Answer 1:

From what I understand, the game dies in the summer months. Supposedly an occasional weekend game will go at smaller limits.

Answer 2:

We stayed there last year during the summer …awesome place…we loved it. we stayed at the Hyatt (?) next door was the Holiday Inn and they had 3 tables 2 seven card stud 5-10 1 buck ante, 5 buck (!?!) bring in (I thought that was a bit much but it did loosen people up a little) and one hold em table 5-10 .there was no one there until about midnight….the hotel we stayed at had a Bacarat area but no one played there at all..(all the Roulette tables we PACKED) but they would have made more money with a bunch of poker games.

Answer 3:

I can’t think of a better way to spend a vacation then the following:
Up at Noon – spend 4 hours on the beach eating, reading and lying in the sun.
5:00pm Massage
6:30pm Dinner
8:30pm to 4:00am – POKER!!!
This is usually the extent of my vacation days in Aruba -Last 2 times I was there I spent 10 days each doing nothing but the above – best 2 vacations of my life! Not sure if anyone else likes a vacation like this but I sure do!

Answer 1:

The ‘short answer’ is YES — but you need to have your results recorded in enough detail to estimate your “variance” too… For examples, with +$80 in 4 hours by +$22 +$17 +$20 +$21, you could be more ‘confident’ of your +$20 hourly rate than if those results were +$622 -$745, +$20, +$183…

Answer 2:

Mason Malmuth in his book, “Gambling Theory and Other Topics” has a chapter on computing your own personal standard deviation which is needed here for your calculation. He also has the math formulas to show how to compute number of hours needed to ensure a win, number of hours needed to determine how accurate your hourly rate calculation is, etc. See Pages 41-65 of his book. I think you should be able to manipulate his formulas to answer your question.

Answer 3:

The calculation is arithmetically correct, but overlooks the essential component of opportunity cost. The true return from playing poker is not your net winnings, but that amount less what you would have made in paid work during the same period. For most players, even the most successful, this is a negative figure, long term, presuming that they would have performed to the same level in another occupation.

Answer 1:

3 dollar rakes are fine. 3 dollar tips seem excessive.

Answer 2:

The whole setup sounds suspicious. In areas that have no legal high-limit poker, hustlers sometimes set up games like this, often with a crooked dealer and a couple of house shills who are cheating and colluding with each other, in order to suck money out of the pockets of naive locals who need to get their poker fix. The shills may be tipping $3-4 a pot in order to encourage the suckers to do so also. Then everybody involved splits up the profits at the end of the day and has a good laugh at the expense of the ‘marks’. Without knowing any more than what you told us, I’d strongly suggest staying away from this game. It may be on the up-and-up, but the high tokes are a clue that this may be a setup. In any case, when it comes to illegal poker, it is safest to always presume “guilty” until proven otherwise. Also, if you’re relatively new to poker, you shouldn’t be playing 10-20 anyway. If there’s no legal low-limit poker in your area, start a ‘friendly’ 2-4 game of your own with trusted friends.

Answer 3:

The average toke is $3-4?!?!?!?!? This is about 3-6 times the average toke in the casino in which I play. Is it really awful NOT to toke at that amount? Would they kick you out of the game if you didn’t toke or toked $1 instead? No game is completely unbeatable if the other players are horrible. But if they are even modestly tight it sure would be thought to beat that rake and toke combo. Not the rake alone minds you, but you’re doubling it with the average toke.

Answer 1:

I just phoned Casino Rama and was told that live poker may begin July 1st but that there is no firm date at this time.

Answer 2:

They won’t bring in poker till all the suckers go broke playing the other games first. This is the typical way they do things. Bust the suckers in the table games and slots. When things get tough bring in poker. Completion in the province would not hurt one bit rather then letting them sell out to foreign interests.

Answer 3:

They are SUPPOSE to bring Hold’em in on June 26 2900.

Answer 1:

Right now, the only clubs that regularly spread PLHE are Hollywood Park and Commerce. The host from HP has apparently defected to the new Hustler, and they’re supposedly going to have PLHE there 3 days a week. HP spreads 5/10 blinds, $400 buyin 6 days a week, and 10/20, $1000 on Sundays. Time collection is $7 per down for the 5/10 and $9 for the 10/20. I only play regularly at HP. I think Commerce has a 10/20, but I’m not sure of the buying or rake.

Answer 2:

Yes, the 5/10 game usually runs every night, with a 10/20 game on Sunday which has been starting around 5. The Hustler opening is going to affect everyone’s games, so you might want to call before you come down.

Answer 3:

Commerce has had a 10/20 blind pot limit game going most of the times I’ve been there. 800 minimum buying. They also had a 100/200 blind no limit deuce to seven lowball game heads-up between Johnny Chan and O’Neal, but us mere mortals can’t play that.

Answer 1:

About 30 tables but now that they have put in a Keno area they only have 20 tables. Occasionally they spread a $40-$80 game but normally their biggest game is $20-$40 and even that is dying out. During the week there is no $20-$40 during the day and only one table which starts around 8 or 9 pm and lasts usually for only 4 or 5 hours. On the weekends, they usually only get one game starting in the late afternoon. The Mirage has become a low limit poker room like most of the other card rooms in Vegas with frequent tournaments. I have been playing at the Mirage lately because I have been running good there, but I prefer the Bellagio because their is a lot of $15-$30 action with 2 or 3 tables going everyday and lots of tourists in the evening. They also get 1 or 2 tables of $30-$60 and that game can become quite good on the weekend in the evenings.

Answer 2:

It doesn’t have the same feel — I still play at the Mirage because I like the ambience of the room — the wood, the plants, etcetera. Bellagio has a lot of marble, though, in its favor, it does have the most comfortable chairs I’ve ever seen in a poker room.

Answer 3:

Both rooms have good low limit games if you’re looking for those limits. For HE, Mirage spreads 3-6 and 6-12, while Bellagio spreads 4-8 and 8-16. For higher limits than that, Mirage has 1 or 2 10-20 games going most of the time, and in the evenings 20-40 like Jim said. On the weekends, especially a busy weekend, they’ll often get a 2nd 20-40. Occasionally they’ll get a 40-80 game, but it’s very rare. Occasionally other things pot up, but very sporadic… for instance, last night they got a pot limit hold’em game going. I believe it was 5-10, $500 buy in. Bellagio, on the other hand, has much more game selection. 15-30 has always had at least 2 games going no matter what time I’ve been in there, and often 3 or 4 games. 5 on the busy weekend days. 30-60 usually has at least 1 game, often 2, but not uncommon to find 3 or even 4 games on the weekend evening. They also spread limits like 60-120 & 80-160, 200-400, all the way up to 1bazillion-2bazillion.

Answer 1:

I was touring the poker clubs in the Palm Springs area about four years ago. I found myself in the 10AM Free roll at Fantasy Springs. There wasn’t a lot of action so I got into an interesting conversation with the poker room manager at the time. I think his name was Snake Roberts (Snake something). I asked him what he thought of the poker books by Sklansky, Malmuth, Brunson, Caro and the like and whether he thought they made a difference. He had been telling me about his professional experience over the last forty years. I was thinking that he was about to trash poker authors as many pros do, for their lack of experience in the real world…you know, the “they can’t do so they teach” theory. He surprised me. He got very agitated. He said angrily that he thought these guys should all be sued. He said he was seriously considering filing a class action suit on behalf of professional poker players for infringement of trade secrets. I wasn’t sure if he was serious. Well he was. He went on and on about how they had revealed secrets that took pros decades to learn. It was an unfair advantage for some guy to buy a book for $30 and learn what it cost him thousands to learn.

Answer 2:

Don’t know the history here. But I know in general that you can explain in a book exactly how to win at poker and the vast majority of readers will either never follow the guidelines because they like the thrill of gambling instead, or will follow them so rigidly they can be read like the book they read. It is actually healthy for the games in my opinion.

Answer 3:

If players are totally clueless, they’ll get destroyed quickly, and quit the game. Having some minimal knowledge prevents this, gives them a chance to have winning sessions, and makes them into long term donators. Only a small fraction of those who read even the best books will become winning players at real limits. When the books create large winning classes of low-limit players, many of them move up into mid-limit games and become fish in those games. Some will become winning mid-limit players, but the greater number of mid-limit games and larger number of outclassed players make this positive overall. Those pros who play by “feel” now don’t stand a chance. But the best experts welcome the publication of books.

Answer 1:

I’m personally not worried about any online cheating, I think there is a better chance of catching people online than in a live game. At the same time, ANY hi-lo game offers more opportunities for collusion than a straight high “limit” game. If you were to play O8 with a partner, you could find numerous situations where you could put the squeeze on somebody, how’s this for a simple example: You are player A and your” partner” is player B. You hold Ah-2s-5s- 9s, and player B holds Kh-Qs-5c-3c. The board on the turn reads 3h-8h- 9h-7s. So the nuts here would be A-2 for low and an A high flush for high. Now player C holds 4h-5s-7c-8h for two pair, a straight draw, and a bad low which is the best hand for high at this point but has an extremely tough call to make, but still may.
What if this happens, player A bets and player B raises with his pair of three’s? Surely the two pair can no longer call, and the partners know that because player A has the key card-the A of hearts. Here’s a simpler one. Player A has nut low on the river, player B has nut flush for high, and player C is squeezed in the middle with second-second. Now on the river it goes bet-raise-call back to the guy with the nut low. If I had the nut low, I’d be worried about getting quarted here with another A-2. If your “partner” tells you he is going high you can re-raise with your A-2 and force the squeezed player C to put in a capped bet on the river!

Answer 2:

High-low split games provide much greater collusive opportunities than high-only games. There are several other specific examples that arise more commonly than the examples Daniel gave (but I don’t want to describe them because I don’t want to give anyone any ideas – I’m even a little uncomfortable that Daniel described the ones he did). While the ability to monitor play is important, I think that the low limits that currently reside online are possibly the greatest deterrent of all too collusive play. Those that feel these limits are worth their time to cheat probably don’t know how to do it very well and will either lose money trying, or will get caught in short order. If the limits keep climbing, however, it will be time to start worrying more.

Answer 3:

I think in the long run, the best way to eliminate cheating is to educate the public on the methods of the cheaters. The vast majority of players are honest, and the more eyes that are looking for cheating, the harder it will be for cheaters to get away with it. I also don’t think that there are any real secrets here. Cheaters in poker are often working in teams; the knowledge gets handed around within their circle, or they independently figure out a method that someone else has already invented.

Answer 1:
You sound sold on Mirage, but in my opinion the best poker rate in town for LL players is at the Orleans. Great rooms, great LL poker, with $35 poker rate. Not sure about Mirage’s poker rate. Just call the poker room and ask. Usually qualifying for poker rate requires x amount of play. Limit doesn’t usually matter.

Answer 2:
They usually charge $79 Sunday-Thursday with 6 hours of play, $109 Friday-Saturday with 8 hours of play.
Answer 3:
If you are bringing a date, then someplace nice is definitely what you want to do. I am going out there myself from 7/10 to 7/14 to maybe play a round or two at the Orleans Open, and will be staying at the Palace Station, which I find both affordable at 20/night(on www.lvrs.com) and friendly. The poker sucks, but I rent a car no matter where I stay so I am only a 10 minute drive to Mirage anyway.