Foxwoods 1/2 NL - worth the time?

[rookieplus]

I was there Thursday (after taking a terrible beat early in the 250 person NL tournament - I promise no bad beat storues) and played NL for most of the day. As I got a horrible run of cards and managed to stay off tilt I had to do something so I decided to contemplate:

1. $5 per half hour to play
2. Averaging ten! hands per half hour because:
2a. Lots of slow players
2b. Too many people buying in at the table instead of getting chips at the cage
2c. So many buy ins at the table that they fill often
2d. For every good dealer (and there are a bunch of good ones) there is a bad one right around the corner

So I'm in for $16/hour with the blinds. Add to that the swings that are normal in a loose NL game, the chance of getting on a terrible run of cards, and I wonder if it's even worth sitting at one of these tables. Yes they're juicy if you get a big fish, but to play 100 hands you're talking about five hours, and that's if you don't get up to use the rest room.

Don't get me wrong, I love the place and wish I could get there more. I just wonder if the particular game is worth it.

[smoore]

I can't imagine it's worth it if you're only getting 20 hands per hour.

[toots]

I saw a $960 pot at one of those $1/2 tables the other day. What's surprising was that two of the for people who saw it to the river (and indeed did a lot of the betting) had essentially nothing.

Sure wish I had a piece of that hand.

Yeah, there's lots of poser/wannabe posing, but the game's loose. Take some beats, but if you play well, it'll be money ahead sooner or later, even at 20 hands/hour. I mean, I saw one guy go all in every time he got dealt an ace. Doesn't that appeal to you, even a little?

[rookieplus]

Too bad I wasn't in that game. And yes, you take a ton of bad beats (like the time this week when I had QQ cracked when a guy with ace high called a big bet of mine and rivered you know what - wonder if that was the same guy). It just strikes me that the number of hands per hour is so low that the swings combined with the high rake makes the game a losing proposition unless you can play it for a very long time.

I think the gamne would be tons better if they didn't do so much chip changing at the table.

[TomCollins]

If you can't beat this game, even with the time charges, you officially suck. That game has people practically throwing money at you.

[Durs522]

This game is definitely worth the time. You have the opportunity to make a lot of money from people who really don't know what they're doing. If you sit and wait for your hands its not hard to get paid off.

[tdarko]

i thought that they threw money at you in the 5/5 nl game there too [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Barry]

There are a few folks that do quite well in that game. I asked them about it, given the rake and the landsharks (I think that was Gabe's term) that take forever before checking, which is the main source of the slow play. He said that the play was so bad, it was very easy money.

A while back they started another table and had 1 open seat that I took it for the heck of it while waiting for a seat in the 20 game.

I buy in for $100, which is the max, win a couple of hands and now have about $130 when the following comes up.

I'm in the BB, UTG straddles, next guy who somehow has about $28 in front of him after about 15 minutes goes all-in. He gets 2 cold callers. I look down at QQ and push.

Straddler folds, 1st cold caller folds, 2nd calls all in for about the $75 that he has left.

1st all-in shows K9o and coldcaller/2nd all-in shows AJo.

Flop is J high, turn and river are blanks and MHIG. Mr. AJo tosses me a black ($100) chip, I pass him a rack of whites ($1) and my name gets called for the 20 game. They all sigh and I leave.

If you can't beat that game, you do indeed suck.

[rookieplus]

[ QUOTE ]

If you can't beat that game, you do indeed suck.

[/ QUOTE ]

I get a kick out of this kind of quote. I suppose it may be true but when they accompany a story about hitting ONE big hand and then calling it a winning experience, well ... Consider that running your stack from $100 to $130 could take an hour, two or three and while the time charge is certain, catching a hand isn't.

I've hit this game for decent money and I've had losing sessions at it, but I'm a decent player and have an easy time staying off tilt. And I'm pretty confident that over time, a good player will beat the other players that sit at the 1/2 NL tables.

My question was simply whether the rake made this game unattractive. Maybe I should have couched it in terms of game selection - is this game the best game at FW or is it far down on the list. My point of view on that is that the 5/10 kill games (both HE and O/8) though much less exciting are far more profitable when considering the time charges associated with the NL game.

I'm probably not in the minority when I say that I'd much rather pay a rake from a winning pot than pay to sit at a potentially bad table.

But thanks for the "you suck" implication anyway. I love being underestimated.

[Myrtle]

I would tend to agree that, in the long run, the rake makes the 1-2 not the best choice.

Contrasted vs. the 5-5 NL or the 5-10/10-20 FL Kill games I know where I'm sitting.