HORSEing around

Wednesday night I spread my wings a bit again: I entered my first live HORSE tournament. Green Valley Ranch has one every Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. for only $45. (Well, technically it's $40, but there's a $5 add-on at the beginning that everybody takes.)

GVR is a pretty nice room. It's comfortable, smoke-free, has good dealers, and, as far as I can tell, is well run (though there are definitely conflicting reports on this count on allvegaspoker.com). For me the only problems are (1) it's too far away from where I live, and (2) it has a very low tourist:local ratio. Since there are plenty of fishier waters within a much shorter drive, I just don't have much reason to head out that way. Too bad, because it's the kind of place I would definitely make a home out of if not for those two big negatives.

But this HORSE tournament will probably give me more reason to visit Henderson than I've had. I enjoyed myself quite a bit. I've now done 107 online single-table HORSE tournaments, and it appears that they have prepared me reasonably well. I doubt that anybody at my table would have guessed it was my first time doing one live. My favorite dealer from Bill's was, by coincidence, also playing at my table, which added a bit of fun.

I finished about 10th out of maybe 20 or so runners (two tables, with a couple of alternates coming in late). Nothing spectacular. But I had been 2nd in chips at my table for much of it--propelled primarily by one hand early in the first razz round in which I made a wheel at the same time as another guy made a 7-4, and we kept raising and reraising each other. I knocked him out. My chip lead swung way over into short-stack range, though, on two hands just before the first break. First, one opponent just wouldn't fold his pocket kings despite an ace and possible flush on the board. Of course, I didn't actually have him beat, but he should have believed that I did, dammit! :-) Then in a stud round my jack-high flush got sunk by an ace-high flush.

The average age of entrants was over 50, I'm sure. In terms of skill, I had no trouble keeping up with the table. I couldn't peg anybody as being obviously better overall than I was, despite the fact that I went into this prepared to be the least experienced HORSE player there. It was 100% straightforward, level-1 play--nothing fancy or tricky going on at all, as far as I could tell. Bet or call or raise if you have something, check or fold if you don't. In hold'em and razz, the two games in which I have enough experience to make some reasonable degree of judgment about relative ability of opponents, the skill level was pretty pathetic--about what you'd expect in a typical $2-4 game.

The only problems I had with the mechanics of the game were (1) some difficulty seeing opponents' up cards in stud games, because I was at one end of the longish table, and (2) one time forgetting to return my cards to the dealer in an Omaha round (a real amateur move, that).

The dealers, by the way, were great. I couldn't detect any weakness in any of them dealing any of the games. Of course, that is what one should be able to expect, but it is not a foregone conclusion in this hold'em-dominated age.

I viewed this as a trial run--test the waters, see if I'm really ready, be sure the mechanics aren't handicapping me or showing me up as a noob. I held up well enough that the next time I enter, it will be with the thought that I should have a reasonable shot to cash in the thing.


When it was over, I headed down the road a piece to Club Fortune. It's been more than a year since my only previous visit there. As I reported at the time, they were in the midst of constructing a new poker room. I wanted to see what they made of it. Answer: Nothing. There are still three tables stuck in the dead center of the casino floor. Nobody was playing. A dealer was putting some decks of cards into order. It looked basically the same as I remembered from 13 months earlier. Back then, they had said they would have the new room in a couple of months. I have to assume, then, that those plans got cancelled. It couldn't possibly still be under construction after this much time.