I never thought the day would come when I said this: I had a great time playing poker in the casino in Pittsburgh, PA, last night! (Winning was also nice) It’s been a long time coming getting table games (and casinos for that matter) started in Pennsylvania, and I’m glad that politicians finally woke up and made this happen. It’s definitely a good thing, not just for gamblers and poker players, but also for the struggling economy and neverending battle to balance the budget in this state. I suspect that Poker is here to stay in PA given how overly crowded the casino was last night on a Thursday night!
The Rivers Casino located at Pittsburgh’s North Shore right next to Heinz Field and PNC Park is surprisingly very top notch. Here is a link to its website: http://www.theriverscasino.com/ . I was impressed with just about everything about this place when I walked in last night. The floor is absolutely enormous, brand new, and dare I say, it kind of had that new, modern, Aria feeling to it when I walked in. Certainly it is not up to the level of the Aria, but its got that new feeling about it, and it is a very high quality Casino that I would definitely categorize as Vegas quality.
The Poker Room is gigantic! 24 tables right now with tons of space! The tables are 10-handed right now, unfortunately, and a little tight on space, but there is plenty of room to get up, walk around, and feel comfortable. I suspect that they will expand and add tables because they definitely have the space. The main games spread are 1/3 and 2/5, but I was also shocked to see that they had 2 tables of 5/10 running! They had 1 table of 1/3 PLO going as well. The poker room was absolutely packed at 730pm when I arrived there on a Thursday night! I’m sure that a lot of the reason for the big crowd is the newness of table games in PA, but still, it has been 2 weeks, and this place was packed last night.
I do have one small complaint about the poker room, and I’m actually a little hesitant to mention it because it’s kind of bad form and not really my style. However, I would be remiss if I did not say that the dealers in the poker room need a little work. I know they are very new, and I’m sure that over time they will improve drastically, but some of them were struggling with some very basic aspects of dealing. For example (I’m sorry, I have to get this off my chest), I had 1 dealer sit down and take about 2-3 minutes to count the chips in front of her. After this, she proceeded to realize that the table was short $5, and that this was the worst thing imaginable that could possibly happen. So, still not having dealt a hand yet, she stops what she is doing and calls the floor (unbelievable, I know). The floorman then comes over and freaking counts all the chips in front of her personally! By this time, about 5-6 minutes have passed without any hands dealt. Finally, he acknowledges that $5 is missing and tells her that she can proceed dealing. Right now I’d like to say that she started dealing, but you guessed it, this was not the case. After all of that, she actually had the nerve to point out that something seemed wrong with the automatic shuffler on the table, and she requested a new set up!!!!!! Holy shit was I steaming at all of this! I know she is new and all, but hopefully management will start to teach her something about slowing down the game. After her half hour shift, she only ended up dealing about 1 rotation around the table. I was thinking to myself that I would not tip her if I won a pot; however, I won a sizeable pot with KK vs 2 players in a 3bet pot, so I swallowed my pride and shipped her a couple bucs. Very Frustrating, but I’m sure that things will improve in this area.
As for my play, I ended up the night almost doubling my buy in of $300. I was up to having about $800 on the table at one point, but I left with just shy of $600. I thought I played very well with the exception of bluffing off about $300 at one point. Other than that, I had my fair share of run good and run bad to even things out. I’ll go into details about a couple interesting hands.
Hand 1, I sucked out on a nitty “know-it-all professor” type player, and it was great! I had AJ0 in the BB in a pot with about 6 limpers, so I elected to just check. Flop was J43 rainbow, and I led out for like $12, and the nit raises me to $30. Obviously, his range is any J, or a set here, because he’s not the type to raise with 56 or something like that. So I call, and check the turn (I think the turn was a 8 or 9). He then bets $45 I believe, and he bet it quickly, which led me to believe he had something like QJ/KJ more so than sets, so I called again. The River was another J, so I elected to lead out with about $100 because that’s all he had left, and I’m not folding anyway. He then stands up and starts to get pissed and curse and tell me “of course you have a jack here” and “I had you so bad the whole way.” He then folds 43s face up and is openly mad at me. HAHAHA, cha-ching! I wish I would have checked and let him try to bet again, lol.
Hand 2: Coolering nits! Villain was your typical nitty, tight, older gentleman. I had K5s on the button, and about 5 people limp in front of me, so I limp. Flop is 557 rainbow. Everyone checks to me, I bet, he calls. Turn is a K. He check calls me again. River is an 8, and he checks again. I take him to value town for $85, and he snap calls turning over T5 (he was the BB). Cha-ching again!
Hand 3: One of my last hands on the night. I had about $800 in front of me when this happened. Karma I suppose. An overly aggressive, but kind of weak player opens for about $12, 3 people call, and I come along for the ride in the SB with 64s. Flop is 335 giving me an open ended straight flush. I check, original raiser makes it $25 and one guy calls. I then jack it up to $100 and he folds. However, the other guy has kind of a small stack, so he puts in his last $130 or so with 88. The Ace of spades hits the turn giving me a flush (I’m thinking cha-ching), but then another damn spade hit the river giving him a higher flush with the 8s. Oh well, the difference between a relatively big winning night and a standard double up, I guess!
Well, that’s about all for now. I’ll be writing about my online winnings in the near future. I’ve turned things around since my last post a while back and I’ve been doing well online as well.
Remember next time you play, open 4betting with 6 Deuce Suited is not a winning proposition (sometimes)!
6 Deuce Suited Poker Blog 
