Long time no blog! I haven't been playing as much, and when I've been playing I've been getting crushed. Playing more cash than tournaments as well through the holidays. It has just been hard to devote a whole day to a tournament.
Recently I came across a home game in Las Vegas that I have been playing at. Played 3 times, although I doubt I'll be going back anytime soon.
A guy runs a private game out of his house. It's not really private, anyone can go and he's actively recruiting new players. It's about 10-15 minutes away from the strip. He rakes the game, although they have found a loophole in the "no rake" laws. You throw the dealer a $5 chip after each hand, and he throws you back whatever's left after they rake the pot. They rake up to $3 plus $1 for jackpot, and typically just keep the extra $1 as tip if the rake is maxed out. Not bad. Same as a casino or $1 cheaper depending on where you play. The host and his wife are very nice, and very hospitable. They have a nice spread of food laid out each day, as well as free drinks (beer, alcohol, soda, etc). It's a really nice setup.
We found out about it on Facebook and went. First night was actually pretty good. They had some REALLY bad players there, which is what I was hoping. I mean, who even goes to a home game in Vegas? Some good players too, but a decent balance. There was this group of deaf people who apparently have some other underground tournament poker league in Las Vegas. I thought it would be weird playing with deaf people but they were actually some of the nicest people there, very friendly. Towards the end of the first night it got pretty short, like 5 handed, but we still played for a long time and had fun. I was stuck about $450 but ended up winning $50 by the time I left.
It seemed like a pretty fun setup. The pros were - nice setup. The host and his wife were really nice and he was a lot of fun to play with. Dedicated dealer, and the dealer they had was very good. They did have a backup dealer that came in later who was ATROCIOUS but it was his first time and he obviously would not be invited back. People were pretty nice. Possibly bad players there. They were bragging about how sick the game was the time before. This time was decent, but apparently the last time was ridiculous. I was looking forward to the next time out.
Next time, it wasn't as great. There were basically no players. We showed up with 4 players (myself included) and we ended up playing against the host and this other regular guy that is always there. Not exactly what we were hoping. No bad players (save for our 2 friends), playing somewhat shorthanded, and the next dealer wasn't as good as the original one. OK, no big deal. We'll try this again.
Next night, the experience was even worse. One nice thing about going to this place is that it should have (in my mind) been a more friendly atmosphere than the casino. The third night there were more players, but a couple of the guys were the typical poker players you would see in the casino, with the same terrible attitudes. Not talking AT ALL. One guy wore sunglasses, and the other guy wore headphones. He didn't even bring his own, he shows up and asks the hosts for headphones, and he gives them to him. :P So now I'm just at this 1 table game playing with some idiots with headphones and sunglasses on. There were a couple bad players, but a bunch of decent ones too. At that point, I'm just playing at the casino. But of course there are downsides too. First, who knows how legal this game really is. The host says he got it checked out with gaming, but who knows. Second, if anything goes down in this game (guy starts going crazy, pulls out a gun, we get robbed), there's no recourse. That basically can't happen in a casino.
So I doubt we will be going back. Gave it a shot and the guy does have a nice setup, and like I said we really enjoyed playing with him. But there aren't really any big upsides to playing there, and there are definite downsides. So I'd probably rather just continue at the casino.
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