Never again will I complain about the looseness of games in California. “No fold ‘em hold ‘em, it’s called, and it simply can’t hold a candle to the games, at least the games I’ve seen so for, here in Reno.
I arrived Wednesday night much later than I had planned. I had an eye doctor appointment in Palo Alto at 10:45am, and my plan was to hit the freeway immediately afterward. But in hopes of getting a quick turnaround time, I tried to make a quick stop at the Costco in Redwood City. Unfortunately, they have a 10 business-day turnaround for making glasses, so that really didn’t work.
I hit the road right around noon and decided to head across the San Mateo bridge, worried that the traffic on 101 and 80 in San Francisco would be getting stuck. While I was right, 880 turned out to be little better. Worse, it turned into brake lights for as far as the eye could see from the Bay Area all the way into Sacramento, with almost no exception. It was sheer misery.
The drive to Reno should take about 4 hours. It took me a good 5 hours to get just to Sacramento. And the ordeal wasn’t over. I had hoped to get into the mountains before darkness fell. That plan went out the window hours earlier. The rain had spread further north than predicted, so the going was not only dark, but wet, and in the passed, it even turned to snow. (The temperature never dropped below 35 degrees, so I was not worried about getting stuck.)
I pulled in to the Sands parking lot at 8:00pm. Yes, 8 hours from the Bay Area to Reno.
The Sands? Yep. Stayed here once before, the last time I was in Reno, almost 5 years ago (which was to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the theater, all Bay Area theaters having been sold out for this special trilogy showing). With no luck on Priceline, I found a great deal here on Expedia. Not only did I get Thursday night free, a Google search for “Expedia coupon” found me a $50-off coupon code. It worked too, so I ended up getting 4 nights here, including the 2 weekend nights, for less then $90. Total.
Last year I headed south for the Thanksgiving weekend. It wasn’t a great weekend as I did poorly at the tables at the Bicycle. The bonus: they served a complete turkey dinner free too all seated players. None of that here in Reno.
But back to the action. And action it was.
My first stop was, naturally, the poker room at the Sands. It was a sad sight. Three tables. All empty.
So I wandered outside and over to the nearest casino, the El Dorado. Their poker room was not only a bit larger, they had a few tables going. I sat down at the $3/$6 game.
Now first of all, this was one of the stranger $3/$6 games I’d seen. The blinds are $1 and just $2. Yes, even though the first betting round is $3, the big blind is $1 less. It’s $2 to go, and $5 to raise. OK then.
But the fun was just beginning. Here in Reno, they seem to play 10-person tables. And it’s not only not unusual to see 6, 7, even 8 players seeing the flop, the same scenario plays out even when there is a raise. More often than I care to think about, I saw 4 or 5 people calling 2, 3, or even 4 bets cold.
“Wow” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
What’s even more amazing, in my mind, is that I’m up almost $200 in the cash games–and that’s after the wildest game ever tonight.
My first time out, I lasted 4 hours and managed a win of…$2.
I trooped down to the Sands casino level Thursday morning just in time for their $10:00am tournament. A whole 9 people showed up. I lasted awhile, but busted out 8th–just in time to walk over to Circus Circus for the 11:00am tournament, which also had a bit of a strange structure. It plays for exactly 4 rounds and one hand. This one I made it to 7th of 28, keeping my streak alive of never cashing in a no-limit tournament. If no one has won by the time the 4 rounds have ended, they play one more hand, and then the top chip counts get paid. Circus Circus tours it as the “Biggest little tournament in Reno.”
When the tournament was finished, they had one cash game going, a $2-$6 spread limit game. I’ve played spread limit before, but after thinking about it for awhile, I realized that the smallness in this spread means that it can makes the odds correct in so many different situations to call in later rounds, even when the maximum is bet, that the game could turn into a luckfest.
Not that the El Dorado game was a whole lot better. So I wandered over to Harrahs. The poker room with WSOP logos all over had just one game going in the afternoon, a no-limit game that I decided to pass on.
Back to the El Dorado, where i found a nice surprise. Almsot as soon as I sat down at a $3/$6 game, they began asking if there was interest in a $4/$8 game. I jumped at the opportunity. And that’s when things got really wild.
First off, we started somewhat shorthanded, with only 7 players. Second, I began with just a sick run. Pocket aces twice (only one of which actually won), along with a couple of other big hands led me to more than doubling up in less than 15 minutes. Even at this level, raises elicited 4 or 5 or even more calls. It was tough to be patient.
And there were a couple of real maniacs too, who would raise almost religiously preflop. Fortunately for me, I had them positioned on my right, and a couple of times that I was able to play back at them, I was successful and walked away a winner after 3 hours, before the game broke.
I returned later in the evening after I caught a movie (Quantum of Solace, not too bad), and for the first time in a long time, I had to dig out my iPod. And crank the volume.
I was in seat 6, and the guy in seat 10 was both drunk and loud. The drink turned him into a cross between a calling station and a maniac. Thank goodness I at least have my Pet Shop Boys studio CDs on my iPhone.
I had pocket aces cracked in this game, but made up for it while in the blind and coming in with baby cards when the kill was on, hitting top pair when little cards hit the flop (firguring, probably correctly, that no one else caught), and then catching a miracle on the turn with a gutshot hit. I even had another bettor and a caller to me at that point, and the seat 10 drunk called as well as the originall caller, and they both paid me off on the river.
At that point, just over an hour in, I decided that the game was way too high a variance a game, and that it was getting late, and the drunk on seat 10 was so loud he even could be heard over Pet Shop Boys music with the volume up, I decided to get up and leave with a good profit.
When I get back to the Sands, there was actually a $3/$6 game going. I bought a rack, and in the time it took me to do that, a player left. (I would have made it 7.) Two more left in short order and we were left with 4. I already don’t like playing shorthanded, but what made it worse was that they refused to reduce the 10% rake for shorthanded play. (Over at the El Dorado, when the $4/$8 game fell to 5 people, the dealer, without even needing approval from a floorman, dropped the rake to $1.) Needless to say I was not particularly happy, and literally, as soon as I hit profit status, I got up. A whopping 30 minutes and a grand total of $4.
Meanwhile, I have to say that the smoke level in Reno casinos seems to have significantly lessened since my last visit. I do smell some residual at times, but I see few people indoors actually smoking, even when I walk by the slots. This is a great development.
I have two more fill days to play. Tomorrow (Friday), my plan is to hit the mall and see if I can get one-hour service at Lenscrafters, and then probably check out the poker room at the Peppermill.