Trip Report: Greektown

[NYCNative]

Made my first trip to a casino a couple of nights ago to hit Greektown which reportedly has the most poker in the Detroit/Windsor area.

I was at a concert until about midnight or so and a friend and myself headed over at that point. To my surprise, they wouldn't let me in the main entrance because my drivers license had expired. So I headed over to this outdoor psuedo-Greek place to eat and stew. I was pissed because I didn't know it expired but I decided to try another entrance and see if they weren't as dilligent. Fortunately, the guy at the side entrance gave it a quick glance and let us in.

The room was smaller than I expected - about a dozen or so tables although there were more in other areas of the room. You can smoke here and it showed - the smoke simply permeated your soul and it seemed that everyone at my table smoked as well. Smoke usually doesn't bother me but this was a lot of smoke.

We got our table very quickly, the somewhat infamous 1/2 $100 Max NL game. We headed to the cage to get our chips. I was somewhat surprised that the cashier didn't have a set rack for this buy-in so I just asked for a lot of $1 chips and a few $5 chips.

I was in seat #1. The table would keep essentially the same players for most of the game. There was a Josh Arieh wannabe across from me who had a big stack and played a lot of pots. He led the table until my friend, who next to the dealer on the other side, won two big pots with two big hands at showdown. From that point on, her raises got respect and she was able to take things over.

The players were all youngish. If someone limped into a pot they would call any raise $15 and less however it was not an insane game with a few exceptions. They loved to stradle, which for the life of me I don't understand and I found it annoying. Maybe that was the appeal, that it annoyed me?

The chips were dirty, the sympton of playing in a smoking card room, methinks. They had the same automatic shufflers as on Live At The Bike making the game go smoothly. Dealers changed tables every half hour to take the $6 rake. They all knew what they were doing although their table-side manners were sometimes lacking; a few were friendly and even chatty while others were brusque and pointed with even the most minor things. But hey, it was Detroit.

As for my game, I was completely card dead all night. For nearly five hours, I didn't get a single pocket pair, not so much as ducks. Never had AK. Had AQ once and lost a big pot to AK. Had AJ twice and both times the flop completely missed, once after I raised with position and someone bet into me on the flop and once when I was in the blinds. Just one of those nights.

What sucked is that with so many marginal hands winning I started to overplay decent but vulnerable hands (like the AQ above and I also lost a lot with KQs against AK). I need to work on my patience when card dead.

I stayed afloat because I looked like a complete tight-ass so when I did make plays, I was able to take them down provided nobody caught any of the flop. I did the position raise-continuation bet-everyone folds move a few times. Usually with a suited connector or something like AT.

I raised to $15 on the button with AQ after I observed a person in EP fumble with bigger chips before just calling and he then called my raise. I put him on a small PP. One other person in the hand, a guy to my left.

The flop came A94 giving me TP2K. The player before me went all-in. I worried he had a set of 4s but I had another guy behind me and I had the first guy covered by a bit so I pushed all-in. He folded and I saw the first guy indeed hit a set and it held. The guy on my left said he also had AQ so my push at least got him out.

Being card dead and at a table that didn't respect PF raises, I started trying to see flops with VERY marginal holdings hoping to flop monsters, especially since the biggest pots were won with these kinds of holdings. A couple of times I spiked two pairs and bet big enough to get anyone drawing to fold (or more likely, nobody was on those draws) which meant small wins.

I also played suited connectors like it was limit - even if the pot was raised, I stayed in because with so many people calling the raises, I felt I had the odds to stick around. Naturally, not a single one of my connectors got enough of the flop to withstand post-flop betting and most whiffed entirely. Again, one of those nights.

I won only three pots that were worthy of discussion and they were all trash hands in the blinds. The first one I had 74 of spades and after the flop was checked around, the turn left me open-ended. A $10 bet was made by an aggressive player and one person called as did I. I hit the 8-high straight on the river and checked it hoping to CR since to that point not a single river was checked down. Naturally, this was the first one.

One other time I had K3 of clubs in late position and I limped, begging silently for clubs because I was sick of flops missing me. My prayers are answered when three clubs flop but not the Ace. I immediately decide that the next time I pray for cards that I will be more specific (shoulda asked for the Ace) and then go all-in for my last $40 or so and I get four callers, which saddened me.

No other clubs hit and the board doesn't pair and at the end one guy makes a big bet into the side pot and takes that down. I ask him, "Do you have the nuts?" and he shakes his head in the negative.

"Good, I got second nuts," I say, showing my flopped flush. He doesn't show but he claims that he flopped a smaller flush. A guy on my immediate left said that he folded the Ace after I went all-in saying, "I knew another Club wasn't coming." He was right.

The other big hand was another family pot with me in the blinds and again, my stack dwindled at that point. It dwindled so bad I almost didn't throw in the buck to complete with my pitiful Q5o but I went, screw it, if it's raised, I'll fold.

The BB checks it and the flop hits QJ5 with two clubs. On a draw-heavy board board with two pairs, I immediately go all-in for my last $30 or so and immediately get four callers again!

The turn is a great card for me, another five giving me the boat. I sit back and watch the side-pot develop thinking I would get this one, and eventually I do.

At the end of the night I am down only $34. I would have made money if it wasn't for the rake and dealer tokes. Given my holings all night, I was quite happy, yet I also realized that if I had the discipline to stay away from the marginal hands I would have made money despite crappy cards. A lesson learned.

Overall it was a positive experience for my first time in a casino. And my friend made a couple hundred bucks so she paid for a bunch of things on the trip. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I hope to make regular trips to Greektown as it's only a three-hour drive. Once a month or so. Or maybe alternate it with trips to other casinos in Motown, Indiana and the like.

Hey NYC,

I've been playing at Greektown for the last year or so. It sounds like you were put in the smoking room. The room right next door is non-smoking. They usually have the higher-limit games in there.

I can sympathize with you about being card dead in the 1/2 NL game. It's tough to pull out a win in that game with no cards. Especially with everyone calling a big pre-flop raise. That is the norm for that game.

Maybe I'll see you down there one of these days.

-hespy