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REPORT: Australian cardrooms

  
 
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ChezJ
Old 04-11-2007, 05:00 PM     Post subject: REPORT: Australian cardrooms #1 (permalink)  
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 I'm heading to Sydney and Canberra this weekend for work. I've been to the Star City Casino in Sydney and the Casino Canberra before, but that was before I played poker. Not much info to be found via Google, but I did read that both have weekly poker tournaments and the Casino Canberra may offer some cash games. Anybody from Down Under have more info for me than that? If not, I guess I'll be posting my own report next week.

ChezJ
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ChezJ
Old 04-16-2007, 09:17 PM #2 (permalink)  
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 Ok here is my first report: Star City Casino Sydney = TOTAL RIPOFF!

I went to this casino last night (Monday in Australia). They have a poker area in the corner ("poker pit") with 14 tables. At 9 p.m., they had 10 of them running and refused to open more, despite double-digit waiting lists on the two lowest limit games. They were spreading holdem only, in the following formats:

$5/$10 LHE (1 table)
$10/$20 LHE (1 table)
$1/$2 NL $80 max (3 tables)
$5/$5 NL $200 max
NL $500 max

(Currently, $1 Australian is roughly $0.80 U.S.)

Sounds okay so far, right? Now here's the catch...

For the $5/$10 LHE game, there was a 10% rake up to $8, PLUS a $5 time charge every hour.

For the $1/$2 NL game, there was a 10% rake up to $8, PLUS a $1 dealing fee ON EVERY HAND to receive cards. Not an ante -- a house drop. As if holdem was some kind of table game!?

You also had to pay for the drinks

About the only good thing about this poker room is that tipping the dealers is prohibited.

But that's little consolation when you're bleeding away $30/hour + $8 of every winning pot!

I don't see how anyone can beat this game on a regular basis. I refused to participate in such madness so I can't report on what the action is like.

ChezJ
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DemonDaze
Old 04-16-2007, 11:10 PM #3 (permalink)  
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Hi ChezJ,

Sorry I only just saw this, could have saved you a trip.

I do know some bad players who claim to be able to beat the star city game (the quality of play is supposed to be appalling), but does not sound like fun to me, plus could be BS the rake does seem very steep.

If you are still around there are a few venues that offer decently structured tournaments and sit and gos, and there is a club game with (I believe) unraked self deal cash games.
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acesfullokings
Old 04-17-2007, 08:34 AM #4 (permalink)  
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Some info or a pm for fellow sydneysiders? Online seems a lot easier, and certainly more lucrative than that bullshit at Star City, and I'm now glad I never got around to it, but if you have some good info I'd love to hear it
I started a new job so don't play much ATM, just FTP mini grind
 
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ChezJ
Old 04-19-2007, 09:20 AM #5 (permalink)  
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 CASINO CANBERRA

I went to this last night (a Wednesday) to check out the action. At 10:30 pm, only 1 of the 6 tables was open, and they would not open a second table despite a waiting list of over 12 people. It's not like the casino was empty, either... I would say it was packed for a Wednesday. I signed up and watched for 90 minutes before giving up and going home. In that time, only 1 person blew out and got replaced.

The game was $200 NL with $5/$5 blinds. I believe the rake was 5% up to $15. It was not too loose, not too tight. There was a good mix of TAGG's and LOOP's. You always knew the old guys had sucked out their one-outer nuts if they check-called 1-2 huge bets on the turn. Then there was that guy who always raises 66 UTG and flops his set or plays K4 and catches quads.

I am going to try and play this tonight, even though I think the structure absolutely sucks. With such huge blinds, you are basically paying $20/hour as a time charge. The pots are huge on the flop relative to your 40x buy-in, forcing you to commit half your stack or immediately fold. Drawing hands like suited connectors go way down because you'll never get paid off enough when you hit. I think my main strategy is going to be steal pots either before or after the flop.

Unlike the Star City game, there is no $1/hand charge or actual time charge. But also unlike Star City, I did see people tipping the dealer, even though she totally sucked and was incorrectly announcing the action over and over again. On one hand, she announced there was a possible str8flush on the turn when a third suited connector landed... wtf?!!

Another, even more annoying thing about the dealer is that she would only use one deck with no shuffling machine, so you had to wait for her to manually shuffle between every hand. Then she had to put the cards into a locking dealer's shoe instead of just palming the deck with the cut card on the bottom. This seriously slowed down the game.

Worst of all, instead of having people post their blinds and place their bets in front of them, they make the players throw their chips into the middle, where the dealer stacks them all into one tall column so she can count the pot size. This makes it very difficult to know who committed what action in raised, multiway pots unless you are paying total attention. Of course, the dealer would tell players when there was a raise but she would only announce the additional amount, and as I mentioned, she often got the numbers wrong or said "call" when she was supposed to say "raise." At showdown, she would have to stack all the chips up, count them, then take her rake, then pass the solid column of chips to the winning player. Why they can't do it like it's done in every U.S. and internet cardroom (i.e. tracking and raking the pot in real-time, then quickly shoving the whole mess to the winner) is beyond me.

This game is totally fucked up. But I'm stuck in Canberra with absolutely nothing to do, and a pocket full of per diem. So you know I'm going to play it and I'm probably going to lose it all and come back here to complain about all the other things that are stupid about Casino Canberra. (How's that for a positive outlook?)

ChezJ
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ChezJ
Old 04-24-2007, 05:50 AM #6 (permalink)  
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 I went back to Casino Canberra on Thursday night and there was a lot more stuff going on. They had a tournament that started at 7:00 p.m., so there were no games until about 8:30. I was first on the list for the $200 NL cash game when it opened up. But they also opened up tables of PLO, 1/2 pot limit 7CS, and maybe something else (not HE).

Unfortunately, the table I got was much tighter than the one on Wed night. I tried to steal the blinds with A9o in the CO, and one guy defended his BB with 54o. Needless to say, he hit a baby str8 on the turn and insta-called my AI semibluff (to the nut flush). I rebought, flopped a K with my JJ and bet it out because I thought I was heads up. The guy folded, but then I realized there was a third guy on the other side of the dealer. The way the dealer collected the chips instead of leaving them in front of the players threw me off, and I also don't think the dealer announced the number of players in the hand. Anyway, I insta-folded when the third guy pushed AI with his obvious set of K's.

The very next hand, I misplayed KQs UTG, and ended up destacked again vs TT and AKo (which appeared for about the 5th time that round). I admit, I played like a fucking donkey, mainly because I'd been itching to play all week long and the anticipation was just too much. Going to the Star City Sydney and not playing, then going to the Casino Canberra on Wednesday and not playing again after 2 hours of waiting, then going to the Casino Canberra again and having to wait 2 hours to get seated just built up way too much excitement in me, and I blew my load in an instant like a teenager finally getting laid after 3 days of foreplay.

Time to get back to the micro limit grind to rebuild my roll...

ChezJ
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silu73
Old 05-03-2007, 09:13 PM #7 (permalink)  
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You are in Canberra? Poor thing. Perhaps the most boring city in the Southern Hemisphere. GL at the tables anyway.
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ChezJ
Old 05-10-2007, 08:12 PM #8 (permalink)  
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 no, i cut my stay short and hightailed it out of there asap. once i realized how much the NL game at the casino sucked, there was absolutely no reason for me to stay another minute. even the 1 strip club in the city sucks!
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DemonDaze
Old 07-13-2007, 05:24 AM #9 (permalink)  
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Ended up at Star City last night. Was drinking with a friend and he wanted to play, so I decided to stay and drink until he got a table and then leave.

Things I saw

Limping AA behind 6 other limpers.
Betting K6o on the river on a JJJ86 board when last to act.
Callin an all in with AJ on a KJ68 board (spiked his Ace on the river though)

plus multiple counts of slow-playing straights on flush draw boards in multi-way pots.

I'm beginning to think that these games could be +EV even with the 10% rake and $5 dollar time charge (has changed from the hand charges).
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