs. Use your head and you will be OK.

~ Rick

I'm in the process of linking to this post from another thread and I just noticed this is no longer true as of a week or so ago.

As an aside, the OP in this thread was a true story, lightly embellished. Given the $4 + $1 drop at Hollywood Park's 1/2 blind NL e-table, I'm thinking about re-writing this true story as a HP e-table story (which would only need to be slightly more embellished).

Imagine a story similar to the one in the OP with nothing in the pot after the five dollar drop, and the computer dealer devilishly trying to disguise the fact the pot disappears no matter how long I stall in the big blind. The reality is that's the way it is actually programmed!

~ Rick

awesome thread very entertaining but depressing that these rooms have to rape the players so badly.

Rick are you the same guy that used to post under the pseudonym of speedracer on rgp 5-6 years ago...This guy was my favorite poster on rgp ..he knew everything about LA rake in detail.

I recall he played mid/high LHE at the time. Anyway this thread made me think of speedracer and rgp.

If you arent speedracer is he or was he ever a 2+2'er?