Los Angeles - Wed. Oct 6th

[lostinthought]

I'm flying into Los Angeles to spend a long weekend with some friends.

I want to play cards Wednesday night (the night I arrive) before the festivities begin with my friends, and I have never played in the LA card rooms.

My questions -

For those well acquainted with the LA cardroom scene-
what are you suggestions?

and more specifically -

1) should I play at the commerce or the bicycle? I plan on playing midlimit holdem (10/20-20/40), but will play no limit or omaha hi low if the action is good enough. Is the action usually reasonable on a wednesday night?

2) what's the best way to get to the cardroom from the airport -
I'm not picky, so a cheap shuttle should suffice.. ?

3) I'll probably play all night - is it worth getting a room there? I think the Commerce has a $89 poker room rate.. ?

Thanks in advance

[beta1607]

I used to live in LA and in my opinion Commerce is easily the nicest facility and has the best spread of games. However if you are flying into LAX, Hollywood park is just a few blocks away and its kind of a dive and doesnt have as many games in my opinion but it is very convienent.

[eamato]

Hollywood park is the closest but is not that nice of a place to play.

i like the bike the best and this wed. is a 50-10 no limit tournament that starts at 7:00 with one optional re-buy. 10,000 gurantee

the 20/40 is quit live and the no-limit will be going anywhere from 100 buyin to 500 buyin all day

commerce is the biggest and has the most games going but is extremely noisy and the people are rude including the employees. i have not enjoyed my experience at commerce at all.

there is a small hotel across the street from the bike but i don't know room rates. call the bike up at 562-806-4646 and they will be able to help you out with hotel and probably rides.

good luck
i hope this helped

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
i like the bike the best and this wed. is a 50-10 no limit tournament that starts at 7:00 with one optional re-buy. 10,000 guarantee

the 20/40 is quit live and the no-limit will be going anywhere from 100 buy-in to 500 buyin all day.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the good words regarding the Bike. Three days a week I host no limit but I'm off Wednesdays. From what just about everybody tells me, the Wednesday evening no limit tournament is the nuts - expect a big crowd with a ton of no limit action before, during and after.

Note that the $100 ($2 and $3 blinds) and $200 ($3 and $5 blinds) no limit games have fixed buy ins; however, if your stack is reduced to half the buy in or less you can bring it up to 150% of the buy-in (e.g., in the $100 game you have $40 in chips you can bring your stack up to $150). The small no limit games get top section treatment at the Bike.

The $500 game usually gets going around 4:00 pm (earlier yesterday), and from my vantage point hosting/running the smaller games it looks wild. Keep in mind the $500 game features an unrestricted buy in, so it plays MUCH bigger than the $200 game.

You will also find 6/12 Omaha/8, along with a 40/80 Omaha/8 stud/8 mixed game. Unfortunately with Omaha, there is little to be found in between (this is true all over town).

At the Bike top section holdem is played 10/20 and 20/40 (occasionally bigger). Evenings have the loosest action, but that is typical everywhere.

[ QUOTE ]
there is a small hotel across the street from the bike but i don't know room rates. call the bike up at 562-806-4646 and they will be able to help you out with hotel and probably rides.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hope the original poster let's me know how he makes out when he calls the Bike's Welcome Center. I'd love to find out if we do a decent job helping out with directions, accommodations and especially rides. Heck, I'd love to arrange rides for all you 2+2 people from out of town /images/graemlins/grin.gif.

Regards,

Rick

[turnipmonster]

hey rick,
has playing a lot of NL lately changed your style/outlook in those games from when you first started? just curious.

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
hey rick, has playing a lot of NL lately changed your style/outlook in those games from when you first started? just curious.

[/ QUOTE ]

Keep in mind that most of my no limit experience comes in the restricted buy in games, which is a totally different ball game from the un-restricted buy in games (even with the same or close to the same blinds). Also, because I host I have limited playing privileges, when it's time to start another game my job is to get up and start it. When there are no more games to start I get to play a while (and possibly get semi-deep), but that is relatively rare.

However, sometimes I get to play on my own. When I first sampled $100 no limit at Hawaiian Gardens a few years ago I took the wrong approach (from an EV perspective). I'd leave a mediocre 15/30 or 20/40 game with an hour or two to kill. My friend Dave Simon was just getting these baby no limit games going and I didn't mind helping. Sitting down in restricted buy in no limit with a limited time horizon is a mistake - your big wins come from helping start and getting relatively deep early in a great game (where some weak opponents are also deep) and putting in some hours. This is probably the best and safest position to be in in all of poker since no tough player can join the table and match your stack. You can constantly get in positions where a lot of money goes in and you are a huge favorite - this rarely happens in limit. It is very possible to have decent four figure wins in the $200 game while the downside risk for the good tiltproof player is very small.

I'm fairly competent regarding strategy when both my opponent and I aren't deep or when I'm relatively deep and my opponents aren't. Someday I might post an essay but for now I'd like to keep close to the vest - I already suspect many of my opponents read these forums and they get tougher every day. Although I play pure no limit on occasion, I'm really not that good (yet).

The Bike now has a 5/10 $500 minimum (but you should buy $2000) game going just about every day around 5:00 pm and most of the time it looks great. But I'm usually tired, hosting/propping the other games or ready to go home and I don't think it is right for a prop/host to slaughter the bigger games (even if I could /images/graemlins/grin.gif). Plus this game appears to play about as big as a 40/80 limit and right now that is too big for me. That said, I did very well in the Hollywood Park 5-5 blind pot limit game even though I was usually only the fourth or fifth best player at the table (of course in this spot you try to get in pots with the there worse players).

Anyway, I do like the game and intend to play the real thing when bankroll and time permits.

~ Rick

[lostinthought]

[ QUOTE ]

I hope the original poster let's me know how he makes out when he calls the Bike's Welcome Center. I'd love to find out if we do a decent job helping out with directions, accommodations and especially rides. Heck, I'd love to arrange rides for all you 2+2 people from out of town /images/graemlins/grin.gif.

Regards,

Rick

[/ QUOTE ]

Rick,
I called the welcome desk up, and they were refreshingly helpful. I will be playing in the Wednesday night tournament, some ring games afterwards, and hopefully some more later on in the weekend.

Thanks for you help.