[ba-poker] Baby No-Limit Hold'em Game at Lucky Chances

[Alan Bostick <abostick(deleted the rest)>]

Lucky Chances Casino, in Colma, California, is now spreading a
small-buyin no-limit Texas hold'em game.

The structure is $1 blind on the dealer button, $1 middle blind and
$2 big blind, with action starting at $4 to go.  The minimum buy-in
is $40 and the maximum is $100.  You can only buy more chips if you
have less than $100 in front of you, and only enough to bring your
stack up to $100.  Unlike the larger NLHE games at Lucky Chances,
players may not kill, and new players do not need to post to get a hand.

Except for the blind structure, peculiar to Northern California lowball
and NLHE games, the game is structured identically to the no-limit
games one finds at online poker sites, such as PokerStars or 
UltimateBet.

Lucky Chances' management is clearly hoping to capitalize on the
interest in no-limit hold'em generated by poker games on television
such as the World Poker Tour.

I am told that they began to spread the game last Wednesday (April 7).
On Friday night, the game was lively and spirited, with a significant
list of players waiting to get in.  The quality of play was about what
you might expect, i.e. terrible – not quite as bad as you'd find in the
dime-and-quarter-blind games on PokerStars, but still pretty easy to 
beat
over time.  Be prepared to weather some outrageous beats, but on the 
whole a
nd overall solid play is going to win the money.

I have no clue whether or not the game is going to be sustainable.
No-limit poker is notorious for the ease with which the better players
can take the poorer players' money.  The game might burn out its player
base really quickly.  On the other hand, if no-limit hold'em on 
television continues to attract new players into cardrooms, this game 
might turn out
to be sustainable over the long haul.

Grab your rods and reels and your best lures, folks!  The fish are 
biting
at Lucky Chances.

--
Alan Bostick          | This Age wanted heroes.
abostick(deleted the rest) | It got us instead
                      |      Tony Kushner, A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY
http://www.spicejar.org/asiplease/