Went to the TI today (well, yesterday) and played. Only a 2/4 limit table for me today since I know you guys play the NL there and I didn't want to get my butt whooped. I found the casino as a whole very confusing and it SUCKED when Mystere let out right by the poker room. I did hit a strait flush to the King - go figure - but it won me a jackpot bonus of $250.

One hand I re-raised a pre-flop raise with pocket aces and with 5 players in the pot was already over $50 pre flow. Continued to raise and reraise throughout the hand and it was capped each time, so a good $100-150 in the pot by the river. Seat one won the whole thing with Q8os when seat two and I both turned over pocket aces. Go figure.

Went to the Sahara, saw the poker room, but was with my aunt and mother so I chose not to play down there. But they were a good 6/7 full tables at 12:30am on a Sunday night/Monday morning. Not too bad of a crowd. Maybe a last ditch effort from some Cali folks before they head out of town? Or is there some midnight tourney or something?

Anyway, blew a bunch on the Wheel of Fortune slots there and came home.

I actually have to attend the conference I came out here for - in about 5 hours...off to bed.

They have an 11 pm tourney, the tables were probably mostly remnants of that. They usually have a pretty good turnout due to the decent structure.

@IndyGirl

Always remember where the profit in poker comes from. Be careful what you wish for.

IP has always been notorious for call stations who do not know a thing about playing position. I haven't played at IP since I was in college, but what I do remember is that you need to adapt a more passive style because aggression cannot win there. An example being that flopping TPTK will never hold up when all 9 people see the flop and all 9 people call you down to the river. If your hand does not improve, some guy with his 10-8 is gonna hit two pair on you. Reraising in late position with AA or KK usually will not help you thin the field. I can remember countless occassions at IP where even though I aggressively reraised an early position raise with AA, I ended getting a family pot. And of course, my aces or kings always gets cracked by a backdoor 7-5 flush or something. When you do make the nuts, don't worry about overbetting it. You will always get paid off. But don't value bet only minimal hands there because every single pot is a family pot! Top Pair now has lost tons of value when every single person refuses to fold and sees 5th street. Also remember that weak players love to play any hand that has an Ace in it. So whenever you have a AK, AQ, AJ and an ace flops with a few ragged cards, remember that there is a possibility these guys made two pair with Ace-Rag. Most of the times I got in trouble at IP was when an Ace-Rag made two pair on me. The great thing about IP is that when you do have the nuts, you WILL get paid off. I flopped quad 10s one night and busted 4 people in one hand, and no one had any hand that had the value to call my check-raise on the river yet they still called. Just adapt a more patient style and don't try to bluff or be too aggressive against this lineup.

Talk about retarded people? you don't want to play a game with 9 calling stations? You can't figure out that this is a good thing.

There are lots of reasons not to play at IP. But that isn't one of them.

I wish I could find a table full of retard calling stations. I would play in that game all day everyday and make a lot of money.

I understand your points. I know it's good to have lots of people betting so in the end, if you play well, it will pay off.
But this was my first time, and I really wanted to learn something from this session. I guess I learned some things, just not what I expected.

I played the 11pm tourney at the Sahara the next night. Lasted through 2 breaks, but only got one good hand. QQ, and was beat by AJ. Busted out on pocket 9's.
I just decided to play 2/4 there for a few hours and made some friends, drank and had some fun.

Side Note: I hit a couple of nice jackpots on Wheel of Fortune, and I also met someone who won 77K in last year's WSOP tourney. I'll tell you about that later....

Firstly as others have said, why would you not want to play at a table full of calling stations?

Secondly it doesn't sound like you played there for very long, just because your raises got some callers did you really have the time to assess, and I quote 'every damn one of them was a calling station'?

Thirdly I was almost certainly 1 of the 4 guys at that table as I played at the IP on Valentines day with 6 ladies at the table and I thorougly resent being called a calling station by somebody playing NL for the first time!!!

@Karapet

You object to being called a calling station but you don't mind being called retarded?

My apologies, I was irritated when I posted that first post. If you were one of the very few that came and went for the 4 or so hours I played that WASN'T a "calling station", then I'm sorry. It was mostly the women, but the men that were there didn't seem to play very tight either - except for ONE guy, that must have been you.

It wasn't hard to get a read on most of those players because almost all of them followed the cards to the river calling and showing.

I know that it takes hours/days/etc to get a good feel on players, but I was just so damn irritated that my first experience with NL was just as stupid as 2/4 limit that I left early. I had all intentions of staying for the duration of the evening, but I saw no point.

Side note: I did some research and found out the player I played 2/4 with at 4am at the Sahara was Bob Whalen, he took home 77K from the 08 WSOP Main Event and he has placed very high the past couple of weeks in the Deep Stacks - one of them being 2nd and one being 1st place. He didn't want me to think he was lying I guess, so he took me to his lock box and showed me the check and about 25K in cash from the Venetian winnings. It was nice chatting with him.

@IndyGirl

Oh boy. Wait till the guys back at the casino in Milwaukee hear this! I think someone is pulling someone else leg here. The Bob Whalen I know would NOT be playing 2/4 at Sahara, or anywhere.

@psand

been called retarded many many times - never bothered me. NEVER been a called a "calling station" - I might take offense to that moniker.

All the "famous" Poker books don't teach you how to play against inexperienced "call stations". They mention that these players do exist for a paragraph or two, but they give us no detailed analysis or strategy. I think thats why the author of this post and many other players have problems with these "call stations". I can very much understand what she is saying.... It's like when you raise preflop in early position with AA or KK and get 6+ callers. Now suddenly your big pair has lower value since the whole point of "narrowing the field with a raise" is so that your big pair can Win without improvement. Call stations are the players I love to play against as well and I cannot stand playing with these ultra tight passive players here in California for one more second, but it's very understandable to find a WHOLE table full of these people as uncomfortable and unfavorable conditions to play under, especially when you have a limited bankroll.
Also I've seen David Williams, JJ Liu and Men The Master playing 200-buy in NL, so I wouldn't be surprised if some guy who cashed for $77K is playing at a micro stakes game.

@psand
As a Mensa member 'retarded' is easy to refute. 'Calling station' is not so easy plus of course this is a poker forum so poker insults even mild ones are more relevant.

I am still waiting on Karapet being a calling station during the mix game.... And waiting,

Anyway, I agree with the previous post. I think that IP is the type of game you should be looking for as a new NL player. You had the table pegged, you should know how it benefits you. If you get sucked out on, it's part of the game.

I haven't played a 200 dollar buy in game since I was in college, but I wonder if we could actually make more money acting as "card sharks" at these games like IP? From what I remember from playing at IP years ago, every single player was completely wasted, and many players didn't know the hand rankings and were still playing anyway. One guy thought that a flush beats a full house and another guy thought that a straight beat a flush. Playing bigger games at bigger rooms is quite stressful and it seems that the action is quite bad nowadays due to the recession, not to mention the games break after only a few hours. I think if we sat at the IP game all day long, we could actually cash out for more money then we would at a 2/5 NL game at Bellagio or a 20/40 Fixed Limit game at Wynn. The reason why I think this is because I remember back a few years ago I lost 3 buy ins in less than 1 hour when holding Aces every single time when some trash hand called my preflop raise and flopped two pair on me. Even though I was stuck 600 dollars I was still able to cash out for $1800 at the end of the night after about 10 hours of play. Eventually TIME caught up with those trashy call station players and they stopped catching good flops.

$1/2 NL on the Strip, esp at IP, is probably a different animal than you're used to. Being able to beat awful players is definately a learned skill, and it wasn't always cheap for me to learn it. Yes, you should want to be in a game like that, but there is also a very real chance that you'll get crushed in any given session by a bunch of monkeys as there is by a bunch of skilled players. The number one thing to remember IMO is they'll only turn aggressive with huge hands. The will call off their stacks all day, but they'll usually only shove when they've made a hand. If you can drop 2pr or worse when you see that kind of behavior change, you can beat that type of game consistently.

I owe IndyGirl an apology!

@Sauza

Oh boy. Wait till the guys back at the casino in Milwaukee hear this! I think someone is pulling someone else leg here. The Bob Whalen I know would NOT be playing 2/4 at Sahara, or anywhere.[/quote]

I was playing 3/5NL at Potowatomi in Milwaukee tonight. Bob Whalen was at a 3/5NL table next to me so I asked him if he was playing 2/4 at Sahara recently, and then about this thread. At first he said "No", but then it was like "OH, Yeah. There were about 5-6 of us having a beer and killing time." He also confirmed the trip to the box where he showed her the check, so that she knew he wasn't just BS'ing her.

It was good for a laugh at the tables tonight