Live 0/8 Frustrations

[BigRedAce]

I play O/8 online and in card rooms. I played at Bay 101 today for a couple of hours and I was ready to pull my hair out:

1. The game was UNBEARABLY slow. I'd be surprised if we had 10 hands per hour.

2. No one would wait for the dealer to sort out the winner, they'd just start yelling. Some players were surprised they had to use 2 cards...

3. The dealers would take forever to figure out who won.

I've played in Vegas and I don't remember it being nearly that bad. Is it this painful everywhere? I might just play online from now on...

[slavic]

A good dealer can help out quite a bit, but I wish I could say your experience was abnormal. Unfortunatly it wasn't.

[toots]

I just had a couple sessions of O/8 at Foxwoods in the last couple of days.

1) Yeah, for the most part, slow. I note that it's one of the few tables I've sat at in this casino where they actually use the automatic shufflers.

2) The players at Foxwoods had more of a clue. Some of the dealers didn't. But hey, I find this to be one of the more pleasant social aspects to the game: The extended discussion and head scratching that follows every showdown.

3) Yes, see above. Usually, the players would explain it for them. Much joshing with the dealer followed. Hilarity ensued.

Personally, I find it much more pleasant than the hunkered down, winning-hand slamming monotony of Hold 'Em, but it does require you to interact with the other players at a more social level, as well as demonstrate a little more patience.

[Ribbo]

Yes, real life pot limit omaha is indeed a snore fest. The monotony makes you play badly.

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
Is it this painful everywhere?

[/ QUOTE ]

BigRedAce - Not in my opinion. At least I've never seen it that slow. Sounds like you had some poor dealers and impolite players.

Buzz

[Truck II]

Big Red A-

How often do you sit in the Bay101 game? I was there a couple weeks ago and watched a little bit of the 4/8 game and the play varied from very solid to guys who might as well have lit their money on fire. Are there usually a handful of bad players, or was this just typical Friday night drunkenness?

[Wintermute]

I gotta say, you are 100% CORRECT about the game at Bay 101, despite what Buzz says (and who's opinion I respect a lot in hand analysis).

The biggest problem with Bay 101's omaha setup is the use of $1 chips. Every other casino I've ever played at uses $2 for 4/8 half-kill omaha. $1 is a joke, players are constantly trying to figure out how many chips to put in the pot.

The dealers vary in terms of competence, but are generally subpar (comparing, for example, to the oaks, where the dealers are absolutely on the ball). At one point, I turned my losing hand faceup just to show the table and winning player in particular how bad of a suckout he had made... the dealer got very confused, I eventually had to say "my hand is dead" and then still turn it face down and physically stick it into the muck.

Players were a joke. Example, I'm in BB with 8TJQ or something like that. Flop is 89Q. I check-raise it, and get one caller (not the inital bettor). Turn is a ten. I fire out a bet, get called, so I check down the river. Guy flips up JJ87. Are you kidding me. (There were no suits any time in the hand.) This continued basically the whole session, with complete idiots calling when they shouldn't, yet catching their 4-outers or chop pots. I ended up dropping a hundo or so, got frustrated, and left vowing never to return to B&M to play a limit game b/c I feel like I can't adequately punish idiots.

Then I went home and recouped my losses twice over in 15 minutes playing PLO8 @ party. Thank god for online poker.

[BigRedAce]

I was playing mid-afternoon during the week, so no one was drunk. I recognized many of the players having played in the game a couple of other times. But I don't remember it being that horrible.

And yes, I was constantly sucked out on by people that shouldn't have been in the pot, but that is low-limit poker (especially O8b). I was surprised at the CRAP some of the players would raise and reraise with...it seemed like the only players folding before the flop were me and one of the floormen (Sammy, I think, a tall thin Asian dude) who was playing.

[pipes]

Played some 5/10 kill at the Trop in AC. Very painful. People trying to read their hand and deciding what to do. Picking up all 4 cards off the table in the process.

I can't stand online Hold'em and live Omaha8b.

[toots]

I still find the general cluelessness at the B&M O8 table to be +EV.