Evolution of a card room
 

I live in Tulsa OK, and about 6-8 months ago, the first card room in the area went up -- Cherokee Casino. It is a decent size room with 20+ tables. When I played there the first month it was open, they were spreading tons of 4/8 HE tables, 3-5 10/20 tables 1-2 20-40 tables, and several 1/2 No limit (maybe a couple of 2/5 no limit) and a smattering of stud and omaha. The room was absolutely packed on weekends.

Now, fast forward 6 months and the scene is quite different. Another smaller card room opened up and now you rarely have to wait to get a seat. But the main problem is that now have trouble even getting a 6/12 game going. Sometimes on saturday night they do, but usually 4/8 is the highest limit game they get going! WTF? It seems crazy to me that the games would dry up so quickly.

So my question.....is this typical of card rooms in small markets? --That is, do they have trouble getting even medium small stakes games going? Or will the consisitency of the bigger games come with time...as the player base grows a bit and the local poker market evolves? I gotta say, I am pretty disappointed that I finally live 15 minutes from a card room (and a decent sized one, at that) and the biggest limit game is 4/8. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

--Rico

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

It has been 1 year since a 20+ table card room opened in my area and I have noticed the same thing. I think a lot of people either go broke and/or get bored. It is the same thing for the tournaments.

I suspect that it is the natural evolution of a poker room. Lots of people who don't know what they are doing give away a lot of money, only the winners and compulsive rich gamblers survive the higher limits. Then the low-limit winners will slowly creep up and you will see more high-limit games but much tougher than before.

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

This is exactly the case in vegas these days. MGM can hardly get anything higher than 4-8 or 2-5 no limit going. Even 6-12 just isn't there very often anymore, nor 10-20. Every room in town is low limit hold'em and nothing else. Wynn can barely get big games going. The only regular higher limit games are mirage and bellagio.

This is my observation...

Hold'em killed poker

1-2 no limit killed hold'em

The hold'em craze killed all the other games, like stud, stud-8 and O-8. Slowly but surely the hold'em games took over. Now there's the no limit craze, and all the decent size limit hold'em games are going bye-bye. Except for mirage and bellagio, anything but 4-8 and baby no limit practically doesn't exist anymore. What a shame, I was really looking for a good 10-20.

al

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

[ QUOTE ]
1-2 no limit killed hold'em


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. I agree 1/2 and 2/5 no limit has almost certainly drawn away much of the 6/12 and 10/20 crowd at my card room.

--Rico

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

The NL games are drying up quicker and quicker these days. The 1/2 games often have average pot sizes of 12 bucks and that's it. They all sit around waiting for aces unless you get some drunk fish in there to gamble it up a bit.

These guys are all willing to go all in any time they have a good hand, but they aren't willing to play a 10/20 game that the risk is a lot lower. I just can't figure it out. They're all afraid of anything higher than 2/4.

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

Most of the live ones like to GAMBOOL and love the rush of getting all of their chips in the middle. They can't do this playing limit, so they play no-limit. This isn't too hard to figure out. Also, variance at a 2-5 NL game isn't any higher than at 10-20, it's probably lower.

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

"They sit around waiting for Aces unless you get some fish willing to gamble" ?

That is about the dumbest thing you wrote in a while. If you jump in a game and see a bunch of tight wads you need to get in there and splash some chips around. The fish are the people siting around waiting on Aces(maybe you) and when the get them cracked they complain and say the "fish" beat my Aces?!?

I do agree that 1/2 NL has killed a lot of action but I think there is a good chance that 80% of the posters never saw the inside of a poker room before 2002. Talk about no action, it was like a AARP convention.

open invitation
 

Someone wanna make me a cool "NL sucks" animated gif avatar? Whoever makes one that I decide to take as my own, I'll give you your choice of color for your name(like Dynasty does in OOT)

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

[ QUOTE ]
Also, variance at a 2-5 NL game isn't any higher than at 10-20, it's probably lower.

[/ QUOTE ]

i usually figure on 1/2 nl and 10-20 limit having similar varience.

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

[ QUOTE ]
This is my observation...

Hold'em killed poker

1-2 no limit killed hold'em



[/ QUOTE ]


You guys need to knock it off with the doomsday speeches and the revisionist history about the good ole days...you sound worse than 2 grannies at a 1-3 stud game.

Poker is dead? Where have you been? It is at an all time high in popularity.

I cant speak for vegas but I was in Atlantic City last week for three mid week, weeknights, and not only was there 1-2, 2-5 and 5-10 NL going until all hours of the day and night, there was also 5/10 and 10/20 O8, 10/20 stud 8, and stud hi from 1/3 all the way up to 15/30. I saw 4-8, 6-12 and 10/20 limit hold em going as well. And I didnt even hit the Borg, which is the busiest poker room in town.

Feel free to kick me in the nuts, but I'd say things are just fine.

Re: Igor the smart azz
 

AC poker is fine and will be fine for awhile. But go to some of the smaller casinos in the Mid-West and you will see what the fuss is about. Rarely to the get a red chip holdem game anywhere in St.Louis expect the Ameristar.

BS, capped buy NL has taken over. As for stud, lol,AC is the last place left where stud is speard at all levels all day.

So before you post maybe you should get facts str8.

Re: Igor the smart azz
 

[ QUOTE ]

BS, capped buy NL has taken over. As for stud, lol,AC is the last place left where stud is speard at all levels all day.

So before you post maybe you should get facts str8.

[/ QUOTE ]

stud is always going very strong at foxwoods, and will continue to do so until people start dying.

Re: Igor the smart azz
 

My facts are just fine, Jerome. Or maybe I was mistaken, and missed the fact that St. Louis was the great bastion for poker prior to the hold em boon.

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

An earlier poster refered to the same poker room that I go to, and yes his observations are correct. The thing you have to remember is it's summer, and no one wants to spend a sunny day inside a casino. I think come november/decemeber you'll see the rooms fill up again.

Re: Foxwoods
 

Forgort about FW. The northeast in general has good Stud action.

Re: Igor
 

No your facts are not fine. Just because AC is kicking doesnt mean the whole poker world is good. Like I said check your facts, you wont a list of phone numbers to call and see if Tunica has lots of red chip games in non touney months, or how about Biloxi, or better yet small river boats in Indiana? If you play red chip games here its usually the same people ever night at the same table, no outsiders.

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

However, there are still like 10, 1/2 NL games going and 10, 2/4 or 4/8 limit games going at all times. Maybe it is just the high rollers who like to get outside?

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

We like to take our boats out in the summer [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

Games always get smaller with time, as people go broke to the rake and good players. Even at 10-20, people who lose every day (500 bucks) 5 nights a week are burning through 2500 (post tax money) a night. It's not too long before you don't have anything left.

Vegas never supported regular big games - I remember that 30-60 was the biggest game every day as of about a year and a half ago, and it was a big deal when they kept an 80-160 going. People always talk about playing the big games everywhere - there just aren't that many. The only markets that can maintain a good poker base are LA and San Jose. AC and Vegas depend on tourists too much, and the games don't go around the clock. Phoenix doesn't have the disposable income, IMO. There's a lot of money in California, and lots of people willing to gamble. Even then, Commerce only has a handful of games at the 1-2 level and higher, and I don't really think that Bay 101 can sustain an 80-160 game forever, and this has been the trend for several years in this area. The big game shrinks down until the next poker boom, then it goes for awhile, but it dries up when Daddy gets divorced because he sold all of his IBM stock to play the 80 game when he said he was working late.

Re: Igor
 

[ QUOTE ]
No your facts are not fine. Just because AC is kicking doesnt mean the whole poker world is good. Like I said check your facts, you wont a list of phone numbers to call and see if Tunica has lots of red chip games in non touney months, or how about Biloxi, or better yet small river boats in Indiana? If you play red chip games here its usually the same people ever night at the same table, no outsiders.

[/ QUOTE ]

Youre all over the place my friend. Are you claiming that the games in Tunica and Biloxi are worse now than say 5 years ago? How about 10? I'm quite sure there is more action there now than ever before. I dont need to call small river boats in Indiana to find out what games they are spreading. A few years ago, they were spreading craps, roulette and black jack, now they have some low stakes poker. And youre complaining??

The facts are simple. There are more card games being spread now than ever before, period. The small card rooms may or may not survive, but if it wasnt for the hold em boom, they wouldnt even exist. NL is not killing the other games. If anything, it is bringing more players into the card room, some of them are discovering stud and Omaha. Some are going broke. Regardless, they wouldnt have been there at all if it wasnt for television.

You cant turn back the clock, but if you could, you'd see a few 3-6 hold em tables, a bunch of 1-5 stud and a few "high limit" card tables which wouldnt be all that high in limit.

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

I have been discussing this with a friend, and with another guy who has plenty of hours of data, and we all agree that 1-2 no limit is probably about the same as 6-12 or 8-16 when it comes to variance. 2-5 no limit is more like an aggressive 10-20 or a typical 15-30.

al

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

The primary place I was referring to in my "doomsday speech" was las vegas. There used to be lots of bigger games, now there is primarily small no limit and 4-8 limit (tops) in 97% of the cardrooms in town. The vast majority of the country, which I have played all over, has little or nothing besides very low limit hold'em and small stakes no limit. The 6-12, 8-16, 10-20 and up has died off in most places, most notably, las vegas. I used to find stud in vegas in years past, but now there's almost no stud at all, and little of any other games either. A few places that service a very large number of people, such as atlantic city and some big casinos in california, still have a wide choice of games, but they are the exception by far, not the rule.

al

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

[ QUOTE ]
I live in Tulsa OK, and about 6-8 months ago, the first card room in the area went up -- Cherokee Casino. It is a decent size room with 20+ tables. When I played there the first month it was open, they were spreading tons of 4/8 HE tables, 3-5 10/20 tables 1-2 20-40 tables, and several 1/2 No limit (maybe a couple of 2/5 no limit) and a smattering of stud and omaha. The room was absolutely packed on weekends.

Now, fast forward 6 months and the scene is quite different. Another smaller card room opened up and now you rarely have to wait to get a seat. But the main problem is that now have trouble even getting a 6/12 game going. Sometimes on saturday night they do, but usually 4/8 is the highest limit game they get going! WTF? It seems crazy to me that the games would dry up so quickly.

So my question.....is this typical of card rooms in small markets? --That is, do they have trouble getting even medium small stakes games going? Or will the consisitency of the bigger games come with time...as the player base grows a bit and the local poker market evolves? I gotta say, I am pretty disappointed that I finally live 15 minutes from a card room (and a decent sized one, at that) and the biggest limit game is 4/8. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

--Rico

[/ QUOTE ]

It's the same way at Cherokee Casino in Roland.

A few months ago, right after opening, you had to wait an hour most any night of the week. Went there a couple Saturdays ago and I was immediately seated in a 4/8 game.

There was a 1/2 $100 max NLHE game, a 5/10 no max NLHE and four 4/8 tables. By 11 pm, two of the 4/8 tables had broken up, the 5/10 game was down to four players and there were only six at the 1/2 game.

Dealers said it had really slowed down lately. They chalked some of it up to more players in the daily and weekly tournaments. Some of it was blamed on the newbie fish getting cleaned out. I figure it's a little of both.

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

[ QUOTE ]
Some of it was blamed on the newbie fish getting cleaned out.

[/ QUOTE ]
Which is why if you have a cardroom without any local competition you refuse to spread NL no matter how much your customers complain.

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

Good post.

I think it is happening everywhere, except in Vegas and other major centers where there is still large demand for upper middle limit games. I do not know the LA rooms but I would assume they have no trouble maintaining those limit games because of the enormous customer base. Elsewhere, like your home town and others like it, it's game over.

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

[ QUOTE ]
I have been discussing this with a friend, and with another guy who has plenty of hours of data, and we all agree that 1-2 no limit is probably about the same as 6-12 or 8-16 when it comes to variance. 2-5 no limit is more like an aggressive 10-20 or a typical 15-30.

al

[/ QUOTE ]

my assumption of 1/2 = 10/20 and 2-5 = somewhere between 15/30 and 20/40 is based on the deeper (300 and 500 max, respectively) AC games, so you're probably right for vegas.

Re: Evolution of a card room
 

It could also be possible that the poker boom inspired more home games so people don't have to come down from Utah or where-ever to find a small tourney or a 1/2nl game. I know here in MD there is a casino quality homegame every single night. And we're only 2.5hrs from AC!

As poker become legal in more places the action will dry up somewhat in the big B&Ms,I think. But when the tourneys come to town...it's like Xmas at Macy's!