You can actually live in Thackerville if you want:

http://www.winstarvillage.com/

I drive up from Austin arriving around 9am, and there's usually 1 or two 1/2 1/3 NL going. Room starts to fill up after 2pm. Only downside to this room are the podium personnel as previously mentioned.

do you get to Texas Card House much? How do Winstar and it compare?

$1 goes before deal. 10% rake when there are any two actions that raise the pot over $10, ie, Player One calls $3, Player Two raises to $18, all players fold, Player Two takes a $10 pot ($1SB, $3BB, $3 call, Player Two $3 in pot), $1 rake taken.

Rake is taken at $10 intervals up to $5 max, ie, $29 pot has $2 taken, $30 pot has $3 taken.

A few things I can address for you.

Plenty of people here on daily basis. Download "Bravo Poker Live" app and look at the updated listing to see how many games there are at any given time. At the time of this writing (Wed 1pm) there are 11 games and 4 waiting lists:
3 each of 1-2, 1-3, and 2-5 NLHE games, one 1-2 w/5 bring-in round of high/high-low PLO, and one 4-8 LHE.
5-10 NLHE will run randomly during the week and throughout Fri-Sun.
5-10 PLO High Only runs 3pm Mondays and has good action.
Play 1-3 and up if you plan to make a job of it.

Wait time is only an issue some weekends/holidays. Get there before 1 on Saturday and you won't have an issue.

Mondays and Wednesdays are generally the slowest at daytime hours. More action at night with more recreational players, as you might expect. Rarely goes dark, maybe 20 times in 10 years. Even then, it will only be for an hour or so, then games will be up by 9am. I usually walk in to see 1-4 games going weekdays at 8:30am, more on Sat-Sun mornings.

Weekend action has between 35-42 tables of cash/tournament play.
Weekend tournaments are pretty good, dailies are just for funsies.
120-180 runners in Saturday 11am $175 deep stack, runs around 12-13 hours.

Come play here for at least a week before you decide to move here. If you decide to move here, Denton is light years ahead of Gainesville in quality of life/things to do. I-35 is being redone, so is very ripped up in Denton currently. Otherwise, traffic is rarely an issue going North.
Gainesville is cheaper and closer if saving money is more important.
http://www.apartmentguide.com/apartm...s/Gainesville/
http://www.apartmentguide.com/apartments/Texas/Denton/

Ya, I think it depends on perspective. It's just my personal opinion. You'll hear way, way too much boasting online, and I'm not doing it. To make this real clear, I consider myself a below average player who has lost too much and should have walked away from the game long time ago (but hooked, as most of us are). I've had my moments, but overall lost for sure. So take my view for what it is. My Vegas experience is limited, just a few trips. Definitely no Vegas expert - but I've got enough hands to compare the two.

And don't get me wrong. I'm just saying it's more difficult on average. Sure you'll find a fishy game a lot of times at Winstar, especially on weekends. I've found myself as mind-boggling easy games (I mean, literally full of newcomers and total nits). But often, you'll be amongst pretty recognizable regs and some above average players sprinkled in, and you should spot them pretty easily.

As to your question about the regfish versus professional grinder types, I would say there are a core group of the latter group that you will learn fairly quickly and be able to spot. The faces are the same. Not saying all the pro grinder types are really good, but there are several.

Actually not sure about that. If there was pre-flop raise to $10, call, call, call, and then re-raise to $20, and then everyohne else folds --- I think they take the 10% rake from this pre-flop pot, I'm pretty sure.

Ya, no worries at all on either the parking or waiting issues. The parking is almost perfect and room run well in terms of wait list except for the occasional super busy time.

My guess is probably 3 out of 4 people coming from Texas (whether it be Gainesville, Denton, Dallas, Fort Worth). I've heard countless times someone at the table ask, "So is everybody from Texas here?" And every single hand goes up. There are a LOT of Texans. Not that you can tell the difference unless they speak up or wear some Texas gear, but this casino would not exist without Texas tourists. As for the regs/grinders/pros, I would even venture to guess that 3 of 4 of these people are from Texas, too; most of them probably live closer to the Tx-Ok border, but probably most from Texas for sure.

Waldoworld, TexasKK, thanks for the responses. I'd respond in more detail but am getting ready to leave for a 6-day trip to Winstar in the morning. I won't have a computer with me but I'll have my phone. I'll try to post some short term results as I'm there, but if not, my next update will be in about a week.

*Pray for run good*

Shai, good luck! Post your thoughts.viewpoint on the room when you're done. Would like to hear an outsider perspective. Get a players' card (its free) so you can be eligible for the bad beat, if it hits.

About to go to vegas for the first time, casual hold em player sticking to 1/2. Which casinos should I check out?

Well that trip was less productive than I'd hoped. I only was able to play three days (about 22 hours) of 1/2 because I got sick when I woke up Saturday morning and decided not to play the tournament. Was considering playing 1/3 Saturday night but was too tired and sick by then. Woke up Sunday with fever I'd guess at least 101 (no thermometer with me but I can usually tell), freezing despite the room being like 80 degrees and being covered with every available blanket, comforter, and pillow. So I headed back home early and played fewer than half the days I had planned.

In addition, I wasn't able to visit either of the apartments I was interested in as Liberty Village had no showrooms yet, and Winstar Village had like eight units available but none they could show me when I went by, despite a telephone confirmation an hour beforehand that they could. Suggested I come back Saturday, but I was sick by then and it slipped my mind.

Trip wasn't a total loss, though. I have a degree in mathematics and know the combinatorics of various hands, as well as the probabilities said hands connect with the flop. I was almost completely card dead except for the first two hours I sat down, which is unfortunate timing because I made some procedural mistakes on the first day which cost me an estimated $100 - $200.

For example...We had a bona fide maniac at the first table, so I was trying to get in as many hands as possible with him. He limps from early position, five people limp behind, and I limp on the button with A2s. Flop is K72 rainbow. Everybody checks and I check. Turn is a 2. Everybody checked in less than a second. I didn't even realize the action was to me. I was looking away from the table, and my right hand was near my chips, loose (not in any of the normal checking positions like flat handed), moving up and down. I had been fidgeting like this since I sat down but the dealer called it a check. And then I stupidly say "whoa I didn't check!" which gave away that the turn hit me. Anyway, I figure if she hadn't called that a check I would have gotten at least three calls for a pot sized bet from players wanting to see the river, and the maniac would have called up to about 150% of the river pot, so I likely would have stacked him. Instead, everyone but the maniac folded to my river bet and I won like $30 instead of $150 or more.

Second day I got stacked almost immediately by an overpair vs. set situation. The player had just sat down to my left but looked and acted like a donk, turning 90 degrees and staring directly at my eyes until time was called on him, every time he had an action. In other words, acting like he was trying to soul read me when in reality he was just putting on a big show with the effective nuts. I didn't mind being stacked but the staring and showboating really annoyed me so I pulled up and tightened my hoodie, making me look like an idiot but at least he wasn't able to do that again. Spent next 9.5 hours grinding my stack up despite being card dead. Last hand I had around 300 when I pick up 55. There were several bad LAGs at the table and there was a raise preflop by one LAG followed by all the other LAGs calling plus me. Flop is AQ5 all diamonds. The pre-flop raiser bets into the pot, which I'd seen him do almost every hand, fold, fold, then a substantial raise. I shoved due to the effective stack sizes plus three diamonds on the board. I get called by the raiser, who flips over AQ no diamonds. He's drawing dead to win, but running diamonds, which will hit less than 4% of the time, would be a split. Board comes a five flush, we split, and instead of doubling up I get like $20. Table broke immediately afterward and I left.

Third day went very similarly. I got stacked almost immediately when a LAG raised, a second LAG reraised really large, and I just shoved with AKs figuring most of the time they'll fold but even when called I'm ahead most of the time. He calls with TT and I lose the coinflip. Last hand of the night, I'm down to about 50BB and pick up A3s on the button. There are a bunch of limps, I raise, I get two callers. Flop is A82 rainbow. It's checked around and I bet a little under pot, both players call. Turn is a 3. First player bets, second player makes a large raise, and I shove (not too worried about the wheel). He flips over AJ, I shove, he calls. I'm about a 90% favorite to more than double up but the river is an 8, counterfeiting my second pair, and he wins.

Anyway, I was a little bummed about how the days went, but I did the EV calculations on these hands and some others and even ignoring me being largely card dead, my EV was at least 600 over the three days, about $30/hour. So I figure I played fine. The players are mostly very weak, and I expect I'll be able to run them over rather easily. I did encounter a handful of decent, probably winning, players, but most were making clear mistakes that were very exploitable, such as one player who was C-betting 100% of flops, then firing again on the turn if called, then giving up on the river. He also would checkraise any C-bet from other players on dry boards. I saw other TAGs make similar moves. Unfortunately I entered few pots with the straightforward TAGs because I was card dead, getting bottom 40% hands about 80% of the time.

I noticed a lot of weird play that I wasn't used to coming from an online background. WAY too much limping, many players refusing to fold their entire pre-flop range to a raise unless it were very large (like 15BB+). Lot of players treating AK like the nuts even when it missed the flop. I was in position on one pot against a player who just sat down. I won't go into details but she took the line check call, check call, shove the river. I folded to the river shove and she flipped over AK with Ace high. This wasn't a "good read" or anything on her part as I'd been entering at most 5% of pots so my range was way ahead of hers. She just felt like AK was worth stacking off, regardless of board texture. I also saw a lot of the more break even type players limping KK+, AK. There was plenty more weird behavior but if I mentioned all of it this post would go on forever. Anyway, I'm happy for them to be playing like this because such play is very easy to exploit.

As far as time of day to play, I don't have a big sample size but I played from as early as 3PM to as late as 3AM. There seems to be a significant change around 11-12. Many of the okay players leave, and some really terrible players show up. So I think the best time to play an 8 hour session would be something like 8PM - 4AM. On weekends, maybe 10PM - 6AM.

As far as the casino, it seemed a little grimy. The chairs were not very comfortable, the tables looked ****ty, and the chips were really dirty. I saw hairs on the chips many times. I'm guessing I got sick from handling the nasty chips and cards. The dealers were mostly nice. Some were very professional but not friendly, others were professional and friendly, but a few were quite rude. It took me a couple days to get where I could quickly follow the action, so I'd sometimes ask "How much?" when someone had raised. Most dealers would just say "10" or whatever it was. But with one dealer, I was in seat 2 and someone in seat 9 had raised. My vision is quite bad, so I couldn't see the size of the raise. Anyway I asked "How much?" and he glares at me and says in a very sarcastic and grumpy tone, "Eight. Which is why I just said eight. LOUDLY." Suffice to say he got no tips from me and never will. A couple others yelled at me when I made minor procedural mistakes, but most dealers just calmly pointed out what I did wrong.

So, as I said, not entirely unproductive. I got a feel for the casino, the strength of the players, my strength relative to other players, and got the rules and procedures down pat by the third day. Also saw that it looked like a ****ty place to live, but not so ****ty that I couldn't deal with it for a year or two. As long as I have a decent internet connection I can deal with it. Speaking of which, I asked the desk at Winstar Village about their internet speeds but they didn't know. She just said it was wi-fi. Since wi-fi usually means a type of LAN rather than WAN I figure they have some kind of leased line like a T3, maybe fiber, and have wireless repeaters set up throughout the place. But I'd really like to know the latency and up/down speeds people get there. If anyone in this thread lives at Winstar Village and knows this please PM me.

TLDR summary:

• Got sick and had to come back early, but trip not a total loss
• Did not get to play tournament or 1/3 games due to becoming ill
• Learned all the live rules, procedures, and etiquiette, as well as how to game select and seat change to get good relative position
• Learned to quickly identify types of fish, who were about an even mix of weak tight and loose passive, with a smaller but significant number of bad LAGs and rocks, plus the occasional maniac
• Learned even most of the "good" players played in a straightforward manner, making them exploitable
• Learned the players get significantly worse after midnight
• Learned the casino was kind of ****ty, but not so much I can't deal with it
• Learned Thackerville was very ****ty, but again, I can deal with it
• Ran bad (-390) but EV calculations and assumption of fewer procedural mistakes in future leads me to a decently confident estimate of my hourly, which without improvement, I expect falls withing [15, 30]
• I think I can beat these games solidly right now, but with a month or so of practice I expect I would be crushing them.

I think I need to make at least one more trip back there, even if for just a couple days, before deciding on moving. I never got to see the apartments at Winstar village, for instance. And yes, I did get a player's card. Someone told me to expect comped rooms twice a month now, but I assume that's based on paying X amount of rake. I figure I paid about $300-$400 in rake, so I don't know if that's enough for the comped rooms or not. Hopefully it is, and I can go back in a couple weeks.

Despite the trip being ****ty in a lot of ways, I think the most important thing I learned is just how terrible most of the players are. Granted I have no frame of reference so I can't say if Winstar 1/2 is softer than Vegas 1/2 or Tampa 1/2 etc. but I can't imagine players being much worse and still being able to play. However, the rake at Winstar is significantly worse than Vegas, and the lack of a small blind to steal changes the dynamics of stealing quite a bit. Most of the time it doesn't seem worth it to fight over $2.

Which reminds me--is the rake the same at 1/3, 2/5, and 5/10? I.e., $1 drop + 10% rake? If they take the entire small blind at 2/5 and up that seems exorbitant.

I probably posted more information about the trip than anyone wanted to know already, but if anyone wants to know my outsider's perspective about something I didn't talk about, feel free to ask.

If you think Winstar poker room is grimy, you haven't played much live poker. Its much nicer and cleaner than most others Ive been in....and Ive played in 21 rooms in 8 states in the past year.

Agree.

And no, they only take $1 pre-deal, no matter the blinds.

I haven't played much live poker. In fact, I haven't played in any other casinos at all. I'm just starting out live, which I thought I had made clear in three different threads, but I guess I didn't. So yes, my frame of reference may be off. And to clarify, I said "a little grimy." Most of the room was okay, but the chips were nasty (dirty, hairs on many), and probability suggests I became sick from card and chip fomites, as there were few other possible sources of infection.

I would imagine the poker rooms at e.g., Wynn, Bellagio, Venetian, Aria, are nicer. Is this wrong? What about e.g., Hard Rock Casino Tampa or Magic City? Vegas and Tampa are the only other markets I'm looking at due to cost of living problems with LA, Miami, and Arlington/Alexandria. There are other locales with low COL (Gulf Coast for instance) but I don't think there would be any advantage over Tampa or Vegas or Winstar, but what do I know.

I'm going to head back to Winstar for a few days as soon as they send me the free casino stays I'm supposed to get. And I'll be making a trip either to Vegas or Tampa. Might push my move-in date back a bit, but I'd like to get at least some kind of comparison rather than move to the first casino I've been to.

You probably got sick because you didn't wash your hands lol... it's a card room of course the chips will be grimy

Hand-washing is easy, and virtually obligatory. It's not enough. Germs can stick to most surfaces for days, and metals for a week. The average person touches his or her face several times per minute. Are your hands clean every time you touch your face? All it takes is to touch germ-laden chips, then scratch one's face to become ill. I try to avoid this but it's very difficult. Try not touching your face for a day. The germs need not be directly transmitted, either. For instance, playing a hand, then having a drink of water can immediately transfer germs to your mouth when unscrewing the cap from the bottle. I can only guess as to how the germs were transmitted to me, but I wasn't near any noticeably sick people (or I would have moved), so it's a near-certainty the source was cards or more likely chips as fomites.

As far as the cleanliness of Winstar, I've only been in two card rooms before (not casinos, just poker rooms), and both were very clean. They were much smaller operations, so of course the comparison isn't really fair. Still, casinos must clean the chips occasionally. Dumping them into an ultrasonic isopropyl alcohol bath regularly (or even ultrasonic water bath) wouldn't be that difficult and would be pretty effective. From the state of the chips, I can't imagine they're being cleaned very often.

I'm not saying Winstar was filthy, just not quite as clean as I had hoped.

This doesn't happen lol, winstar is above average in terms of cleanliness of casinos

Trust me when I tell you that hardly any poker room washes their chips regularly. Most never do it. Chips are disgusting every where but they are no dirtier than US currency is. Money and chips get handled all day every day by all kinds of people. Most people are disgusting. Go to a public bathroom (including any poker room) and watch people walk out one after the other without washing their hands. Go to a poker room and watch people play poker for hours handling the disgusting chips and then order a hamburger at the table and eat it without washing their hands. Did I mention people are disgusting?

There is no way to keep chips or money clean. If you are going to play poker regularly you are going to have to get over some of these hangups you have.

Yeah, you're right. I saw lots of people eating at the table and I don't think any of them washed their hands first. I do think chips are worse than money as far as vectors for disease. Just think how often the blue chips at 1/2 go back and forth. The money gets handled by a few people a day, the blue chips by at least several dozen.

Money is hard to clean, but I can't see any logical reason why chips would be hard to clean. Literally all you would need to do is drop them into an industrial ultrasonic cleaner once a day, followed by an antiseptic bath. It would be pretty easy to automate such a process. They'd quickly pick up germs again, but I figure most germs can live on plastic surfaces for about a week, so on average they'd have about 7% as many germs. Whether casinos care enough about their customers to make this tiny investment is another question entirely, to which the answer must almost always be "no."

Cleanliness is a relative concept. What some people find disgusting others find perfectly normal. I get that. I happen to be towards one end of that spectrum because I have a relatively weak immune system and am very conscientious about avoiding disease vectors. But sometimes it's impossible.

If all casinos are disease factories, so be it. It just means I have to be extra careful while playing. It won't deter me.

You said hangups, plural. What are my other hangups?

@Iwreckshop

Winstar may well be above-average in cleanliness. I had no appropriate frame of reference when I said it seemed a little grimy. And I'm not sure what you were referencing with "this doesn't happen lol," but if that is in reference to my textbook examples of germ transmission from fomites, then I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about.

Anyway--was the fact I found Winstar "a little grimy" the only thing anyone found worth commenting about from my trip report?

Yeah if you're going to be playing live poker you just need to get over it.

I was referencing casinos cleaning their chips. Massive waste of time and money and brings them 0 value

Oh okay. That makes more sense. I didn't necessarily expect casinos would clean their chips, but they could. It would cost them very little compared to the income they generate, and the process could easily be automated so time is no factor. But I realize they don't have much of an incentive to do this.

I seem to have given the impression that clean chips are vastly important to me, and that I wouldn't play in casinos that carried higher risk of infection. This is not the case. I just tend to respond to everything directed at me, as I have way too much time on my hands, and all things being equal, I would prefer to play in cleaner casinos. But cleanliness is far down the list on items of import, chief of which are number of fish, number of regs, rake structure, max buy-in, hours open, levels spread, etc. The more something affects my hourly, the more important it is. The reason cleanliness makes the list at all is because it affects how often I can expect to become ill, and when I'm ill, I'm either too sick to play or too sick to play at my best.

Did you miss the part where I said "If all casinos are disease factories, so be it. It just means I have to be extra careful while playing. It won't deter me"? Pretty sure I've gotten over it.

How are the 2 5 games on weekdays? What time do recreational players come in on weekdays and weekends?

5/10 doesn't run consistently all day on the weekdays, and typically there's only one table if it does, so the 2/5 games have their fair share of solid grinders. However, there are also a lot of mediocre regs and recreational players, so the games have always seemed pretty beatable to me.

In my experiences going to Winstar during the week, most of the time Monday morning-Wednesday morning no 2/5 games will survive the night, but often the first one gets started between 9-10.

What do I have to do to get the free room promotions? I've heard from several people, both on this forum and while playing at Winstar, that they send out four free room stays a month; two during the first half of each month, and two during the second half. One player said I needed a player's card, so I got one before my second day of playing. I played about 20 hours after that.

Are these promotions sent out to anyone with a player's card or is it based on paying X amount of rake? If it's based on paying X amount of rake, I may have messed up, because I always had them scan my card when I sat down at a table, but not when I left. Then again I never saw anyone get their player's card scanned when they left, so maybe I didn't do anything wrong, but if so, I don't know they keep track of amount of rake paid.

Anyway it's the second half of the month now. I've gotten a couple emails from Winstar but one was asking me to do a survey and the other thanking me for said survey completion. I was hoping to be able to go for two or three days before the end of the month, since I'm flying to Tampa June 1 for about a week and would like an evenish number of days played at the different locales for comparison.

So

a) Did I do everything right to receive these promotional room stays?

b) If no, how do you get these promotional room stays?

c) If yes, when should I expect the promotional room stays email?

Thanks!!

I'm assuming it will take more than 20hrs.

Go to website and enter players card at the top and try and make a reservation and see what comes up. Don't need to wait for flyers in the mail.

Ah, thanks. Got comped rooms next week on Wednesday and Thursday, and I figure I'll stay after checkout and play most of Friday before driving back, so I should get another ~30 hours of experience before heading to Tampa the week after that

--------------------------

Wednesdays at Winstar are full of OMCs (from my sample size of 1 day). Last time I had the least success vs. this player type. Any tips? They're easy to exploit deep stacked but max BI is $200. I'm thinking...attack weakness relentlessly to win lots of small pots, and avoid tangling with them when they raise? Most of these guys play very straightforwardly, but some will check/call their TPTKs to two pair hands because they don't have the nuts, so I could end up value-towning myself.