Trip report: Hollywood Park at Los Angeles, CA

View from the Hollywood Park parking lot

Whenever I travel, be it for pleasure or business, I make a concerted attempt to experience the local casinos of the area.  This week, I find myself in Los Angeles, California, home of the Lakers, smog and movie stars, among other things.  L.A. also happens to be poker-friendly area, with more than 5 large card rooms in the immediate vicinity.  In planning for this trip, I decided that I would try to visit at least 3 casinos in the 4 nights I would spend out west.

I flew into LAX on Monday, and after an easy flight and quick turnaround on car rental / hotel check-in, I found myself with a free afternoon.  Being that I have had a craving for In-n-Out since my last visit out west 2 years ago, I proceeded to the nearest fast food burger joint for a late lunch.  (If you haven’t had a chance to try In-n-Out, I highly recommend it; fresh ingredients at McDonald’s prices, with FAR FAR FAR better taste and no indigestion.)  Stomach laden with a fresh cheeseburger, French fries, and a diet Coke, I was ready to scratch my live poker itch.  After a quick google map search of casinos nearest to the area, I settled on the closest, Hollywood Park.  I jumped in my rental and headed out.  (BTW, props to Ford for their Ford Focus.  I really like this car.)

I figured that I would be going to a “local” casino, akin to a tribe casino.  As such, Hollywood Park was exactly what I expected.  Entrance to the casino was typical: table games to the left, poker tables to the right, horse track straight ahead.  Once inside, though, I found the casino rules to be totally different than what I had been accustomed to.   There are a few major differences to LA area (and not sure whether it applies to the whole of California) casinos, as well as minor tweaks to the “normal” poker room rules.  I will detail them below in two sections, -EV games and poker.

All of the below description is merely my interpretation and not in any way verified as factual.  It is what I interpreted / understood from my short time in the casino.

• -EV games

The rules in LA (or California, not sure whether it’s state or local) are that “gambling” is illegal, but games of skill are okay.  Therefore, the house is a conduit for skill games; it charges a “commission” for playing the role as dealer.  Basically, the house / dealer is paid $3 for every hand of blackjack, 3 card poker, etc.  A separate entity, “the bank,” an independent contractor to the casino, provides a bankroll from which to pay the players and collect the players’ losses.  This “bank” entity is a physically separate person, apart from the dealer, who has opted to essentially play the role of the house.

All players have a chance to act as the bank, paying $3 per hand dealt in exchange for the privilege.  Surprisingly, I observed 100% of players playing the role as player, never as bank.  I’d imagine playing the role of bank is akin to playing the craps line; looked upon as unfavorable.  However, I couldn’t help but think that playing as the bank clearly makes the most sense; the more bets / money in action, the lower the $3 commission effectively becomes.  It surely was an interesting twist on table games.

One additional note is that blackjack in Hollywood Park pays 6:5 instead of the normal 3:2.  Again, in my mind, this clearly favors playing to role of bank.

• +EV games (ala poker)

Hollywood Park poker room; pretty typical (sorry for the blurriness)

My bread & butter…  Poker in LA is simply… well… different.  The first thing I noticed when I sat down at my typical 1 / 2 NL game was the buy in was $40; no more, no less.  20BB?  Really?  Oh yeah; bonus if you fall below $20, you can rebuy to $60.  I don’t get why the 1 / 2 tables have a $40 buy-in cap; perhaps one of the readers can enlighten me with the logic behind it.

With the third hand, I found myself nearly all in pre-flop as I raised to $18 with AQs in the CO after everyone (10 person tables at Hollywood Park) limped to me.  Literally.  Everyone limped.  I would be happy here taking the blinds and moving onto the next hand.  However, a woman who fancied herself a real pro, decided to flat in the SB.  The table folded around and we saw a heads-up flop of 7 x x.  She auto-shipped her remaining $16-18 (guess she’s never heard of checking to the raiser) which I obviously snapped, and was shown the bad luck of her holding A7ss.   However, runner runner Queens to the rescue bailed me out and I now had a workable >50BB stack.  Moreover, she was PISSED, and started SPEWING chips.  She was appalled that I make a call for my stack with nothing but two overcards.  Granted, it did suck for her, but gimme a break; 10BB out of 20BB effective stacks with Ax sooted?  Get over it.  You may as well have shoved pre flop.

Approximately 20 minutes later, I raised from EP with AQs again ($10) and was 3bet  to $20 by the tilted reg middle aged white guy who kept complaining to whomever was listening that I was running my mouth and jabbering way too much.  Seeing that he was just DYING to make a move on me, I decided to 4bet shove for his $40 effective stack.  He hemmed and hawed but made the call.  I was shown A3ss.  Nice hand, sir.  Queen in the window, and I’m almost to a full buy in (100BB).

After spending 45-60 minutes getting my bearings and the lay of the land, I grew bored of 1 / 2 NL $40 which played like limit poker (players would typically raise the blinds to $4) and decided to move up to the 2 / 3 $100 buy in game.  Big time, I know…  Since I moved tables, I could not bring my +$100 stack to the table; I had to pull cash off the table to get to the $100 no more no less buy in rule.  I would wind up walking away up $50 for the night without any major hands or significant decisions.  Overall, though, the 1 / 2 game was EXTREMELY soft, and the 2 / 3 game had soft spots but was more difficult.

A few observations for Hollywood Park: every pot pulls $1 for the bad beat jackpot, regardless of flop or not.  The rake is $5 flat (+$1 for the jackpot), assuming the pot reaches a threshold $$ amount, which I could not determine.  The betting line never seems to be enforced; in fact, I queried a dealer about how a bet is constituted and was told that forward motion constitutes a bet.  Therefore, there is no need to push your bet past the betting line.  Angle shooter, anyone?  Finally, there is neither a dead button nor single blind.  If a player leaves when he / she was supposed to be the button, the would-be big blind posts a big blind (as the new SB), and the would-be UTG position posts a big blind (as the new BB).  The would-be SB posts the SB but receives the button.  What a weird rule.  If a player leaves when he / she was supposed to be the SB, I can’t exactly remember what happens, but it’s just as screwy.

Up next on the trip report: Commerce Casino.