Miserable Live Poker
 

Until this past weekend I had played live poker about a dozen times with no sessions longer than 4 hours. About 95% of my poker experience has been online at Paradise Poker for the past 1 1/2 year.

I just returned from a 3 day weekend in Vegas where my sole purpose was to play as much poker as possible. My wife did not accompany me on this trip so this would allow me to play more and longer sessions.

I was stunned by how miserable and surly the majority of the players I encountered were. Why spend so much time playing a game that seems to make them so unhappy? I understand that poker is a confrontational and competitive game but there were players that would react with a level of anger and disgust to losing a pot that was astonishing.

I hope that these were isolated incidents because I would like to play more live games in the future. Otherwise I will continue to play online where there seems to be much less hostility except for the occassional chat abuser.

They\'re miserable cuz it\'s Vegas
 

If all you want to do is play poker there are plenty of better places to go & play besides vegas!!

Games in Seattle ,LA, San Diego,San Fran, Pheonix,and from what Ive heard Tunica all might suit you better than the hardboiled locals in LV.

Re: Miserable Live Poker
 

Unfortunately that has also been my experience witrh Las Vegas and LA. You might try a Northern California trip sometime. Quite different. For instance, Lucky Chances, in SF Bay area has a "zero tolerance" for abuse policy which they seem to enforce. No abusing dealers, no abusing players, period. btw I have no financial interest in any cardroom, just telling my experience.

Re: Miserable Live Poker
 

Just curious..what limits and what games were you playing?

Re: Miserable Live Poker
 

The LC zero tolerance policy gets enforced faithfully at 2am when Gene the night floorman comes on. He's better than a roll of Charmin.


They're getting more comfortable enforcing the rule, which is great.

Re: Miserable Live Poker
 

For a completely different poker experience I suggest a trip to the Bay Area for you next poker vacation.

Re: What Limits?
 

I was playing $3-6 at the Mirage and $4-8 at the Bellagio.

THAT\'S why I prefer online games
 

Saw Rita Rudner perform in Vegas once. She had about 10 minutes worth of casino material. The part I remember:


"Did you ever walk by the poker room? I've never gone in there. It's so serious. No one is smiling. No one looks like they're having any fun. I wonder why they're even there."


Bobby

come\'on down south.
 

If youre looking for polite players and good times. Then Tunica is the place for you. Not to mention down here the food is infinately better then what most yankees call edible.


Seriously the players in Tunica are nothing like most of the stories I have read about players in other parts of the country.


Just be shure to leave with less money then you came with. seriously the state needs it.

Re: What Limits?
 

Could it be possible that your experience is out of the norm? Not to defend LV as I play mostly in AC but my experiences during my last 3 trips to LV were pleasant ones. I also played 3-6 at Mirage and Circus Circus and 4-8 at Bellagio and Mandalay Bay. I can recall of only 1 sore loser in Mandalay Bay and its because he was more interested in playing the ponies while calling with K2o all the way to the river.


Maybe my trips were made more enjoyable by the fact that I won enough to heavily discount my vacations.

Re: What Limits?
 

It is possible that it may be out of the norm. My only other previous live experiences were short sessions at the Orleans and Flamingo in Vegas and the Tropicana and Taj in A.C.

Hopefully, this weekend was an aberration. The games were extraordinarily passive and loose making them seem much easier than the online games that I am accustomed to playing. What made the games unpleasant at times was the hostile manner in which some of the players spoke to each other. On two occassions a dealer had to call a manager in to calm the situation.

Play at night
 

Games during the day and early evening can be that way, especially on weekdays. Weekends are better and anything after 10pm is best. Daytime players are mostly the retired locals and they are so bored and miserable that is usually what they do for entertainment. Only thing that ever gets them to act nice is talking about their chidren or grandchildren. Otherwise forget it you aren't going to have a fun social experience. Also play higher limits if you can, once you get out of the smallest games in the room you start getting decent players and most of them aren't as obnoxious. The 10-20 games has a rude person or two, but most of the players are either serious and polite or fairly social.

Re: Miserable Live Poker
 

Boris, you know that nice doesn't go along with bay area poker. nuts is more like it (as in crazy, not unbeatable). It'd be nice to have another english speaker at the table, though.

Re: Miserable Live Poker
 

hehe. no I'm serious. most of the people in most of the games I play in are really nice. maybe they know that if they get out of line I'll lay an ass whoopin on'em. [img]/images/smile.gif[/img] yea right.


drop me in an email if you want to go fishing one of these weekends.

Re: What Limits?
 

In cases where there are some hostilities on the table, take a break for a round or two or wait for change of dealers. Chances are most dealers or other players will not tolerate such behaviour. In the meantime, you can think about you played previous hands or watch other tables as you may find a few tips or watch other people whom you may play in the future. Refuse such behaviour to affect your game especially if the table is profitable. JMO.

Re: Play at night
 

He is right. Night games are much more fun. I was recently in LV and played a lot of poker. The day games I played at both the Mirage and Bellagio were plain miserable (By day games I mean anything not between Midnight and 9am). I did, however play 2 all night sessions at the Bellagio and both times our table was great. Lots of (good-natured) trash talking and conversation. I played 8-16 both times mainly because I knew that the games would be more fun at that level than higher. I hate when the games get all serious, especially at the lower levels. The 4-8 table next to us seemed like even more fun with lots of yelling and straddling and such.