Grubby at PokerWorks

With my history of cracked Aces, obviously I should have folded with two all-ins behind me. But no, I get off on collecting bubble finishes in PokerTracker.

Full Tilt is really getting on my nerves. Not a day goes by when Aces don’t go down or my 60/40 or 80/20 is not in my favor. It’s demoralizing seeing hand after hand drop to a worse hand.  It’s this part of poker — the luck part — that I’m constantly up against unsuccessfully.

Eventually I’ve got to win these race situations, but so far the cards haven’t turned.

And people say the game’s gotten tougher? I think luck’s gotten tougher.

***

One of the benefits of living in Las Vegas was being able to pop into the always exciting casino openings. I was there for Wynn, Hooters, and Red Rock, and each casino still had that new car smell. In Hooters’ case, it still smelled like San Remo.

Likewise, I could pay my last respects to casinos on the imploding block, while first trying to win that casino’s personalized Silver Strike coin composed of 0.999 percent of pure silver, which is worth about $10.

I wasn’t there for the Stardust implosion, and it feels like I missed a friend’s funeral.

Casino openings in the Chicago area are few and far between. It isn’t for lack of players — there are enough regular gamblers here to give Vegas a good run — it’s just red tape and the riverboat or barge rule that gets in the way.

But for Native Americans not confined to the water, it’s a different story.

Last week, I went to the opening of the Four Winds Casino Resort in New Buffalo, Michigan, about 80 minutes east of Chicago.

Owned by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and managed by Lakes Entertainment, Four Winds is a formidable presence with 130,000 square feet of gaming and over 3000 slot machines.

That’s more slot machines on the floor than most casinos have in Vegas (but not more than Soaring Eagle, their direct competitor in Michigan even though it’s over 100 miles away).

Looking very much like a Las Vegas casino (think Silverton), Four Winds gives off a lodge atmosphere, beginning with a rotunda containing two huge fireplaces.

The lobby contains marks of the Potawatomi Indians… at least, that’s what I think those tree trunks on the wall are.

A band performed directly on a bar with video poker players sitting at their feet. The night before at the invited guest opening, the Pointer Sisters were jumping for their love.

Four Winds’ floor is a sprawling sea of slot machines that all tend to merge together with nothing really standing out and seemingly little thought to how they were arranged. All the machines co-mingle – video poker, video slots, and mechanical slots were mixed together along with a variety of denominations. One bank of multi-denom machines went from 25 cents to $2. These machines were 25 lines at 20 bets per line, so a player could wager $1000 per spin. Normally these machines are cordoned off somewhere in the dark reaches of deep pockets, but here they coexisted with neighboring penny machines.

Beer wasn’t free, but it was only $1.50.  That included beer ordered from the bar, cocktail waitress, or restaurant.

What was most interesting, though, was Four Winds’ poker room, which is the midwest’s only World Poker Tour-sanctioned room.

It’s also the midwest’s only poker room that’s all-electronic without any dealers.

A couple WPBTs ago, PokerTek set up a couple tables for us at Imperial Palace. Not yet receiving Nevada approval, no actual wagering was allowed, but they didn’t mind if we exchanged money under the table.

I played a sit-n-go with Richard Brodie, who had as much delight in taking down our table as he must’ve had hitting a royal flush for $240,000.  Well, maybe he enjoyed winning the quarter million a little more.

Up to now, I hadn’t tried out the tables with real cash.

Basically, the tables are the same as when the bloggers last reported on them a year ago.  I didn’t see any down machines or bugs, but at the same time I didn’t see any improvements over their original preview.

Inside the room were 15, 10-person PokerPro tables spreading 3/6, 5/10, and 10/20 limit; 1/2, 2/5, and 5/10 no-limit, and Omaha. They also continually run SnGs where the top 3 seats paid. Four heads-up tables were active but in demo mode only.

Their current system has too many steps to wait in line to be convenient, but you activate your player’s card, slide it through a kiosk (only one of which is available) to add your name to a waiting list, then head to the poker cashier to add money to your account. Chips weren’t (yet) accepted as cash, but credit cards were, at a hefty 6.5 percent fee.

You then wait for your name to blink on the hard-to-see overhead monitors, head over to your table and seat, enter your four-digit PIN code (too large on the screen to not be seen by other players), and swipe in with how much money you want to bring to the table.

A nice benefit to this is you can always keep your bankroll on your card (some tables allowed you to sit with $10 million).

A player greeted me by name when I sat down, because the monitor showed that it was reserved for me. I’d prefer to have some anonymity here, perhaps giving the option to not display my name or enter another name at the kiosk.

To look at your cards, you cup your hand over the facedown cards, and it gives you a little peek.  Players weren’t always careful about hiding, and if you were watching, sometimes you could see one of their cards or the suit or the color.

The electronic tables benefit online players — exact chipstacks are shown, with pot amounts. A confirm button on the opposite side of the bet amount assures no mistake can be made. This did open up one possible angle — you can go all-in to shove all your electronic chips over the line while gauging your opponent’s reaction. But because nothing is yet wagered until you press confirm, you can then take back the bet and fold.

When mucking, you have the option of showing your cards or showing one card.

Bet amounts cannot be made by the keypad used for your PIN.  Instead, you touch chip icons to increase your bet amount.  This can get arduous if someone likes betting prime numbers or odd $1 amounts. 

A “last hand” option displays the most recent hand, which could be useful in sidebets against players when asking what you folded. Unfortunately, the hand history only shows the most recent hand.  If a player calls a river bet but does not show his cards, it does not show up in the history.  For players in the hand, this takes away extra information as well as the reason online sites and live rooms allow you to ask to see both hands — to spot collusion.

If a player calls an all-in, however, both hands flip up tournament style.

There are no physical chips or cards or dealer – all action is handled electronically. Each person has 30 seconds to confirm his action before being automatically folded, and if a player sits out and sits back in, he automatically posts blinds without an option to wait.

After busting, I had to sit out and return to the cashier line to deposit more to my card. It would be nice to offer ticket-in/ticket-out on each machine (or per table), so I could feed a slot ticket or cash to bump up my stack. Then on cashing out, I could select how much I wanted to withdraw via ticket.

I’ll still always prefer handling chips, peeking at cards, and chatting with dealers who control the table.

Traditionally grand openings of poker rooms offer rakefree tables the first day, but not at Four Winds. 

With no dealers, however, the poker room is able to offer a $3 max rake with $1 for the bad beat jackpot. Add in the fact that there’s no tipping (especially helpful on the SnGs), and it’s the cheapest rake in town.

I was at first opposed to the electronic tables, thinking them a poor substitute for the real thing, but in the end I warmed to them.  They seem a natural transition for players who’ve never played at a live table before.  I remember the first time I played 7 card stud in a poker room and how intimidating it was sitting down in a room filled with smoke with all the old people bluffing me out of pots.

***

After a rousing (and winning) game of pai gow, a coworker and I challenged each other to a game of heads-up.

In demo mode, we weren’t able to wager on the table, but likewise we didn’t have to pay any juice.  My coworker asked how much I had on me, and he was willing to bet any amount, but we settled on $100.

Chips began at T1500 with blinds of T50/100.  I like feeling out the other player in the first round, such as how he responds to various sized raises or reraises, but with starting blinds that high, I couldn’t do that because any raise pretty much committed myself.

I won the first game, which ended up lasting no more than five minutes.

Our rematch had me talking trash, which coming out of me is more amusing than threatening.  Maybe if I wore sunglasses.

I spoke out loud with what I’d do with his $100 from the first game.  I wasn’t selective in the trash talk, chiding him for folding to a raise or goading him into calling a raise when I really didn’t want him to.  At any reraise, I was ready to let go.

We played some hands blind, I raised all-in on back-to-back Hammers that I won and showed, and then I got A9o.

A9 is a terrific hand heads-up, one that I’d normally push or call an all-in with.  But against an all-in when he’d been playing selectively, I wasn’t so sure I dominated.  I thought through possible hands he might have, discarding a pair and finally settling on a bigger Ace.

I mucked face up.

He showed his hand — A5o.

Ugh.  I would’ve played it the same way.

The very next hand I got that chance.  I had A5 and I pushed.  He called instantly and showed — A9.

No help for either of us, and he won game 2.

We’re now tied, but I suspect there’ll be another match in the near future.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 8:05 am and is filed under Uncategorized.