Shreveport-Hollywood Casinio trip report

[Guruman]

Yeah yeah, I know - everyone hates the Hollywood.

Open minded I spent this past weekend in and around the only poker room in Shreveport this weekend. Here's how it went for me:

Sat morning - after a late Friday night out drinking (and playing caribbean stud - horrible game) with my friends, we all got up bright and early at 9am, cleaned ourselves up, and headed for the poker room.

It was about 11:00 by the time we'd cleaned up, eaten, and driven the hell over there. We put our three names on the list and almost immediately a new 4/8 table was opened. This was semi-scheduled by the casino based on demand. I buy in for $200 and we get started. I have a good read on my friends - who shift between passive and loose-aggressive - and it doesn't take long to get a read on the rest of the table: 2 mega rocks and whole lotta loose passives.

Our timing probably couldn't have been better because like clockwork the wait time went up to aroun 2 or 3 hours right around noon. If you want to play poker in Shreveport - get there early!

Back to the action:The two rocks were older men who looked like they had all of the time in the world. One guy didn't play a hand for over two hours. When he finally did get in a pot, 8 people (myself included) folded to his raise. A couple of the loose passives payed me off all the way to the river on complete bluffs. They didn't even bet their bluffs - they just tried to scare me off by calling my raises. Crazy man.

I doubled up my $200 within about an hour and a half. Around 2:00 I'm up about $350 and my friends an I are getting hungry. We mention this to a cocktail waitress and she discreetly informs us that they can run down to the cafe and pick something up for us if we would like. She takes orders from the three of us and probably 10 minutes later she shows up with three of the biggest sandwiches I've ever seen. The tab is $17.50, so I give her $25 in chips and we chow down.

End result Sat - cash out $683 from a $200 buy and had a hell of a good time with a chatty table and good service and dealers. 6 hours.

My two friends drove back to Dallas after that session, but I had a room for another night so I thought that I'd stay and see what Sunday morning looks like.

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Sunday, wake up after a late night of drinking and gaming with another friend (blackjack this time - also a game I'm not a fan of). In the car and to the casino by 9:15.

I put my name on the list and waited around until 11:00 when (surprise) they opened up a new 4/8 table and called the remaining players on the list to it. During the wait the floor crew did an okay job of keeping the tables filled with players and communicating the wait situation to me. If I had phoned ahead I could have probably played earlier - and on a better table.

Sunday's table was the polar oppposite of the table I was at on Saturday. This was probably due to the fact that there were no 5/10 tables for these particular players to sit down in on this day.

I know that I was in the right state of mind walking up to the casino floor, but the two hour wait really served to take me just a little off my game. I was just a little too anxious to dive back into the pool and swim with the fishies, and I'll admit that I was definately a little cocky about how well I had played the day before.

This table was nothing but a bunch of semi-tags along with three fish:a plasti-blonde chick in from Austin, a dude that didn't talk much but called down bets to the river with nothing in his hand, and me.

The whole tabled played much tighter than the one that I had been at the day before. Fishy guy that'll call anything busted out very quickly. Plasti-girl (who was really fun to look at) had re-bought 4 times by the time I eventually had to get up.

Here's how I turned into a fish - in the previous day I was able to win quite a few pots by playing middle suited connnectors on the button since there were 8 or 9 in almost every hand. When I hit the flop they would come along for the ride, and when I missed they would let me hand around to catch another card.

This was no longer the case on Sunday. These players aggressively took money from me when they had me beat and immediately released when I would push with the lead. This messed with me psychologically and took me wayoff my game very quickly. I found myself doing really stupid things far too often, and before I knew it my $200 buy had dwindled down to just a few small bets. Realizing that I was beaten I tipped the dealer and cashed out my 8 bucks.

Sunday end result - <font color="red">-$192</font> and feeling a little dirty inside. 4 hours.

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Overall I'll say this: The casino floopeople were all very capable, though not remarkable in one way or another. Ditto for the dealers - they did their jobs well, didn't talk much, and stayed out of the way. Cocktail waitresses were quick, cute but chunky, and on one occasion they went above and beyond for my freinds and I (getting us lunch).

The tables ranged from mega-fishy to pretty tight, and the wait is gonna be two to three hours unless you get there early.

I came back today, took a nap, and wrote this a lesson to myself. [to self]Get your head in the game man, or they're gonna eat you alive!

[DavidC]

Carribean Stud is -EV, but if your friends don't play poker and you want to spend some time with them... play pool instead. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Other than that, I think you did pretty damn well.

Playing in a semi-tag is tough: I was at Rama once at about noon, and the house refused to open a 10-20 table for the main players. Therefore they were all playing 2-5, and they refused to go to the 5-10... So we were playing 2/5 with a 10% rake (max 5!), 2-3 handed, for a LONG time.

Not good.

[wonderwes]

I think you will find the new poker rooms in Oklahoma have better action, more tables, and more different types of games. The one in Tulsa is around 30 tables.

[feelixthegreek]

I had a similar pattern when I played there last Fall. Killed at night, got killed during the day.

[Guruman]

I'm just chalking yesterday up to a learning experience and an ego check. I still left up for the trip and had a good time, so life is good. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[bwana devil]

Great trip report and honest assessment.

I’m heading to Shreveport on the 30th this month and will be there for several days. Hollywood is not my favorite place to play but am looking forward to seeing how the new poker room in town (can’t think of the name of it) will affect the wait time and service there. I will move over to new casino if I hit any problems.