There's no real "lower" limit if you want to play poker. There's the $1/$1 and $2/$2 at Oceans but I definitely do not recommend them.

I just played at Pala saturday from like 11ish to 3ish i thought i was going to be signing up for the 3.5k guarantee tourny but turns out they werent running it. They did have a 2-5 game going when i got there and a bunch of 1/3. The promotions are good but the rake is rediculous pulling out 5 bucks a pot from the 3-6 game i was happy as a clam in a mud bank to eek out 100 bucks profit.. When i left the 2-5 game just broke.

Thx for the reply. I meant to say that I didn't want a casino that is further away from Kearney Mesa (where I'll be living) than Ocean's 11 is. Sort of figured that Ocean's 11 would be my best bet for 2/3 NLHE or lower at off peak hours. Maybe I'll see you at Ocean's 11 next month, once I get settled down.

Isn't $5 drop standard everywhere? In LA its standard to even take $1 preflop.

I was going to say the same - but I don't play limit so I'm not up on the standard drop in that game. I know everywhere I play 1/2, 1/3 and 2/3 (NL) in North County and south Riverside County, $5 is the standard drop. Pala, Oceans and Harrah's Rincon have a no flop no drop policy. I've only played once at Elsinore, and I never saw a hand without a flop. Pechanga and Morongo take a modified drop ($1) if there is no flop.

Here's a rundown on the drops on some of the lower stakes NL games the North County area: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spre...ZIMmc&hl=en_US

Thx!! This spreadsheet is really useful, as I was overwhelmed with the amount of casinos and card rooms located near San Diego.

are any of you guys (who are familiar with how easy poker is at Morongo) looking to stake a player their?

email me if so: Nathanclauss@hotmail.com

i have spreadsheets/references if you'd like them and can give name/address/cell phone/etc.

honestly, it's usually 2/3, but with the larger buyin (500 max) and the players who play there, Pala's 2/3 game plays like a 2/5 anywhere else in SD. the 2/5 game is 1500 max and plays like a 5/5.

There is an informal text list for pala's game if you want to pm your # i can text you and let you know when a game will get going. we played last night and there was about 7k on the table. (2/3 game)

Anyone play the new deep stack at oceans?? Trip report plz.

Lucky Lady in the College Area off of El Cajon used to run a 2/3 regularly. I'm sure they still do.

That is far away from deepstack. It is a deepstack the first hour.

I played on Saturday and they had ~160 runners, prize pool around 22k. Pretty good turnout considering its the 1st time they ran it on a Saturday. Definitely wouldn't consider this a deepstack but it looks much better than the weekday structures.

I didn't get past 800/1600, but the next couple jumps are huge...1k/2k to 2k/4k to 4k/8k

Top three chopped around 7PM. Paid down to 16 and everyone agreed to pay bubble boy. My wife was chip leader, but had just over 10BBs with 900K chips, blinds at 40K/80K with 3K antes. Second place had around 600K. Third place a distance behind that. They agreed to a chip chop. She ended up taking home around $3700.

Listening to her description of the play, it was pretty loose, with some phenomenally bad calls made by short stacks during the latter parts of the tournament.

This makes me sad. Looking at past results for the annual tournies almost every time they chopped at final tables. I don't blame anyone if the avg stack is <10bbs but final tables are where it gets fun

this is what i was afraid of, O11 structures are so terrible, some deep play at the begging but looks like the levels up jump to quick in the later stages to have any real play. Chip leader at final table with ~10bb is ***** ridiculous.

It's funny you guys had to have a trip report to figure out what the outcome is going to be. It was pretty obvious when I posted the structures that this is nothing like a deep stack.

It's a nice lottery, that's all.

It's business. I would bet 90% of the people who busted settled into a cash game. And at a standard drop of $5 per hand, even if the dealers were slow at 25 hands per hour, it's easy to see where the profit is.

Other than Maybe The Bike or Commerce, you won't find too many rooms out here really interested in long tournaments. And then you have the players. Ever talk to a typical player about antwo day tournament?

That's bad business IMO.

What you can do is have faster earlier levels and slower later levels. Start with 20 minute levels, go to 30 after level 4 when antes kick in (in regular structures.) then 40 at the final table. Or do a Saturday / Sunday tournament (final table on Sunday.) That way a lot of the people get eliminated from the tournament fast and they go play cash. The ones that stay in won't mind playing longer for a chance to win a lot of money.

Not to mention that Commerce and The Bike run 1-day tournaments with 200-800 people that start at 2pm or 4pm and have really good structures.

The O11 starts at 10am and never ever gets more than 200 runners. They can EASILY make a good structure if they would care. Word would spread and people would come down to play a great structure from OC/Irvine/etc. It's only a 45 minute drive from Long Beach. I've actually met a couple of guys that played both at O11 and Commerce from Long Beach and said it takes them less to get at O11 than Commerce cuz of the traffic on the I5 Northbound.

But if O11 had a great manager that guy would probably get a better job managing a bigger and richer company. So they're probably stuck with a dumbass that doesn't know that sometimes short term loss means long term wins. Just like say teachers of CS in schools are usually really bad at it, because if they were any good they would be working for a large IT company

I tried talking to them and they "listened" by creating these new structures. It's a BIG improvement over the previous shovefest, but still not any good.

They'll never have me as a regular customer as I will always prefer to drive 2 hours to Commerce/Bike to play a good tournament rather than waste my time at O11.

On the flip side, 10 hours to get to the final 3 is not bad for a $140 total buy-in.

Let me guess you're one of those "regulars" that wants the tournament to end ASAP.

that's funny because I was playing at Sycuan yesterday and somebody was talking about the deepstack tourney at Ocean's. I asked them if it was a real deep stack or if you just started with more chips than normal but the structure was still fast. he said it was a really good structure with 30 minute levels. I was skeptical and what I'm reading here seems to confirm that more chips does not equal more play after the first couple of levels.

No. I am a cash player who would like to have some tourney fun on occasion without it being a shove fest. However I can not commit to more than one day. So for me at least, it works. Now I will occasionally play a tournament where I'd never play their older structure. That one was truly turbo

I'm a regular at Oceans. The 1/1 is 40bb max buy in . The 2/2 is 40/100 and the 2/3 is 100/300. 2/3 is the only lower level that lets you buy in for 100bb.

The 2/2 game there is usually pretty juicy and where I've found I play the best. Its not hard to double your buy in within the first hour.

The 2/3 game is okay but I don't frequent enough to speak on it.

I haven't played the 5/5 either but several of my friends play at it and I've seen it get pretty nuts. Its a good game, but if your bank roll isn't big enough to handle the swings I would steer clear.

So average 5 BB and bigstack 10 BB at the final table is not a shove fest, right?

You and the other "cash grinders" are the main reason tournaments at O11 will never be anything but the joke they are today.

There is basically NO DIFFERENCE between their older structure and this one. The people play it the same: pretty tight, less than half the field busting when the play is fairly decent (avg stack down to say 20 BBs.) After that it's a shove fest (and/or a nit fest for those people not calling shoves wide.) Their changes don't do absolutely nothing but to extend the "regular" play with say 30-60 minutes.

PS God I miss online donkaments. At least fish there didn't need to commit more than 6 hours.

I appreciate the discussion regarding the deepstack at Ocean's 11. I was at Ocean's 11 last night and saw it wrapping up when I came in at about 5:30. Seemed like it was a pretty low key event but I was glad to see it still going that late into the night.

That being said i don't have a lot of disposable income so if I was going to invest in a tournament like that which almost always seem to be shovefests, it better be a real deepstack tournament.

Anyways, I've scanned through this entire thread and at risk of sounding like a complete noob I haven't seen any discussion on the 1/1 game. I know that a lot of you are big ballers or just prefer the big time, but I have played at Ocean's probably 25-50 times in the past 6/7 years and when I don't go busto with my two 40 dollar buys in, I'm always up a minimum of 100 dollars minimum after 5ish (average) hours of playing. Last night I was up 195 after 7.25 hours of playing. Another time I was up 525 dollars after about 8 hours playing. I've only ever walked out of the casino a loser probably 3 or 4 times.

My guess is that the consensus believes that the pretty big 1+3 drop (or is it 4?) is pretty massive for a 1/1 game, but I tell you what, I can't recall how many times people buy in short for 15 or 20 bucks hand after hand after hand. The game is like a virtual ATM machine that never runs out of cash. The fish swim on over from the bar and go back frequently. Even the self-described regs are bad.

In my estimation the money is so good at the 1/1 that I don't bother investing 100,200,300 dollars on one buy in because 40 will get me just as far and with much less sweating. Like I said, I have a limited disposable income budget so this obviously limits my options, but I can't imagine why 1/1 doesn't get more play in this thread.

Add on top of it the eligibility for jackpots and all the random drawings they do on Sundays and Thursdays, and it just seems like a no-brainer for the laid back poker player. REALLY cheap food, fun games, cool dealers. Ocean's 11 has it all.