Sporting Emporium Thursday FreezeOut.

ArmaniJeanss

Joined 'The Emp' today and planning on having a bash at the €50 DCFO tomorrow night (will be dead money as normally play $5 & $10 STTs online).

Quick couple of questions if anyone can help (Have read Musicians excellent guide above so will hopefully avoid stringing etc).
1. What sort of time should I be arriving at?
2. Will it be dealer dealt (if self-dealt is it acceptable to refuse to deal) ?
3. Roughly how many players participate?.
4. Blinds go up every 30mins apparently, is there a visible 'countdown clock' or is it up to each player to have a rough idea of how long is left ?
5. If a level is to be skipped, are we told well in advance ?

More generally, how easy is it to adjust to the lack of information you have vis-a-vis online poker, e.g, online the software tells me how much is in the pot, so if post flop I want to lead out with a 60%pot continuation bet its fairly simple to work out. Whereas live I suspect theres just a big pile of chips in the centre. Will the dealer be able to tell me how much is in the pot etc.
Ditto with knowing how many chips each player has left, who are the short, medium, big stacks, what is everyones M, who is going to be crippled by the next blind increase, all these are fairly easy online, how long does it take to adapt to being able to do these instant calculations live?

Sorry if the 2nd part is a bit vague, any answers/other advice/pointers gratefully received,
Regards
AJs

Dub13

ArmaniJeanss wrote:

1. What sort of time should I be arriving at?

Officially it starts at 8:30 so around 8:15 and you should be fine.

ArmaniJeanss wrote:

2. Will it be dealer dealt (if self-dealt is it acceptable to refuse to deal) ?

Dealers provided,abit experienced but they are fine.

ArmaniJeanss wrote:

3. Roughly how many players participate?.

Hard to say as its only open a few weeks,I played it two weeks ago and it got around 50/55 runners.

ArmaniJeanss wrote:

4. Blinds go up every 30mins apparently, is there a visible 'countdown clock' or is it up to each player to have a rough idea of how long is left ?

They have a clock...but anytime I have been in they have had sport and poker on the TVs,but apparently if you ask for the clock to be put up they will.

ArmaniJeanss wrote:

5. If a level is to be skipped, are we told well in advance ??

Blind levels should not be skipped.

Dub13

As for your other questions.

At any point you can ask the dealer for a pot count and players should have there chips visible to all.If in a hand or not.

You will be fine with abit of experience,just relax and enjoy it.Poker players are a sound bunch (most of them anyway).If they know you are new they will be gentle.

BigDragon

Its the Fitz 250 tomorrow isnt it?

Dub13

BigDragon wrote:

Its the Fitz 250 tomorrow isnt it?

Yes...are you back from you conference...?did you get any poker in...?

ArmaniJeanss

Cheers,
much appreciated.

Dub13

Let us know how you get on.

ps:it may take you a while to get used to the hot eastern European chicks walking around,of course you may be used to this and have a few hot eastern European chicks walking around your bedroom when you are playing online....if this is the case I would have to ask you what are you doing leaving the house.

ionapaul

God bless the EU!

some of you may have heard me say something like this before

Dub13

ionapaul wrote:

God bless the EU!

some of you may have heard me say something like this before

Paul,
Do you still have "that girl" from the Mayfair in your secret dungeon...?

Einstein

howdy, never played the double chance before...whats it like? Might head in and join up with this place and watch the eastern european women....


and play some hands if i get any decent cards

Amaru

ArmaniJeanss wrote:

More generally, how easy is it to adjust to the lack of information you have vis-a-vis online poker, e.g, online the software tells me how much is in the pot, so if post flop I want to lead out with a 60%pot continuation bet its fairly simple to work out. Whereas live I suspect theres just a big pile of chips in the centre. Will the dealer be able to tell me how much is in the pot etc.
Ditto with knowing how many chips each player has left, who are the short, medium, big stacks, what is everyones M, who is going to be crippled by the next blind increase, all these are fairly easy online, how long does it take to adapt to being able to do these instant calculations live?

It takes a bit of getting used to. I went from playing pub tournaments, to online, to playing in casinos, and there is a lot more etiquette involved. You HAVE to say raise when you want to raise, you say the amount you want to raise to (not raise by), dealers will give you change on your bets, never fold out of turn etc. It takes a while to get used to, but then it becomes second nature.

sikes

what do i need to sign up and does it cost anythig...want to venture in and see what its like.

Washout

passport or driving licence, 10 euro fee but you get a 20 euro chip back.

and also both your index fingers

Rnger

ArmaniJeanss wrote:

Will the dealer be able to tell me how much is in the pot etc.
Ditto with knowing how many chips each player has left

Asking the dealer how much is in the pot is giving away free information about your hand to the other players. Best thing to do is to remember the amount of limpers and multiply it by the BB to get the aprox pot size quickly. Or if there was a raise, remember how many callers + folded limpers.

Asking a player how much they have left is fine, often id use this as a tool to push a player off a hand. If they raise and you think this bet is a possible bluff, ask them how much they have left and watch their reaction closely. if they let a brief sigh then you know its safer to push

Hope this advice is helpful, i much prefer playing live games

ArmaniJeanss

I dropped along on Thursday, quite nervous but emboldened by the advice of Dub13 and Amaru. Predictably enough no fairytale ending but moderately content with the way the evening went. (Managed not to string-bet, fold out of turn, say "D'ohhhh" when a flop missed me) etc
Game started at about 9PM with 30 runners (ended up with 32) and I was at one of the 7seat tables so the action went round fast and we seemed to fly through the hands. Didnt get involved for most of level1, just following the action and seeing who was doing what. 4 of the guys at my table seemed relatively tight, however guy to my right (orange tshirt, yappy) was involved in about 75% of pots, raising about 1/2 the time, and guy to my left seemed to be calling Orange most pots and raising him a lot as well, probably having played him before and knowing his looseness, so I felt very sandwiched. After about 20 minutes an unopened pot came to me on button and I raised to 200 with A3 and was happy to take the blinds (my 'live cherry' gone )
Couple of hands later in the BB, GoldDust, looked down to see 2 lovely black Bullets. Thnakfully I managed not to grin like a Cheshire Cat. Couple of limpers into me, I raised to 200, one of the limpers raised me another 600 and I put him all in for his remaining 300. My AA stood up against his AJ and, bloody hell, I felt like I was Phil Ivey.
Few hands later at level2 I hit JJ and raised to 300, Orange Tshirt called me, just the two of us in pot and a lovely J on the flop. Hoping he'd continue to be aggresive but the sod checked the flop(me also) and turn. I bet 300, and he looked at me, picked up 2 500 chips and said 'What would you do if I threw these in ???". All that came to me was 'It would make me stop and think". Sadly he laughed and folded.
Few hands later our table was split and I was moved to table1 along with OrangeTShirt. Went a bit card dead now, my only hand of note was an MP raise to 600 (blinds 75/150) with AQspades. 2callers, flop Jc2c3h is no help to me but I bet 600 as a probe, 1 fold but OrangeBoy pushes all-in and I fold (He told me during break that he'd flopped a set !!!).
After the break I was in weakish shape with 2500 chips (100/200). I decided not to limp with AXs and KJs style hands, but annoyingly every 2nd flop seemed to be one that would have given me Top2Pair etc if I'd limped.
I managed to steal the blinds a couple of times from Button/CO, but when the blinds went up to 200/400 I was in awful shape with 2200 (average 4600) and pushed UTG with A8d. When UTG+1 insta-called I knew I was in trouble, I was hoping it was 77 trouble or even KK trouble, but the diabolical bapsterd had AA. The turn gave me a 4th diamond and some hope, but a dead river saw me out in 19th position.

Still, enjoyed it and will return a few times to see if I can improve my game. Hopefully the $5 and $10 STTs winnings will counterbalance the live losses.

And I'd highly recommend live poker to anyone who is thinking about it but is nervous. The 'Emp' is luxurious, poker players don't bite your head off, and the East European chicks are indeed, hobba hobba stuff.
Cheers
ArmaniJs.

P.S No offence to Orange if you're a contributor/lurker to boards, it just happened that you were the oppo in 3 of the 5 hands where I put a lot of chips in !!!)