Seneca Allegany Trip Report 7/30

[sekrah]

First, I was pleasantly suprised how close this casino was. After ripping around the Northern Pennsylvania mountains at 90 mph, I arrived in Salamanca in about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Definently an improvement over the 4 1/2 - 5 hour trip to Atlantic City. I'll definently be making more of trips here than to AC. Hell, I might never goto Atlantic City again! (maybe for the USPC or something), but that's it.

Poker room was great, I loved every bit of it. Chips were nice, felt was nice, dealers were great and personable, and most of them knew what they were doing.

16 table room, they only game they had going when I arrived around 9:00am was a 1-2 NL game. And my only real gripe of the whole trip.. The max buy-in was only $100. Somebody should talk to them about this and have this changed.

I plop down my $100 at the table and immediate notice everybody else at my table. A few of the night owls still hacking had the table breaking in chips. The one guy had close to $800-$900 at the table, and 2 or 3 others had $400-$500 easily.

That first 60-90 minutes was a blur as I lose my first buy-in. I don't even remember what the hell happened. I lost a few reds here and there to various small pots, never really picking up a real hand, maybe missing the board with A-Q as the big stacks come out firing. I get whittled down to around $40, and with a big pot brewing I picked up a flush draw and call the big stacks bet with it, the clubs don't come and I re-buy for another $100.

The guy with the $900 stack eventually leaves, and I take his seat, where all the luck starts changing.

I pick up a couple small pots here and there at the new seat.. Soon after, I pick up A-10, Flop comes A-K-6, two hearts.. Big stack Night Owl checks, I bet $15, Night Owl calls. Turn comes a 10 and a 3rd heart.. Night Owl bets $50.. I got about $100 in front of me and I push the rest of my chips in.. He Insta-Calls!? Oh Great, I'm frickin dead or I gotta dodge something. Before he turns over his cards, while the dealer is counting the chips out, he says, "I'm just giving you a freebie here" or something like that,.. He turns over K-8, NO HEART.. Drawing dead.. His buddy at the table starts laughing and calling him an idiot. Oh well, God bless this guy.

This gets me rolling. I hang around the $250 mark for a while, and pick up J-10, unraised pot I come in. Flop comes Q-9-3 rainbow. I bet out $10, An apparent regular at th1e casino, I think his name was Dallas (??), he raises it to $25, and I call looking to catch. Turn comes.. A magical King, brings a 2nd club onto the board.. I smoothly check over to Dallas, he puts in $20.. I think for about 2-3 seconds and push the rest of my chips in, he only has about $120 left and he insta-calls.. turns over K-Q, river blanks and I win a huge pot and am well up near $450.

The action slows down big time over the next couple hours.. Win a couple okay pots, lose a couple. In the meantime, another apparent regular came to our table, I guess nobody really liked him.. he liked to talk and jibber jabber but most of the stuff coming out of his mouth was nonsense, and he seemed pretty annoying. At one point, with a native american dealer, and an older native american (probably in his 60s) playing at the table, this guy started going on, "So what does everyone think about my Atlanta Braves.. Can they be beat." nobody says a word as he continues, "I think that they are on the warpath." haha nobody says a word at this stooge. Anyway, he goes on one of the greatest rushes of the century.. Three consecutive hands he went All-in after the flop and all 3 times he got called, and all 3 times he said, "Nuts" after he turned over his cards. He was picking up A-A, A-K, Q-Q, K-K, all over the freaking place.. He would raise ever flop for $17, and everytime he would turn over huge hole cards. He must have won about $400 or $500 in an hour.. He soon left and went on to play the 2-5 NL game.

Soon another guy sat down.. Older guy, didn't know what he was doing, but he was pleasant and good for table banter. At this point I've been playing for about 4 hours and the biggest pocket pair I've seen were 10-10.

I pick up Q-Q, raise it to $15, older guy calls. Flop comes J-x-x, I fire $15, Older guy calls. 10 comes. I fire 15, Older guys calls.. low card comes (forget what), I fire $15, Older guy calls.. he's got J-10. I played it timid after the turn because I was worried he hit something. He's been calling everythign preflop.

Very next hand. K-K, I raise to $15, Older guy only caller. Flop comes all low, I bet $15, (it was getting funny at this point, table was all having a good time at our battle). He calls.. Ace on the turn.. I fire 20 this time.. He calls.. We check on the end, he's got A-6.

This exchange and various other exchanges whittled me down to about $200, even for the day.. went up and down varying in between $160 and $240 for the next couple hours. The table got incredibly tight, we rarely saw a pot over $30. A buddy of mine showed up and we went over to the 3-6 limit game. I ended up leaving down about $20-$25 at around $180.

This 3-6 game was one of the most incredible tables I've ever been at. I hit a decent rush of cards, but the table was great. Perfect mixture of tight-weak and loose-passive, it couldn't have been better. Decisions were so easy, it was a dream.

I must have stolen about 5 pots when we were 4 or 5 handed going to river and it was checked around to me with an ugly board.

I sat here for about 2 hours and mixed with a rush of cards, I smoked this table for a good $160.. I left around 6:30pm, up about $140 for the trip.. I wanted to get to the mountains before the deer were clogging up the roads, and the game was kinda breaking up anyway. A bunch went broke and some of the others headed off to a 4-8 game. I would have loved to played in this, but eh, there will always be other times.


Very, very nice poker room, and pretty well run. A good experience there.. They were advertising some $35, 40-man satellites (I think) for a huge tournament in October.. Not sure what that was about.. Don't know about any other tournaments they hold. I don't see any reason to go back to Atlantic City except maybe for the tournaments.

[grouchie]

I go to salamanca a decent amount of time, but as you said i'm not exactly thrilled with the 1/2 game being 100 max buy in.

Doesn't feel like it's enough.

[sekrah]

I suppose you could use it to your advantage once you get over the hump and into the $300-$400 range and the newbies come in.

Still, Should be atleast $200, if not, $300.

[GBslyr]

Sekrah. Thanks for the enjoyable trip report. I must say it is fun (and a little surreal) to read trip reports for the local casino from a 2+2er. Glad to hear you had a great time. Hope to see to you at a table sometime in the near future.

[sekrah]

It's very possible I'll be going back in the very near future. Either this weekend or next weekend.. We'll see though.

[grouchie]

[ QUOTE ]
I suppose you could use it to your advantage once you get over the hump and into the $300-$400 range and the newbies come in.

Still, Should be atleast $200, if not, $300.

[/ QUOTE ]

You definately can use it to your advantage, once you get a stack push around the smaller stacks who don't want to bust.

I've gone up there once recently and was at least happy to see they got rid of that horrible horrible time rake charge they were doing in the 1/2 game. That actually made me stop playing there for a couple months.

Now that it's back to regular rake, sit back and wait for a few hands so you can get a stack worhty of playing and start making moves.

It's a nice little casino, but i cannot wait until march when i'll be living in Vegas.

[RJT]

Glad to hear you like the room, too. I go to Seneca about 2 times a month. I have always enjoyed the room, but I have no point of reference. The only other card room I have been in is Foxwoods.

It is nice to know that my opinion of it holds up relative to other rooms – they do a good job. Would like to see higher limit (structured) games – 5/10 or 10/20limit, but the 1/2nl and the new 2/5nl are good games. Haven’t been there when the 5/5nl $500max has been running, yet.

Btw, the also do a good job with their tourneys. They run one every 3 months or so. Usually, they are $225 or so buy-in with up to around 400 players. This month, (I think it is August 14) their tourney is $540 (approx) buy-in. Payout will be nice, but, too much for my tourney playing ability.

[jasonHoldEm]

I was up there this weekend too, although I don't think we played together (If you saw a guy with a snoopy figurine for a card protector that was me). I was playing in the 4/8 game, it was a lot of fun once we got it rolling (we started 6 handed and I went on a huge rush and then bled chips the rest of the night, lol) anyways, sorry if we cannibalized your 3/6 getting it started.

J

[dicelumpY2005]

Glad you enjoyed Salamanca... I know it defeats the purpose of saving driving time, but give Niagara Falls a shot once the new hotel is open on the American side. I'm sure the drive from where you are now to Niagara Falls is the same or close to AC, but at least you'll see what the trio of casinos (meaning the 2 in Canada and 1 in New York) have to offer... Just don't do the trip in the dead of winter...too much snow! Incidently...you ever been to Turning Stone? I honestly rank that near the top of the list for the non-Atlantic City casinos in the northeast....

[sekrah]

No, I don't think I saw you there.. I was actually trying to get that 4/8 game going around 3:00 but there wasn't enough interest, then they called for it when I was about to leave.

Next time I go I'm going to see if they'll announce for it sooner.