Commerce has 200 cap 3/5 NL and 500 cap 5/5 NL.

Bike has 500 cap 3/5 NL and 1000 cap 5/5 NL.

Hustler has 2/5 300cap and 5/5 1k cap.

Wheres the best limit action like 10/20 and below?

Only real options are 4/8 and 8/16, commerce usually has plenty games.

My goal is to provide a way to make an apples-to-apples comparison of LHE games in the LA-area. I will keep this "OP" (the mods did not want a actual new thread) focused on just the facts, and editorialize in a reply to it. I invite people to add/correct information about these and other venues.

The following aspects will be included: drop (including modified drop if the flop is not seen); pot size for kill (for kill games only obv.); game selection; reward program; jackpot seed and other details; ambiance/service (this is kind of a catch-all category)

Commerce ($8/$16 w/ 1/2 kill):

Drop (full table):
$5 + $1 BBJ; if no flop seen, $1 + $1 BBJ; floor staff will not modify drop from posted amounts which decrease to $4+$1 at 6 players and $3+$1 at 5 or fewer (no BBJ drop with 4 or fewer)

Kill:
any money outside the blinds

Game Selection:
can be 6+ tables on weekends; 2-3 on slow nights

Rewards:
$1.50/hr.; can be used for food and gift shop/snack bar/convenience store (including smokes), but food is not directly comped
Jackpot Seed: $15K; increases $1K/day; doubled during 4 1-hour windows; aces full of Ts or better beaten by quads or better; special $100K (quads vs. quads only)

Ambiance:
Huge; brightly lit; congested tables in the main poker room (i.e., not the hotel side); noisy on main floor at peak hrs. (with that many people, how can it not be?); under-staffed (not enough floor staff and chip runners to respond to requests and monitor all tables/disputes; not enough food servers at peak times); dirty $2 chips (only applies to $8/$16 which is the only game that uses them); deck changes allowed in 10-minute window at the top of every hour and when there is a bad card (both decks changed when there's one bad card)


Hustler ($8/$16 w/ 1/2 kill):

Drop (full table):
$5 + $1 BBJ; if no flop seen, $1; when table is not full, floor staff will liberally modify drop from posted amounts which decrease to $4+$1 at 6 players and $3+$1 at 5 or fewer (no BBJ drop with 4 or fewer); $2+$1 for 6 players and $1+$1 for 5 players is common

Kill:
20+ chips, i.e., >$40

Game Selection:
5 tables on weekends; 2-3 on slow nights

Rewards:
$2/hr.; can be used for food on the full menu; there is also a more limited selection comp menu

Jackpot Seed: $40K; increases (?)/day; aces full of Ts or better beaten by quads or better

Ambiance:
Medium-sized; somewhat dimly lit (can be difficult to see your hole cards at times); enough staff to monitor tables (prevent line-jumping, handle disputes, etc.); quiet/moderately noisy at peak; deck changes allowed every (?) hrs.; when there is a bad card, only that card is replaced

Now for the editorializing. As background, I've played over 500 hrs./year at Commerce for the past few years, and have little mileage elsewhere until recently. The reason I've been shopping around pretty much comes down to one key factor: service.

Commerce is the big man on campus. The largest poker cardroom in the world, and all. That size has definite advantages, mainly in table selection. If your table conditions are not good, you generally have at least two other tables (if you're playing hold 'em) to choose from except at the highest limits. I've seen over 10 $8/$16 LHE tables going. When you're that big, you rarely run out of tables except on the busiest nights.

But if you're going to welcome that many people through the door, you have to provide enough staff to care for them. One floor person cannot adequately oversee 30+ tables. This is Commerce. There is always going to be a dispute at one of the tables, and while that is being resolved all the other things that need the floor's attention are ignored. Table changes. Collecting the lobby fee (which inexplicably can only be done by the floor). Monitoring players who jumped the line and took a seat that belonged to someone on the board, or who left a short table to move to a full one (which also can only be resolved by the floor, not a chip runner). There also appear to be too few chip runners, which slows down games because some of the dealers are not very adept at keeping track of how much a player awaiting chips owes to the main pot vs. the side pot, etc.

I also have a critique of the dealers who, as a whole, are no worse than dealers anywhere else in L.A. (a low bar), but in one aspect are horrible. In pretty much every cardroom I've played in both in L.A. and around the country except Commerce, the dealers notify the floor staff when a new player sits down. It is very common at Commerce for a player who is not on the board to just sit down and take a seat that belongs to someone else. This becomes even more important when you are both short-staffed and have so many players. The floor/runners can't be everywhere at once. The dealers are the first line of defense, but not feel it is not their job.

Another pet peeve I have is with the bad beat jackpot. $8/$16 shares a jackpot pool with $20/$40, but there is no BBJ drop in the $20/$40 when there is no flop. In $8/$16, $1 goes down that little BBJ hole even if you just chop the blinds. So all things being equal, $8/$16 is contributing more per hand to the shared pool. I call BS on that.

So I started looking around and ended up at Hustler. I've tried it out and am much happier with regard to the service aspects and rewards system. Also, all things being equal, if there's going to be a BBJ drop (I'd rather do away with it and drop $1 less, but that's never going to happen), then you would like the BBJ to be as large as possible. A $40K seed and no flop/no drop vs. a $15K seed and always drop is a no brainer. The food on the comp menu could be better, but you can't have it all. Also, it could be just a little brighter. I do like that it doesn't feel like I'm playing in a warehouse, but I also don't like having to do a double-take every time I check my hole cards.

One down side is that for whatever reason, players love to get up and leave games short at Hustler. I thought it was bad at Commerce, but I was wrong. However, when the floor at Hustler will reduce the drop to $2+$1 or $1+$1 when the game gets short, then it's not so bad. The drop is NEVER, EVER reduced in the $8/$16 at Commerce.

Another down side is that, given its size, Hustler can't just keep opening new tables on busy nights. I had to wait over 50 minutes for a table at Hustler a couple of weekends ago because the $8/$16 seems to max out at 5 tables. I've only had a wait that long twice in the past 5 years at Commerce.

One last thing about the dirty $2 chips at Commerce. If you've never played with them you probably think I'm exaggerating and being petty. I will take a picture of the various $2 chips from around L.A. and let you compare. If I were running a cardroom I'd be embarrassed to be using them.

I have spent some time looking through some of the regional threads and at the Regional Communities sub-forum as a whole. On the face of it, you would think that with 650+ poker tables in the Los Angeles area there would be much more activity in the regional thread. In reality, it has less traffic than the threads for Bakersfield, CA or Charleston, WV! No offense to either city; I'm just comparing the sizes of the markets.

I am assuming that people who visit 2+2 and either post (contributing to the replies count) or use it as a resource (contributing to views) are more likely to take poker seriously. So looking at the paltry numbers for this thread, is it reasonable to conclude that the proportion of serious poker players (meaning those who take it seriously, even if they are just recreational players) among the poker playing population as a whole is well below what you might expect?

If so, it's good in one sense. It makes for better games. But it would be nice to have a more vibrant and active poker community here. Or is it that there are tons of serious players and they are so busy winning all the money that they don't have time for such trivialities? Or they all post in BBV exclusively?

Wonder if those cities have brick and motar threads as well such as Commerce and Bicycle.

You're right though, there is not much participation by the LA community.

Correction:
There are actually four concurrent rewards/comp systems.
1) There is the comp menu.
2) There is an hourly reward of $1/hr. in "Hustler Bucks" that can be used for food on the full menu. I don't know if it can be used for other things like tournament entries.
3) The is a bonus of $100 cash for every 50 hrs. you play in a calendar month. That's where I got the $2/hr. amount originally.
4) Every hourly scan of your player's card gets you an entry into various cash drawings throughout the week.


And the Commerce dollars can be used for tournament entries.

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If you are going to do a comparison, why not include the Bike and Hawaiian Gardens? I don't play Limit HE myself, but I understand that they both have 8/16 games there.

Shauna

I'm not excluding HG. Just haven't gotten around to it yet. I will not play at The Bike.Of course, anyone else who plays at HG or The Bike is welcome to report.

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Once again, as happens routinely at Hustler, there were four people with missed blinds sitting out for various stupid reasons.

Not being in the mood to wait out the stupidity this time, I tried to add to this thread by checking out the $8/$16 at the Normandie about a mile away. Unfortunately, at 9:30 pm on a Monday night, there was no game going and only five names on the interest list.

So under the "Game Selection" criterion I guess that is "N/A."

Anyone know when the $8/$16 at Normandie typically runs?

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8/16 lhe and 80-200NL used to run regularly at the Normandie, up until maybe 2-3 months ago when they jacked up their food prices. Haven't seen a game of either the last few times I've been there.

I only go twice a month though, so I might not be the best source of info.

Even when those games went, it was usually just one table.

I'm considering a trip to LA soon to visit a friend. Haven't played out there in years, and my only experience has been at the Bike and HG. Are mixed limit games spread regularly anywhere in the area? If so, what games, and what stakes?

One thing LA poker truly needs is the third man walking rule.

Best game selection for mixed action will be at Commerce. Some stud goes at Bike, usually low limits. Omaha 8 goes at 4/8 and 8/16. Even less at HG, but both games will go. Check out the Bravo app for current games at Commerce- no other room is on the app in LA

Absolutely. At least Commerce has a lobby fee after two missed blinds for certain games, but it's not a perfect system. People just end up abusing the "dinner break" during which they do not collect a lobby fee.

I thought Bicycle did have some kind of rule. It was several years ago, but I seem to remember them making announcements to call players back to the table.

As far as I know, all of the cardrooms in L.A. have a (theoretical) limit on how long you can be gone from the table, and the floor staff will go through the motions of getting on the P.A. to call people back if the game is out of action, as if those people were just standing around waiting to be called back. That part is just for show to make it look like they're doing something useful.

But the problems are 1) they don't strictly enforce the time limit, and 2) the time limit only deals with the problem of how long one person is gone, not the problem of multiple people being gone at the same time and leaving the game out of action. A third man walking rule would deal with that.

ive always thought its silly to get on the mike and say "come back to the table, ur game is out of action" DUH. thats why they left the game in the first place, no action. why not instead say a donkey just sat and is spewing away money left and right, please come back to the table

Well, at least they appear to have recently washed the $2 chips. I'm guessing this is just a coincidence.

In the unlikely event someone from Commerce actually read this and reacted to it, I encourage you to use this thread and the Commerce thread in venues to voice concerns.

Businesses that compete with each other depend a lot on 1) brand loyalty and 2) information asymmetry.

Sometimes brand loyalty is based on the actual value of the product or service. Often it also just based on sheer inertia. "I play at Commerce because I've been playing there for years."

Information asymmetry comes from players not exploring and sharing information about what their competitors are doing.

The combination of the two allows them to screw their customers relative to the competition. For example, not reducing the ridiculous rake when there are seats open at a table and you're playing short-handed. If everyone stopped putting up with it *and* let them know why they were playing somewhere else they might change their tune.

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Are there any casinos north of LA? I'm going to be traveling to Ventura on business, and it looks like Commerce is a 90 minute drive. Anything closer?

Players Club in Ventura or Chumash which is North of Santa Barbara.

Looking to start playing cash games with a lot more frequency, and live closest to Hollywood Park and Hustler. Any clear advantage on one vs. the other when it comes to the 2-3/5 games? Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Technically speaking, Players Club is now called Players Casino since they moved a couple of years ago and added "California Games" in the back. I recommend it. Friendly, low key place. Reg infested but that's nothing to worry about IMO. They have a small jackpot that starts at $1k and goes up $100 a day. Obviously it's nothing life changing since it usually hits by the time it gets to $3-4k if not sooner, but it's all house funded. No drop for it. Also, not only no flop no drop, but no drop on any pot won under $19.