Hollywood Park Casino ePokerRoom 1/2 NLHE (4-handed)

Cobalt $225
Button $149

Cobalt is SB w/ A J . Button has been fairly LAG (though more loose than aggro). I've been fairly TAG and haven't re-popped anyone pre-flop in hours.

Pre-flop:
1 fold, Button raises to $7, Cobalt re-raises to $21, 1 fold, Button min-re-raises to $35, Cobalt calls

Flop ($72): 7 4 2 (2 players)
Cobalt checks, Button goes all-in for $114, Cobalt calls ?


On a side note, these electronic poker tables kick ***. You get to see so many more hands when you don't have to worry about manual shuffles and dealer changes. Also, the fact that tips aren't necessary certainly helps your earn rate. I really think that live poker will keep moving this direction...or should anyway.

you got the money, gamboooool.

You are drawing to 12 outs at best here making you about a 45% dog to win this pot. Mathematically it is clearly wrong to call but if you feel the gambling have a stab. Personally i fold this hand preflop when i am min reraised. There is no good flop for you except JJx as even if you flop an ace you will either get stacked by AK or AA or win nothing because villian has KK. There is no upside here and i know that it sucks to lay your hand down when min raised and i also hate doing it but calling here is clear spew.

PS. I played some poker pro in Crown Casino in Melbourne and we looked at the rake structures and to be honest they are terrible. The games are more for entertainment than anything else and it was clear that beating the rake in a 1/2 game on these things is impossible over the long term

Really? If our opponent turned up TT making us a slight dog we'd call in a heartbeat and show a profit.

Question:

Did you check the flop wanting him to shovel? If so, I like it.

Otherwise, I prefer you doing the overbet first. We may have fold equity, which gives us the pot right away, and if not (we are called), we are a favorite over all hands except TT (or a set, obviously).

- Jordan

No.

Not if the TV networks have anything to say about it. Watching a bunch of guys play a video game isn't good TV. That would kill the poker craze dead.

Also, on a more down to Earth level... dealers, cards and tables can't malfunction. Computers crash. Can your table tech fix that thing in a snap? Because if he can't, the house is about to lose a ton of money x10.

Also, given the likely going rate for one of these tables, I'm sure just employing dealers is a lot cheaper. The ROI just wouldn't be there.

It's not clear at all to me. We can't ignore the preflop pot. Supposing he puts in the third raise with only AA or KK, we still have 42% equity in the pot. (I'm assuming the third raise isn't a small pair that can make a set on this flop.)



Hero has to call $114. To break even he needs 114/300=38% equity.

With the range as defined as above, the hero makes (300)(0.422) - 114 = $12.60 in +EV.

You have to be trolling.

Dealers make mistakes. Dealers fail to show. Casinos fail to hire enough dealers.

If you want to argue that you like physical cards, then OK. But there's just no way in hell that a computer system would be broke enough to deal fewer hands/hour than a real dealer.

I like physical cards.

Also, how does this work, really. Do you type in your bet or something? Who oversees the game if there's a dispute? Do you still use physical chips?

As David noted, you have to note what's in the pot pre-flop. Also, I'm certainly not fond of calling pre-flop, but I'm getting like 4.8-1...so I really don't think I can fold no matter what he has. Certainly, I have to be cautious post-flop given the action though.

Also, the rake seemed a little on the heavy side (though I was told it was equivalent to the other games in the casino), but again, cutting out the dealer tip compensates for that somewhat. Additionally, from my few hours at 1/2, I think it's certainly beatable by a good player against poor opponents (none of the people I played were particularly good). I do wish there'd been a slightly higher level...I think there was interest in a 3/5 game using the table. It'll just take some time for people to get used to the system.


I actually checked the flop in order to check-raise him all-in. Didn't quite expect the shovel.


Oh, it's certainly not good for TV ratings...and you wouldn't employ the tables in that fashion. Possibly for the lead-up to the final table or something. I'd actually love to have these in a tournament setting though since most of the ones I've played live don't use tables with automatic shufflers (which slows down the game a good bit). Online poker didn't kill the poker craze. Live electronic poker certainly wouldn't kill it.

Dealers, cards, and automatic shufflers certainly can "malfunction". Yes, computers crashed, but they can be fixed. And yes, if they employed a table tech, I'm sure things could be fixed fairly quickly. As it stands, HPC had...four(?) of the tables. Only 2-3 were being used when I got there and only one by the end of my session. It'll be a slow process to adopt, but I think it'll benefit the players immensely. A machine used in this context would also pay for itself rather quickly...and there's a lot less hassle in employing a small number of techs than an army of dealers.


Each player has a touchscreen. The cards are face down on the screen and you cup your hand over the cards and the corners "peel up" to temporarily show you what they are. Your screen and the large screen in the middle also show all of the stack sizes, the amount in the pot, and where the action is. Then the screen has a number of option buttons on it...some of which are different denomination chips. So for example, you'd tap the $5 chip three times to make the bet $15 and then hit Bet then Confirm. All your options have to be confirmed, so there's not much room for "mistakes". As for disputes, I didn't really foresee that there'd be many. I mean, it's kind of hard to angle shoot or for some major mistake/blunder to occur. There is someone that supervises the ePokerRoom, so I guess you'd talk to them. As for time restraints, you have 30 seconds to make a decision.

I'm always for new things, but this seems like a novelty that won't catch on.

As for the hand itself, it's not entirely interesting. I did use up about 20 seconds of my time bank thinking about it though. I figured that either my ace and/or jack outs were live in addition to the flush. Therefore, I called and was somewhat amused when he flipped up the KsJs. I hit the flush on the turn, and he was drawing dead.

No.

It's pretty easy to fix a no-show dealer or a bad dealer at a normal table: get another dealer. No changeover of parts, no coding, no technical troubleshooting, no waiting for the tech to show up. Just, "Hey, Chad, come work table 3." Brushes can also deal when necessary. Problem solved.

If a casino doesn't hire the necessary personnel, that's a bigger problem, and one that probably crops up even with electronic tables. "Oh, machine's down? Our tech's off today. Sorry, no poker."

C'mon, people, a 24off post should not warrant an automatic troll in return.

I'm confident that redundancy in computer junk is much cheaper than redundancy in people.

To be clear, I'm not particularly excited about this prospect, but I do think an electronic table will be cheaper to operate per hand than a physical one. The gear in question is probably cheaper to own than a shuffle master.