Greektown Trip Report

So yesterday it was a solid 95+ degrees in Ann Arbor and I busted out of everything I played in, so Bobby (Killerbees24 to the fans) and I decided to head into Detroit to play some live poker. After a pretty short drive we got to Greektown and after a few minutes of wandering someone finally pointed us in the direction of the poker room.

I signed up to play 3/6 LHE with a kill and 5/10 without a kill. I was very disappointed that the highest game they spread was 5/10 but I decided I'd make the best of it. The table was 8 handed when I joined and it was playing sooooo passively. Even for limit I'm not accustomed to seeing 25 hands without a preflop raise and so many boards be checked down. I eventually decided to generate some action by straddeling. This ultra-donk 3-bets from late position. I essentially will 4-bet and cap it with just about anything but I decided to look anyway and I squeeze 2 black jacks.

The flop is 268 and I bet, he raises, I 3-bet and he calls. The turn is a 6 and I check-raise. The river is a 2 and I elect to check/call assuming he has QQ+ at the point. I table my hand and he grins and tables J2. Cute.

A few orbits later half the table limps in and I follow suit from the button with JhQh. The flop is 3h Th Jc. It was 2 bet to me and I put in the third bet. Mr. J2 from the previous hand is the only caller. The turn is the Qs. He bets, I raise, he calls. River is the Td. Check/check. He tables 9sTc. "I was open ended on the turn." You sure were, and I had top 2 and a flush draw. Well played sir.

Later I had AK in the BB and we saw a flop 8 handed of KQ9. I checked and by the time the action returned to me it had been 3-bet. I folded only to watch a K turn and an A river. KJ took a nice pot off of Q9. Puke.

So the game gets down to 6 handed, I win like 4 or 5 pots in a row, this old guy gets pissed about it and leaves. The dealer tells us that if it is 5 handed there is no bad beat so we quit playing and just convert the table to a $1/2 NLHE with $100 max buy-in. I was up almost 2 bills so I put the other $400 in chips in my pocket and get ready for some No Fold 'em NLHE. I raise some limpers with AQ, fire a c-bet on a K high flop, get called and shut down. So I pull out some more chips from my pocket to reload the $100 and the dealer stops me and tells me I can't reload until I'm broke. I stand at the rail of the table with a confused look on my face for atleast 30 seconds. I have never heard of such nonsense and I went over to the floorman to ask for an explanation--he was useless. So I sit there with $60ish, incredibly upset that I can't even reload to the pathetic 50 BB's. So a new dealer comes and wants the $6/30 minute table fee. I reach into my pocket and pull out $6 in chips. Nope, can't do that either. So not only can't I reload, but I have to pay the fucking dealer with 10% of the stack they won't let me improve.

I lost just over $100 playing NLHE mainly due to the fact that I couldn't hit a flop and I was on pseudo-tilt from the stupid fucking rules. I won exactly 1 pot when my KK took it down on a QT4 flop. This one lady looked like she wanted to move but eventually laid her hand down. She probably would have sucked out anyway.

The bad beat jackpot hit for $55k at a NLHE table nearby when JJ got it in against 33 on a JJ3 board only to see a 3 hit the river. This black guy went absolutely apeshit and I honestly thought he had been the one with the 33 and had just scored $27k. Nope, he was just dealt in and got something like $1500--not exactly worth screaming over and causing a huge scene.

Pro's of Greektown: Easy directions. Non-smoking part of the room. Dealers who swear and make jokes about illegal drugs. Nice bad beat jackpot.

Con's of Greektown: Most dealers were foreign and didn't speak English very well. Retarded fucking rules on $100 max tables. Poor selection of LHE games. No free food.

Next trip I make, which will be sometime this week, will be to Motor City as I've heard good things both from ikestoys as well as some players at the table yesterday.

I realize this was long but it was my first live play in awhile and I feel like the blog needed some love.