The new MGM Poker room was nice. A good number of games were going on there for a weekday afternoon. Seats are comfortable, and tables are spread out well. There are a lot of wide pillars in the middle of the room, though, which tend to block the view of the TVs--not a great setup if you're a sports fan.
They also have a coffee station and a soda machine: the new touch screen type with a lot of flavors; always a plus. Hard drinks are free and served from 8AM-4AM.
In fact, the entire casino has free coffee and soda stations set up. I guess we'll see what happens to that when the bums move in on it.
Springfield center is by no means fully gentrified. It's one of the more dangerous areas in New England, which isn't saying much. But it's definitely not a paradise.
MGM has odd straddle rules, which I predict won't last very long. At the $1/$2 game, you can straddle for $5 from any non-blind position, and preflop action then starts on the
next position to the left of the straddle.
Seems ripe for exploitation.
Example: if you're in the cutoff with a LAG on the button, you can straddle the cutoff every time and force the button into always either becoming the effective UTG pre, or make it so that he has to intercept you and straddle the button himself (closest to the button gets first dibs on straddling.)
Another gambit would be to seat yourself to the right of a frequent straddler, giving yourself the cutoff in relative position every time he straddles, from any position.
Now for the game. I was expecting soft, but I got none of that. For the first hour or so, we had three players who were waiting for the $2/$5 game to start up. This is often fine, as a lot of $2/$5 players will splash their way around a $1/$2 game, not taking it too seriously. These guys were pretty good, though, and played solid.
The rest of the table was decent as well. I have to say that I was surprised. My theory from yesterday did not hold water. I bounced after two hours for lunch.
I wanted to try the new Wahlburgers, the burger joint owned by the Wahlberg brothers, whom you may recognize for their high variance acting and singing gigs. I thought I had seen one of the brothers--Donnie or Marky, on TV declaring the new joint open, but currently the restaurant is far from open. There's not even a building up yet.
I spotted a place across the street called Raices Puerto Rican Cuisine and went over to there for lunch because **** it, I've never tried PR food before.
Lunch there was filling, and tasty as hell, and cheap.
For an appetizer I ordered a fried plantain (sort of a banana cousin) with taco meat and melted cheese for about $3.50.
and I topped it off with a beef jibarito sandwich for $10. Good stuff.
Returning from lunch, I found a much better table, but I found myself doubling up the station to my right in three spots, all boards over which I value owned myself with second best hands.
So that was where all the chips went. Ah well, New England wins again.
MGM Grand (MA): 4 hours
(-$398)