Casino Rama: First time at a casino

Hey I played for my first time at a casino this week and figured I'd share my experience to any other casino newbies out there. I played at Casino Rama in Ontario, they have a few low stakes no limit tables (1/2 and 2/5) with 20bb minimums.

I went in very intimidated, I'm used to playing 2-10NL online, have played a few thousand hands at 50NL, and so was expecting the level of play to be extremely high at the $1/$2 tables.

Similar to my strategy at 50NL online, I was going to be short stacking and playing very straightforward ABC poker, at least until I had a solid stack to work with.

Any fears I had about the level of play were immediately destroyed after the first orbit. There were 11 players, and on average, 6+ were seeing the flop, regardless of any preflop raises. As an example, I had JJ from early position and raised to $12. I got 9 callers. Several times with AK I raised to $30 to thin out the field and got called by 5-6 people.

My entire experience was basically one big donkfest. I ended up 4 buyins my first night but hit some really unlucky streaks the next day to end breakeven. Which, if I didn't have tremendously bad luck, would have been up about 10-15 more buyins. As an example, I had QQ, I bet $30, got 4 callers, flop came trash, raised 1/2 pot, 2 callers, turn came more trash, I go all in, guy with Ace high calls and gets an Ace on the River. Other example, I had JJ, guy calls tremendous PFR and C-bets with 10-6os with a gutshot straight draw and ends up hitting on the river.

So I'm not sure if this is normal casino play, specific to Rama, or maybe a weird experience, but with a proper bankroll, some patience, and time, an average player could have crushed the $1/$2 tables. I would say the level of play was somewhere between free poker and 2NL.

That's pretty close to the way it is in Auckland. The 1/2 tables are pretty passive - I've had hands where I had 7 people limp around to me in the BB, I raise to 20 and get 5 callers. The 2/3 (and higher limit when they get those going) is much more aggressive, but still just as donky. If you can handle huge swings there's a lot of money to be had there.

Even hour to hour it changes a lot, so you can't really use standard plays or expect to players to behave predictably. There are some really good players there as well, so you have to be careful.