Quote:
Originally Posted by STinLA
My goal is to provide a way to make an apples-to-apples comparison of LHE games in the LA-area. I will keep this "OP" (the mods did not want a actual new thread) focused on just the facts, and editorialize in a reply to it.
Now for the editorializing. As background, I've played over 500 hrs./year at Commerce for the past few years, and have little mileage elsewhere until recently. The reason I've been shopping around pretty much comes down to one key factor: service.
Commerce is the big man on campus. The largest poker cardroom in the world, and all. That size has definite advantages, mainly in table selection. If your table conditions are not good, you generally have at least two other tables (if you're playing hold 'em) to choose from except at the highest limits. I've seen over 10 $8/$16 LHE tables going. When you're that big, you rarely run out of tables except on the busiest nights.
But if you're going to welcome that many people through the door, you have to provide enough staff to care for them. One floor person cannot adequately oversee 30+ tables. This is Commerce. There is always going to be a dispute at one of the tables, and while that is being resolved all the other things that need the floor's attention are ignored. Table changes. Collecting the lobby fee (which inexplicably can only be done by the floor). Monitoring players who jumped the line and took a seat that belonged to someone on the board, or who left a short table to move to a full one (which also can only be resolved by the floor, not a chip runner). There also appear to be too few chip runners, which slows down games because some of the dealers are not very adept at keeping track of how much a player awaiting chips owes to the main pot vs. the side pot, etc.
I also have a critique of the dealers who, as a whole, are no worse than dealers anywhere else in L.A. (a low bar), but in one aspect are horrible. In pretty much every cardroom I've played in both in L.A. and around the country except Commerce, the dealers notify the floor staff when a new player sits down. It is very common at Commerce for a player who is not on the board to just sit down and take a seat that belongs to someone else. This becomes even more important when you are both short-staffed and have so many players. The floor/runners can't be everywhere at once. The dealers are the first line of defense, but not feel it is not their job.
Another pet peeve I have is with the bad beat jackpot. $8/$16 shares a jackpot pool with $20/$40, but there is no BBJ drop in the $20/$40 when there is no flop. In $8/$16, $1 goes down that little BBJ hole even if you just chop the blinds. So all things being equal, $8/$16 is contributing more per hand to the shared pool. I call BS on that.
So I started looking around and ended up at Hustler. I've tried it out and am much happier with regard to the service aspects and rewards system. Also, all things being equal, if there's going to be a BBJ drop (I'd rather do away with it and drop $1 less, but that's never going to happen), then you would like the BBJ to be as large as possible. A $40K seed and no flop/no drop vs. a $15K seed and always drop is a no brainer. The food on the comp menu could be better, but you can't have it all. Also, it could be just a little brighter. I do like that it doesn't feel like I'm playing in a warehouse, but I also don't like having to do a double-take every time I check my hole cards.
One down side is that for whatever reason, players love to get up and leave games short at Hustler. I thought it was bad at Commerce, but I was wrong. However, when the floor at Hustler will reduce the drop to $2+$1 or $1+$1 when the game gets short, then it's not so bad. The drop is
NEVER, EVER reduced in the $8/$16 at Commerce.
Another down side is that, given its size, Hustler can't just keep opening new tables on busy nights. I had to wait over 50 minutes for a table at Hustler a couple of weekends ago because the $8/$16 seems to max out at 5 tables. I've only had a wait that long twice in the past 5 years at Commerce.
One last thing about the dirty $2 chips at Commerce. If you've never played with them you probably think I'm exaggerating and being petty. I will take a picture of the various $2 chips from around L.A. and let you compare. If I were running a cardroom I'd be embarrassed to be using them.