Had my first foray into Gaming Club poker today, after a long while spent trying to get my account to work
. My first impressions are good; the software is like every other prima site (fairly mediocre to poor, to be honest) and there are some nice additional features such as a link to be able to track your bonus release rate (though they havent creditted me with one yet, for some reason, which seems a bit bizarre!). The tiny amount of time for making decisions is annoying but it DOES make for very, very high hand rates which is superb if you're bonus clearing or looking to build your rebate playing solid ABC poker and laying down anything marginal. As my omaha games involves a lot of aggression and occasionally putting plays on people, however, this might not suit me particularly well.
So far I've tried NL, PLO and PLO8 here at a variety of levels in my first few hours. I'm about $120 up, plus whatever bonus and rake I've freed. The NL games look fairly passive and populated by poor players, though I don't know if this'll be to my liking yet or not. I'll hav to put some actual focus into playing this game if I want to do as well as KennyG at the $100NL games. Omaha is more my current focus, however, with gaming club offering decent action in both PLO and PLO8 (not much limit though, which is annoying because I intended to clear the last $200 of my bonus playing 2/4, 3/6 or 5/10 limit O8!). Initial impressions are that both the $50PLO and $100PLO tables are juicey and full of a lot of very straightforward players who act pretty passively and seem to pay off good hands. There are some snakes in the grass though, I bet out today on a 229 rainbow flop with nothing when it was checked to me, and my opponent check-raised me. Of course, I folded and claimed I had a 2 with no kicker, he reacted with surprise and thought I was trying to buy it (so he made an over-the-top steal, a pretty swashbuckling play!) so they're not ALL loose and passive. Average pots for the games looked good.
Only minor quibble was that at times i've checked there's been only one 10-handed $100 buyin available. Once I can put more money in (first deposit they only allow $500
) I'll check out the $200 buyins, I doubt whether there is a significant imporvement in quality. The $50PLO today was certainly very weak and featured a few more total novices than the $100 - an example hand, I have QQxx and flop brings KQ4 all spades. It's checked to me so I pot bet my set (as I tend to), one caller. I think he might have a set as well so I bet the turn again, he calls. River doesn't pair the board, he checks to me so I make a small-ish bet (quarter pot or so) to see him off if he had a set of kings; he calls and LOSES, I had no idea this was a value bet lol!
PLO8 today was again much as expected, not especially loose or crazy but quite beatable as well, not a lot of raising but a lot of players willing to call raises, one or two very poor players at the $100 level and mostly fairly passive, mediocre opposition.
I know from experience that the tourneys here are very good (played at some other prima sites) so I might look into some O8 tourneys while i'm playing here.
In summary, omaha action is reasonable and not dissimilar to, say, Stars. Plenty of tables at peak times but if you play at $100 and $200 level like me off-peak you'll not find more than maybe 2 full tables.
So far, so good!
Monk
xxxxx
