no nolimit in MN, at running aces they have 2-60 spread and 5-60 spread sometimes. At canterbury park you can find the closest thing to NL in minnesota, their "survivor tournaments"

canterbury park in shakopee is close to edina. at cp they always have numerous limit games including 15/30 and 30/60, and usually have "survivor" games. which is NL where you have to play for a set amount of time, usually 2 hours, so that its technically (but not really) a tournament

yea but those "survival" games take forever to fill up. so if you dont play limit joker poker, its frustrating to wait. at least at RA you can sit down in a game right away and almost get the same thing as no limit. i personally prefer the survival games at CP but will never ever play a hand of limit poker while waiting, so i dont go there much anymore.

Thanks fellas - really appreciate the responses. Maybe I'll try this 2-60 or 5-60 nonsense in Shakopee

Shakopee has LHE and the survivor...the 2-60 and 5-60 is in columbus.

I really like the survival, but everyone is very correct to say they take forever to start. I find myself playing limit/blackjack in the meantime to my displeasure.

It seems the 2/60 spread is taking over up at RA. They get 7-8 games of this going on the weekend and at least 5-6 on weekdays. They have a few lower limit holdem (2/4,3/6 and 3/6 kill) games but usually nothing bigger and maybe an O/8 game.
It's still weird when I walk in there and I can't get used to the fact that the former sunken poker table is now gone.

2-60 game has been pretty awesome. All the 2-4 and 3-6 guys are taking shots lately and making games quite juicy for 2-60.

thank god for $5 an hour tho

It's so funny at the 2-60 game tonight. Seat 1 starts talking to a buddy who sat down in seat 6. They talk about a terrible player yesterday who donated and the big fish in seat 7 decides to finally fold in about the last hour or so. Lol, these games are pretty good so far but I just hate some of the table talk sometimes.

I'm shocked those games are taking over up there. It's such a ridiculously dumb game. I know it's profitable so that's why you guys are playing it and I don't hold it against you... It's just not a good 'poker' game. It leaves out the best parts of both limit and no limit (drawing and playing loose in limit, being able to go all in or worry about your opponent going all in in no limit)... Noooooo thanks!

Will no limit ever see the light of day in minnesota?

I agree with what you say but we really got no choice but to play it because it's the closest thing we got to no limit and I don't like playing limit. I wish they could spread NL cash games in MN.

i hope not.

i would obvs. prefer to play true "no limit" poker, but ive played about 14 hours of 2-60 spread limit(not much i know) but from my experience, the game playing like a "30-60 limit postflop" comparison is really not true. the stack sizes generally are small enough so that scenerio doesnt come around often enough, maybe at the 5-60 game i can see that being true. but considering the level of play here, spread limit is very profitable. i would play their more often if i didnt live too far away, and i had enough cash flow obvs. Good place to play poker imo.

I agree. There have been lots of tables lately with plenty of fish. I did some decent table selection last time and was able to walk out with a nice profit.

I agree with those saying the 2-60 game most often plays more like NLHE. To me it plays like 1/2 Pot limit Hold'em, which is not spread in the US but does make appearances in London and other European poker hubs.

The Canterbury Survival games play like NLHE but are slow and have a high rake for the players. IMHO 2 things could take woo the spread players. First the price of the game should be independent of stakes. Why should Canterbury make more when they're not doing anything different? Plus why charge for re-buys when a player has already paid for the time? You're effectively charging the bad players more rake. Second they need to work on the time between when you sign up and list is full to dealing starting if they want to take spread players from Running Aces.

I at times think having to play only hold'em is a 'dumb poker game' but then I remind myself that it is what is. Its cards, green felt, and betting poker even if I'd rather be playing 8 game.

The Canterbury survivals do cost the same at all levels, its 30$vig for 2 hours, aka $7.50 per half.

The $10 juice on the rebuys is pretty silly, but if you bust out and don't rebuy they can sell your seat for $30 juice some of the time. Also, if it makes you feel any better the vig on the rebuy is $5 to the dealers, $5 to the house.

I like the 2/60 spread as well as you can usually move around to find a profitable game especially on the weekends, but I do think the growth of this game is cutting into some middle limit games (6/12, 8/16 LHE and 2/10 spread) that are rarely ever played at RA anymore.

survivor rake is insanely low, lowest raked game in the state.

LOL. how did you figure that? $15/hr to play 1/2 no limit is pretty atrocious actually. you would think that would involve any neccessary tips to the dealers, but then they bring out a tip box at the end of the 2 hours and expect you to throw in a tip. i havent played a survival there for months, mostly because the list takes forever to fill up, but the $30 juice is a joke, not to mention them charging $10 more for a rebuy!! haha. no thanks.

I agree, but doesn't this depend on which survival you are actually playing and how large the total pots you are involved in are? Its $30 for all the survivals right? I only play the $200.

I'm going to guess that they rake on average around $4 ($2 for rake and $2 for jackpot) a pot on average over 25 hands/hour at the 2-60 spread limit game at RA. Over 2 hours that is a total of $200 taken out in rake/jackpots. Divide that by 9 and each player pays about $22. Add tips and it's about the same as survival NL at Canterbury.

However, the value for Survival NL goes down when they charge you $10 to reload, ask for tips at the end of the 2 hour session, and the wait time to get survival game's going when there's 3 to 6 tables of 2-60 spread limit game going when you get to RA.

This is what I was referring to when I said high rake. For comparison in the UK I played in time cash game with dealers that were good at dealing pot limit, and I wasn't allowed to tip and it was 10 pounds per hour. If it was just $30 and the reload was $1 that would be fine. But, you're going to lose a stack perhaps 25% of the time so really the price is really $32-35 dollars per two hours plus tip, and you spend 3 hours getting 2 hours of action. So it's usually better to play 8/16 limit or 2-60 if you're similarly skilled at both.

I think there's a benefit for Canterbury if they can get a big enough pool playing Survivor they could capture the market that views it as Callerbury( separate from the people who play limit). If they lowered the rebuy to the size of a regular tip(if its necessary for laws sake) and held a Survivor night where they already had tables ready to start that would be a good start.

Lets cut the survival talk as this is a Running Aces Thread and it's not offered there.
I would much rather go to RA if I want to play a NL cash game type game because I know there will be several 2/60 spread games offered and I know I won't have to wait, pay juice or worry about rebuys.

Does anybody know how many runners the tues. $125 get at RA?