Potpourri

I've been working on my second Stud theory post. It's a tough subject to tackle. I would say that writing about Stud is harder than writing about any other poker game, at least, for me.

Until I get this monstrosity up, I figured I'd post a few of the discussions I've had on Two Plus Two lately.
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Someone sailed on the Princess cruise right after ours. He played the 4/8 LHE hell some during the week, too. Here are some excerpts from our discussion on cruise ship poker (not to be confused with poker cruises):

"1 Poker table was found and was active every night from about 8:00 pm on. Game was 4-8 and table was full handed most of the time with wait lists during busy times."

"I will say this was absolutely, positively the best table I have ever played on. Extremely loose passive. 7-9 on every flop, rarely any raising. A 2+2er goldmine. Rake was high at 10% of pot up to $5 max per hand. Approx 95% of hands capped the rake."

"The dealers were so slow, and the procedure so painstaking that we could barely stand to play. We timed the very best dealer of the lot, and he got out just 10 hands per down.

We thought the most hilarious thing was their rule of kissing to call the floor. I told them that on land, that would definitely be trouble, and that it didn't seem to be going over too well on the ship either, lol.

After the second night of this, I finally just started hollering "FLOOR!" every time they did the kissing routine. I also tried to "help" them get 30 hands out an hour, and explained why that would be favorable to THEM, but only one or two of the dealers actually understood that they would be making more money this way."

"I think the slowness was also due to us not being able to buy chips at the cage. They sold chips out of the dealers bank and refused any other type of transaction. This made fills necessary every 45 minutes or less (according to my calculations).

The game moved so slowly. Dealers refused to deal while getting a fill, selling chips to a player, filling a vacant seat, etc. Every opportunity that they had to deal an extra hand here or there was missed. I tried to give them tips on getting in hands, but they didn't seem to care whether they made more money or not. The Canadian guy was the only dealer who acted like he had an epiphany when I told him how much the poker table COULD be making per hour in tokes. Oh, well.

Also, the Romanian girl argued with me about plastic cards vs. the horrible cards they were using. I couldn't believe she actually asserted that their cards were just as good, lol."
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"For those of you who have never been to Laughlin (I'm sorry if you have), the Riverside was the original casino there, owned by self-styled mobster turned scary plastic surgery victim Don Laughlin.

Pretty much anything goes at the Riverside, as long as you don't cross the "mafia."

Following is what I experienced the first time I played at the Riverside. The casino has been a constant source of amusement for me whenever we are at home in Arizona and looking for some low-limit laughs at a local cardroom:

I was playing for the first time in a tourney at my local mob-room, Riverside. At the time I didn't realize that the tourneys are really -EV, even if one wins first place. $2000-4000 is regularly "missing" from the prize pool. It is so obvious and ludicrous that even the most naive of tourney players at Riverside said, "That's the price for playing in a Riverside tournament."

Anyway, during play there were a couple of cash games that stayed alive. In one of them was an older man, maybe 70's. He was sitting next to the dealer.

I suppose that a big hand had just finished, with the older man not liking the beat he took on the river. As the dealer waited for him to either table his cards or muck, a long pause ensued. The older man didn't want to give up his cards at all. He held them there, face down, as the dealer continued to wait for him.

Finally, with his other hand, he balled his fingers into a fist, reared back and gave the dealer a quick right hook on the jaw.

The dealer was stunned, but quickly called, "Security, Security!" I felt that security and the cops would be soon on the way.

Instead, the CRM and floor went up to the man. They picked him up by his armpits. The CRM said, in a patronizing tone, "Sir, we don't allow players to punch our dealers here. Why don't you go cool off in the pit for awhile, play some games."

The dealer kept dealing like this was a common occurrence. From what I've seen over the past three years, I'd say it is."

Felicia :)