Ladies Poker Night -- Tuesday Oct 3rd

Ladies Poker Night is starting again on Tuesday.

The first meeting will be Oct 3rd at the westside Knights of Columbus, located at west Iles and Meadowbrook. We will start at 5:30 pm and finish at 7:30. Future dates will be decided by the participants and announced.

This is for instructional purposes only - there is no real money betting. We will have a short "poker lesson" or discussion topic, an instructional hand, and then have a mock tournament. Based on participant interest, we can also replicate the casino poker cash game situation.

Friends, relatives, co-workers and strangers are welcome. We will have a "beginners table" for those who have never played or are unsure of the rules, mechanics, etc.

There is no charge of any kind for this.

Tunica - in January

Its only a few weeks away!

TWO major tournaments:
-- World Poker Open (a WPT event) at the Gold Strike starting Jan 4 thru the 25th
-- WSOP Circuit event at the Grand starting Jan 8 thru the 18th

Both locations will have single table sats running around the clock. Both will have super-sats daily. Gold Strike will have daily "Second Chance" ($200 and $500) No Limit Hold'em Tournaments - for those of you who only know how to play one game. Horseshoe will also be having tourneys. And Sams will probably join in too.

The first weekend (Jan 5-7) will have the most players because of the $500 buy-in events. Single largest field will probably be on Saturday Jan 6th. The second weekend (Jan 12-14) will be real good too, because its a three day weekend. Talk with me about tips for dealing with the crowd surge.

Side games will be plentiful at Grand, Horseshoe, Gold Strike and the Gold Strike tourney area. ALL the games at a wide variety of stakes.

Rooms are available NOW at the Gold Strike. Tourney rate is 45/65. If you want to wait, you'll be able to pay more later. Call the Gold Strike on a weekday afternoon, 888-245-7529 and ask for the Poker Room. Then ask for Sonya and tell her what dates you want. She will book and confirm right then. You will need a credit card to be charged for the first night - refundable if you later cancel. Gold Strike players card is nice but not required.

Your costs for this trip will be your room, gasoline, -- and thats it. All drinks are free, plentiful and semi-required. You can pay for food if you want - or you can get several buffets, reataurants, and players area food all comped.

See you there. We can go to the museums, the mall, the old downtown, and the Gospel Churches.

Holiday Weekends in Tunica

This is really the best time to go.

The poker rooms are full of players, but not overpacked with long waiting lines. Several games at several limits are available. The other players are a "touristy mix" from a 400 mile radius. Games are much easier than in January when all the good poker players from everywhere are in town.

Labor Day Weekend Update:

Gold Strike had 3-6, 4-8, and a sporadic 6-12 and 10-20. NL was 1-2. Omaha/8 was 3-6 with a full kill.

Horseshoe had 4-8, 10-20, and 20-40. NL was 2-5 and usually 5-10. Even 7 stud 1-5 went everyday.

Both poker rooms had daily tourneys, sometimes more than one.

Grand, Sams, and Hollywood poker rooms are still open; but I never left "campus".

Gold Strike hotel rooms are still 25 - 35 on weekends. Meal comps are still plentiful - Shoe is even comping the Friday seafood buffet again.

I'm ready to go back. Is it January yet?

Tournament Hand of the Week: Why Lucid75 is an tournie idiot and should stick to cash games

Okay, so I said I was going to stick to side games. I'm just better at them. but after trying the week of tournament poker only, my preflop poker has dramatically improved, and I found a new outlet for my tournament poker degeneratum. I am a sick gambler and keep coming back to Stars like a crack addict. I found out that Stars had a new set of tournaments, deep stacks! 30 min. blinds, 5k in starting chips, blinds starting at 10/20. What more could you want? So, I registered for a Pot limit hold'em tournie.

Things went very very very very very very slow for the first two levels. I had literally no pairs, and the best 3 hands I had preflop were: AJo, ATo, and KTo. Sick. But because of the blind structure, I could hang around and had about 4.6k at the end of the second level. After the first break, I started picking up some hands, and by about 150/300 I had about 18-20k in chips. I think I was about 9th in chips. Then this hand came up:

The BB is sitting out.

Hero [QcJd] raises in middle pos. to 750
Player to immediate left flat calls.
blinds fold.

Flop [Kh Th 3d] pot: 1950
Hero bets 1000
player raises the pot (about 3.7k).
Hero calls.

Turn [Kh Th 3d] [Jh] pot: 11850
Hero checks.
Player bets the 3000.
Hero raises the pot and moves in (about 12k).
Player calls and shows [Ks Ts]

River is a blank and I lose.

Here's what I was thinking, and why I'm an idiot. Preflop raise is a little unorthodox, considering my positioin, but the BB was dead, so I can raise from earlier positions. My flop bet continuation is standard. When the player to my left raises the pot, I feel like he's hitting the pedal to the metal with AK or AA or TT or 33, and if I can spike a card he'll pay me off bigtime. Betting/raising the pot from this player usually meant he didn't stop usually no matter what came, unless it was a scary scary card. So, I'm calling the 3.7k bet to get the rest of his chips (about 13k). The turn comes the third heart, and when he bets less than his flop bet, he's fearing the hearts. So, game plan out the window here, and I just bluff w/ outs if he does call.

Here's why I'm an idiot, and that a dumb bluff. Considering his position preflop, he is not calling to defend a dead blind. He, more than likely has a legitimate hand, a pair or two big cards. My play until the turn, I feel is fine, when the turn comes, and I throw my original plan out the window, is where I get stupid. This player was more likely to just fold on the flop, if he missed, rather than trying a re-steal. Based off my read, he didn't have a flush already. Now, if he has the hand that I think he has, two big cards, he has almost the same hand I have, plus he could have the nut flush draw w/ Ah Ks, or a hand similar, Kc Qh, or even a two pair hand, like Kc Jc. In all of these cases, he either is pot commited (almost always) has to call the check-raise on the turn, or just won't fold two pair. Considering the range of hands he had in this spot, he wasn't laying down most of them, and only a small percentage of the time would fold two black cards that made two pair here. Even if I was right and he did fear hearts, he has to call most of the time, and when someone is going to call you most of the time in any spot where you're bluffing, that's a bad spot to bluff.

It's a better bluff if I have the Qh. That eliminates the chance that he has it, and the only hearts he could hold and is the Ah.

'Till next time, I hope I run better...

The WORST Poker room in Illinois ?

Thats right - I went to Aurora again.

Funny story: When the casino boats were required to "cruise"; they used to push this boat out into the Fox River, have it go chug-a-chug, then haul it back in.

This used to be a small poker room on the upper deck of the boat. The room was poorly run, closed on weekends, and you had to cash in chips downstairs. When Illinois raised the taxes on casinos a couple of years ago, Aurora responded by CHARGING ADMISSION to the poker room, charging for the self park, and eliminating most comps.

I had played there once in the '90s and once about 6 years ago. Thought this poker room was much worse than the other 2 existing Illinois rooms. Saw no reason to ever return to Aurora, but there I was last month.

Hey ! Things are a little better. They have a "land based or dockside" casino now. Its small but kind of nice. Lots of 1920s and '30s Art Deco and Hollywood Movie stuff. The poker room is a hard to find unmarked alcove. Several six foot high panels separate it from the main casino. These panels do not keep the casino smoke and noise out. Two tables of 10-20 with 1/2 K to 15-30. Three tables of 5-10. One table used for SnG's.

Floorstaff was pretty good, dealers were nothing special, customers were typical rude suburbanites. Rake was a breathtaking $6 per hand. No charge for admission or parking.
Number of "Gaming Positions" is sometimes a problem, especially on weekends. Poker room gets the word to NOT open another table. Or --- to shut one down.

Someone drive down to Metropolis and play a few hands in their Poker Room. Then post a report here and then we'll select the current WORST poker room in Illinois.