First visits to Garden City and Bay 101

[BruceInCA]

Hi folks.

I visited Garden City and Bay 101 in San Jose for the first time, and wanted to see if my experiences there were normal.

Friday night, playing 2-4 Holdem at Garden City, and it was a crazy game. Nutty raises and reraises everywhere. The 3 dollar dealer button rake (drop? whatever it's called) seemed high, and I probably should have played 3-6 instead. Seems like a good time and place to apply Ed Miller's SSH tactics.

Sunday afternoon, evening, early Monday morning at Bay 101 I played 3-6 Holdem. Slightly less crazy crowd during the day, and during late night it tightened up considerably. I get the feeling that if it was a Friday night, it would be just as crazy as Garden City?

Is the 3-6 profitable at all, with the rake structure these places use?

Thanks in advance. My first post here, by the way.

--
Bruce

[Nightwish]

Yup, both places have absolutely wild games.

The rake at 2/4 and even 3/6 is just awful. I would recommend moving up.

[BruceInCA]

Yeah, it's probably the smart thing to do. I'm not totally comfortable with the higher limits yet, however. The bankroll is fine, but I'm pretty new to limit poker.

I guess I'd like to see some success at 3-6 before moving up to whatever Garden City or Bay 101 spread higher. 8-16 I think? I don't remember seeing 4-8 Holdem at Bay 101.

For background, I've been playing on PartyPoker for about 9 months now. I've worked my buy-in up playing mostly NL SnGs and NL limit ring, only recently starting to play limit.

--
Bruce

[Chicanist]

Heh, I was at Bay 101 playing 3/6 on Sunday from about 2-6:30, wonder if I ran into you there for a bit.

I've actually found most of the people at 3/6 to be fairly loose passive..there will usually be only 1 or 2 overly aggressive people in my experience. The games definitely get worse late late Sunday.

then again, this could all be wrong, since I've just recently started playing live again [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[BruceInCA]

Maybe! I was the white guy with a goatee and black glasses (not sunglasses) sitting at table 20 in the 6 seat.

[bakku]

Although the rake is horrible, I'm consistently beating up the 3/6 at Garden City and Bay 101. The next limit up that either cardroom spreads is the 6/12. I'd stay at 3/6 until you have a bigger bankroll and are more confident in your game.

[jen]

Last May, I played 3-6 at Bay101 with a friend who was just learning the game. I think it was a Friday day. The game was ridiculous. If you can't beat the Bay101 3-6 (despite the rake), then you can't beat limit hold'em games.

[PITTM]

yeah, i play at bay pretty regularly and if you think about how much you pay in rake you realize how insane it is. in a 2/4 game, you pay 7.5bb/100 in rake, yowza!

rj

[sfer]

I've played in the 3/6 and 6/12 at Garden City with bakku and Chris Daddy Cool and I have no doubts that the 3/6 game is hugely beatable, rake be damned.