Notes from the Oceans Eleven Casino & Palomar Card Club

A few notes that I took for the OE / Palomar poker rooms:

• No post required when sitting as a new player in a hand out of big blind
• No dead button; it certain cases, the table will go three blinds in order to avoid a dead button.  In the specific example, the SB gets up & leaves table.  The would-be Big Blind posts the BB and sits as the Small Blind and the would-be UTG posts BB as the new Big Blind.  During the next hand, the Big Blind posts the BB normally, the Small Blind posts the SB normally and BTN also posts a SB.  Thereafter, future hands normalize.
• The bad beat jackpot requires both hole cards but not necessarily pocket pair to make qualifying quads; i.e. board of 3 3 3 8 8 qualifies if one player has 3 T (because the T kicker plays) and the other player has 8 8, etc.  As a result, the BBJ is typically $20-40,000 - smallish.  Aces full of Kings generally qualifies for the BBJ (Oceans Eleven for certain; not sure about Palomar Club)
• The tables are 9 max.
• The rake is $5 (for the 2/3 NLHE at least) every hand.  Flat fee.  No flop, no drop.  Stealing blinds *DEFINITELY* makes sense here because a simple BTN / CO raise nets $5.  Limping the BTN / CO puts your limp as the only pot on the flop (since the $5 gets dropped immediately, which makes up the SB + BB).
• They run a 1/1 $60(?) game, a 1/2 $100, 2/3 $300, 2/5 $1500...
• Again, the Blackjack offerings - in fact, any table game offerings [it seems] are interesting in what I suppose is all of California.  The casino charges a per-hand fee, $0.50, and have an outside contractor hired to bankroll the part of the "house."  If players so choose, they may take over the bank and play the side of the house for the same $0.50 fee per hand.  This rule seems to be universal within the non-Indian run casinos.
• Oceans Eleven has a huge room with LOTS and LOTS of tables.  It's not quite the Commerce, but it's certainly up to par with Charles Town...  somewhere around 40-60 tables.  The limit tables are in another room.
• Palomar Card Club is a small, home game atmosphere.  It has [at most] 8 tables, and they are must-move.  It was definitely a reg fest.  It should be noted that I will *NEVER* return to Palomar Card Club in future visits.  Simply put, it is not a very safe place.  Apparently, there are pimps and hoes right down the street, and the area is generally shady. 
• Palomar does not have points / etc., but they give you a $5 voucher for every day played more than an hour and a half.  You can use the voucher to get food from the local restaurants (i.e. Dominoes around the corner, or a sushi place) or purchase water @ $1 / bottle.
• For what it's worth, Poker Wiki has a comprehensive page on the California poker offerings.

Short Trip Report from San Diego - Palomar Card Club

I went downtown to eat with my coworkers last night and found myself 10 minutes away from the Palomar Card Club.  I figured I'd try to get a little poker variety while I'm here, and was kinda nervous when I drove by and saw what basically amounted to a Starbucks-sized "club."  Parking was fairly easy, but I was nervous from the cast of characters hanging outside on the street, taking a break from the non-smoking rules of the club inside.  Nevertheless, I persevered against my initial judgement, parked and went inside.

There were around 7-8 tables total, of which 6 were in action.  There was a constant buzz as well; somewhat noisy with no discernible background music.  I felt like this place was right out of an underground poker club, except this place was fully licensed and legal.  Going up to the brush desk, I was surprised to find that they hold their chips in an unlocked, seemingly insecure cabinet.  The brush was able to ship me my $300 buy in (same stakes as the Oceans Eleven Casino, 2/3), and I was seated almost immediately.

I sat down, and like Oceans Eleven, I wasn't required to post.  I started to settle in, watching players, looking for ideas as to how they play, etc. but before long, I was told to move to another table - i.e. the "must move" feature, which I don't believe I've ever experienced.  I'm not quite sure the logic behind a must move, but I didn't have to re-post blinds or anything, so it was okay by me.  Unfortunately, though, I was moved over to a table with better players, where I really needed to think about things rather than autopilot my way through the donks.  Make no mistake; these players were no Tom Dwan or Phil Galfond...  but they certainly new how to run a bluff and were aware that aggression is key.

Third or fourth hand, I wake up to QQ in the BB and watch 3 or 4 overcallers calling a mid position $12 raise.  I 3bet it to $45 (which in retrospect, should have been more) and a supposed loose player and an unknown call.  (I was told the loose player was loose / aggro by a player to my left who had apparently had a lot of history with him.)  Flop [natch] comes A K 3 rainbow.  I [stupidly] lead out for $45 and get raised by aggro to $140 ($300 effective, FWIW).  Folds to me and I think through the situation...  I truly truly contemplate a shove / call but can't bring myself to actually execute...  I fold and he flips J 7 hh for the bluff.  DAMNIT!  I knew his story didn't make sense.  Welcome to aggro poker :-).

Here was my thought process:  I 3bet PF and he's flatted 2 raises.  If he's aggro he's almost definitely raising pocket pairs and certainly good Aces.  He's calling down all his other weak Aces, wanting a cheap showdown.  He *HAS* to be concerned with AK, AA, KK, all within my 3bet range.  Granted there are some bluffs in there, but  is really trying to raise me off my bluffs (unless he has a bluff himself)?  Lesson learned...  against this player, take your time and think through the situation.

I would get a few chances to extract some money from him; he would frequently raise his BB and aggress his way into a non-showdown win, but whenever he'd get his money in, he always had "some" equity.  I stacked him once when he called a 3bet (again I'm OOP) to $45 and I held AQss - flop of Q Ts 3s.  Checked the flop, check / jammed the turn and stacked his KTo (nice call of a 3bet), but broke even on the pot because a short stack degen had essentially called all-in PF and turned a guttter KJ straight.  (I would also later nut on him with with a QT straight vs. his supposed set ($10 raise PF, check flop... $290 all in on the turn with the turned straight FTW & $300+ winnings).

EDIT:  I want to include a comment made below in response to a question about the QQ 3bet hand and how it plays into the hand above.  In the QQ hand, I thought about it after the hand... and I realized I made the "classic" "same bet" tell, where I bet the same bet on the flop as I had PF.  This is usually a weakness tell that more astute players know.  After 3-4 hands, I'm not very accurate at sizing up this guy's game, so I choose the default fold, unwilling to stack off with what could very easily be an A or K.  Noted.  It would play into the AQ hand, though, which I failed to fully describe until being reminded of it from the below comments.

So the action went like this: 3bet to $45 and 2 callers, the KJ turned straight guy with an effective stack of ~80 and my nemesis.  I check the flop, looking to induce his bet which he doesn't bite.  Then, I decide to cbet the "same bet" on the turn as a delayed cbet... the turn was an offsuit 9, if I recall correctly.  As if scripted, he immediately raised me to ~$140, putting shorty all in.  I contemplated for a few seconds, sizing him up and announced all in myself.  He insta-called, believing me to be bluffing / hoping for his gutter Jack / over King / trip Ten to hit.  I believe he's drawing WAY thin (as was the gutter boy) because I'm 4 flushing and I don't think any of them had spades in their hand.

The crux here, though, is that I was able to use a false tell to induce action and stack someone (although the resultant pot was *A LOT* lighter than it should have been due to the short dick winning the main pot).

The only hand that "bothered" me on the night was where I jammed my TPTK AcTx against his 98 two pair on a T 9 8 cc board and I went runner runner QQ for the better two pair.  As I said, he's wont to raise BB and he did so with 98hh PF after a few limps (he raised to $15).  My plan was to limp raise but I don't remember why I abandoned that plan...  Anyway, I feel like I'm pretty good jamming TPTK against this type of player because he has so many draws that he's calling where I'm on the good end statistically - he had snapped off with mid pair and no re-draw earlier, and I had seen him play up & down poker...  Egg on my face, but happy to sweep up the winnings for a decent winning session.

I don't know that I'd go back to Palomar Club, because it felt very much like a home game where everyone knew everyone by name.  However, it was fun to get back into the "home game" scene for a respite from the casino scene.  It's always also nice to get a decent win :-)