Too late for me, I have taken my business to the Isle, and will continue to play there from now on. I've played at the Rock for years but have now heard enough on here, not to mention how I'm sick of fighting the traffic in and out of there.

HA! That's an eerily awesome observation. FML

Isn't the action better at the Rock?

to any of the regs--

have the 5/10 and 10/20nl games been running nonstop? like could i come and play through the night or are most games breaking in the early morning? i'm up in vero but thinking of making the drive down this week to play some live for a night or two. anyone stayed at hard rock before, are accommodations decent?

I made the trip down from Jacksonville from July1-4 and the 5/10 game was running 24hrs there was several tables in fact. I didnt play 10/20nl but the game was always running when I was there. They also were playing 10/25nl on and off throughout the day and night. FYI the rooms at the Hard Rock hotel are very nice.

has the hard rock had any Omaha8 games going, I am looking for a 4-8 game with a 1/2 kill maybe a 8/16. I see they try to offer 3/6 then a 10/20. But anyway do thay have any of them running?

Today's observations:

- When I got to The Rock at about 5pm, there were four $5/10NL tables running including a half-assed must-move game. Through the early evening each of the $5/10 tables appeared to be pretty juicy but as time went on, they became nittier and nitter...then began to break down. By midnight, there was only one (!) $5/10NL table left. Before the law changed over, I predicted that the $5/10 game would effectively be killed by $10/20, $2/5 and the influx of grinders...and it's looking like I could be right about that. $2/5 is extremely popular and seems to be getting 3-4x the number of tables as $5/10.

- $10/25PLO seems to be running pretty consistently each night but I've yet to see $5/10PLO get going and I've only seen $2/5PLO run a couple of brief times.

- During peak hours there were three $10/20NL games running and by 2am there was only 1. When I got up at 2:30am, the game was left with just 5 players. Instead of paying $9/half-hour, the floor allowed the players at the short-handed $10/20 game to pay $6/half-hour.

- Security was nowhere to be seen tonight until about 11pm. Each night since July 1st, there have been 2-3 Seminole police officers hanging around upstairs + security guards to prevent loiterers but tonight there were NONE. I didn't see a single cop in the poker room tonight and there was only 1 lone security guard hanging around the biggest games after 11pm. I hope that just because it's a weekday, the Hard Rock isn't trying to skimp on providing security.

- People are genuinely concerned about their safety when leaving the casino-- that's all you hear players talking about at the tables. Everyone agrees that the Hard Rock is not doing enough to protect their players and I think the high stakes poker scene there might already be starting to feel the effects of that.

- After my car got keyed on Saturday and hearing about people getting followed home, I vowed that I would begin to valet my car, despite how much I hate paying to have a stranger adjust the seat and drive my car. I gotta say though, even if I waste 30 minutes in dropping off the car and waiting to pick it up, it's worth the hassle to avoid walking out to my car alone in the middle of the night wherever I self-parked it. Valet is definitely the way to go from now on. I just wish that the poker room would offer some validation for regular poker players so we don't have to pay the $4 to park each time.

i play 2/5 everyday and check/call with 3rd pair for hundreds of dollars. but i wish the poker room which i know to be incredibly stingy would validate my four dollars parking.

fold one time and you pay for parking ;P

Anyone have (cheap) poker room rates for the HR Hotel or a contact?

thanks..

Both were running at the Isle this weekend.... Varied from nitty to wild.

I've concluded that the 10-20 old guys are the weakest players I've ever seen in my life. An example would be checking behind with the nut flush on the river when the board pairs. I've seen this two or three times here which is probably more than I've seen it in my entire life combined. The players limp a lot preflop but don't put anything in the pot post flop. The limps will dry up also if enough aggressive players continue to punish them more than neccesary. It really annoys me when the young internet kids shows up and decides to destroy the game by making it $300 every time there's 5 limpers in the pot at $20 each. This is why winning $1K these days is considered a good day today as opposed to $10K.

I've very disappointed with my 50 hours of play resulting in almost exactly $0 net win/loss. Although I ran bad and made a few small mistakes I wouldn't expect to have had an EV of over $3000 based on the quality of play. This level of return can be achieved in many other places and so I'm off to Vegas for the main event.

I was planning on moving to Florida for almost a year now but combined with the safety issues I doubt I will now unless the games somehow unexpectedly pick up. I thought LA/Vegas were unsafe but your chances or getting robbed are 10 or 100 times greater at the Hard Rock.

Maybe I'm crazy, but why is checking behind with the nut flush when the board pairs a terrible play? Considering both or more players are relatively deep stacked, if it's checked to you with the nut flush on a paired board and you choose to bet, what is your play when it gets raised? Or raised and possibly re-raised if you're multi-way? If there are no full houses out there, they'll all fold to your bet on the river so you get no value for your bet, and if there are, they'll pop you leading to either a bad call on your part or being forced to fold a hand with considerable showdown value.

So I guess I just don't see any upside to betting in this situation, unless you think smaller flushes will call your river bet, which if they do, I don't think that's a game you should want to leave, ever.

B/C you miss value from worse flushes, and it is easy exploitable in your game if your missing value bets.

My point is that I don't think a smaller flush can ever call here, so there's no value to miss. If a guy came on here and posted something like:

"I have Qs-9s in middle position and the board is 10s-4h-5s-2s-10h and I check the river and the button bets 800. I called in this spot; was this the right play?"

I think that he would get flamed so hard because it's obviously a horrendous play to call with the 3rd nut flush on a paired board. That being said, the button, given he has the ace high flush, I would think would be best off checking since he shouldn't get value from the smaller flushes and will be in a world of hurt should he get raised. So to me, checking behind is a perfectly reasonable move.

Any more info on this incident? Haven't been to the Rock since Thursday.

No, haven't heard anything else about that one, however I just learned from a dealer last night that there was another incident on Saturday night. Apparently a "kid" who was playing poker downstairs was beaten up in a parking garage and robbed. The thieves took his wallet but were nice enough to let him keep his ID. What a mess...

I have played a couple times at Hollywood HR and yea there was some long walks to my car with no security around.
FWIW, Tampa HR is much better. I always feel safe walking to my car. plenty of security around and seminole police. Where I usually park there is a seminole policeman sitting in his car in that area of the parking lot alot of the time, which is nice.

Last year there was two guys that had done a couple follow home robberies and they got caught and that was the last time I heard of an incident.

Have there been any attempts to spread Stud, Stud8, or any lowball games yet?

A friend of mine was followed home robed and murdered some ten years ago. He had just one won a large slot jackpot at the casino queen in East Saint Louis. I don't know Tom but this guy was nuts for chasing the people who robbed him. Not that I'm not happy to see someone fight back but is it really worth risking your life.

I dunno what game your playing in DrDoom where a smaller flush can't call. Do they not buff in smaller stakes games? I guess I should bet every time have the nut flush blocker then in a smaller game. Anyways the reasons to bet the nut flush are too numerous to menton. Most basically the old men in the 10-20 will lead out on the river if they filled up probably 90% of the time. I would lead out 100% of the time that I thought the guy had something only checking to aggresive players. If they check raise you you're beat another 90% of the time and it's an easy fold. In terms of metagame if you never bet the river which such a big hand you become a very predictable "nuts or nothing" better which means you bet so few hands for value on the river that you can basically never bluff. I used to to check behind on the river in the classic heads up situation where I was betting out with a hand like kings against another overpair.

Then I realized any time I three barreled a hand like AK in a similar situation I was getting called down in the 20-40 and bigger games because the bet on the river indicated set or nothing.

Also, when you bet the river in position with a huge hand and get raised you don't neccesarily lose ev especially in bigger games where the players will try t take you off a small flush with something they know is no good like three pair or a straight. These aren't crying calls at all. In the big game in Macau back in the game, you have the best hand 90% of the time in this situation after being raised (the game is dead now though).

My point exactly. If the smaller flush is sane, he will fold to a bet, considering his non-nut flush and the paired board (he has at best the 9th best hand, for crying out loud.) If the smaller flush is a very good player, he won't call your river bet - he'll raise it and rep the full house. Which you've already stated is a 90% or higher "easy fold." So, why bet when you're either going to get folded to or raised by a full house or an uncallable bluff?

I get that everyone is LOL'ing at me as some sort of small stakes clueless nit, but I still haven't heard anyone tell me why a non total donk smaller flush will ever call you here. I also realize:

1. That this is likely the wrong thread to have this discussion in, and

2. People will continue to consider me a clueless nub and invite me to play in their games, so . . .

no need to respond any further. Thanks for the try, though.

lol drdoom do you even play poker? stop cluttering this thread with your nonsense and go post in a strat forum if you wanna tell people that betting the nutflush on paired rivers is always stupid.

Ok. Sorry.

A couple of things I noticed at The Rock today:

- Maybe somebody has been listening to us because there was a slightly improved security presence around the poker room today as compared to yesterday. There was always one or two security guards hanging around upstairs and I noticed a couple outside the poker room when I left at midnight.

- Contrary to what I was told a couple of days ago, you can NOT run the board twice in a $5/10NL game-- only in the time-raked games. Apparently a memo has gone out to floor people asserting this, so they're not supposed to let it happen anymore.

- I finally got the information I've been looking for in regards to safe-deposit boxes and whatnot. Here's what you need to know:

Getting a box is super easy even if you strictly play poker, and there are no requirements or minimums that need to be met. The boxes are located at the cashier in the High Limit Slots section of the casino and you simply go there and tell the cage that you want to set up a box. You give them your ID and player's club card, they'll hand you a piece of paper to sign, and then they'll give you a key. You can put anything in the box you wish, can access it as often as you'd like, and leave it unattended for as long as you want (within reason-- I think you may lose it after 5 years).

HOWEVER, as nice of an amenity as this is, it's not exactly the setup I was looking for. I want to have an account with the casino that allows me to walk into the poker room, withdraw money/chips from it, and when I'm done with a session, make a deposit so that I can leave the premises without a dime in my pocket. The casino calls this a "Front Money Account" and you can get one of these to use for table games but they don't yet have the capability to have this work with the poker room just yet but they're working on it. Unfortunately they told that to me AFTER I spent about 30 minutes signing up for one such account. It's pretty useless for me right now since I never play table games but at least I'll be prepared when the poker room starts to allow credits. If you want to set one of these accounts up, head to the credit office inside the casino to the left of the main cage and tell them you want to open a front money account.

Things have changed there. When professional slot teams were playing the lotto machines at Seminole casino no boxes were available. The teams brought sometimes hundreds of thousands in a van to fund the players. It was impossible to keep cash at the casino. You had to get a private box in Ft Lauderdale. Hans "Tuna" Lund who passed away bankrolled one of those teams and made millions of dollars. Much better than playing poker. You had a huge edge.