all,
today i earned two new poker achievements (are we still doing checkboxes?):
[x] play poker in montana
[x] play with overs[1]
this afternoon i went to the big poker room (4 tables) because pokeratlas said they had regular 1/2 nl and sometimes 2/5 plo. what they actually had was a broken plo game, an nl game on fridays and saturdays, and one table of 2-6 spread (with $5 rake).
i sat down and after getting settled remembered that i was a stranger in a strange land. doug and i, amongst the many (many, many) things we talked about, had also discussed game integrity as we occupied his living room until his daughter told us to stfu so she could go to bed. so i started paying attention to the dealer: how he took rake, how he pitched cards. it didn't take long for me to be appalled as the dealer routinely turned the stub all the way over while collecting chips with his left hand.
i pointed it out and the first dealer kinda did better. then a second dealer pushed in and he did it even worse than the first dealer! plus after i pointed it out he didn't do anything different.
so i cashed out and took the floor aside and said hey, you might want to look at this because all your dealers are doing it and it's a game security issue and as an out-of-towner it makes me uncomfortable and don't you have a gaming commission that cares about this sort of thing? the floor said "thanks but: [one of my least favorite answers in customer service]
1. montana is kind of screwed and has no gaming commission
2. good luck finding a room in montana where the dealers aren't sloppy with technique"
after dinner, i went to the medium poker room (3 tables) because it's right by my hotel and they were supposed to have 4/8 o8 tonight. what they actually had was 3/6. with overs!
no one at the table had a button and i, having never seen such a button, just wanted to see what it looked like. so i asked the dealer, "hey can i see an overs button?". he tossed me one and then asked, "does anyone else want to play overs?". the LAG on my right and the guy on my left who thought he was good both immediately took a button. ok i guess we're playing overs now.
it cost me two ($6) BB when the lag's T3s turned a flush hu against my tp2k. it either saved me two ($6) BB or lost me six ($6) BB when i c/f to a $12 river bet against thought-he-was-good with T
7
on a 8
7
2
8
3
board -- i don't think he's value betting a worse 7/66 or bluffing a busted 1-card
draw > 25% of the time.
anyway, all three dealers at this little place (the entire casino was half occupied by three tables and the cage, half occupied by twelve slot machines -- a more intimate, seemingly more authentic, montana poker experience) had solid stub security.
big poker room can suck it.
,
t_c
[1] if, at the start of a betting round, all the remaining players have an overs button, that round is played at higher stakes. in this case, it was a 3/6 game with 6/12 overs.