limit is pretty dead. So does Racener play at Lucky's most days? Because i never see him in Silks anymore

Lol at "rcnr" playing PLO. I hope he plays as bad live as he did online.

Lmao! You're awesome bro.



June promo. Heard they're giving away some iPads and iPods and Junk.

trip report

went to tampa hardrock for first time friday night. been following this thread for a while (since my parents bought a small house in st pete that i can use). was pretty excited. was expecting ridiculous wait times, rude and crappy dealers and floor and lots of fish.

i got there and there at 9pm and there was a short wait for 1-2 (what i normally play in AC) and 1-3 and no wait for 2-5. floor and desk were very friendly. i got on a 1-2 table not too long after arriving. bought in for the max 100 (wtf!). sat there with most of the people at the table reloading at 40 (WTF!!). it was terrible. i already play a tight style. the only way i could see making money at these tables is either waiting to shove or limping (which i hate doing and am terrible at valuing my hands with this style). hate playing against short stacks. and everyone is short stacked. so after 45 minutes i get on a 1-3 list and move over after an hour of playing and losing 25.

now i'm on a 1-3 table and the play was so much different! i probably should have just moved tables. there weren't any players i would deem bad. everyone was playing tight and nitty. one guy was pretty good and clearly kept trying to isolate me. i did an ok job staying patient but couldn't get paid off on my big hands. three times i shoved all in either pre flop or on the flop. only once i did i get a fold. the other two times i weren't bad beats... but i could have used a big win... or at least a fold! (my AKs vs 55 pre-flop where i ended up pairing my K and villain hit his set... and my AA vs flush draw on the flop where flush ended up hitting). finally around 2am one of the 1-3 tables broke and a maniac came over. raising almost anything to 25 and always continuing with a handful of chips (i'm serious, that's how he bet, just grabbing chips and not counting them) of usually 75 - 100. but i didn't catch a hand against him. the one time i raised pre-flop he got out.

the one thing that bothered me is they raked a dollar if you ended up taking the blinds! what the f is that. so at 1-2, if you raise and everyone folds, they give you 2 bucks. honestly, a casino shouldn't be raking anything if there isn't a flop regardless of the pot... but a lot do (particularly when they're not sitting next to a bunch of other competing casinos like in AC or vegas), but why are they raking a 5 dollar pot (or 7 dollar pot at 1-3)?!

anyway, in my one trip, 2 table experience, i found 1-2 to be ridiculously easy but at 100 buy-in... not really worth it for me. and at 1-3, at my table, players were decent and were tight. of course, take into consideration this is coming from a guy who's not that great himself yet and only this past year has shown consistent (small) profit over time at the borgata and taj mahal at 1-2.

i ended up down 427. but was impressed with the room. nice casino. nice environment. friendly people and staff (of course.. everyone seems friendlier outside of jersey and nyc).

i'll be back. hopefully playing better and at a looser table.


oh... and hot waitresses. on par with borgata (not as good as parx tho!)

That TR is a pretty decent snapshot of the room as I've experienced it 50 times over the last 4 years. The 1/2 players are flat out lousy. Your only chance to make any money, though, is to get on a table with some established stacks of $300 ish. Otherwise its absolute torture.

The 1/3 players are generally speaking pretty tough regs. I mean, sure there are going to be a couple of fish at every table. But they usually get run off pretty quick and what you are left with is smart, experienced, aggressive players. In fact, as I've posted before, in my experience the $1/3 game there often has better play than their $2/5 games.

And yes, waitresses are definitely on par with the best rooms around the country.

Re: Lucky's $20 no limit game being nit-city:

Not necessarily. Just broke-city. Their strategy: buy in for $20. Lose. Rinse and repeat as needed, generally until exhausting full $60 bankroll. If left with some amount of cash less than a buy-in, place wager on animals running in circles. If win, rebuy. If lose, panhandle.

Re: 1/3 players at THR being "generally tough, smart, experienced, aggressive players":

Um... I recommend getting a larger sample size before drawing this conclusion.

how do you guys think play at 1-3 and 2-5 at derby lane compares with hard rock?

LOL @ them betting whatever they have left on the dog or horse simulcasting. Very true! Have to confess "nit" might not be the best word to describe it. Perhaps would be more accurate to say they limp-fold or shove for no equity in a game where the rake is up to 20 percent of their profit if they get called would be better.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the $1/3 regs at THR. Oh, well, one man's bad experience at the pokerz might very well be another's very good experience, right? In fact, since its a zero sum game I guess its guaranteed.

In my experience considerably softer. But I was at Derby during peak winter tourist season and a couple of players I sat with at the $1-3 there were fairly inexperienced. Might not be the case in the summer as much.

thanks. i'm going to check it out my next trip.

Chickasaw, if you were peeved at paying a dollar rake for winning just the blinds at 1/2 at THR, then you'd better tightly wrap your head with duct tape before you play a pot at Derby, lest you get any grey matter on your tablemates when your melon explodes.

A $16 pot there will be raked $4... $2 for the pot (they round up) and $2 for the jackpot. (Hell, it may even be rounded up at $15-- I'm not sure if it's triggered at $X5 or $X6.)

But hey, if you can average hitting quads for a promo payout in every session, it'll balance out!

At Derby its triggered at $1's. $11 is $2 rake, $21 is $3 rake, etc. + $1 jackpot on $10 and the 2nd $1 at $20 I believe. $21 pot is $3 rake and $2 Jackpot. Welcome to Derby lane.

what about silks' rake and jackpot fpr 1/2 and 2/5? I have determined to start playing there exclusively when I decide to move to 5/10 because I have been told they do a $6/30minute timed rake and no jackpot. they also give $3.33/hour in comps too. Does this sound right to you guys?

$8 per half hour, taken out of the first pot over $x or first two pots over $1/2x. The game doesn't run as often as most places because the 2/5 is a $1k max. There is a thread in b&m for silks fyi

And yes $3.33 hourly is correct.

Side note, Skc is $7 per half for 5/10, and NFND on all the smaller games

you have just saved me an aneurysm. thank you. i'm not paying that crap. hard rock it is when i'm in tampa bay for me. and i'll appreciate the rakes in AC and other northeast casinos a lot more!

those are some fair rakes. just googled it, not too far from st pete. and normal buy-in max's. i'll check this one out next trip. thanks!

What's going on with the jackpot nowadays? I was there about a month ago and believe it was 185K.

Sweet Odin's raven. Derby's actually worse than I thought it was. Rounding up at $11. Wow. Wow.

At $216k now, as of last night.

If its still there this weekend it will be packed with 1-2 and 2-4 limit players shot taking at the BBJ.

Word to the wise: be ready because if you sit down and play 1/2 at least a few of them will be old ladies who couldn;t get a seat at the limit game. They'll screech at you about raising to $12 with your AA utg because then people don't play their suited connectors and so you can't hit it.

They don't realize that the odds of quad 10s being beaten with both hands, both hole cards playing, is like 80 thousand million krillion to one.

Glad I was that one in 80tmk in January. Quad tens cracked. Ship it!

Oh, it happens. Just not so often that you ought to be forced to play generally -EV poker so the little old lady can keep seeing cheap flops and you can all just keep donating rake.

Agreed. No problem with checking down the blinds if both hands are qualifiers. But other than that, feel free to pwn meemaw til she's down to just a bus token.

BBT reference. I got it. WP, sir.