That’s what I’m talking ‘bout

once the justice department finds out it's basically 25/50 the big boss will get on the case.

Here's something no one is probably thinking of.. people's opinions on whether someone is good at poker in a high stakes environment differ quite a bit. A lot of people completely misevaluate other players skill levels. Especially at high stakes where everyone is pretty good, and everyone thinks them or their friends are the best poker players at the table. For example, one guy's gonna say Nick Vertucci is a nit and gives no action I dont want to play with him, but someone else will say oh he's a weak-tight calling station that never puts any pressure on you, I do want to play with him he's easy money. So you gotta be pretty darn good at poker (and really tight) to get people to not want to play with you. Thats why I said it comes down to consistency and good social skills.

Obv it hurts a bit if youre a young Euro grinder in LA and you make it obvious youre a pro poker player. But even for them, if they just say they have a job doing something else I think its probably fine. Its not like they are going to ask for your accounting records to prove you lose at poker lol

I haven't "pivoted" about anything. If I've done anything, it's repeat the same damn thing dozens of times because people keep twisting my words. I'm sure that's spammed this thread to some extent but people keep distorting what I've said or throwing the same "gotcha" at me repeatedly.

Yes I mentioned the game plays with the 40 or 80 straddle on in some of my followup posts, I forgot in the OP, but I did mention it's "much bigger" than 2/3/5 and uncapped. Pretty much every NorCal game plays bigger then the stated blinds due to "mandatory" straddles but it was missing context for some people that don't know that that I forgot and had to add later.

Just because it's not about Bay 101 in the general case doesn't mean that I don't think what happened there wasn't bullshit. It just means it's one casino and not the end of the world . My bigger concern is the rise of "semi-private" games in general. I've heard of other casinos starting to them now in NorCal and several people have chimed in this thread saying they are popping up in places like Maryland and someone else is presenting a case against them to the Nevada gaming commission.

Also, I do play in other rooms in NorCal and this "host" is notorious for blackballing good players from Bay 101. It's not just me. Maybe 2p2 trolls think I'm some sole lunatic but this is a known thing in the NorCal poker scene.

It's one thing for games to go private but it's totally different when it becomes something systematically enabled by casino employees where they take all the public crowds and cherry-pick them into impromptu private games. So much of the defenders in this thread will give 100 reasons why private games work the way they do but as I keep saying, then make your games private. My issue is with "set lineup" or "semi-private" games which have big impact on existing public games by hijacking them.

Yeah if I decided to spend my life greasing wheels and buttering up people and working my way up the Bay 101 social hierarchy then maybe I could play in their 5/5/10 game consistently. I've said over and over that I didn't want to do that, I have a job and other responsibilities and live an hour away. I would argue that I made a reasonable effort to do that by asking for a phone number and I was refused. My asking of their phone number was my attempt to meet in the middle and do a little networking to understand if there were some systems to getting in this game. There were "jokes" made but no real answers provided to my inquiry which made the "jokes" seem less like "jokes".

The funny thing is people keep telling me "this is just how it is if you play poker for a living" but I don't play for a living and don't have time to do this networking. As I said from the very start, it's actually the good recs who are by far the most hurt by this. The bad recs of course get in these games. The pros have the time to network and make friends and get in this game. It's precisely the good recs who get screwed by these systems. So that's my self-interest in seeing "semi-private" go away but I also think it's really bad for the poker community as a whole . The semi-private games can really leech the ability of the public games to be good or even run, the hosts get way too much power, and it's a system that is begging for bribery and collusion because as said, if the host takes a kickback for letting you in the game, hes doubly incentivized to make sure you get served softballs. I got hints this was going on but the broader point is that "semi-private" games just set up a strong set of incentives for this shady stuff to happen.

First come-first served, works fine. A call-in system where there's some round robin coordinatoin to giving out seats also seems reasonable and might help some of the games getting started. A *little* fudge in the lineups is fine as I already said, mr VIP magically gets a boost up the list, sure. whatever. But, "some host goes through the lineups and just arbitrarily rearranges it based on secret criteria before every game and just coincidentally always picks the same few pros and the worst players who wandered in the casino" is a **** system.

My God, will you ever stop whining about being first up when you only called in 1 hour previous? World revolves around you, we got it.

First come-first served works fine?

Great! Because that’s what your game is, finally a resolution and possible end of thread.

Euro grinders are beyond transparent. They can hand out fake w2s at the table and nobody is falling for it.

Lol@ asking the floor for the organizers phone number as being some effort to get on the list.

Try not jumping the list,not being insufferable to play with and getting the number while you're playing from the organizer.

That’s not the system

That absolutely is the system. That's what the Bay 101 employees told me the system is. How would you even know any better unless you play at Bay 101?

This thread is full of trolls who simultaneously deny they have any connection or self-interest in what's going on at Bay, but also confidently assert how this game runs and try to contradict what the floor of the casino actually told me.

Either you play there and can share your opinion, or you don't so should stop spamming this thread with irrelevant info based on nothing.

It's not first come first serve. And "someone sets the lineup and then it's first come first serve after" is not first come first serve, it's dishonest to pretend it is.

And sorry, if a casino employee sets a lineup for a public game, that's bad enough but at a minimum that employee should be at the casino. This whole idea I'm suppose to "suck up" to him but also he's not there , I'm wrong to ask for his phone number, I'm just supposed to camp out at a cardroom in the hopes I can talk to this guy, plainly ridiculous and the only people who disagree are in on this racket or bored 2p2 trolls.

Lol you weren’t wrong to ask for his number but onus really shouldn’t be on the floor to connect you two

But did you consider the fact that you have simply could have networked with the guys that were in starting lineup?

I don’t think we ever got a full account of what happened that day after you got pulled from seat. Did you immediately go full Gorilla into the compliance office? Did you try to get into the game?

lmao at expecting the floor to give you a player's phone number. That would actually be a massive violation, as opposed to the other relatively mundane **** that's been talked about itt.

My initial reaction was not anger but confusion. I just shrugged my shoulders and played 2/3/5 for about an hour. I glanced over at the game a few times to see if a busto seemed likely and at the board to see if a second game might start. When I did glance around some chip runner would run over and ask me, “do you need help with anything <my name >?” in that tone of voice where it sounds less like they want to help and more like they want you to stop doing what you’re doing. I’ve never had a chip runner do anything other than run chips so that was another shady aspect of this story. This led to me mentioning to the table I was hoping to play 5/5/10, everyone at the table knew this prop well but they were shocked he sets the lineup. They didn’t think that was normal.

I didnÂ’t get angry until I went home and texted a few poker friends. A bunch of them told me thatÂ’s bullshit in a casino game thatÂ’s not marked as private and I should call gaming so I did. I also emailed Bay 101 cause IÂ’m generally not a narc but I wanted to tell them directly my issue with their system. Compliance called me back but he kinda stayed neutral on the system since he doesnÂ’t know poker but agreed the floor should not have made the trust fund comment.

My only friend who defended it is a prop himself at Commerce, but even he said that at Commerce if they block you from a game they try to get you in the next one.

Majority of poker players I talked to in person said it was bullshit and I should report it to gaming. But on 2p2 a lot of people saying IÂ’m a Karen and I run to the DoJ about my coffee being wrong at Starbucks, and the same accounts keep trying to correct me about how it works at Bay 101. You can call me paranoid for thinking at least a few of these accounts are Bay players in this game but I would bet heavily at even money itÂ’s true just based on the vitriol combined with the comments on how Bay 101 works.

Lol the shady chip runner

The more you peel this onion the more it stinks!

And the reason why many people you talk to agree with you is probably because you were confused and explained it wrong. Then with chip runner story it’s clear you are seeing boogeymen. Some people might just be placating you.

But we at 2+2 figured out what happened and are just brutally honest when correcting you

I have something new to add from my experience with one of these games. As background, I make over $100 an hour to $400 an hour in these bigger games and one of the game organizers has been verbally and physically harassing/abusing me for over a year (he had quit by the time I arrived the second time). For more info on the harassment, see general poker discussion thread "how to handle player who harasses you."

The last two times I have joined:

1. Game immediately broke after I sat down.

2. I arrived at the table, one player said if I sat down he'd quit, second player said he'd quit if first player quit, and eventually whole table said they'd break. So I didn't play. When asked for an explanation, I didn't get one, just "various reasons."

A couple players quit anyway within the next 10 minutes but the players who joined after me were permitted to play without the game breaking.

Just some more info for those who say these games are open to the public.

The majority of 2+2 agrees with me, that's why the OP of this thread has +21 likes and your compulsive shitposts have 0 likes. Yeah, if you scroll through the thread it would seem like I'm the crazy one everyone disagrees witha", until you realize it's the same 4-8 screennames that have notifications for me posting so they can barrage me with distortions of what I've said and baseless personal attacks.

Many of these people also seem to have very strong opinioins on how Bay 101 games work, look at OneCrazyDuck who's been in this thread insulting me many times, and now his most recent post tells me that's not how the system works at Bay 101. Well, either he knows how the system works meaning he plays there and has hid his vested interest through all of his personal attacks against me, or he doesn't play there and he's shitting up this thread with bogus misinformation.

I do want another break from this thread but since everytime I post people come and twist what I say, I want to do another breakdown of all the common gotchas and lies in this this thread that I've had to repeatedly debunk.

> You're just mad they didn't let you jump the list!

I've been waitlisted many times, if someone else is ahead of me I have no problem giving up my seat, often times if there's no shows they call the next name on the list which was me so given I was first up and there was nobody there I thought it was my seat, but it was fine to lose the seat. That was simply context for how this all started. The real issue is that I was told by the floor that the reason I was 10th on the list is because the prop rearranges the lineup and moved me back, not because someone else called in earlier.

> This is just how it works in private games! The whales don't want to play with nits!

If the whales want to play with certain players, they should start a private game and do that. In reality, this "semi-private" game is just the same pros and the whales don't even know the pros, they just wandered into the casino and got cherry-picked into the semi-private game, blackboxing pros who aren't in on the scheme and causing other public games to be much tougher or not run at all

> There's something wrong with your personality, this thread just proves it!

I was polite and well-mannered at the table, and its a "Kafkatrap" to say that any times someone points out something wrong, that them pointing it out is proof that they themselves are somehow at fault (based on Franz Kafka's The Trial where any claims to a the protagonists innocence was proof he was uncooperative and guilty".

Also, several other players at NorCal cardrooms have spoken to me about this prop blackballing them from his games after they won too much.

> You're someone who runs to the authority figures at the slighest inconvienence! You're a karen!

I have never reported anything to gaming in my life, I did so after the encouragement of several other poker players who don't like the idea of public casino games being privatized by props looking for kickbacks. If these guys want to settle things man to man, they have the opportunity to let me play in their poker games, they ran to their authority figure to keep me out of their game the first time after I beat them for five figures (which all came from the pros in the game).

> Casinos are like nightclubs and can run whatever they want!

California cardrooms are not even true casinos (only the Indian tribes can run real casinos) and they are heavily regulated by the state of California. Those regulations are so unlike any other business that nobody can compare them to something like a nightclub with intellectual honesty. Many of the regulations are unique to California, such as not allowing a percentage based rake, are specifically so that cardrooms aren't incentivized to make people gamble more recklessly. Clearly designing "semi-private" games to be as big and splashy as possible runs counter to the spirit of that regulation

> You overreaacted to a joke from a floorman and might get him in trouble!

If I ask a floor person how to play in a public game, and he makes a joke about bribing him, then gives me the actual answer, then its a joke. If he makes a joke about bribing him then refuses to give a real answer, it's not a joke.

> This is legal in California

The truth is there's some regulatory ambiguity about the legality of semi-private/set lineup games but based on an initial conversation with an agent from the California Justice Department, their initial take is that it's not legal but due to the regulatory complexity, it'll take them some time to make an official decision. Other players should call gaming and report semi-private games which will help give them info about it. Nevada has some semi-private games but another 2p2 poster reported it to the Nevada gaming commision and will be doing a presentation to the Nevada gaming commission about why they should be banned

> You should have networked better to stay in the game

Networking to stay in games should stick to private games, I live a long drive from this casino and I have a family/job and do not have time to butter anyone up and don't think that should be necessary to play in cardroom games that aren't marked private

> You're making serious allegations of collusion based on no evidence!

I only heard heardsay gossip that the prop in this game gets actions of the pros allowed in this game. That aligns with seeing the same pros get to play it every time and wanting to keep the rest of the lineup soft. I also heard gossip that there was signaling in this game, I have no evidence of that but I do think that "semi-private" / "set lineup" games incentivize collusion and bribery because you can setup teams of pros against marks. If its a private game, it's more clear to a weak player that they're the guy the game is built around and he can make a decision about whether he trusts the game. In these "semi-private" games, a bad player might walk into these gamse and have no idea that it's a semi-private game because there's zero indictation it is one. Just labeling the game as "5/5/10 semi-private" would be a huge improvement in transparency.

My point is not to say I have strong evidence of collusion in the game, but instead note that "semi-private" / "set lineup" games massively incentivize it and its awfully coincidental I've already heard gossip its happening

> You have no right to a player's phone number! How dare you even ask that!

This "player" was the casino employee who was setting the lineup and rearranged me out of the starting lineup. I agree I shouldn't have to ask his number, he should just be at the casino. My asking of his phone number was an attempt to compromise a bit on the networking, but given I live a far drive and have a job/family, I need a number to text, it's not reasonable to expect me to hang around Bay 101 all day hoping to run into this guy

> Semi-private games are better so the game actually starts! Otherwise pros dont want to start the game without a whale

I appreciate that there's been at least a few good-faith arguments in favor of semi-privates underneath a mountain of personal attacks and the same lame jokes on repeat. Still, I still strongly feel that there should be a clear separation between public and private games with no in between, because of how much power semi-private games gives a few individuals to distort the public casino games, arbitrarily blackball players, and collude. I also think there's other systems to make sure games start such as a sign-up list with a round-robin invite system.

The harassment thread is actually in casino and cardroom poker. My bad.

Nobody is quitting you because of your win rate

I was at MGMNH a few weeks ago and saw one of the strongest cash game players in the country going into the back room to play, so I really doubt you're being barred strictly because of your poker skills. There are also two separate private games that run, so you're saying you've been **** listed by two different game runners? Do you refuse to participate in flips or something? I feel like there has to be more to the story. Also, how do you have a solid hourly for these games if you're never allowed to play?

FWIW, we've almost certainly played together and I probably have no issues with you.

We're talking about different games, the one I am blackballed from is a plo game. I am welcomed in the NL games when a seat opens up, but then again none of those game organizers has harassed me nonstop for over a year. I am also not as good at NL as PLO.

I'd been allowed to play in the past in this game but the last two times I was not, so something changed. The point is, they are not truly public and you are at the mercy of the game organizer who in this case hates my guts and never has a nice thing to say about me. If you want more to the story as you say, you can read my separate thread about the harassment here: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...s-you-1822791/

Apology accepted. Glad that you acknowledged you are wrong.

How would you me or anyone else know that people aren't refusing to play with other people because of their winrate

Dumbos, people are allowed to not play with you because of your win rate, or for any other reason. At worst, this sounds like a case of bullying, not a gaming rules violation.