bad experience at oceanview cardroom in santa cruz california

I visited OceanView cardroom in santa cruz recently, to check out their 1/2 spread limit game. its 100 buyin, 1/2 blinds, and you can bet 2-100 dollars at any time. $6/half hour time collection probably makes this near-unbeatable. but there were some big time fish.

sounded pretty cool cause its hard to find NL around here, and this is pretty similar.

They started up a new table and i joined for $100, after about 30 min of not playing any hands, I picked up a hand, looked down, noticed a nail mark (like someone had pushed their nail into the card) and thought to myself 'i wonder if this is an ace' I turned it over and it was.. great someone marked the card apparently.

I had AK so i put the A under the K and continued the hand. I lost the pot, and afterwards informed the dealer 'the ace of clubs is marked' he began to shuffle the deck when someone else repeated what I had said, i guess he didnt hear me. He couldnt see the mark, I showed him where it was, and he said 'well i dont see it' and shuffled and dealt the next hand, as he began the deal (with the same deck) I said, "your not going to change the deck?" (getting ready to leave at this point) he calls over the floorman who replaces the deck after I explained the issue.

I'm pretty much ready to leave now, but I picked up KK next hand UTG+1, UTG raised to 10 I reraised to 40, BB calls, UTG+1 moves in for 56 (raising 16) I asked the dealer, "can i raise?" He looked at me like i was an idiot, "of course you can raise" he said.. correct me if I am wrong but UTG+1 made an imcomplete bet and I shouldnt be allowed to reraise? anyways I moved in for 90-something and got called by BB who had AA, UTG+1 didnt show cards, i lost my stack and left after asking the floorman if he had noticed the marked card, he replied without looking up 'yeh'.

so i dont think I will be returning there, just thought I would share my experience incase others were considering it.

(also didnt look like the table was under the watch of a security cam.. maybe I just couldnt see it)

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I'm pretty much ready to leave now, but I picked up KK next hand UTG+1, UTG raised to 10 I reraised to 40, BB calls, UTG+1 moves in for 56 (raising 16) I asked the dealer, "can i raise?" He looked at me like i was an idiot, "of course you can raise" he said.. correct me if I am wrong but UTG+1 made an imcomplete bet and I shouldnt be allowed to reraise?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually UTG +1 made a raise of more than 1/2 the previous raise. I have never [played this kind of spread limit game, but it is entirely possible that they use the limit rule that a raise of 1/2 the previous raise is a complete raise.

[PGarlic]

Yea, bad dealers running games with weird rules. If you want to get a dose of sweet NL go to Lucky Chances. Don't go for like a week or so though, when they get their NL civil rights back.

[SheridanCat]

Honestly, this is all pretty tame.

Regards,

T

Hmm your right.. he raised 16 which is more than half of my 30 dollar raise.. Don't know why that didn't occour to me. Still I don't think the dealer had any idea.

Yeah, I've checked out Lucky Chances in the past.. what do you mean NL civil rights?

Sheridan: yeah.. not to bad, but enough to make me not want to play there.. the dealer had no interest in protecting the game. Most places i've played would switch decks immediately if anyone asked.

[lapoker17]

sorry your kings ran into aces.

lol, thx.. yeah that just added to the badness.

Lol, you went to that dump expecting a good experience?! The purpose of that place is for when you live in town and really really want to play live poker but for some reason can't get up to Bay101.

[J.A.Sucker]

Unfortunately, the things you saw happen everywhere, including the reaction that you get from the dealers looking at the cards. This is all pretty minor stuff, and it's good that you are keeping an eye out for things. Just make sure that the cards are OK as you are doing and you'll be fine. I think I know the guy who at least partially runs that place and he's a good guy in my book, and I'm sure things are on the up-and-up. Remember, they can't even get enough great dealers at Bay 101 or Commerce, so how are the best dealers gonna end up working at a joint in Santa Cruz? That's just the price of doing business.

Oh, and BTW, this game is very beatable, and would be fantastic if there were no cap to the buyin. I think I'm going to go out there one day and check it out, just for kicks someday soon.

[J.A.Sucker]

I have heard from some very knowledgeable people the other night that there is almost ZERO chance that LC's is getting back NL. Sorry to break you the bad news.