I recently went to play the 5/5/10 NL game at Bay 101. I went a few sessions and did well. Since it seems to be going well, I call-in early and show up early for the next game. Despite that, I'm tenth on the list, I assume it's because other people called in / showed up even earlier. Either way, there's an open seat as the game is starting due to no-shows so I take it.

However, the floor pulls me off the table. I ask why I can't play? Should I call-in earlier? Should I arrive earlier? They tell me that the casino "curates" the lineup, and that I was curated to the waiting list as there's another player on the way.

I asked for clarification as to how the curation works, I was told by the floorman that I should "gamble like I'm a trust fund baby" and "suck up to <the prop player>". The prop player apparently sets the lineup in the 5/5/10 game and wasn't even at the casino this day. I ask for his phone number so I can give him a text or call and learn the rules for playing in the game. The floor refuses to give it to me. I ask if I can provide my phone number so he can reach me, I'm again refused. They let me play the 2/3/5 NL game (much smaller game since it's 800 max vs uncapped) but also seemed eager to get rid of me.

It's an hour drive for me to get to the casino so it's totally unviable for me to play if I can get arbitrarily "curated" from the game. I think it's incredibly inappropriate and unprofessional for a floor person at a public cardroom to suggest I gamble more recklessly in order to not be "curated" from a public game.

I want to emphasize that I fully understand that there are private games. This is not a private game, it's the 5/5/10NL game which is listed on poker atlas, listed on the Bay 101 poker board, and for which any person can show up to Bay 101 and ask to join the list for.

What's happening as far as I can tell is a few insiders decided they wanted to have their cake and eat it too - the control over the lineup of a private game but the incoming player stream of a public game so they can cherry-pick to fill seats but then "curate" anyone they perceive as playing too good.

I also want to note that I've heard the arguments "the recs don't want to play with obnoxious pros". I think that's irrelevant but I'll note that I've never once had a year where poker was my primary income but that this game does have pro players who play it every time it runs. So this isn't even getting rid of pros to make recs happy, it's actually pros "curating" off recs they consider to be strong players in favor of weaker recs. They are trying to leverage insider connections to systematically bumhunt public games.

I've played all over the country and all over California - at M8trix, Commerce, The Bike, Hollywood Park, Lucky Chances, Oak's, Graton, and Thunder Valley and never once have I experienced anything like this. However I text my friend who's an employee at Commerce and he tells me that this is the new trend in NL games in California. He insists that it must be legal if casinos are doing it.

I give a call to the gaming commission to ask about this, a member of the California Justice Department calls me back and tells me that he's not sure because the regulation is a "very thick book", but his first instinct is that my experience doesn't sound right to him either and he'll look into it.

I also contacted Bay 101 management, I spoke with their head of compliance. Unlike their poker floor employees, their head of compliance was highly professional, but he was unsure about the details and needed to investigate and learn more.

Poker is supposed to be an open and fair playing field. What sets it apart from the house games is that players can play more skillfully and have a chance at beating the other players.

If someone wants to organize a private game, organize a private game. But then you get to invite players and run the game, not co-opt the public games as your private game because some rogue employees have a little power trip and decide to do something that's unfair and probably illegal.

This trend of taking public games and blackballing players for playing well is unfair, counter to the spirit of a public poker game, and likely in violation of California state law. If you experience anything similar, I recommend you let the California Gambling Commission know your experiences via this website:

http://www.cgcc.ca.gov/?pageID=complaints or call (916) 830-1700

It's a trend all over the country since the vast majority of bigger games have moved to private settings.

Let us know how the gaming commission responds to your complaint.

I've definitely seen the trend of games going private. The issue here is that it's a public game. If these guys want a private game, they should start a private game, not try to treat a public game as their private one when it's convenient.

Curious to see what would happen if gaming regulators tell Bay 101 they can't run the game that way anymore.

Maybe the game keeps running without much change, maybe it's gone from the casino immediately. Would definitely send a signal to all other semi-private games in the country, one way or the other.

Does the Prop player pay to run the game or something? Why do they get to be the decision maker?

I don't know, but if I had to guess, the big Friday night game would go fully private as they could reliably fill in the seats. The other games would still run as public games, because there are enough players to play in them but not enough that a private host could easily and consistently fill seats day to day without some inflow.

I'm sure if they could go private they would. The whole reason they're trying to make "semi-private" a thing is precisely because they can't reliably fill the games.

The casinos have signs all over the place saying "don't gamble over your head, if you're a problem gambler, call us!". Now they're saying a requirement to play in a public game is to "gamble like a trust fund baby". That's obviously encouraging and incentivizing reckless gambling and I think they're playing with serious regulatory fire letting their floor tell players that's a requirement to play in their public games.

I will update the thread with what the Justice Department tells me but I do encourage anyone else who disagrees with this direction to give them a call as there is strength in numbers ,1 person complaining is easier to overlook then 50 people.

I guess the main question is whether these card rooms are legally required to operate on a first-come first-serve basis (which they generally do at smaller stakes anyway), or can they operate like a popular nightclub where the bouncer decides who gets in based on looks, if you’re with hot girls, tips, regular customers, etc.

Not necessarily, different states have different regulation and different levels of enforcement.

Are public curated games something new? I mean, Hustler does it all the time for their stream, no? Maybe that's the difference, the stream.

That's a private game, it's not public in any sense. The stream invites all the players and sets the lineup. That's a completely different situation then taking an existing public game and arbitrarily kicking out players. Nothing to do with the stream. If you want to do a private game, make it private, it shouldn't be on poker atlas, it shouldn't have a board, it shouldn't let random people who wander in join the list, it should be a private game hosted by someone who manages the lineup outside the flow of the public games.

Is there any concern that your actions could effectively kill the game?

Yeah it’s sort of a grey area but ultimately the players will just take the game to a private location if pushed hard enough. There’s no scenario where OP wins and you either play by the shitty rules or go nuclear and blow everything up.

O no pls don't complain, you going to cause this big game to go private and everyone mad.

Not at all. First of all, live poker is booming and there is always a list for this game. I highly doubt that this list of people will all stop showing up because the rules are more fair. More likely, the game might go private, but I'm skeptical that would even happen because if it could go private, it already would have. The whole reason it's public is because they can't fill a private game so are trying to cannabalize the public games.

And if it goes private - that's totally fine by me! My issue is not with private games, or if anyone feels more comfortable playing in them, my issue is that private games should leave public games alone and not try to co-opt them because you can't fill a game on your own.

Next, the most common definition of "rec" vs "pro" I've seen is whether it's your primary source of income. By that definition, I am a rec who drove an hour out of my way to play at a casino game, and was turned away by professional players (the prop). So I was going to start playing this game, and now I'm not. That means there's now fewer players willing to play this game, not more. Making the game open to new players will grow it, letting greedy pros turn away recs for playing too good will limit its growth. This prop is nominally paid by the casino to grow the game and he did the opposite.

Big picture, poker has always had stories about "kids with a dream" who rose up the ranks. Imagine if Tom Dwan or Jason Somerville got past 1/2 and were told by Full Tilt or Stars that "sorry, to play bigger you have to be curated, and the current pros think you play too well and want to curate you out". I completely reject this notion that making it harder to play in a public game is somehow good for poker's growth, it's obviously backwards.

I was already "curated" so I was already "destroyed". My broader interest now is keeping public poker games open to the public and keeping poker a game of skill rather then a game of who can hobnob the power-tripping prop player. There's plenty of competition for poker players in California, both at casinos and home games, but I do think that if Sacramento cracks down on this practice it will prevent it from spreading more widely and be in the best interest of the poker community at large.

Poker has always attracted the sharps, public casino and online games have always been the proving ground for new players, this concept that "wE nEeD tO gEt rId Of gOoD pLaYeRs oR tHe rEcS wOnT gAmBlE" is a dumb meme only propagated by bad pros who see themselves getting surpassed skill-wise so are looking for alternative ways to protect their golden gooses.

what's the real difference if they make it private and don't let you in or make it semi private and don't let you in? how does being on poker atlas change anything?
semi private just means they'll let randoms play once or twice to see if they like playing with them. you should actually prefer that to totally private bc at least you had a shot to get in.

The floorman told you what'd you would have to do to be able to play- give more action. Would you have preferred he lied to you?

"Poker is supposed to be an open and fair playing field. What sets it apart from the house games is that players can play more skillfully and have a chance at beating the other players."

In a perfect world maybe. But in reality way too many good players are all take and no give. That's why so many bigger games have gone private. They actually take the attitude of poker is supposed to be an open game and think they're just entitled to be able to play in good games no matter what when nobody actually has to play with them. They wanna show up, put their headphones on, play perfect ranges, take forever to act etc. And just think people are magically going to show up to dump money to them no matter what bc they're more studied in poker. You need to understand live poker is best as a soft hustle and treat it accordingly. It's not you study poker and rec players who like to gamble just have to play with you.

Do i really like the way poker has gone in this regard? No. But I like the way way too many pros act at the tables even less so I totally understand it.

OP-what are you hoping to actually accomplish here? Blow the entire game up? You don't have a seat. Have them make it completely private? You don't have a seat.
It would be far more productive to figure out WHY they don't want you in the lineup and I guarantee it goes beyond just the fact you won. Now this doesn't mean you'll always get a seat in this game or other private/semi private games. But it means you'll get one more often.

"Poker has always attracted the sharps, public casino and online games have always been the proving ground for new players, this concept that "wE nEeD tO gEt rId Of gOoD pLaYeRs oR tHe rEcS wOnT gAmBlE" is a dumb meme only propagated by bad pros who see themselves getting surpassed skill-wise so are looking for alternative ways to protect their golden gooses."

It's not dumb. What's dumb is winning players who suck the fun out of their own games with short sighted thinking. What's dumb is not being able to understand things from the perspective of rec players (your customer.)Old school pros understood this. Guys who grew up learning poker online for the most part don't. Protecting the golden goose means being enjoyable to play with while winning money. It doesn't mean treating every hand like it's the last one you'll ever play. These "better players" don't understand that being fundamentally better doesn't necessarily mean you'll make more money live. How you play your hands is just one aspect of live poker. That's not the only aspect of skill. It's no different than having a business with a better product than your competitor but you suck at sales, have horrible customer service etc. so you fail while they succeed.

Firstly being on poker atlas changes things because these are the public games being cannabalized. If it's advertised as a public game, and anyone can play, it should be treated as such and how you play should have no bearing on your right to play.

Also, it really hurts the remaining games since the curated games get the floor's assistance in systematically funneling all the weaker players to them. Private games are always going to be way better than public games, but before, public games have lots of regs and pros but some weaker players. Now it will just be the regs and pros left, if you're even allowed a seat in the casino at all.


A floorman telling a player to "gamble like a trust fund baby" is bonkers. It's ok if you don't agree with me, but both the California Justice Department and the Bay 101 head of compliance agreed with me though so I'm not alone.


Poker is a hobby for me, I like playing cards. I have zero interesting in begging and pleading some prop player, that's never been what it's about to me. Do I lack soft skills? Maybe, but I had a great conversation with the California Gambling Control Commission, seems to me I'm perfectly likable when I haven't recently beat you for five figures.

This happens where I play too (MD). The starting 8-15 names are put on the list in advance and everyone else can get on but only after a seat opens up, which sometimes means hours. It's clearly intended to stack the line up favorably for the organizers to get as much play time with the fun players and as little with the tough regs and it's an unfortunate trend in public cardrooms because now getting a seat is not based on who hustles and arrives at the casino earliest but who has connections with the organizer.

As soon as a new action player shows up to public games, the organizers get their number and invite them to "their" game in the casino so they can take all their money themselves, leaving less for the rest. These are highly self-interested people, but I feel even better when I finally get in the game and do take the organizers' money.

Maybe gaming does something about it, maybe they don't but even if they do you aren't actually accomplishing anything.
What the floorman said wasn't bonkers. He wasn't being literal. He was saying give more action and you'd likely have had a seat.

I agree about not begging and pleading-but that's not what it has to be. There are semi private games in some casinos near me (listed on Bravo not poker Atlas)
Some i'll never get into, some I'll get into sometimes, some I'll never have a problem getting into. A lot of Other regs/pros will NEVER get a seat in any of them (some better than me, some worse than me) bc they suck to play with. I'll never beg or plead for a seat either.

One of the games i'll never get into again I won way too much money way too fast. Honestly i just got smashed with the deck for a few sessions, won almost every all in even when I was behind etc and while it sucks I totally get it. If I ran near ev I'd probably still have a seat. But these people don't understand ev so that doesn't matter. Why would I try to ruin their game by trying to get gaming involved since I can't play anymore? Gaming may do nothing- I'm still in the same spot. Gaming may not let them list in on bravo anymore and I still don't have a seat. So who cares let them have their fun. I wouldn't be doing myself any favors long term.

I don’t necessarily disagree with anything you’re saying but as it stands now, you could get into game. If the game runner and/or whale feels threatened, they might just decide to play at the whale’s mansion every week instead of going to the casino, in which case you’ll never get a seat. Also that consistent waiting list might disappear overnight if people realize they’re not waiting for the juicy private game anymore.

depends how you define hustle.

Arriving at the casino first is worth almost nothing to helping cultivate good games. If that's all someone can offer to a game they win in then they're not offering anything to anyone who matters.

The current situation of these games is far from perfect and maybe the pendulum has swung too far in one direction- but way too many pros have brought this on themselves.

You're correct that the people running these games are highly self interested people- but the reason these games are going private is in large part bc way to many people are highly self interested people.

Now to be clear if more regs/pros were enjoyable to play with their would still be some poaching into private games, but there would be a lot less of it.

First difference is by pretending it is a public game those that would be suspicious and refuse private games are roped in. The second and more important one is it lets the effectively private game take all the weak players willing to play at that level meaning all but the pros that pay under the table to be at that game must face a much more difficult line up. Third is that unlike a real private game where no one will wait a few hours to play the system has the next marks playing at other tables while waiting their turn to be fleeced and as you will note from OP the other tables are much smaller so they cant be fleeced for large money other than by those that pay the organizer under the table for the privilege. Hope they heavily fine the casino and the organizer to keep this from happening more.

The people doing the organizing are not exactly the nicest people to be around either.

The real reason for these semi-private games is because the organizers are not that good at poker and don't want to work on their game in order to be able to hold their own against decent regs. It's a lazy way out, not an example of hustling at all. Getting a few people on the same text message group and agreeing to arrive at the casino at the same time is hardly what I would call putting in hard work. Their primary objective is to get rid of the competition and keep the games as soft as possible for themselves. It's not about giving the recs a good time - these guys are pretty much robots and slowroll and curse and are not fun to be around.

What I will give you is that at much higher stakes yes you may need more organizing because the ecosystem of players willing to gamble for that much money is not that big and the game will not normally form organically. But the part where the organizers cherry pick the line up to exclude some of the best players (yes that means me and others I know who are exceptional at poker) is just unfair and the opposite of a meritocracy.

A bunch of weak players is good for those weak players so I'm not sure how you think the players getting seats in this game are being damaged in any way.
Nobody is being tricked and everyone in the game is playing in it by choice.

In some cases the bolded is true.
And some of them absolutely are ass kissers etc.

However it absolutely does take skill and is a hustle.
People losing money in these games are playing by choice.
Being someone they like playing with and being able to get a lineup full of people they like playing with absolutely takes skill and is a hustle.

As for fair/unfair. There's nothing fair about the way a lot of winning players act at the table sucking out every drop of fun from the games to make every penny in short term ev. There's nothing fair about their race to the bottom mentality and taking advantage of the fact other players won't stoop to their level with things like constant tanking,seat hopping,sitting out when the whale takes a break etc. Frankly a ton of players are way more parasitic than the slimiest game runners.

As for the opposite of a meritocracy-that maybe be true but again that's only if you think poker is merely about how you play your hands and nothing else which isn't the case.
Anti social bots who want to grind solvers all day and think people just have to show up and hand them money just don't get it and they're benefiting off of the fact that other winning players do understand there is a lot more to poker than regurgitating solver outputs.

People who think poker should just be a meritocracy of who the fundamentally best player is in a vacuum don't get this mentality is a big part of a reason bigger games have gone private.

Weak players get funneled into the private game, making all other games of comparable stakes harder.