The Bike casino

I went to The Bicycle casino for the first time this week and played in their noon tournament and then in their evening deep-stack special. 

In the noon tournament (which cost $40) they had about 150 runners and you start with 4000 chips which with the 30 min levels and low blind structure allows quite a bit of play. I played my normal game slowly chipping up to 11,000 chips when the following hand happened. I had QQ in early position and raised 3xbb and got called by the cutoff. The flop came 2-Q-8 rainbow and I bet about half the pot. He raised me 3x my bet and I pushed all in. He called and showed AA and looked quite sad when I showed my set of queens. No need to worry though and the turn brought another ace and I was busto.

The evening tournament is part of a week-long deep stack special they are running and cost $240 so a bit more than my normal buyins. I only had 2 hands of note. The first I had J-10 in the big blind and hit top pair on the flop and 2 pair on the turn. I bet 3/4 pot both times and got called by a guy with pocket 4s. Of course the river was a 4 and I was down to 5500 chips or so. The next hand I was dealt AK in late position and raised 3x to 600. I got 4 callers and the flop was 8h-Ac-6h. Of course I was worried about the flush so I made a pot size bet with 2 callers and the turn was 2d which helped no-one. I decided one last attempt to discourage the draw so I pushed my remaining chips in but got 1 caller who showed 7h 5h for the flush and straight draws. He had 15 outs so about 30% likely to hit on the river and based on his pot odds his call was ok. The river was an 8 and I was busto. 

I thought a lot about this hand and alternate plays such as:

a)  to push all-in on the flop. With 2700 in the pot if I pushed my 5500 there would be 8200 in the pot with him having to call 5500. He would be 60% likely to his one of his outs so a 3/2 favorite.  This makes a call of 5400 to win an 8100 pot ok so he still would have called. Therefore if my math is correct an all-in push on the flop makes no difference  - I would still to go busto. 

b) to check it down after the flop but then I let him hit his draw for free (as well as the other three callers) and prob would be crippled if I called his likely bet on the river. Maybe I could have got away from the hand on the river but that's assuming one of the other four players did not try a steal on the turn. If I called a "steal"  bet on the turn then  I probably could not get away from calling a river bet

c) what if I pushed all-in preflop or at least a much larger bet. The problem here is were were only on level 3 of a deep stack and I was prepared to muck my hand if I missed the flop. But in hindsight the 7-5 hand would have folded to a large preflop raise so maybe this would be a better play. preflop the sb (100) , bb(200), villain (200), 1 limper (200). me (600), the button (600) and the big blind (600) made him call 400 chips to win 2300.  If I had raised to 1000 and the button folded then the pot would be sb(100), bb(200), 1 limper (200), me (1000) and the bg blind (1000) meaning he would have to call 800 to win 2300. If the button also folded he would have to call 800 to win 1700. Ultimately it seems I should have raised preflop to at least 1000 based on a normal raise (3x) plus 2 limpers - this is where I made a mistake and paid the ultimate price.

What about the Bike casino. I liked it inside and especially liked the $40 tournament with the large stack and lots of play. I will definitely go again for this tournament. They take 25% service fee so I will only go if there are 150+ runners otherwise the prize pool is not worth it. Re other stuff I thought the food and drinks were poor compared to Oceans11 but they did have a big menu. The chips/tables/staff were ok but dealers made more mistakes than I see at Oceans and also the floor man seem stretched. I played some 4/8 limit and some 40NL at these were fun tables with the younger crowd on the NL tables as you would expect. 

Driving to the casino was easy too although rush hour in LA sucks and I hate HATE driving in heavy stop and go traffic. Fortunately it takes about 50 mins from my house to the casino so I can leave for the noon tourney about 11am and only will have to deal with traffic if I make it really deep.  Hopefully when I win the tourney that will please me enough to offset my traffic misery but until it happens we will see.