There's been a shake-up at the T-Bird. Following recent tribal elections, the new governor suspended General Manager Gary Green along with two other managers. For more information go here . The first rumors circulating the poker room indicated the shake up was because management was indulging in some illegal activities, then that changed to it was because Green wouldn't indulge in illegal activities. Then the rumors centered on Green's marketing strategy which allegedly was a strategy designed to market Green rather than the casino.
I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I do know that the general attitude of the poker room employees towards management and its marketing strategies is not a positive one. A visit to the web-site gives you an idea the level of marketing genius at work here. Contrast that to The Cherokee in Tulsa. They've been unloading one of the marketing premiums Green had ordered - a ball-cap stiched with "Gary Green and Thunderbird Casino Blackjack." I won one for high hand after getting a straight flush a couple of weeks ago.
Friday night I arrived at the poker room devoid of half its tables. I was informed the poker room was being moved to the bar. On the busiest night of the week. The dealers were as confused as the players. No-one knew this had been put on the evening's agenda and all of us were curious as to why they picked the busiest night of the week instead of waiting for, say, Monday when they were closed for a while?
The bar is a different atmosphere, however there's no room for rail-birds, or for players to wait for tables, no chip-cage, smoking is allowed at the bar, the lighting is worse than the original room - bar lighting, dim for conversation and watching the string of TVs lining the walls and resulted in show-downs being misread on more than one occasion.
Another change was the new bad-beat jackpot drops that had been installed on the tables. This is supposed to start next week sometime. And rumors were floating around about what was going to happen to the old poker room now. Is it going back to bingo? Blackjack tournament? Poker tournaments? Stay tuned.
I played until around midnight, leaving up a miniscule $13. It was a very tight table - unless someone raised the pot, and then everyone wanted to play. Go figure. Had a drunk sit down on my left after I pissed off the previous guy - first by grousing about the smoking. "Then you shouldn't be going to casinos," he growled. Then I raised on my small blind and after realizing it was just the two of us, he folded to my bet on the flop saying, "It was just the two of us? We could have chopped the blinds." I said "I had a hand," to which he tersely replied, "I don't care if I have pocket aces, I'll chop the blinds." He left shortly thereafter.
The drunk grated on me - not so much because he was drunk. It was that there was no intelligence there and he wouldn't shut up. Chatty is ok - I can get chatty myself at times, but when it's drunk chat devoid of any semblance of coherent thought or articulation, I can lose my patience. He left in a huff after a while because the table was too tight for his taste. Good riddance. I had enough of his chips to be glad to see him go.
I bled back my lead in chips after a few costly mistakes. I got too attached to some hands, knowing I was beat and played them to showdown anyway. I've been focusing my efforts on preflop decisions and tweaking my post-flop play. I obviously need a lot of work on laying it down when I know I'm beat.
I'm re-learning the value of raising or folding vs. calling. A raise when I'm unsure of what I'm up against or unsure whether I have the best hand at the moment, gives me volumes of information from my opponents. For instance, say I have a pocket pair and an overcard hits the flop. Depending on my read and position at the time, I will check, check-raise or raise - this has served to drive out some drawing hands and get me heads up at the tighter tables, for instance. If I check and it's checked all the way - then most likely, that overcard is a loner. No-one paired. If I check-raise or raise and I'm called, then I proceed cautiously. The turn will generally elicit even more information from my opponent and tell me whether I'm already beat or not. I can't get that kind of information by just calling down.
Basic stuff, yes. But, stuff I'm sorely needing to work on. I'm grateful for the tips and feedback I've received thus far from a comrade who's sort of coaching. It's been invaluable. I've also been re-reading Small Stakes Hold-Em and attempting to apply some of those concepts, as well. So far, it's paying off.
In other news... a live poker broadcast, July 13
