Just got back from another visit to Parx. Sat at a pretty bad table for the first hour. Bunch of young guys and friends and some of them actually had a clue what they were doing. Moved to an adjacent table and things were a little better.

As usual, the dealers and floor were really nice. A few dealers made some simple errors but they were very apologetic and fixed the issues. Also, as usual, got asked for ID a second time after playing for a while. I'm glad to see that the room is being very careful and protecting themselves from any issues with underage players. Thanks Rod

Might make a mid-week trip to check out the weekday action.

There is a great way to play these table that I found by accident. I was nutbarring a 2/4 table when I was playing with a friend at the Taj years ago. Neither of us had anything better to do and we didnt want to play higher cus we werent in the mood. So we went and played 2/4 and decided to get as many streets capped as possible. We put the nobody folds theory to the test. Let me tell you, it held up. But I learned something during this session. If you play fast and loose preflop but play solid poker postflop, you can make a killing at these games. Not enough to justify playing these games, but enough to beat the rake. I have since done this on numerous occasions and my results stay the same. Its also fun to make the players leave the table cus they cant stand the raising. Those old ppl hate it. Its a really fun time for anybody that wants to try it one night they just feel like messing around. It mixes things up from time to time.

I haven't read the previous posts but I think the call in system is exploitable. I have software being developed that will make sure a person can't place random names on the list just to lock up consecutive or semi-consecutive spots.

What is exploitable? People gonna sell some spots? lol

The 2 days I've been at parx I've never heard a recall( 14 hours and tons of names on lists). If this is the case, simple solution to exploitation, no recall. But I doubt recalls happen here .

Any1 that has actually took the time to figure out how to circumvent a wait list in a poker room is truly a degenerate loser w/ no life.

Just sayin'.

I'm not sure what you have in mind...I didn't want to openly discuss how it would be exploitable...I just thought the current system could be abused.

In terms of recalls, I was talking about the podium calling a name...waiting a bit...calling it again...waiting a bit...then "last call"...then waiting. If someone called in and isn't even there yet, this seems like a big waste of time. With the other system, this simply doesn't happen, since you have to check in when you arrive for your name to become active.

I'm thinking a reasonable policy would be:

1) Call a name.

2) After 30-40 seconds ( which, if you stop watch 30-40 seconds, that is ample time for people to respond..keep it moving especially w/ long lists), "last call" the name . Call ins as well as people that are present


2 times, that's it. Move it or lose it.

Three perspectives. Only one was correct.

And, to be clear... people gravitated to NL, because some hick won the WSOP and every idiot with a pair of sunglasses, ipod and hoodie decided they were the going to tear up the poker world.

BTW, Grim... it was actually Gary Carson who first figured out the proper way to play in these loose limit holdem games. That book has paid for itself orders of magnitude over for me. I'll take KK every hand. It might not hold up often, but when it does it makes an assload of money. Then again, so does 76s on the button with 7 limpers

The 4/8, 8/16 and 15/30 at Parx are some of the best limit games going. Not to mention the 4-8 O8 game that I played all afternoon today. 8 players seeing the flop - 5 of them with junk like K833... yum!

If you're there when they call you name = seat.
If you're not there when they call you = no seat.
I call in on the way to the room all the time. Sometimes I get there before they call me. Sometimes not. If not, too bad for me.

It's simple. It's fair. It works. The sense of entitlement around this borders on ridiculous. I suspect the excellent management understands this

And speaking of excellent work...

I was there most of the afternoon sitting O8. During this time, the floor kept on trying to get the 8-16 game off the ground. They went out of their way to call, recall, start short and promote the game.

It did go 6 handed for a couple hours, but I didn't sit, since the O8 game was pretty (read VERY) soft. It broke for a while. Eventually enough people wanted to play it, so the floor started it up again and it got off solid and quickly filled.

I know many people might be saying, "So what?"

The point is that they could have just let it go, started another 1-2 game or left a dead spread. It's nice to see the continued support of the Parx team for limit games.

I really hope that is the case...maybe the table I was at was not a typical table, or maybe I just don't really understand limit poker just yet...or maybe it was just my bad luck...don't know. I also have to factor in the weekend crowd, so maybe the table was just super loose.

I do look forward to putting in some more hours at the limit games though, and maybe some O8 too!

I'm guessing you don't realize how ignorant you sound. I'll try to explain...

They allow smoking at the bar, but the bar is IN THE POKER ROOM. yes, there is a ventilation system above the bar, but when you have a bunch of people standing around the bar blowing their smoke in whichever direction they're facing, how do you figure that none of this smoke enters into the poker area? it's the SAME ROOM, for god's sake.

I'm happy for you if the smoke does not bother you. But to say "there is no second-hand smoke" is just plain ignorance. Sort of like when they used to have smoking sections on airplanes. You could be in row J which is non-smoking, but row K allows it, so the guy behind you is free to light up and blow his smoke into the back of your head.

It seems insane to us younger generation that smoking was allowed on airplanes.

Lets see a metal tube going about $500 mph, with an elevated oxygen level, and even if you say only have 1000 VITAL parts with a redundancy level of 99% there are still an x % chance that one of those parts are going to fail...

No.

The two times I have been to Parx there were so many no-shows that people just walked in and waited for a "last call", grabbed the floor and took the seat.

"Bill J, last call."

"Yeah, I'm Bill J."

Knowing full well that they were not in fact Bill Johnson. For shame. It'll all be sorted out in2 months when there's a million tables so lets stop worrying about it.

I agree with you. The other night I was waiting for the game when a players name was called then they just waited....and waited. I asked the floor manager to call another name and he said to me "I just called the name 4 minutes ago, give him some time to respond". WTF??? Four minutes with no response and he actually had the nerve to catch an attitude with me for asking!

Wow, you've played with some serious nits man. I've never seen the action in the 5/10 game at Parx effected in any way what so ever by the time pot. In fact the last time I played it everyone was joking that they hoped they got to pay the time, since it meant you just won a 500+ pot.

Amen!! The "moneymaker effect"...pfft. Don't get me wrong, you want 2-4 call stations at a table, but not 7-9.

Agreed

The O8 game wasn't that soft. It was all regulars from AC. There were two people over the afternoon that were horrid, both immediately to the left of me in the 6 seat. Both busted out. I was up almost $270 (scooped 3 in a row), then slowly bled away another $90. Left at 5:30 up $180.

The only thing screwey yesterday was the chip runner told my friend he couldn't eat a stick of beef jerky at the table lol. The dealer didn't care, the floor didn't say anything, but the chip runner did.

If you see a reg saying that, they are trying to look dumb for the benefit of the table, and are trying to perpetuate a bad idea amongst the fish.

If you see a new face say that, they just might be dumb enough to mean it. Lock up a seat and cancel your plans.

Either way, both rake and time pots mean that players who win more/bigger pots pay a disproportionate share of the table's total rake. If you are a consistent winner, you pay more rake overall. If you are looser and more aggressive, you pay even more rake overall.

If you're a losing player, or a nit, you should fight for either rake or time pots. If you're a winning player or a lag or both, you should lobby hard for flat time.

Looking at the 5/10NL lineup from the other night (about 60% were faces I knew directly from the 5/10NL and 10/25 games at the Borgata), believe me when I tell you that most of them are aware of this dynamic. Furthermore, they're quite capable of feeding a line to the fish about "I love paying more rake cause it means I'm winning!"

A typical table would range from 4-6 people seeing the flop in an unraised pot, with 2-3 players seeing the river - about 80%+.

You should also expect to see 3-5+ seeing the flop in a single raised pot, especially if the raise comes from late position (no one will fold for "1 more"), with about 1-3 players seeing the river - about 15-25%.

Three betting is scarce and unless done up front will not usually thin the herd.

As stated, if you are at a table where an early raise thins the field to HU and it's bet & take it on the flop... leave the game. You can do better.

Having played at Parx both during the week and on WE's... you should expect to see typical play, as I just described. I haven't sat much 15 there - the timing never seems to work out for me. Grim can comment, but I'm sure he'll say it's very much like the 8 and the 4 games. Loose-passive, calling stations. Almost ATC will do for them. Bluffing is useless.

The train to Valuetown is not, however

Not to get theoretical or anything. . . but Limit poker is a showdown game by design.

The edges come from different places than NL. Concepts like "protecting your hand" are replaced with "thin value raise." You make money by knowing when to save a single bet when you're behind and making an extra value bet when you're ahead.

Suckouts are more common, but on the flip side, you should be folding less as well, especially after the pot gets large.

It might seem counterintuitive, but there's a ton of variance in Limit. The lower the limit, the more variance, but I've played in some pretty insane 20/40 Limit games that seemed more like lotto than poker.

/strat

LOL - you were the only good player at the table. Nice playing with you.

We had a brief conversation about PLO and you said something about not being a 2p2

And, yes - I know the AC regs. Played with them many times. The woman and her friend are very nice people - but just horrible players. Low betters and half-pot callers. Seat 1 is another nice guy, but a bad player. Two, three and (I think 4) are nut-peddlers and almost never will pay off - probably the only ones you can run a bluff toward.

The 2 to the left of you (as you said) were just gravy. The guy in 6 missed 1 hand in over 3+ hours. Never found 4 napkins he couldn't play.

I thought the game was very soft. You outcashed me by about $40. I left shortly after you. I never hit that one "monster scoop" but, did a run of moderate sized pots.

Looks like I will have to play that game more often. I was very lucky though to win that much. I usually play 8/16 limit holdem, but decided to not even go over to that game since I was doing so well at Omaha.

Does it go every night?