When last I left you (here) I had
just busted out of the Sam's Town $40 tournament. But Lightning, Flushhdraw and Chris were still alive.
And I busted out on the last hand before the first break, so I had a
chance to tell the guys that I had busted out.
I believe it was at that point that I found out that Lightning's old
blogger buddy Mike , who I first talked about in the post here, had also
joined the party.
I assume he saw Lightning's
tweet about playing at Sam's Town and decided swing by. I believe that, inasmuch as he didn't have a
car, he had taken Uber from the Strip all the way to Sam's Town. I wish I had thought of asking him at the
time how much that cost him. I would be
interested to see how much that length of an Uber ride would run. Oh well, maybe he'll read this post and leave
a comment—if he even remembers.
We talked a bit and then I just
figured I'd hang around while the rest of them inevitably busted out. The first thing I did once the tournament
resumed was walk around a bit and look around the casino some more. One thing that intrigued me was the nearby
Sports Deli, in the Sports Book.
Lightning had texted me that the three of them were all eating there
while I was driving over. And he said
the food was really high quality. And
cheap. So I had to take a look.
When I mentioned last time that Sam's
Town reminded of a casino from when I first started going to Vegas, this deli
is really what I was mostly referring to.
It wasn't big, but it had a big counter and more importantly, a big
menu. Not just sandwiches but hot dogs
and even burgers—and fries. I think
there was some Mexican food, salads and even breakfast selections. And furthermore—yes it was cheap! A burger (with fries) was $6.25. That'd be close to $20 on the Strip. A hot dog and chips was $3.50. A pastrami sandwich was like $6-$7. And again, according to Lightning, the food
was really good.
You used to be able to find a
place like this in every casino you walked into in Vegas. Maybe not quite as cheap as this (relatively
speaking, considering inflation) but not that far off. This is exactly the kind of place every Vegas
casino needs and used to have. No more.
You have to drive out to Boulder Highway to find it now. What a shame.
Sure, MGM has a deli near the
sports book (and poker room). But it has
a very limited menu, and you can't get a burger or fries, and just two or three
sandwich choices. And the pastrami
sandwich (which is awful) is like $17.
There used to be a Stage Deli in that location (at MGM) which was better
quality food and a slightly bigger selection, but still nothing like this
little sports deli at Sam's Town. I
swear if the food is as good as Lightning claims, and if the poker room had
more 1/2 action, it'd be worth it to
drive out there regularly.
What was interesting about this
is that I noticed a big food court on the other side of the casino when I first
entered it (from about as far away from the poker room as possible). I mention this because generally speaking
food courts have replaced these type of delis at casinos. Instead of a "mom & pop" style
deli (well, it looks like a mom & pop place), they have these food courts
with all the franchise places having a space.
You know, there's a Subway or some sandwich place, a burger joint
(McDonalds or maybe Johnny Rockets), a pizza place, a Mexican place, a Chinese
place, maybe an ice cream shop and always….always…a Starbucks. Of course, because they're inside a Vegas
casino, the prices are jacked up well beyond what you'd pay at your local
version of the same restaurant. When I'm
downtown and playing in a tournament, if I make it to dinner break I always
walk to the Subway that's at The Plaza.
And my sandwich and soda cost about $3-$4 more than if I had bought it
at a Subway in a regular strip mall.
Anyway, since I had eaten I
didn't buy anything but I was really impressed with the place. I looked around some more and then sat down
at an empty poker table and stared at my phone for awhile. By this time they had opened up a cash
game. I considered playing in it….and
when it had gotten nearly full, I decided WTF, I might as well play. It looked like the guys were going to be
playing in that tournament awhile. Guess
they're all better players than me.
Well, the game was 2-6 spread
limit, not exactly my game of choice.
But I figured why not give it a shot for a little while? It had been a long time since I've played a
limit or spread limit hold'em game (other than as part of a mixed game). If I'm not playing no limit, I'd prefer fixed
limit to spread. Actually, I've never
really seen the point of spread limit, but I guess some people like it. I think I played 2-6 spread a few times at
MGM a few years back when they were trying to establish that game
But I didn’t have a choice. When in Rome…as they say. So I bought some dollar chips and joined the
game.
When I got into the game, there
were two interesting things about it.
One, it's a kill game. Not
half-kill, but full kill. So if someone
wins two pots in a row, the next hand is a kill pot and you're suddenly playing
4-12 spread limit until someone else wins a pot. And the player who won those last two pots
has to post $4. Usually that's an additional
blind unless that player happens to be the blind.
You know how I feel about kill
games, right? Oh wait, you don't. Amazingly enough, I've never discussed my
feelings about kill games or half kill games.
And the reason it's amazing is that it should have been one of the very
first topics I discussed when I started the blog.
Now those of you who have been
with me since the beginning will recall that when I started the blog, I was
almost exclusively playing limit poker, mostly 2-4 limit. That was the game I started with when I first
played poker in a casino and I was still playing it when I started the blog in
September of 2011. Jeezuz…..can it be seven years already? Seven??? Wow, maybe I should do something
for my anniversary? Anyway, the point is
that my assumption was that the posts I would do about poker would all be about
limit poker. And one of my issues at the
time was the increasing number of rooms that had added the half-kill to their
low fixed limit games. Because back
then, I really, really hated it.
Although I had been playing
poker regularly in Vegas for a few years by then, for most of that time I had
full time "real" job (in a very much non-poker environment) and
didn't get to Vegas that often. And I
wasn't heading down to the local L.A. rooms very often either. So I was still trying to figure out the poker
thing. And I couldn't seem to master it
to the point where I was a winning player.
Now maybe I wasn't very good, but I came to believe that the main reason
I wasn't winning as a 2/4 limit player was that at that level, it's virtually
impossible to overcome the rake.
Anyway, I can't remember where
or when I first encountered limit games that had the half-kill or even the kill
rule. I think I'd been playing for a few
years before I came across one. But find
one I did, then another, then another.
And it was happening in some of the rooms that had been my favorite
rooms to play 2/4 in.
Now here's something I've never mentioned
before. Back when I first started
playing, one of my favorite places to play was The Orleans. You see before I started playing poker,
Orleans was always one of my favorite casinos. I played tons of blackjack,
craps and then Pai Gow there. They had
low betting limits. And the rooms were
fairly cheap so I stayed there often too.
And back then, they had some decent cheap food options (and my favorite
burger joint, "Terrible Mike's").
So it was only natural for me to give their poker room a try when I started
playing poker. And I liked it. They always had plenty of 2/4 action so you
didn't have to wait too long for a seat.
Sure the players were nitty, but so was I and I liked that, I didn't
want to see a lot of raises as I was learning the game.
And then one day I went in there
and the 2/4 game had become 2/4 with a half-kill (I think they converted the
4/8 game to half-kill first, but not sure).
I guess I knew what that meant but perhaps Orleans was the first room I
played to have it, again not sure. And
once I learned what it meant, once I played it a few times, I absolutely hated
it. And after a time or two, I never
played 2/4 in Orleans again. And as I
found other rooms that spread their 2/4 with a half-kill, I stopped going to
them also.
Biggest objection to the
half-kill was simply this: If I wanted
to play a 3/6 game (which is what the 2/4 game becomes when the half-kill is
on), I'd go find a 3/6 to play (in those days they were easy to find). Also, it seemed so arbitrary. You could go 90-minutes without winning a
pot, then suddenly win two pots in a row and you've changed the game, plus
you're committed to posted extra and costlier blinds.
Besides, I figured people played
2/4 because they wanted to keep the stakes and the betting low. If they were looking for a more action game,
they could find it. Why try to turn a
2/4 game into a bigger game when people were playing it most likely because
they liked to nittiness of the game? It
made no sense to me.
Anyway, I stayed away from those
rooms, and I missed a lot of them but why should I play in a room that had
rules I didn't like when I could always find a game with rules I
preferred? Note: When I played 2/4 at MGM back then, it did
not allow for kill pots.
So when I started the blog, I knew
in the back of the mind that someday I'd need a topic to write about and then
I'd write a blog post pontificating on how much I hated the half-kill games. But before I got around to it, I started
playing No Limit (first tournaments, then cash) and I had a whole lot of other
stuff to write about. And since I was no
longer playing a game where you could even have kill-pots, there was no point
in going on about it. Until now.
Anyway, for this game, I was ok
with the full-kill. I mean I now play
NL, how could I logically object to the max bet being increased to $12 when for
the game I regularly play the max bet could be your entire stack on any
street? But somehow I suspect if I was
ever to go back to playing limit regularly I'd still prefer to avoid games with
kills and half-kills.
The other weird thing about this
game was that it had "action" buttons. I think these are also known as
"overs." I'd heard of them but
had never played with this before. As
explained to me, players had the option to ask for an "action" button
when they joined the game (or any time after).
If any hand ever gets down to only players who had an action button, the
game suddenly becomes No Limit for the rest of that hand.
I guess I see the logic of it,
especially for a room that doesn't get too many live hold'em games. Obviously
some of their regs only want to play the spread limit. And some obviously prefer NL but they may not
get enough of each to have both games a lot of the time. So they have play a combined game to fill up
the table. The action players who want
NL have to deal with a lot of spread limit hands, but every once in a while a
hand gets down to only players who really want a NL game and they get their
way. It's a weird hybrid. I suppose sometimes, everyone at the table
has an action button and then the game just becomes a regular NL game.
Since it was new to me, I opted
not to take an action button. My thought
was, I really had no idea if the strategy changed for this type of game. I mean I know how to play NL (at least in
theory I do). And I remember enough
about to play limit games to get by. But
is there a strategy for a hand that starts out as a limit game and suddenly
turns into a NL hand when the last person without an action button folds? I imagine there is some strategy involved,
and not having ever giving it a thought, I felt it safer to avoid the situation
altogether. How about you? Anyone every played in a game like this
before? Is there a specific strategy you
can use to handle the unpredictable nature of it? For a game that can change from a fixed limit
to a no limit game in the middle of a hand?
As for the game itself, my
card-deadness continued. I only wrote
down one hand, a small pot I won. Let's
see, I limped in with Ace-10 off. The
flop was Ace-Jack-x, all hearts. My 10
was a heart. I bet and got a
caller. I bet again on a blank,
call. The river was the King of hearts,
giving me the second nut flush. I bet
and got called, he had the 5 of hearts.
While I was playing some more
folks we knew (or knew of) showed up.
Let's see, there was Alysia Chang, a tall guy and another couple. The tall guy I figured out to be Washdude, who
I've been following on Twitter for some time.
I guessed who he was (I was right) and introduced myself. Turns out he is a really nice guy. I didn’t figure out who the couple was until
I was gone and I never got introduced to them.
But I later came to understand they were Jason and Adriana, who I tweet back and forth with and who appeared to
be good friends with Alysia. May I
belatedly say to Jason & Adriana, nice to have almost met you!
None of my pals ever joined me
in the spread limit game. I actually
didn't play very long.
Now at some point Chris
abandoned Lightning leaving him stranded at
Sam's Town, along with Mike. I
suppose I should have left them there to Uber back to the strip, but of course
I agreed to chauffeur them back there myself.
Am I a nice guy or what?
It was a fun night at Sam's
Town, good people and I felt a bit like I'd taken a trip back in time.
You said:
ReplyDelete"Besides, I figured people played 2/4 because they wanted to keep the stakes and the betting low. If they were looking for a more action game, they could find it. Why try to turn a 2/4 game into a bigger game when people were playing it most likely because they liked to nittiness of the game? It made no sense to me."
I understand what you're saying when you say if people want to play in a higher game than they would do so, but I kind of look at it slightly different. In my $3/$6 limit Omaha 8 game that I play there a kill pot makes it $6/$12 and although I don't want to play in a game that is $6/$12 every hand, or more correctly my bankroll would not allow such a thing a kill pot does give you the opportunity to play a hand or two here and there was just a little bit higher, but it's not permanent. I kind of think it is kind of nice to have a few tossed in here and there. You don't have to play it consistently but every once in awhile a single hand with higher Stakes gets tossed in and just mixes things up.
As for the food court it sounds like you were down at the very end of Sam's Town where they have the Subway, Dunkin Donuts, and there's an ice cream counter there as well. There is also another small food court, I mean like three places I think so that's about as small as you can get and if you walk through the area where they have all the the trees and the water and where you check in if you walk past that there is a McDonald's, Panda Express, and a Mexican fast food place, but for the life of me I just can't recall the name of it.
Great write-up as always Rob, enjoyed it thoroughly.
Well, as I said, I knew that obviously some people like the kill feature or they wouldn't have it. So yours is obviously a valid view, I just don't share it. Again, seems too arbitrary. I think I'd like it better if at random times, a buzzer went off and it meant the next hand had higher stakes. I dunno, it just bugs me. Like I said, I avoided rooms that had it back in the day.
DeleteI saw the Subway, I don't what else I saw, just that it was a food court. But I'm sure I would have loved that sports deli!
Thanks for the kind words.
Sports Deli was great and had a bar right next to it. And thanks again to Flushhdraw, whose comps covered my meal.
DeleteYou mean I not only missed a great meal, I missed a FREE meal? Damn.
DeleteUber to the strip would be about $15 and im very familiar with overs buttons and shocked u arent. they used to use those all the time at texas station before their room closed and the cannery still uses them alot. riverside laughlin has a great 4-12 omaha hilow game when theres a kill from 2-6, which is wide enough i think to be able to beat the rake in spread limit.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info, Tony.
DeleteI'm a fan of Sam's Town, usually spending a day or two there each time I'm in Vegas.
ReplyDeleteOn our last trip Ms. Duck and I got a suite there that rivals anything we've stayed in on the strip. Very nice.
That's good to hear....but tell me, did you eat at that Deli?
Delete