Spring Break Trip Report, Part 1: Turning Stone Casino

[mtdoak]

Some of you may remember my 'B+M odyssey' Post from a few weeks back. Unfortunately, I was not able to pull off this trip (too expensive and in middle of large downswing), So I decided to condense it into a smaller, more affordable trip. So, part 1 was a trip to Turning Stone in Central NY.

Overall thoughts: Very nice casino....crowded poker room. Good dealers. They were spreading a 1-3 Limit game which had almost 6 tables going, while 3-6 only had 3, and 5-10 only had 2. There were also quite some spread limit stud games going and 100 and 200 max buy in NL games.

The REAL soft game seemed to be the 1-3 limit game, but if I wanted to play micros, well, I'd stay at home. I put my name down for the 5-10 and 3-6 about 45 minutes before I arrived (a must for Friday nights, as I found out). I ended up having a 45 minute wait once I arrived.

I sat down at the 3-6 tables, and I was a little suprised that 2 players at my table were actually table games dealers at the casinos. How is this allowed?? They were constantly talking with the dealers, joking with them and making the table feel 'out of the loop' and overall unfriendly towards the players. One of them, waiting for the lone 10-20 game to open up, was sitting immediatly to my left and took it upon himself to berate every new player at the table. They were calling him down with any pair, espically after he had gone on tilt after getting aces cracked for the 3rd time. These few were obviously new players to the game and 10-20er let the new players know of his opinion for them. I found myself often asking him "Do you want these players to leave the game?", and he finally got up for a break. My personal favorite hand was a J-10o hand in early position. Its a loose game, so I limp, with about 5 callers to the BB who raises, everyone calls. 5 to the flop for 2 BB a piece. Flop comes K10 rag with 2 diamonds. BB bets, I raise with midpair. Player to my right of me (one who got on my for folding A8o on the button) grumbles and mucks, one cold caller, and two folds. Turn is a J, giving me jacks up. The player to the right of me starts on a discourse of how much he hates me right now, I bet, BB and Cold caller both call. River is a non diamond brick. I bet, Cold caller calls, and BB grumbles and mucks. I take down the pot with jacks up and both the BB and the player to the right of me, in amazement, were like 'You raised with the 10s on the flop??' I mumbled something about protecting my hand and they both were cleary upset with me calling me a lucky piece of junk, blah blah.

Results: I had a pretty good session, up around 25 BB after about 4 hrs of playing. After taking expenses for the trip out, I made around 17 BB.

Next trip: I plan on spending from Mon-Wed. at the Seneca Casino in Salamanca NY. I have a friend who lives there and will report at the end of the week. After that it will be to the New poker rooms in Senaca Casino in Niagara falls, NY and Casino Windsor. I plan to wrap up my trip with visits to Motor City Casino and Greektown Casino.

[TStoneMBD]

i assume the guy waiting for the 10/20 game was a young kid named zac. he has a bit of an attitude/tilt problem, but is a really good guy at heart. its too bad too, because he is a very talented poker player, but he has a tendency to piss alot of his money away when a couple of his hands get cracked. ive tried pretty hard to get him to stop tilting but it seems useless.

on a brighter note, congrats on your profitable session.

[mtdoak]

That seems to fit his description pretty well. You obviously seem to be a Turning Stone Regular, so two questions for you:
#1. Why doesn't the house take a rake and leave it up to the player to give the rake. I found myself giving $3 out of the pot for the first hour as a standard tip, and finally someone said something to me after a big pot.
#2. I noticed they don't serve alcohol, but was told you are allowed to bring your own in. Is this true?
#3. Why are the dealers allowed to play in the games? While not terrible, it certainly made for an unfriendly game and an older gentleman got upset when one of the dealers flashed his king to another non dealer player on the turn and it was heads up. An older, wonderful calling station (was seeing the river with any sort of draw) got very upset at these 'young punks', and stormed away from the table.
And Finally:
#4. Obviously, the weekends are hopping up there. How are the 3/6 and 5/10 games on the weekends? Just as soft?

[edtost]

[ QUOTE ]
Why doesn't the house take a rake and leave it up to the player to give the rake.

[/ QUOTE ]

this makes no sense. not in a logical/poker way, but in a 'this sentance is [censored] retarded' kind of way.

[Kaz The Original]

How is someone laughing and talking to the dealers "unfriendly"?

[tubalkain]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Why doesn't the house take a rake and leave it up to the player to give the rake.

[/ QUOTE ]

this makes no sense. not in a logical/poker way, but in a 'this sentance is [censored] retarded' kind of way.

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you played there? Can you tell us what he meant?

I'm guessing it's something like "Why doesn't the house just take the rake instead of making me give it back out of a pot that's just been pushed to me?"

[TStoneMBD]

at turningstone, the dealers dont take the rake out of the pot themselves. instead, they push you the pot and hand you a little pink chip. what this means is that you have to throw him back the pink chip with $3 to pay the rake. all the games there have a $3 rake regardless of limit. the higher stake games are time.

[dtbog]

[ QUOTE ]
you have to throw him back the pink chip with $3 to pay the rake.

[/ QUOTE ]

This whole system is to remind you to tip the dealers, right?

... or is there another reason?

-DB

[TStoneMBD]

quite frankly i have no idea. i think that the casino is just run poorly and that they are not hip to the new concepts of psychological ploys. i doubt that the casino would make this rule simply to better the dealers, as i dont think they really care about their happiness. althought this would logically be the reasoning.

[La Brujita]

As I understand the rule is not their choice but some legislative organization has forced it upon them.

It was explained to me that they are not allowed to take rake and so the players have to do it themselves. Doesn't really make sense to me either.