Ive also used this move to "bluff the showdown" and have nearly fooled the whole table.

Example: You have air on the river, you bet, you get called, then you quickly snap over your hand, put a chip on it and slide it to the dealer like you have the nuts. Make sure you have a lol-grin on your face as regardless of the outcome, the table will laugh once its all over and you say, "I tried to bluff the dealer too, it didnt work."

So apparently Chips and Osc are down at the Borgata this weekend and the games are good or something. I'm gonna head down this afternoon for a day trip, anyone else in the area free today? We're gonna start a razz interest list!

I am so glad I clicked on this thread from a computer I usually don't use. Was taken to the first post and was able to read Chips TR to Foxwoods from a few years ago. Quality read. Growing up in a suburb of Boston and having played at Foxwoods many times, I found much of the TR to be spot on.

thank you! I wish my trip reports would get a bigger audience but that's tough after BF.

My adventure begins just south of the Wallgreen's on Freemont St. where I catch the Suncoast-bound WAX bus on a Sunday afternoon. I've been hearing about the Suncoast stud8 game for a while and have always wanted to check it out. Preliminary investigations indicate that it goes every day.

The bus is right on time. I had to leave the sports book with the Giants game tied at 34, so I pray to the Football Gods and, after tough negotiations, work a deal where if they let the Giants win this one, I will never take the Giants in a suicide pool again. (The Gods come through, The Giants win, so it's a deal—I'm through with the Giants, unless of course, the spread is ridiculous.)

The Wax bus drops me of an easy pitch shot from the Suncoast's front door. The poker room is in the far back corner to the left of the sports book. They allow smoking at the back tables.

The Suncoast has a 10 table room that can easily accommodate 9 tables. A lot of Texas house games are conducted in the attached 2-car garages prevalent in housing developments, and the Suncoast room, with its rectangular shape and fire doors on one end, evokes the same ambiance. In fact, the only things missing are washer and dryer connections.

(Million dollar idea: Go ahead and install laundry machines. Start a wash & fold business. The dealers can wash the player's laundry on breaks instead of standing around pretending not to hear calls for chips. You may use this brilliant idea gratis!)

I ask at the desk about the stud game.

Not today. Would I care to play in the omaha game?

But of course!

How many chips would I like? I inquire as to the stakes and learn that it is $2-$6 spread limit. I order a rack of $1s.

I like spread-limit poker but haven't played it since Nixon was president.

I am the youngest person at the O8 table, saving the guy on my left who says he prefers the o8 to “grinding the $2-$4 game.” I soon learn that I am in serious trouble: I can't find a hand that I'll fold for only $2—I assume that I'll burn through the rack in twenty minutes. I send out a distress call to the tweetiverse, but no one comes to pull me up.

There is something joyously home-gameish about a bunch of oldtimers playing poker and watching football on a Sunday afternoon. At first I am afraid to raise -- not knowing if it will drive everybody out, or even if it will be considered rude, but eventually I catch a big hand and pop it, losing nobody.

I win three quarters and am actually up $30 when, at 1:30 PM, thirty minutes after I sat down, the game breaks. I guess it was getting late for some of the players.

OK, I am up $30 after half an hour, so I would be up $60 after an hour. Now let's say I play eight hours a day—that's $480; and five days a week would make it $2400; and fifty weeks a year $120,000. So I think it's safe to say that I could make 120k playing 2-6 spread at the Suncoast.

I still want to play stud, so after cashing out I ask about the stud game. Desk Lady (Jasmine, not Princess Jasmine, but Jasmine the New Girl) tells me that it will run tomorrow. When? It will probably start when the players show up at 10 AM. How long will it go? Sometimes it goes all night.

To be continued...

^ A nice read, thanks, I promise to finish my WSOP TR this month.....

moar old guys playing poker TR please.

Less of the old Mr 50+

+1

My stud 8 saga continues the next day at 4:41 PM when I once again board the WAX bus. After boarding, I look down and notice that half the chili dog I had wolfed down on my way to the bus stop is now on the front of my shirt. I always like to make a good impression at stud games, so when I arrive at the Suncoast I duck into the men's room, grab a bunch of paper towels, wet them down and proceed to try to clean up my shirt. All that I really accomplish, however, is to move around the stains and soak my shirt.

What the hey, it'll dry in a jiff.

I walk into the poker room, the floor (Dave?) takes one look at me, and says, “Here to play stud, sir?”

This is Monday, so there are a bunch of people there for Monday Night Football. There is also a 5-10-20 NLHE game going at a back table. I look over and think I see Mike Cox playing. The guy is shorter, and not as well dressed, so he must be The-Guy-Who-Looks-Like-Mike-Cox. Nobody reading this will have any idea who Mike Cox is, or who The-Guy-Who-Looks-Like-Mike-Cox is, but they are as old school as Vegas gets. If you have a copy of Super System, look at the lower right-hand corner of the group photo of the 1st World Series, and you'll see Mike, looking like he just got sucked out on.

Despite yesterday's info that the stud game started at 10 AM, it is just starting now and the chips are at the table. I grab a seat in the middle. I used to prefer the ends seats, but am now an old guy and need the middle seat in order to see.

I like the rhythm of stud games. I don't really remember how to play but seem to do OK on auto pilot. I use Prock's Mighty Hammer, the 4th street fold, and stay out of trouble. And I fold, and I fold, and I fold.

This has got to be a good game. There is a person at the table who I recognize, and played with once before at the Bellagio 30-60 O8 game when it was still running. On a board of Kc8c6xQxQc, in a kill pot that was capped 5 ways, capped 5 ways, capped 5 ways, capped 4 ways, this individual tabled a QQTc7c, scooped, and put the table on stark-raving monkey tilt. It is nice to see him again.

Another guy in the 7 seat starts collecting all the chips. Playing every hand, his 4th street card is always suited with his door card, as are his 5th and 6th cards. He starts coloring up. Buying in for a rack, at the end of an hour he has a stack of green and two stacks of reds, as well as enough $1s to keep the game moving. After 90 minutes, the horseshoe falls out, and by the time I left a couple of hours later, he was down to a couple of hundred.

Summary: I see a lot of the players jamming away with a 9 in the door on 3rd street. I'll admit that I like to jam eights, simply because I have never successfully made the transition from the declare game to the qualifier game, but nines? As Jerry Seinfeld would say, “Really? Nines???”

When I was a kid, Stud 8 was the 'action' game, so when I see people my age playing it, I expect them to know the fundamentals. They usually don't. This makes this a good game to play, but it sometimes can be frightening at showdown.

It sounds like I'm making fun of the place but I really liked it. I doubt I'll making many trips to Vegas without at least one visit. There are a lot of oldsters, but they are pleasant to play with—it's not another Boulder Station or Orleans. Check it out.

nice write-ups; thanks. what limits was the stud/8?

and LOL at runner runner quads!

$4-$8. I don't remember any kind of half kill, but there may have been one.

Desk said it ran M, W, Th & Sat, sometimes starting early and sometime going all night. Prolly wouldn't hurt to call first.

If you ever plan on going, it would be a crime to not wear your bracelet. (2+2 field trip idea?)

Ha, I drove by it every day on the way to the Rio since I stayed on that same road a mile or two south...

Stud Guys,

Looking to replace O8 as my backup game when I need a break from LHE. I'd like to learn Mexican Poker (at the Bike) but I can't find any strategy info on 2+2 or anywhere else. Anyone know of anything, either online or in print? Or do I just have to learn it old school by sitting down at the 2-4 and hoping not to lose too much before I've gotten it down?

Shoot first.

There have been a bunch of good Mexican Poker threads by Bike players. You might want to search the 'Draw and Other Games' forum or the archives.

Good call. Never occurred to me that it would be considered an "other game" by 2+2 and not stud. There wasn't much info, but it's more than I had before. Thanks.

You might try googling the old RGP or the older archives. I know there were a couple of threads ten or so years ago that outlined a 'basic' strategy that seemed pretty good when I played it a few years ago.

100/200 mix game at Aria has devolved into just baduecey, and 4-card roll your own both stud/8 and razzdugi!

In before seating opens for the main event!!! ESPN2 tonight at 8 eastern...

Had the DVR set to record this and we lost power from 6pm-ish to 11pm ish.
I have read the updates from wsop.com and really enjoyed last years tape delayed broadcast.

Chips - any good stories from the audience?

I wish I did. It was incredible being there though. So much fun, excitement, energy; and yet, everyone snap left when their guy busted. I highly recommend being friends with someone at the final table.

They had a big screen setup with all the chip counts and the action and of course the flop cam, so you could tell exactly what was going on. But the people on stage apparently couldn't see or hear anything ("I CAN'T SEE ****!!") even though Jack Effel was doing the play by play over the PA. Jeremy's sister was up on stage but then came back and sat with us because she couldn't tell at all what was going on. You also never saw hole cards in the audience, unlike on TV, so that was kind of weird. I was texting my friends to see what people had 15 minutes later lol.

Was in Vegas in September, apparently no Stud/Stud8/HORSE game around the strip..wtf?

Playing the 1/3 NL Holdem at Aria I forget that I was actually human at times

there are people grinding these games for a living? jesus wept

Sometimes HORSE games go. Mixgameaddict has a tweet feed that announces them.

https://twitter.com/mixgameaddict

(The Horse games can be rocked up as much as the 1-3s on occasion. It helps to be there when they start up to get the antes right.)

You didn't look hard enough. Low limit mix games 3 nts a wk at MGM (mon, wed, thurs) and stud often goes at Bellagio on weekends (as well as mix games most days).

Offstrip, Suncoast has stud8 most days of the week.