LIVE PLAY

I went and played at the casino for the first time the other day - ring game, largely cos I'd missed my weekly tournament game, and it's pretty much next door to where I work.

I was amazed at how much money players threw around - and seriously these people didn't look well off, plus the play was pretty awful a lot of the time.

A guy who plays at my local pub tournament described the casino players as gambler's with cards, which seemed pretty apt.

But two things struck me - the variance in these games must be insanely high. Other than playing like a nit, any other suggestions for adapting your game?

I'm thinking about going maybe once every couple of weeks, and if I lose my buy in, too bad and if I win great- I'll put it towards a live banroll. The standard at online cash games is frustratingly high at the moment, and waiting for people to make big mistakes, doesn't seem to happen that much anymore because everyone is multitabling. Whereas in casino land people know the theory but don't care: Example:

Preflop:
Me AA
Player B raises to ten
Player C calls
Player D calls
I reraise to 40 (this is on a 1/2 dollar table, so I'm happy to take the 20 bucks here to be honest rather than have my AA s donkey cracked)

Player B folds
Player C calls
Player D folds

Flop: A,7,7

He checks, I check

turn 8 (rainbow)

He bets 40

I shove (I'd done it a couple of hands previously and he'd called with mid pair so figured he's on tilt)

He folds but shows J, 8

??????

Any thoughts, is this normal - I'm in Sydney.

What's the max buy in and rake structure like there?

And yes, live play is usually varying degrees of terrible at low stakes.

Hey, yeah 1/2 ring is obv the lowest level for people to play. So you cant expect a lot of well thought out strategy. From my experience, I have played Ring at Starcity, Crown(Melb) Jupiters (Bris) and Skycity(Adel) I live in Adel btw.
Another reason IMO casino play is much more loose is that:
1.people may have travelled a fair distance to play so they are more prone to call than fold.
2.It may be their first experience playing poker, so they don't understand many of the fundamentals.
3. and finally alot of people are just plain Gambling. maybe they think of Poker just like craps and Blackjack, and are just trying to get lucky.

One guy at my local card club puts it this way -
'I don't drink, do drugs or chase women and I'm too old to play any sports, so I love the rush I get when I shove my whole stack in when I have 82o.'