WELP
Join Date: May 2005
Location: so close but so far
Posts: 3,604
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This thread is basically my live poker blog and a way to keep track of my live results from this point on. Sorry in advance for this long post - just some background if you're interested.
I've been playing NL holdem at my local casino every so often for a few years now, ever since I turned 19, but I've never kept track of my results very well. When you just play recreationally and solely for shits and giggles, there really isn't a reason to keep track. If you have a set bankroll and you're out trying to become a better player or make some money, it's probably a good idea to keep a record of results.
I've gone to play live donkaments more often than I've gone to play live cash. The tournaments at the River Rock are actually fairly good in a lot of ways. They have small buy-in tournaments almost every day and usually several times a day. These tournaments have (expectedly) awful structures, but they range anywhere from $25 to $45, which makes them a great and cheap way to get some live tournament experience. Once a week, they host a $60 FO that has a surprisingly good structure considering its buy-in, and once or twice a week they have a $100 FO that has a similar structure but a few more chips. The great thing about the $100 FO is that the rake is only $10 ($90+$10) but the structure is still such that the donkament runs around 8 hours from start to finish. Every couple of weeks, there is a $165, $270, or $330 FO (usually on Saturdays).
A couple years ago I went and played one of the $100 FO's with a friend for the first time and won for $4,500. At the time my bankroll was only around $2,000 (I think), so it was a massive increase for my bankroll. I think I ended up putting half of it into my bankroll and leaving the other half out. These days that particular $100 FO gets less participation so that the first prize is only $3000 or so. I also think that they've since flattened the payouts a bit (so that the rest of the people who cash get more $ than they used to).
When they introduced the $60s, it was awesome because it's a very affordable buy-in for almost everyone. While the $100s almost never sell out (these days), the weekly $60 donkament always sells out (and sometimes they even add an extra 1 or 2 tables due to demand). Usually the field starts out between 100 and 125 players, and it takes 6 or 7 hours to play to completion. I've played around 20 to 25 of these tournaments since they introduced them, and I have run exceptionally good. I've final-tabled maybe 7 or 8 times. These tournaments are (as expected) amazingly soft.
I have a lot of time from now until Christmas, so I'd like to play a lot of live poker. There's only so many tournaments that I can reasonably play with my bankroll (which I've made $5k for the time being), so I know that I should probably play a bunch of cash as well. According to some very loose records that I've kept over the last few years, I'm up maybe 5 or so buyins playing live $200NL. I have no idea how many hours I played to achieve that, but I know that my sample size is tiny.
The typical 1/2 NL game at my local casino is usually pretty good during the right times. The typical table:
1-2 players who seem to know what they are doing (or at least play decent TAGG poker)
2-3 old nits who play a fairly wide range preflop but only put in money with top pair
1 girl who only plays pairs and AQ+
1-2 players who will straddle and raise dumb amounts like $6 to inflate pots
1-2 awful spewy players
3 or so players who play a few too many hands, draw with incorrect odds fairly often, call too much, bet too small, etc ...
It seems that the best times to play cash are weekend nights and nights before holidays, especially when the bad beat jackpot is huge. When the bad beat jackpot is huge, weekday nights become very good too. The cardroom at River Rock has 25 tables. When it's very busy and all the tables are full, I'm not sure what fraction of the tables has 1/2 on them. I'll have to check this out next time I'm there.
I'm going to go play on Friday night, I think. I'll probably post a boring trip report on Saturday, and advice, questions, and comments will always be welcome and appreciated.
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