I just wanted to get your thoughts on Star City casino in Sydney,OZ

Yea the rake is horrible, as is the time charge, but the players are worse.

I've played the NL80, and NL200 games quite frequently since I got here, with varying success. I was just wondering if anyone has any experience playing these games where you have 40BBs, and each hand will have at least 5 limpers, No matter what the raise (6x up to even 10x when experimenting), its just a chain reaction of callers, and damn near impossible to play postflop 4/5way when 25% of your stack is already in.

I'm having trouble adjusting to this kind of live play and was hoping for some tips on how to adjust. The donks are there, I just can't find the saddle yet (although still up big at the casino, Its just been thru big hands holding up, and I know they won't always when I'm putting in a set vs. 2/3 callers allin going for gutshots and flushes)

Any answers specific to Star City or about adjusting to low stakes live cashgame play would be greatly appreciated.

Star City is ****ing rigged. Everytime I'm there I get sucked out on. A few months back passing through Sydney I went there with my last $200 and played 200NL. Got my stack up to about 500 when I get dealt 44 on the button. 5 limpers and I pop it up to $25. 2 Callers. Flop is 457 rainbow. Checked and I make it $100. 1 fold and 1 re-raise all in from an old asian, has me covered. I call and see him flip over AA. Sweet, im dominating. With a 3 turn and a 2 river my set gets busted by his A-5 straight. I was shocked, he had a smug ****-eating grin on his face while he scooped up the pot, as if he knew he'd win all along. I left fuming. I was only 9pm so I borrowed 200 from my girlfriend and sat down at 80NL, took my till 3am to break even.

EDIT: also rake AND time charge? wtf? Way too expensive.

F YOU Star City!

Here's a few thoughts to consider.

In short buy-in games, especially those where the average player is a calling station, you generally have low fold equity at every point, so hands that require fold equity to be long-term profitable go down in value.

When hands are usually multi-way to the turn, a single pair is good less often (though keep in mind that this is sometimes balanced by a willingness for players to see a showdown with hands as weak as one pair. Pick your players).

When you are committing a high proportion of your chips pre-flop, you don't want to do it with speculative hands. You want to do it with hands that you will be able to commit yourself to on the flop if you hit, and you should be happy getting at least most of your money in then. It doesn't matter if they hit their runner-runner straight, or make twp pair on the river. Long-term their mistakes will be money in your pocket.

When you're short-stacked, that means things like raising an amount that makes it likely you will have slightly more than a pot-sized bet on the flop; raising an amount that ensures that anyone calling you with a second-rate hand is making a mistake (that is, you will get people calling $50 with JTo, so raise KK big, knowing that even if you commit the rest of your $150 on a TJ2r flop, they've made a mistake calling you PF, and long-term it won't be profitable for them); and limping (or raising small - 3bets are less likely, so you can feel more confident manipulating pot size more openly PF) with 67s or 44, because having a short stack against calling stations means you can still get all your money in post-flop after you hit.

Variance is usually higher in short buy-in games, even when the quality of the field is lower. This means you need a larger roll to play comfortably in them.

All that said, the 1-2 and 5-5 200 buy-in at Star City are not beatable long-term. The rake in that 5-5 is 5BB/hr (25B/100). That's very hard to beat at a short buy-in game, and even if it's possible, it's not likely you can do it for a large amount. The rake in the 1-2 is worse.

If you want to play there regularly, you need to be playing at least the 5-5 500 buy-in (though the rake is higher, and it's a slightly tougher game, the larger amount of money on the table makes it a bit more profitable, assuming an adequate skill level), and preferably the 5-10, which only(!) has a rake of 3BB/hr.

Agreed.


FWIW best to play on Fri/Sat nites - when the recreational player comes out to play and they think that 2nd pair with K kicker is good enough to call bets to river.

I think i'm going there Friday. I have to get out of the house and I always had fun playing there, although I always busted on some craphand.

(Last time had QQ CO, raised to $30, 2 callers, BTN and UTG, both cover me. Flop comes 359 two spades, guy UTG goes all-in, I call. BTN thinks a long long time, then calls with TT even though the table announced 'someone has a high pp or set'. Obv hit his T on the river).

If you can beat toppair if youre heads-up on the river youre good to go. Youll recognize the regs immedediately, they are a bit tougher.