This is a writeup of my first trip to Commerce Casino to play poker. I meant to post it last week …
Nervous energy got me in the car a little early, 4:30 pm, for my 6:00 meetup with lkim at Commerce Casino for my first casino poker experience. As mentioned previously, Vegas is next month and I wanted at least one night of experience before setting foot in one of the low-limit games at Excalibur, Luxor, Monte Carlo or (perhaps) The Orleans – all the places my rec.gambling.poker research has pointed to as the place for the newbie to try his luck.
Of course, it was Saturday, so traffic was a little lighter than usual. 3 freeways, 4 accidents, 2 unexplained slowdowns and 50 miles later, I pull into the lot at 6:20. I’m one of the those people who’d rather not show up than show up late, but lkim and I had spoken from the road and we both knew we’d be a little late. Besides, it wasn’t like we had a strict tee time and Commerce doesn’t really close, so in this case, not a big deal.
I remembered from the WPT event at Commerce that it was “the largest cardroom in the world” and wandering around lost trying to find lkim seemed to prove this point. after a few minutes and a game of cellphone-tag/Marco-Polo, I realized that (1) there was more than one of these huge rooms, and (2) I was in the wrong one. So much for acting like i’d been there before.
lkim had already put our names down for some $3/$6, and the list was very short. I was hesitant to start at that limit, and really wanted to start at $2/$4. We agreed that if I did well and was comfortable, we’d talk about moving up.
The $2/$4 list was 20 deep and we waited for 15-20 minutes. This gave me time to observe a nearby table. Nothing looked unusual. People seemed to be playing with stacks of chips up to about $60. Although the 20-25 bb rule meant I should sit with $80-$100, lkim advised, and this table seemed to bear out, that sitting with that much might look a little fishy. I agreed that $40-$50 would be appropriate. One could always go into one’s pocket if necessary, couldn’t one?
We finally get called, and there are two seats together! But one is seat 5 and the floorman says that another guy with eyesight issues has been waiting for a 1-5-9 seat for a while. No problem. lkim sits down, I wait a couple more minutes and get called for a seat 3 down at the end.
I sit with $50. the table was pretty quiet, save the 1s, who I later came to think of as “the mayor”. He played a lot of hands and always checked when first to act. He would announce his check before the cards were turned, often causing confusion for the various 2s that came and went over the course of the night. I called him the mayor because he ran the show. Regardless of his involvement in the hand, he’d tell people when to show their cards, call out the winner at showdown, etc. Some of the other players seemed a little perturbed by his antics, but he was good natured, and I thought he actually made the game a bit more fun.
Not long after I sat down, the 4s opened and a new guy sat next to me. Sunglasses, Hawaiian shirt, sweaty. He brings one of those little rolling drink carts and puts it between him and elderly lady in the 5s who hadn’t said anything, but had been making unhappy faces and gestures at the various dealers, presumably for dealing her poor cards. She immediately told him, in a thick eastern european accent, to move the cart to the other side, between him and I. He complained that he’s left-handed, and didn’t understand the problem. She didn’t respond and he didn’t move the cart. Off to a good start. Mr. 4s then starts chatting it up with me and the mayor. After every hand, he tells us what he folded, how he would have made a straight with his 63o if he would have just stayed in to the river, etc.
But the moment of the night happened shortly after he sat down and had his initial confrontation with Mrs. 5s. She was involved in a hand heads up with another player that went to the river. She folded rather than call the final bet from the other player. In the process of folding she pushed her cards about 1/3 of the distance to the dealer and before the dealer could gather the cards, Mr. 4s says, “What did you have?” and flips them over for a peek …
You ever hear those old recordings of the sounds of bombs being released? They start with the downward whistle of the initial let-go. Then the pregnant pause when it goes silent. Waiting. Waiting. Then boom, the crunch of the explosion…
The explosion was Mrs. 5s herself, picking up the cards and slamming them down in front of mr. sweaty-hawaiian-shirt-4s. “You cannot do this!” she could barely sputter out, exasperated, her eyes wide with rage. The mayor, dealer and most of the rest of the table were trying to explain to him that he can’t touch her cards and if he really needs to see the cards, he needs to ask the dealer. He put his hands up and feigned ignorance. Mrs. 5s eventually sat down and played a couple more hands before leaving, saying nothing more. Mr. 4s never actually apologized for turning over her cards.
Things calmed considerably after that. Mr. 4s rebought a few times, telling me that he’d have more to play with if “this dude had bought my Xbox for $60. But he never showed up.” Eventually he busted out and wandered off…
lkim moved tables and we grabbed another coworker who also changed tables, so we all got to play together and the table lightened up a bit.
Near the end of the evening, a new player transfered tables and sat next to me in the 4s. “Crazydave” plays on party and we talked about online rooms and joked about the “action flops” we were seeing at the table. I felt bad when I busted him with aces (though he did rebuy). Hope to run into him again.
Another small pot and I was in the black. The clock said 12:30 and I had a 1 hour+ drive ahead of me. lkim was thinking about switching to $3/$6. It seemed a good time to pick up. I bid farewell to Crazydave, the mayor, and lkim and made for the cash out window and out into the still-packed parking lot to find the car.
All in all, my first live casino poker was a great experience, and I can’t wait for Vegas in July. I finished +$28 in 6 hours, for only about 1 bb/hour – but for my first attempt, I’ll take it. This was about getting comfortable and not making a fool of myself. Not turning over someone else’s cards. Not spilling a drink. Not asking how much I can bet. Not losing any cool when losing a hand.
