Quote:
Originally Posted by Track Collector
On my recent horseracing trip to Prineville, OR I had a unique poker experience in the nearby town of Bend. Seems they have this place called "The Poker Room", which is a social club which among other things offers Texas Holdem. The player pays a one-time admission fee ($10) for the privilege of playing until closing. They offer tournaments almost nightly along with a few tables for cash games. And, all games are player-dealt. The dealer simultaneously dealt and played in the hand (like in home games). They dealt in one-hour increments, and players could either volunteer to do so or were assigned by lot. And with the cash games, the player received the entire pot because the house did not extract any rake.
Because The Poker Room open hours and the times the races in Prineville run pretty much overlapped, I was only able to play about 1 hour on each of 2 different days.
On the first day I ended up winning $194 in the 1/2 NL game. Most of that coming from going all in after the river with the nut flush. The main villain called with less with a lesser flush.
The second day in a 1/2 NL game I offered to serve as dealer. Since I have always played in the casino and never a home game, I was a little nervous at first. It is definitely a challenge to concentrate on one's hand while simultaneously dealing and managing the overall game.
On one hand I ended up flopping Aces with a King kicker only to lose to a rivered flush. My last hand before leaving had me limping in on the button with 34o. Normally I don't do this but most of the other players called and I would be leaving anyway in about 5 minutes. The flop comes 3 4 7 rainbow. The first player bets $20 and a 2nd player calls. When it gets to me I jam my remaining $115. The 1st bettor calls after about 3 minutes of thought, and the 2nd player surprisingly calls as well. The turn yields a King and the river a 6, and the 1st player scoops the pot with Trip 7's. So I was basically crushed unless the turn and river were either 3-3 or 4-4, which is extremely rare.
In hindsight I played this hand really bad. Not because I ended up losing, but because of my play both pre and post-flop. Under the same conditions at my home poker room I probably would have folded 95% of the time with 34o on the button and a bunch of callers. Then I compounded the error by raising all-in post-flop. I should have probably raised about $50-$60, which would likely have folded out over pairs. Once called I am now definitely behind, and check/fold on both the turn and/or river allows me to lose about $60 less.
Poor pre-flop play like this often land you in hands which require more difficult decisions, which ultimately result in having less chips at the end of the day.
I lost $4 over the two days and certainly enjoy my time, despite such short playing sessions.
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Probably not an issue in small stakes games in Bend, OR (a town I have actually been to, by the way
), but the experience in California is that self-dealt games were full of corruption and mechanics.
