Evolution of a card room

[Rico Suave]

I live in Tulsa OK, and about 6-8 months ago, the first card room in the area went up -- Cherokee Casino. It is a decent size room with 20+ tables. When I played there the first month it was open, they were spreading tons of 4/8 HE tables, 3-5 10/20 tables 1-2 20-40 tables, and several 1/2 No limit (maybe a couple of 2/5 no limit) and a smattering of stud and omaha. The room was absolutely packed on weekends.

Now, fast forward 6 months and the scene is quite different. Another smaller card room opened up and now you rarely have to wait to get a seat. But the main problem is that now have trouble even getting a 6/12 game going. Sometimes on saturday night they do, but usually 4/8 is the highest limit game they get going! WTF? It seems crazy to me that the games would dry up so quickly.

So my question.....is this typical of card rooms in small markets? --That is, do they have trouble getting even medium small stakes games going? Or will the consisitency of the bigger games come with time...as the player base grows a bit and the local poker market evolves? I gotta say, I am pretty disappointed that I finally live 15 minutes from a card room (and a decent sized one, at that) and the biggest limit game is 4/8. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

--Rico

[9cao]

It has been 1 year since a 20+ table card room opened in my area and I have noticed the same thing. I think a lot of people either go broke and/or get bored. It is the same thing for the tournaments.

I suspect that it is the natural evolution of a poker room. Lots of people who don't know what they are doing give away a lot of money, only the winners and compulsive rich gamblers survive the higher limits. Then the low-limit winners will slowly creep up and you will see more high-limit games but much tougher than before.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

This is exactly the case in vegas these days. MGM can hardly get anything higher than 4-8 or 2-5 no limit going. Even 6-12 just isn't there very often anymore, nor 10-20. Every room in town is low limit hold'em and nothing else. Wynn can barely get big games going. The only regular higher limit games are mirage and bellagio.

This is my observation...

Hold'em killed poker

1-2 no limit killed hold'em

The hold'em craze killed all the other games, like stud, stud-8 and O-8. Slowly but surely the hold'em games took over. Now there's the no limit craze, and all the decent size limit hold'em games are going bye-bye. Except for mirage and bellagio, anything but 4-8 and baby no limit practically doesn't exist anymore. What a shame, I was really looking for a good 10-20.

al

[Rico Suave]

[ QUOTE ]
1-2 no limit killed hold'em


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. I agree 1/2 and 2/5 no limit has almost certainly drawn away much of the 6/12 and 10/20 crowd at my card room.

--Rico

[Photoc]

The NL games are drying up quicker and quicker these days. The 1/2 games often have average pot sizes of 12 bucks and that's it. They all sit around waiting for aces unless you get some drunk fish in there to gamble it up a bit.

These guys are all willing to go all in any time they have a good hand, but they aren't willing to play a 10/20 game that the risk is a lot lower. I just can't figure it out. They're all afraid of anything higher than 2/4.

[runnerunner]

Most of the live ones like to GAMBOOL and love the rush of getting all of their chips in the middle. They can't do this playing limit, so they play no-limit. This isn't too hard to figure out. Also, variance at a 2-5 NL game isn't any higher than at 10-20, it's probably lower.

"They sit around waiting for Aces unless you get some fish willing to gamble" ?

That is about the dumbest thing you wrote in a while. If you jump in a game and see a bunch of tight wads you need to get in there and splash some chips around. The fish are the people siting around waiting on Aces(maybe you) and when the get them cracked they complain and say the "fish" beat my Aces?!?

I do agree that 1/2 NL has killed a lot of action but I think there is a good chance that 80% of the posters never saw the inside of a poker room before 2002. Talk about no action, it was like a AARP convention.

[BottlesOf]

Someone wanna make me a cool "NL sucks" animated gif avatar? Whoever makes one that I decide to take as my own, I'll give you your choice of color for your name(like Dynasty does in OOT)

[edtost]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, variance at a 2-5 NL game isn't any higher than at 10-20, it's probably lower.

[/ QUOTE ]

i usually figure on 1/2 nl and 10-20 limit having similar varience.

[IgorSmiles]

[ QUOTE ]
This is my observation...

Hold'em killed poker

1-2 no limit killed hold'em



[/ QUOTE ]


You guys need to knock it off with the doomsday speeches and the revisionist history about the good ole days...you sound worse than 2 grannies at a 1-3 stud game.

Poker is dead? Where have you been? It is at an all time high in popularity.

I cant speak for vegas but I was in Atlantic City last week for three mid week, weeknights, and not only was there 1-2, 2-5 and 5-10 NL going until all hours of the day and night, there was also 5/10 and 10/20 O8, 10/20 stud 8, and stud hi from 1/3 all the way up to 15/30. I saw 4-8, 6-12 and 10/20 limit hold em going as well. And I didnt even hit the Borg, which is the busiest poker room in town.

Feel free to kick me in the nuts, but I'd say things are just fine.