Normandie, short trip report (LC)

[Tapin]

(Quick note: if anyone here is a Normandie regular and willing to do me a simple favor, please PM me)

So I was on another day-trip for work to LA yesterday. The LA office is just north of LAX, so I've been to Hollywood Park and Hustler, and I decided that if I got out early I'd head over to the Normandie to take in a bit of CA gaming history.

I bugged out of work early, and arrived at the casino at about 4:40pm. There were all of about six poker tables running -- the California games section seemed a bit livlier, which wasn't surprising. Offered a chance to sit in a 4/8 or 4/8 (full?) kill, I chose the straight 4/8 just to get a feel for the regulars. Oh, and 'cause I've never played a kill game before.

Sitting down in the 7s, the most remarkable person at the table was a lady in the 6s who looked like she might've been sitting in that very seat since gaming came to California. She gave me the evil eye when I bought in, staring straight at me for a good twenty seconds or so, so I laughed and said "Hi!" overly cheerfully. It didn't faze her. This was going to be a tough nut to crack.

First hand I'm dealt, I get KQo in late position and I'm the fourth limper or so. Two kings on the flop are nice, but the only person who hung around in the pot raises me when he makes his kings full of tens on the river. Shoulda raised preflop. Whoops.

I'm happy to say that the dealers I saw into were either fast, or funny, or both. They did have a strange habit (I assume it's SOP) of reshuffling the deck before the cut after it comes out of the automatic shuffler -- perhaps the players really don't trust the autoshufflers there? Live poker is rigged!

Shortly after I got there, a guy in the 2s got sarcastically upset when his UTG KJo was cracked by two ragged pair. "This is highball we're playing here, right? Highest hand wins? What are you doing, playing that?" Soon as he left, the dealer dryly remarked "I do hope that when that gentleman returns, you'll do him the courtesy of playing the cards he wants you to play." Yeah, that earned an extra tip [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Biggest hand of the night for me came when I flopped an ugly full house and someone else check-raised the preflop raiser on the flop. I check-raised the turn, and the preflop raiser made his flush on the river so two bets went in there as well. Probably a 20BB pot, not bad.

Shortly before I left, I raised with pocket jacks in late position. For some unknown reason, that got me the evil eye again. Action at the table stopped as the woman stared me down, and I couldn't help myself -- I busted out laughing. Several others started laughing too, and the 9s (a dealer on a break) told me that raising preflop wasn't allowed at the table. Ahh, now I get it.

After that, I fully intended to attempt to mock-staredown back next time she flashed me the evil eye -- but it didn't come up again. Too bad, though, I'd love to see how long I'd have been able to keep a straight face. Probably not as long as she could scowl, alas.

I cashed out a reasonable winner for a little under two hours of play, and then rushed to the airport to find out my flight had been delayed by almost two hours. D'oh.

I don't intend to be back -- there were very few tables to choose from (although I could've sat in any seat I wanted, pretty much -- might've had something to do with the fact that I was there in the early evening on a Monday, I suppose) and aside from the dealers, nobody seemed to be having much fun. I'd prefer to go to Hollywood Park, next time I've got a few hours to kill near the airport. At least there the people-watching can be interesting.

(Like I said at the beginning of the post, if anyone who does go there regularly can help me out, I'd appreciate it -- PM me.)

[private joker]

[ QUOTE ]
They did have a strange habit (I assume it's SOP) of reshuffling the deck before the cut after it comes out of the automatic shuffler -- perhaps the players really don't trust the autoshufflers there? Live poker is rigged!



[/ QUOTE ]

It is SOP, and one dealer there told me it was because right after they installed auto shufflers, 4 jackpots were hit in one week. The dealers were then all ordered to riffle the deck once when it came out of the shuffler.

[Tapin]

No kidding, so it's actually the house that thinks their games could be rigged? Now that is impressive.

Late edit: Was that the Aces-full jackpot, or the aces-full-of-tens jackpot? I'm surprised they've got the two jackpots -- Losing with aces full (of anything) doesn't seem like it'd be all that tough to do, to me. I half expected to hear it gets hit on a nightly basis. Sounds like that happened for almost a week, anyway.