POKER TS SNIP

 

THE POKER ROOM

They have a very active 2-4 game, actually three tables on Sunday. Most think it is the high hand awards that draw in the crowds. The games break up a bit after ten when the high hand promotion is over.

While most rooms have upted their low limit games to 3-6, Turning Stone is still at 2-4.

Table games on the floor have higher minimums.  On Saturday night $25 craps minimum convinced me not to play.

Poker is the fugal fellow's game.  However, I would like to see the game 3-6.

There is a bad beat. $25,000. Four tens had to be beaten. Pretty stiff.

Then a Sunday comes along when they begin to reduce what is needed to be beaten, going all the way down to Full House.

Very popular, but I was not there on the right Sunday for that promotion.

It is well run. We can call in, and I advise it. The call holds a place in line for a seat and that is your place even if others actually arrive before you. There is a time limit on arrival.

Here is another option from their web page.

I missed that option, but I think I'll use it next time.

Join a Wait List

At bravopokerlive.com, simply create a one-time account to place your name on any of our Bravo Poker Live Game Waiting Lists. Sign up before you leave home or while on the way for quicker seating and less wait time when you arrive!

I did wait for a table for quite a while on Saturday. I was the first name on the list, but it took a while.

Once the high hand promotion starts players tend to keep their seats. They have a half hour to hold the seat and eat. So, it is better to be early on the list.

I have a two and a half hour drive to get there, but next time I'll pack the night before and leave early in the morning.

I try to get a seat that is easy for my reduced vision, but a seat can't be locked up. What works is to watch for a table opening and lock up a seat with a card on the table. Waiting until the game is actually called means having fewer seat options.

Seat change is possible, but it had to be requested over and over with each new dealer. No “seat change” buttons. I found that annoying.

Table change was very easy. I just gave my name to the brush and he called me when he had one available. I did that once when my table seemed a dead end of rocks and rarely full because of players absent from their seats.

Turning Stone is not Vegas.

Many of the players I have seen in the past, but they don't know me. I'm not a local there every week. I'm not in the clique.

I don't have the same kind of interactions I generally have with fellow Vegas players, but then a table like the Golden Nugget attracts people from all over the world. Turning Stone attracts for the most part regulars from not too far away.

The hotel does offer a poker rate reduction, but the weekend rate is $125 plus tax.

It used to be I could stay at their Inn on a poker rate for under $60. Not any more.

There may be a small local clique in local Vegas poker rooms as well, but it is not the same.

Most of the players were old men with an odd old woman thrown in on occasion. A few were young people. You can play at Turning Stone if you are 18 years old.

If I cared about baseball, I could have found conversation, especially on Sunday when there was a game.

However, I am an atypical American male. I have little interest in sports.

I did have some fine conversation when I asked about restaurants in the Sylvan Lake area. They gave plenty of good suggestions. I may try one next trip.

There was not the old guy talk of death and disease. One regular was reported as having passed. Otherwise, there was no talk of operations or complaints about physical issues. No “organ recitals” as they say in Florida. And that was very refreshing.

I much prefer hearing about the baseball than the knee replacements.

I was the only player at the table wearing a mask. I'm certain that set me apart.

Covid is down in that area, so perhaps it was overprotection on my part, but I did like it to reduce colds as well.

I also think that I can be easily read. I have no decent poker face. The mask helps. Still it may have also isolated me more by making me very different.

Dealers had a squirt container of hand sanitizer and it was passed around when a new game opened. I liked that. I don't think Covid was actually spread very often on surfaces, but chips are the dirtiest bits of things to be handling.

Finally, I'm just not a nice guy at the table.

I check raise. I slow play. I raise preflop. Sometimes I chase rivers. And I don't do the, “Just you and me” check down dance.

I play to win. I don't whine when I lose, even to myself, but I want that $4 or $8 river profit.

Some players are annoyed because I confuse them with some of my play.

Some hate the check raise.

I like it because a check raise is almost always called.

Also, in other hands it makes the loose betters after me think before betting, so it sets up a way of my getting a free card for draws.

I was not popular when I flopped 8's full of 4's. I was big blind with 8-4 and no one bet preflop.

It came up 8-8-4.

I did not bet out.

I did not raise the $2 bet someone made first round.

I did raise the $4 turn bet and bet out on the river. By then a few folks were too invested not to stay.

“He had it on the flop,” said one fellow who was obviously annoyed with his inability to put me on those cards.

So, I know I annoy players who can't put me on a hand.

And, yes, I did take a risk that someone had the 8 and their other card would come out. But it felt more likely that with no initiating action from me they would assume I did not have even the 8.

One fellow in my first session told us all how he could figure what everyone had. He said he knew that I would do something I've now forgotten because he had been watching the way I bet.

Actually, his speculations were rarely right, and not at all right about me.

Meanwhile, in his table talk he revealed what he was thinking about his own cards.

I have in Vegas sat at tables where in some strange way a fellow player seemed to be able to call what all of us held.

I remember one in particular who was very good.

But I think this one fellow had watched Rounders one too many times.

I rarely showed if I did not have to show. I stole a few pots by a correct perception that if I bet the river, I'd win.

I showed junk that I played. I showed all the junk I could unless it was winning junk. I wanted them to think I was loose.

At any rate I was not popular.

No one was mean to me. Just distainful.

But then many of the players were not popular with me either.

There was a high hand in the room $300 bonus every 20 minutes on Saturday and a similar $500 every half hour on Sunday.

$13 was needed in the pot.

That was a reason to raise preflop in late position, to build the pot for a possible high hand.

It did not work for me. In fact, I did it twice with pocket Queens and ended up losing the pot both times. The hard loss was when I had a Queen of spades, and there was the Ace of spades and three others on the board. My opponent had the king.

Another hard hand was when I held pocket Aces in last position with only two opponents. I raised preflop, but that only put $12 in the pot. The flop was on Ace. I checked to the river and no fourth came. I bet. The others folded.

I guess I feel good not to have caught the fourth Ace with too little in the pot to qualify for the $500 high hand. However, I wished the Ace had fallen into some opponent's hand.

If a straight flush or four Aces hit the high hand board early in the session, players left to do other things. I was particularly annoyed to finally get a chance to go to the bathroom, and to pass one of my fellow players playing slots until he timed that the high hand had been paid.

Annoying.

There are only 8 at the tables. If two leave there are only 6. Hardly enough to overcome the rakes.

And then there was the baseball.

A Yankee game.

Of course, everyone at the table knew just how all the baseball should be managed, and actually knew ahead of time who would win.

My dad played some professional baseball, and he told me that was the most annoying part of fans. They all thought they knew more than the managers. They all “second guessed.”

The Baseball slowed the game while players were reminded it was their turn and their attention brought back to the poker.

One fellow to the right of the dealer had to almost fully turn around to see the television, and was reminded over and over when it was his turn.

But then I suppose these players played poker all the time, so perhaps it was just a diversion from watching baseball at home, and the watching was more fun with friends watching as well.

Even when I'm just listening, I generally like to hear table talk, and stories. Not this time.

There were stories about racing cars on a track. Those were the best I got.

On Saturday night there were players who were friends and who had a constant banter which was not really witty and very repetitive. The same dumb remarks over and over from guys who thought they were much more funny than they really were.

That was more annoying than the baseball.

I missed the working men talking carpentry, plumbing, painting. Usually, there are quite a few at Turning Stone. I suppose the rare sunshine had them out working the weekend as well.

No one talked about poetry.

No one playing poker ever talks about poetry.

There is a dearth of poker poems out there. The Baseball attracts the imaginations of many poems. Poker should too.

Poker does attract fiction writers. My buddy John Blowers published his novel “Life on Full Tilt” and they were in the stages of casting for the planned movie when internet poker went bust and so his funding. Good story, however, I recommend it. Perhaps I should being a copy to my next game so as to start a conversation on books.

So, I missed the fun I generally have with other players at the poker table.

Turning Stone isn't the Golden Nugget or the old El Cortez game.

I still had a good time.

No drink service, but there is a beverage station and the coffee was Farmer's brothers and I thought it was good. I brought along my Truvia and a fine insulated cup. My poor hand control squeezes those paper cups until the hot coffee pours out over my hand. I love the insulated cup. On my way home I took a cup with me and it stayed warm while I sipped for over two hours. At one point the station ran out of paper cups and folks were shuffling about and wondering what to do. I just said, “Excuse me” and filled up with some Farmer's Brothers. It was almost like winning a pot.

One odd bit was that while waiting for a table with my chips a man stopped and asked if he could buy a white chip from me as he tried to collect one at every casino he visited.  

I felt bad that most of mine were well worn, but I let him pick the one he wanted.  He dropped me $2 and I kidded, "Hey, you can buy all of them if you want."

I wondered why he did not just go up to the Cashier and ask for a nice new looking chip.  Perhaps he did not know how easy that was.