The WinStar Casino on the border of Oklahoma and Texas just opened a poker room so I made the trip to check it out. It was only 1 hour and 10 mins from my house which is by far the closest legal live game.

The casino was bigger and nicer than I expected. The poker room has about 20 tables. they say you cant get a seat on the weekends because it so packed. One of these days Texas is going to wake up and legalize gambling.

They had $2/$5NL with a $300/$500 buy in and $5/$10NL with $500/$1000 buy in. I sat at the $2/$5 and bought in for $500.

The table was the most passive Ive ever seen. Hardly any pots were raised and people did not bet to protect their hand. Rarely was there even a flop raise. Perfect table for me.

The line-up.

Seat #1... Bearded Calling Station
Seat #2...Avg player who hit 4 sets in 30 hands (and got no action)
Seat #3...Moron who barely knew the rules and lost his car in the parking lot.
Seat #4...Very tight aggressive good player....oh wait..that was me
Seat #5...Nice guy (you'll find out why later)
Seat #6...Quiet guy..seemed good
Seat #7...Serious guy..seemed good at first but wasnt..claimed to play 30/60 limit and 10/20 NL....probably does.
Seat #8....Calling Station deluxe
Seat #9....Clueless underbetting guy.

I didnt play that many hands. I got 83, 74, Q2 over and over again most of the evening. So here are a few hands I did play.

#1) Very first hand. Im the BB with AT. UTG (nice guy) limps and its folded to me. I raise to $20 and he calls.
Flop is 973. I bet $30 and he calls.
Turn is a Q. I check/fold when he bets $40. He shows Q7s and says "good laydown"...lol

#2) Very next hand. 3 limpers to me and I raise to $30 in the SB with TT. I hear several sighs and one guy says "you gonna raise every hand"? I didnt know that would be the last preflop raise at the table in the 1st hour.

Bearded CS (calling station) calls. Flop Jxx. I bet $40 and he folds.

#3) I have 63 in the BB. 4 limpers.
Flop 6J6. I bet $20 and CS Deluxe calls.
Turn 2. I bet $40 and he calls.
River Q but puts flush out there. We both check and he shows J5. LOL

#4) 4 limpers to me and I raise to $25 on the button with KQ. I get 4 callers. Typical morons. They want to limp and never raise preflop but 4 of them want to play for $25.

Pot is $125. Flop is Qxx with a flush draw. Folded to guy who cant remember where his car is. He bets $25. I raise to $100 and he folds. He later told me he had a flush AND str8 draw. LOL..I wouldve pushed all in if I was him....He later called a river bet and then reraised a raiser with A8....the final board was QJT9T....he lost to JT.

#5) Serious Guy, who I thought was good until I saw him play K7,K9, Q4, and call 2 guys down with K9 on a KTT board, starts straddling UTG. Mustve saw that in his 10/20NL game that he claims to play with David Williams..

So he straddles, bearded CS calls, Avg guy calls, and lost car guy calls. I raise to $60 with KK on the button. Only Bearded CS calls.

Pot $140 or so. Flop Txx with flush draw. I bet $100 and he folds. Later says he had JJ. Cant believe he folded that, but Im sure thats what he really had.

#6) I get QQ UTG. I raise to $25 and get 4 caller. How can this be. OK, maybe Im the only one raising but its been 4 raises in 4 hours.

Pot $125. Flop 973. I start to count how many players are in so I know how much the pot is and the dealer says "ok, he checks". I say "No I dont" She says "you made an ambiguous hand gesture" ( I was pointing to players as I counted). I said "do you even know what ambiguous means"? Good idea, ice. Piss the dealer off. Anyway, she lets me bet. I bet $100.

Mr Nice guy calls in a flash. I knew I was beat immediately. Noboady has called a bet that big all evening. Folded around and we're heads up. I started the hand with $675 and he has somewhere near there.

Turn is a 2. Normally I would bet here but the pot is $325 and I know Im behind by the way he plunked his bet down. Serious guy even said "you called that without even thinking"?

I check and I swear he says "Im not going to bet it for you, lets check it down". Normally you would think thismeans Im ahead but I didnt think so. We did check it down and he won with KK. He says "you owe me one, I like you".

We've been talking the whole time. He apparently runs a bootleg NL game near my house, and has already given me his card and invited me to play. Real class guy (seriously). He says he donates to the police benevolent fund and they know he has the game going and they leave him alone. Hmmmmm......

#7) Folded to me in the SB. I have Q9s and Im about to raise when Mr Nice guy says "wanna chop"? I say "OK, but now we're even. I was gonna raise"

#8) 4 limpers to me on the button with JJ. I limp this time cuz I dont want 4 callers with JJ.
Flop is Q88. Clueless underbetting guy bet $5 into the $30 pot. Folded to me and I raise to $30 hoping to take it down but Nice Guy calls as does Underbetter.

Turn J. Cha-Ching! Underbetter check to me and I bet $75. Nice guy calls and Underbetter goes all in. (about $125 or something). I call and Nice guy says "I cant check this one down" and raises....$$$$$$$$$

We get all in and the river is another J. Underbetter has KK, Nice Guy has Q8, and iceman has all the money .

Ive never seen a more losse passive NL game in my life. Te $2/$5 NL game in Shreveport has guys calling $100 preflop with KQ and guys raising $100 preflop with AQ and its only a $300 max buy in game. What a difference.

Very enjoyable read Iceman. How long did you play for in all?

Looks like I am pulling a thousand out of the online bankroll and driving an hour and a half south. I didn't realize you lived so close to me Ice. I live in Oklahoma City. Weak Passive NL tables have to be my absolute favorite table of any type.

It's been an interesting month in Oklahoma with poker becoming legal. I have played some down at "Thunderbird" casino which is right in the middle of the state. It's also 10 minutes from Oklahoma University and a lot of college kids play there. The action is beatable, but not much fun. Those college boys are almost all weak tight. You can grind out a few bucks from them, but it's hard to make very much.

Please keep us up to date on your B&M exploits. It's a big help to people like me who live within drivng distance of the same places you go.

Ha ha, that was really funny, with the ambiguous hand gesture, and your description of the players. I have to try playing in a casino, sounds like a lot of fun (I've only played online and in home game). Thanks for the post, fun reading.

Boomer....if you ever want to meet up to play there let me know. Same for you Aisthesis.

The room opens at 4pm during the week and you need to be there at 3:30 to get a seat.
On the weekend..forget it. They have 50-100 people on the waiting list when it opens.

They will start opening at noon soon when they get more dealers.

I got there at 3:30 and the game started at about 4:10 with 7 players. It was full at 9 in a few mins. At about 6PM they had enough to fill a 2nd table. I left at about 8:30, but I suspect it gets real busy right around then. It closes at 3am

I played at the Red River Casino right above Wichita Falls and found it was great. It has 18 tables and had a $200 max and a $500 max. Where is Winstar?

I found all the things Iceman mentioned of inexperienced dealers who flash tons of cards, rules violations and inconsistent rulings, passive pre flop play, constant short stacks that hamper some plays, smoking, noise, slow play, and a loud but good live band started playing at 9 p.m. I will anticipate the environmental hazards of a new casino and not lose my cool or get involved in rulings or the hassles that come up often. String betting is allowed. Accept it. Once a guy playing with his wife also playing made a prop to split the pot with another player. The house man was called and ruled you could not split a pot. After the house man left, the young man said that they did not have to abide by the ruling and they did split the pot. Since you can't add to your stack or take money off the table, they broke all the rules. This husband talked during hands in a way that would clearly give information to his wife.

The dealers are annoying in that they hustle tips which is not allowed in Las Vegas. They say, "Great play, Sir. Good play, Sir." when they have not seen your hand.

My start there on a Saturday late in the afternoon coincided with a real huge rush of hands and I got my first pull out up to $2200 in the $200 max game. The cards treated me nicer than in Texas, New Mexico, or Nevada.

They have the abominable bad beat jackpots which are an insult to any intelligent person. Go expecting slow play and annoying disturbances. Johnny Hughes

WinStar is right on the border on I-35. Teh room is non smoking and my experience was much better than you described. Just a few kinks they need to work out since its new.

The dealers were inexperianced and did expose a few cards, but they werent annoying (except for the one who said I made the ambiguous gesture). She also told me to take my cell phone off the table, which I had no porblem doing, but when I asked her why, she said "I dont know, but its the rules". NO TIP FOR YOU!!

I swear casino play is scarey.

One of my first limit hands I decided to reraise a guy from EP to get him heads up and got 6 cold callers! It was a relief to be back on Party...

Rich

Hey Ice...I looked this Thackerville, Oklahoma up on Mapquest. This casino is about 100 miles from the Commance Red River Casino.

I'm for cell phones off the table because they might be used as shiners...mirrors.. to see the cards, especially with these new dealers who nearly flash your hole cards anyway. Bic lighters can be used as shiners, moving them around the catch the light. Some people sit a lighter a little too far out. The Plaza in Vegas has a no cell phone rule with a sign posted on the wall but it was violated some by unknowing people and no one said anything. Pardners can text message. There is a persistent rumor that some of the biggest names you would recognize were caught cheating using cell phones at the Bellagio. I believe it.

Before a road trip, I go on the internet for the casinos 800 number and call the poker room to see about little tournaments or what they are spreading. Winstar is 800 6226317. Mapquest shows it will be full of Dallas/Ft. Worth players.

Last week, I played Ruidoso and Albuquerque. New Mexico is the Land of Road Work and you may just stop for awhile anytime. I got stuck in a long traffic jam on the Interstate right before the casino turn off and had an unnerving hour wait.

I went in and played bad. There was only ten and twenty for me and I tried to bluff and run over them with no cards. My patience was blown. When it looked like I'd be facing a loss for the trip, I pulled up feeling bad about my own play.

Kind of funny that you ran into one of these live games, Ice. It always seems to be you that comments on my live hands when I make a 10x bb raise and get called by all 6 limpers now you know what those games are like.

As for the hand gesture, the dealer is actually right here, any hand motion that involves a moment that looks like it could be a check, even if you are counting the players in the hand, is usually considered a check. When I play live I try to not move my hands at all. Hands are also a great way to get tells from other players, so for that reason I try to make sure I dont move my hands so I'm not giving anything away.

finally its gotta be a good game when you are the only one who makes a preflop raise and one of the players cant find his car.

Great job! Sounds like those tables play rather differently than the ones I've been at. On the ones here, they're often too raisy.

We do need to meet sometime for a game. I think it would be great fun.

Oh, one thing I did notice last night (I had 2 days straight of just horrible cards, but finally today things shaped up and I had another good win night): A good LAG sat down pretty late and cleaned up nicely against the weakest player at the table (AX raiser). While my strategy was going to be, "Get a good hand and call him down," I just never had the opportunity. But this LAG guy had the balls to checkraise the weak guy big, and made several hundred dollars very quickly (then left)--I wish I did have some kind of ability to turn on a palman-type game sometimes... This guy wasn't as good at it as palman, I know, but in the same spirit... It is a nice weapon to have on occasion.