In case you’re not familiar with the rewards program at the Hustler Casino, basically, they keep track of each hour of your play and you get points for rewards.  You can either get free food, a coupon for the in-casino store, or the Hustler Hollywood store.  Since the food is free at the $300+ tables, I never use my points.

Last year, for Christmas, I took all my Hustler Casino reward points (or whatever it’s called) and bought a bunch of presents at the Hustler Hollywood store.  But more recently, I’ve noticed signs and notices at the casino telling me that if I don’t use my points for 6 months, they go away.  Damn it.

They must have learned this trick from the airlines and cell phone companies.  Oh well.  No matter.  Since it’s half way into the year, I decided I’d better cash out my reward points before they expire.  I went to one of those kiosks and printed out my coupon for Hustler Hollywood.

By chance, they had their Hustler girl Hoodies on sale ($16 off regular price) so I decided to just load up on them and hold them until this coming Christmas.  That’s right boys and girls.  I’m doing my Christmas shopping in June.  Can you beat that?

Pokerstars.com is giving away free entries to the WSOP 2008 main event. What’s the catch? Well, you have to come in the top 50 out of 5,000 in your first level tournament. The blinds go up every 5 minutes. Once you do that, then you get to enter the next free tournament, where you must come in the top 2 to win your entry. Also, you can only enter once a week.

If you’re interested in this, login to your pokerstars account, click on “Events,” then “WSOP,” then click on one of the “WSOP $1M Giveaway: Round 1 Freeroll.”

If you don’t mind paying, there are other ways you can get in. There’s a $33 entry tournament where they give away at least 1 WSOP entry. The closest I got was heads-up where I was all-in with pocket Queens against AK <spade> . The flop brought two <spade> with low cards, and you can guess the rest. Damn! So close.

So far, it doesn’t look like I’m going to make it to the WSOP this year.

The movie “21″ is based on the book, “Bringing Down the House,” by Ben Mezrich. The book is based on the events of the re-generated MIT blackjack team in the late 90’s and Jeff Ma’s experiences. Although I’ve not read the book, reports are that the movie basically changes everything except a few specific scenes.

First off, let me start by saying that I used to count cards in the 80’s but found it too much work. Meaning my brain power wasn’t good enough to do it for 12 hours straight. I’m still an avid gambler and play poker a lot. Generally, I love casino and gambling movies, I loved “Rainman,” “Casino,” and of course, “Rounders.”

As for “21,” other than the correct explaination of how to use simple counting techniques for blackjack play, almost everything else seemed inaccurate or completely wrong to me.

For example, the team stayed at Hard Rock and were seen all going to the same suite. Then, they played at the Hard Rock casino. No blackjack team would ever do this, and certainly not the famed MIT team. They are seen together too often and too many times. They know the casino has cameras everywhere.

There are several scenes where the movie teaches how simple counting is done. I say “simple” because there are more complicated techniques. My friend that I watched the movie with didn’t understand this section of the movie and I had to explain it more in detail to her after the movie. So I’m not sure if this part of the movie was useful to anybody since it’s apparently too difficult to understand for the untrained, but boring for blackjack counters. It’s hard to balance things like this in a movie.

They also used typical signals to communicate with each other. However, they used the same cross arm signals throughout the entire trip, and even on subsequent trips. Good for audiences to understand what’s going on. Bad for presenting reality.

When the player pretending to be a “whale” would come to the table, the “counter” would stay at the table. This makes no sense since the whale player was perfectly capable of keeping the count himself and the counter player was eating up cards that the whale player could be getting. This, not to mention, having the counter and whale players at the same table increases the chances of the casino taking note of this weird coincidence.

Also, there’s another scene where the “whale” splits 10s. I could be wrong but I think even if the count was very high, splitting 10s is a sure signal to the dealer that you are counting cards.

To illustrate, I was playing at the Riviera, back in the 80’s. It was a multi-deck shoe, and I was playing by myself at the table. I had been playing for a while, doing nothing too strange and winning good money. At one point, the count became abnormally large and I switched from betting $5 per hand to two hands for $50 each. I kept winning and I increased my bets to $150 each. Before the count got back down too low, the pit boss came over and told the dealer to re-shuffle. They noticed me out of all the players in less than 15 minutes.

Instead of getting up, and basically admitting to counting, I decided to risk losing some money back in order to prevent them from tagging me. I stayed and kept playing, lowering my bets only down to $50. By pure luck, I started on a long winning streak at this point, so I raised my bets back up to two hands at $150 again. This time, the pit boss came over and changed the dealer. To make a long story short, they changed dealers one more time on me before I left with about $10,000. The pit boss stood next to the table the entire time I played.

Remember that this was back in the 80’s when they really did beat up counters and cheats. The movie apparently takes place in present time since they were talking about face recognition software. If so, I doubt any large corporation would be using tactics like beating people up anymore. You could argue that the security consultant did this on his own but it’s still a big risk for everyone including the casino.

On yet another occasion in Vegas, I was at the end of a long session and I was so tired, I thought I had a hard 16 against a face card and hit. Before I realized what I did, the dealer brought out a 4. I had accidentally hit on a hard 17 and made 21 with the 4. The dealer immediately called over the pit boss. He looked and told the dealer to keep dealing but watched me play for a few minutes.

These examples show how paranoid the casinos were, (and still are) about cheats and counters alike. I wasn’t even playing with $10,000 chips or anything crazy like in the “21″ movie and they kept checking up on me. This is why what happens in the movie is totally fiction. If they did what they did in the movie, they would have had the casino watching over them like hawks. No way, they could get away with it. I’m sure the book is very different from this fictionalized version in the movie.

Enough mathmatics and gambling. What about sex. Well, other than a unrealistic romance between the protagonist and one of the female counters, their meeting place is a strip club. So as you can imagine, there are the required lap dance and pole dancing sequences. It’s not as nasty as I like, but it’s there. Let’s face it. This is a gambler’s movie. Not a horn dog movie.

All in all, there’s a lot of special effects showing the cards close up with sound effects making the cards sound like rocket ships. As gambling movies go, it’s not too bad. It’s not as good as the Vegas scenes from “Rainman,” but it’s okay. When the dealer peels off yet another card to make 21, while all the players are shouting for “Monkey,” a picture card, your heart will pump a little harder if you’re any type of real backjack player.

Summary
So what’s the bottom line? If you’re a gambler but can’t leave town and you need your Vegas fix, this might be one option. Otherwise just wait for the DVD or Blu-ray.

During one tournament at the Hustler, early in the tournament, the guy to my left was a jokster type and when I was the small blind, said to me, “Let’s just limp in blind and check blind all the way.”  The blinds were still only 25-50 (I think) so I agreed.  No biggie.  2 people limped in and I called the big blind without looking at my cards.  The guy in the big blind checked without looking, and we both checked blind before the flop.

The flop was 4, 4, 5 with 2 clubs.  The other 2 guys also checked.  I blind checked the turn, as did the big blind guy.  The turn was a Queen.  The 2 guys also checked.  Me and the big blind once again blind checked the river.

The river was a small club, making a possible flush out there.  The first of the 2 guys checked.  Then the last guy bet 300 into a 200 pot.  Now, I tell the big blind guy that I have to look at my cards.  I take a peek and I have 4, 5.  I flopped a FULL HOUSE!

I think for a second, and I min raised to 600.  The big blind folds, and the other guy folds, and back to the original better.  He thinks for a bit and goes all in for about 5,000.  I insta-call and show my full house.  The guy rivered an Ace high club flush and decided to go crazy.

What a weird hand that turned out to be.  In hind sight, if I had looked at my hand, I don’t think the guy would have gone crazy like that.  I think the blind checking confused him when I finally came out raising him.  Whatever the reason, this influx of chips helped me get to 5th place in the tournament.

My friend noticed that I didn’t post anything for the entire month of October.  Well, it was a combination of things, but mostly it was jury duty.  Since I’m used to waking up late, having to do jury duty put me on a weird schedule that made me tired all the time.  I just didn’t feel like writing anything.

Over the years, I’ve been on a jury 5 times, so this wasn’t anything new for me.  The case I was on was a commercial burglary, so it was fairly straight forward. Or so I thought.

When we took our first poll, it was 7 to 5, so I knew we were in for some work.  After having the testimony re-read to us by the court reporter, and spending a couple of hours re-drawing the map of the area on the white board, the count was 9 to 3.  In fact, at one point, the number went back to 8 to 4.

After 4 days of deliberation, the 12 of us finally came to a verdict on the case, at least on one of the 2 counts.  I guess one man’s simple case is another man’s enigma.

What does all this have to do with anything?  Actually, this was the first time that I was picked for a panel on jury duty since I started playing poker.  I didn’t realize it but playing poker and looking for tells, and watching the players have made me a better juror.  In the past, I struggled to see who was lying, and who I should trust.  This time around, it seemed a lot easier to me because of my poker training.

This made me think that maybe the lawyers should play some poker.  As a matter of fact, Mark Seif, a professional poker player, is (or was) a lawyer.  It might even be a good idea to ask potential jurors if they play poker.

Another talent that seems to work well with poker is being a magician.  I used to do some magic tricks starting from about Junior High to about 9th grade when I lost interest when I found computers.  Of course, Antonio Esfandiari was a magician, and that’s his poker nickname as well.

Therefore, a lawyer that’s also a magician probably would be one of the best poker players possible.

I’ve continued to play the deep stack tournament at Hustler on Sunday with no luck.  2 weeks ago, I was down to 2 tables and was all-in with about 48,000 chips with AJ against A7 and lost almost all my chips when the 7 hit on the flop.  If I had won that hand, I would have been in good position to win the tournament with about 80,000 chips.

Last week, I didn’t do as well and got knocked out half way.  Afterwards, I tried my luck at the $300-$500 no limit table.  In a span of about 30 minutes, I got pocket Kings, Aces, then Kings again.  On the first hand, there was a $10 live straddle and 4 callers to me in the big blind.  I wake up with the Kings and raised to $50.  That wasn’t enough because all 4 people called me.  Luckily, the flop was rainbow and low cards so I bet out $300 and took down the pot.

The very next hand, while the table is asking me if I stole that pot, I wake up with Aces.  I raise to $20 and I get 2 callers.  Once again, the flop is very safe and I bet $60 and take down the pot.  However, the lady in seat 2 comments that I’m running over the table.

Just a few hands later, there is a $20 raise from player 1 (in seat 1), a call from seat 3, and I again wake up with pocket Kings in the blind.  I raise to $60 and both players call.  The flop is 9, 10, Jack rainbow.  I hate this flop.  This is the type of flop that somebody trying to crack Aces would come in with, so I check.

Player 1 bets $80, and player 2 in seat 3 flat calls.  The way player 1 was talking told me he thought he had a strong hand.  If he has the nuts (King, Queen), I’m drawing almost dead and would need a Queen just to chop.  I also had no idea what player 2 called with.  Before the flop, there was about $180 in the pot.  Now, with $160 more in there, there’s $340.  I decide to flat call the $80 to see what comes next.  At the time, I didn’t know it, but the odds were 60% to 37% in his favor.

Cochinoman			Player 1

Flop				Turn	River

The turn is a very safe looking 4.  I once again check and player 1 immediately goes all in for $220.  player 2 folds after thinking a little, and it’s back to me.

At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m behind.  If player 1 has King, Queen, I’m drawing almost dead.  If he has something like Queen, Jack (top pair and open ended), I’m ahead.  But I didn’t think that’s what he had.  If he had top 2 (Jack, 10), I needed a King (for a set), Queen (for a straight), 9 (for a higher 2 pair), or a 4 (for a higher 2 pair).

If I knew exactly what he had, then I would know that at this point, player 1 is a 73% to 27% favorite.  The pot has $420 plus his $220 (total $640) and I need to call $220 (about 2.9 to 1).  So I’m getting the right odds to call here, assuming he has 2 pair.  But if he has a straight, I’m drawing to a Queen for a chop.  There’s so much money in the pot, after thinking for a while, I decide to gamble and call.

The board pairs another 4 on the river and player 1 declares he has 3 pairs.  That’s exactly what I wanted to hear (and not “Full House”) and I show my bigger 2 pair (Kings and 4s).  Player 1 can’t understand why I called the turn when he went all-in.  In hind sight, it was a good call but it wasn’t an easy call.

After this hand, 2 players leave and the table breaks and I get to leave with my nice winnings.

A friend of mine invited me to a private poker tournament party in Laguna Hills where there were going to be a bunch of novice players. That, plus the fact that there would be strippers dancing got me to go. After meeting the host, I paid by $100 and sat down at one of the over 10 tables going. The good news was, only one guy at my table knew how to play. The bad news was, only one guy at my table knew how to play. It took forever to play one hand because each player had to be shown how to deal, let alone how to play.

During one hand, the contactor to my right was getting a lap dance from 2 girls, while another girl had her boobs in my face. Between the naked girls and the players not knowing how to play, we were playing about a hand every 10-15 minutes. When a dancer went on the stage, they would dim the lights, making it very hard to see the cards.

In my wildest imagination, I never thought I would say this in my life, but the naked strippers were a distraction and it made it very hard to play cards. Maybe that’s why they don’t have them in the casinos. <wink>

Because the players are novices, it’s very hard to bluff them. They will call you down with Ace high thinking it’s good, which it is if you’re bluffing them. So I had to actually wait for a real hand. I finally get pocket rockets (Aces) and raise the minimum. The small blind calls me with A-10 diamonds, and the flop is 4, 5, Jack. I bet out and get called. The turn is an 8. I bet again and the guy goes all-in which is just another 400 for me to call. We turn up our cards and I realize he’s drawing dead and can only chop with a 3, so he’s got 4 outs to tie. I’m sure you can guess what the river was. Yes, a 3 comes on the river and I have to chop the pot. Ugh. At least I didn’t lose, I guess.

Later, a guy goes all in with A-6 off, and the contractor on my right calls him (pre-flop) with pocket rockets. Once again, the board gives 2, 3, 4, 5, and gives both of them a straight, except the A-6 guy gets his 6 high straight and cracks the Aces. Ouch. Glad that didn’t happen to me.

I lasted a little longer but the blinds were going up so high, it became an all-in fest. I had about 20,000 but with the blinds at 2,000 – 4,000, it’s pretty much all-in before the flop. I get knocked out when I go all-in with bottom pair and lose to middle pair.

My friend had to wake up at 7am so we say good-bye to the lovely strippers and drive back to LA. Normally, I would have stayed at the party for some lap dances but I drop off my friend and decide to get some real cash game action at the Hustler.

After having to play against novice players, it was a nice change to play normal at the Hustler. My first hand was 7 <club> 3 <club> and decided to raise with it. I get 2 callers and the flop is King high. I bet and one guy check calls me. The turn is another King, and I bet and the guy thinks for a while and folds. Nice. That’s the way things are supposed to be.

On another hand, I have pocket deuces and flop a set. The flop also has a King and the guy with the King bets out. I make a minimum raise and he calls me. On the turn, nothing comes and I bet and he goes all-in. I call and take down a nice pot with my set of deuces. Deuces never looses.

Later, I’m the big blind and the guy to my left raises to $25. There’s 5 callers behind him so I decide to call with 2 <diamond> 3 <diamond> for pot odds. The flop is King, 2, 2. Nice! There’s already like $150 in the pot so the raiser bets out $150. Everybody folds one by one, to me. Before I can do my Hollywood act, the raiser opens his hand to reveal pocket rockets! I say, “Hey! Hold on,” but it’s too late. Everybody at the table laughs because they think I’m going to fold now.

Now, I do my little Hollywooding and tell the guy, “I’m not trying to mess with you but I have to go all-in.” That’s the cleaned up version of what I said. Suddenly, it gets real quiet at the table as the guy goes into the tank. While he’s thinking, I decide to mess with him a little more by telling him to just fold and I’ll show him my cards. He goes all-in to call me and I show him the bad news. Nothing comes up on the turn or river and I take down a huge pot with my deuce – 3. Nice. This must be my deuces night.

So after my debacle at the private party, I have a great session at the Hustler. But driving home, I had to think about the boobs in the face at the party.

Everybody and his brother’s casino has some type of players’ card or VIP card.  When each casino starts having yet another card for their computerized table, this is really going to be rediculous.  It’s already got my wallet stuffed to it’s maximum capacity.

Too bad the casinos can’t get together and have one standard card for all casinos.  But that would be asking too much.  The one possible hope would be for some outside company, like one of the computerized table manufacturers, to come out with some card that all the casinos would use.  Unfortunately, I just don’t see that happening in my lifetime.

So what does carrying all these cards really do for us.  Well, let’s see.

The Bicycle Club
If you play in the medium to large no limit tables, you already get free food.  They used to pay you back cash if you played a lot but I don’t know if they still do that.  They have tournaments for people with accumulated hours on their card.  I guess that’s something.

Commerce
Their card is just for tournament entries and nothing else.  It’s to make their life easier for registration purposes only.  No real benefit for the players, except maybe quicker registration.

Crystal Casino
I have no idea what the card does for me.  I emailed them but didn’t get an answer back.  Nice customer service.

Hawaiian Gardens
Again, I have no idea what the card does for me.  I emailed these guys too and didn’t get anything back either.

Hollywood Park Casino
You can earn comp credit for every hour played, and you’ll earn credits good for casino food, redemption center, and gift shop merchandise, or even cash. You’ll also be eligible for special tournaments, parties and promotions open only to Players’ Club Members.  All this according to their website.

Hustler Casino
As you accumulate points, they can be redeemed for food, items at their casino store, or even items at their Hustler store in Hollywood.  2 years ago, I used this to buy Hustler store gift coupons for Christmas.

Normandie Casino
I’ve been playing here on Saturday and they tell me that you can accumulate points for food or items at the gift store.  However, on the $500 table, all food is free so I’ve not used the “Lucky Koi” card.

Hustler Casino exterior

What I liked about the WSOP main event was the deep stack of 20,000 in starting chips.  It really allows for some “real” play and not an all-in fest after 2 rounds.  Back in the day at Caribe, they used to have a 10,000 chip Sunday tournament which I loved and won a few times.

That’s also the reason why I’ve been going to the once a month Hawaiian Gardens deep stack tournament.  Once again, I went down there for their 2pm once a month, Saturday tournament.

This tournament starts you off with 3,000 in chips and the rounds are 30 minutes long.  I actually got up to about 31,000 in chips at one point, but managed to throw away most of my chips by slow playing pocket Kings.  What a disasterous miscalculation that was.  My mistake was not taking into account how tight of a player my opponent was.  There’s no need to slow play against a tight player.  Another expensive lesson for me.   But because I got up to such a large stack, I managed to hold on to make the final 2 tables and cash for the first time at this tournament.  I wasn’t happy with my play but at least I made money.  I’m going to try again next month.

The very next day (Sunday), I went to the Hustler deep stack tournament for the first time at 3pm.  This one starts you off with 5,000 in chips with 25 minute rounds.  Compared to the 3,000 chip tournament, this gave me lots of playing time.  I made 2 mistakes early on, and still managed to come back from less than 10 times the big blind back up to 16,000 in chips.  You can only do something like that in a deep stack tournament.  In one of those Commerce 1,500 chip tournaments, 1 mistake and you’re out.  I’m going to try again next week for sure.  I love the structure.

After the tournament, I tried my hand at the cash game there at the Hustler on the $300-$500 no limit table.  At this table, they give you free food so it’s as good as the Bike.  I doubled up on one hand with a flush, which gave me room to experiment.  One one hand, just for another $20 on the flop, I could have gotten runner-runner diamonds to make the nut flush against the winner (and chip leader) who had the King high flush.  I’m pretty damn sure he would have called all in for $1,000 on the river. Woulda-coulda-shoulda.  Oh well.

After more than doubling, I had already decided to play just before my big blind and got pocket Aces.  I hate it when this happens because I’ve had bad luck getting big hands right before leaving several times.  I was in late position so I didn’t try to do any stupid limping like on Saturday.  However, when I made a raise, 5 people called me out of position.  Crap.  That’s waaaay too many callers for pocket rockets.

The flop is Jack high with no flush draw but with a straight draw.  It was checked all the way back to me, so I came out really hard and bet more than the big pot that was there.  I managed to get everyone to fold except the last guy who flat called me.  I was hoping he had Ace-Jack which would make him drawing to 2 cards.  I bet again on the turn and he again check called.  On the river, he checked again and I decided to wimp out and check behind him.  He showed Jack 8 off.  WTF?!  Jack with an 8 kicker??  Damn!  I’m lucky he didn’t hit his kicker because I would have never thought he had an 8 kicker.  Even a 10 kicker would have surprised me with all the money going in there.

Well, that was a great way to end my day with pocket Aces holding up.  For once, I made enough money to leave early, instead of staying all night to try to break even.  I need to come back here for some more live action.

Hustler Casino
1000 W Redondo Beach Blvd.
Gardena, CA 90241
(877) 968-9800
(310) 719-9800
hustlercasinola.com
Map

Hustler Casino now has one of those computerized poker tables called “Fastdeal Poker.”

For now, it’s a $25 (or $60 or $100) Sit-N-Go table with 10 players.  Here’s how it works.  First, you need to get one of these Fastdeal cards (see photo) by going to a kiosk next to the lower limit waiting list.

It’s a touch screen kiosk where you enter your name (or any name), your birthdate and a PIN, then put cash into the machine to load up your card.  The kiosk will then print out your name on the card and it pops out of the machine.

Now, you take the card to the computerized table and sit down at one of the 10 seats.  You then swipe your card into the machine and it reads your info and your name comes up on the main large screen at that seat position.  I wanted to take a picture of the table but they wouldn’t let me.

At first, I tried touching the screen with my fingers and it did not work properly.  One of the other players told me to use my card instead and that worked better.  Funny how the kiosk touch screen worked fine with my fingers but not this one at the table.  They should have asked Apple to let them use the iPhone touch screen.

You are given 1,000 chips and I think the blinds started at 25-25, but it may have been 25-50.  The blinds go up every 8 minutes and because most of the players are still trying to figure out how to use the machine, the blinds go up really fast.  I got lucky and doubled up right away on my flush draw.

One of my biggest complaints is the tiny dealer button is hard to find sometimes.  I don’t see why it couldn’t be bigger and even blinking or something.  At least put it closer to the center instead of against the edge.  Also, the table was so high, I could barely see the screen properly.  The next weird thing is, after 2 players are all-in, all the cards come out instantaneously and the results (who won, lost) are shown in less than a second.  Even online poker games don’t do this.

Now, I realize this is called “Fastdeal,” but come now.  Couldn’t we at least enjoy our last moments in the game with some excitement of having a flush draw on the turn?  It was so fast, I didn’t even have time to see what my opponents hand was before it told me I won.  Obviously, the people who wrote this code have never written a good game on any platform or PC.  In fact, with my background, I think I have the expertise to say that whoever designed the user interface was a borderline moron.

By the way, before we started playing, there was a glitch with one of the players screens and they had to reboot the computer.  Each screen (including the main screen in the middle of the table) showed a BIOS screen, followed by a Windows XP screen booting.  That explains why they had to reboot the darned thing.  I’m surprised we didn’t get the blue screen of death in the middle of the game.   I don’t see why they need XP just to run a multi-user game.  I think this whole thing could run on MSDOS or even straight from ROM.

One thing I noticed was that the rebooting process was being controled from off-site.  The floor-lady was talking to somebody on her cell phone and they were doing the rebooting via the Internet.  I’m sure they’re one hacker away from some rigged game coming down on them.

Anyway, once it got to heads-up, suddenly, the game went into slow mode and once we were all-in, would show the turn and river as slow as on some TV shows.  Very strange.  It was so slow, we were joking that maybe it crashed and needed to be rebooted again.  If they’re going to do it this way, why not show the win percentages like on TV?  That would be at least somewhat interesting and something that we don’t get on regular tables.

Well, I managed to win 1st, which was $126 because the one girl wasn’t able to play and the other guy got 2nd, which was $50 something.  I don’t think the whole thing even took 30 minutes.  I’m not sure.  Of course, that’s not including the 3 times of rebooting which may have been like 45 minutes.  After you win, you return to the kiosk and login to your account and follow the instructions to get a printout which you take to the cage to cash.  No ID required.

Between the reboot, bad touch screen, hard to see button, and no exciting turn and river dealing, I don’t see this version of the hardware or software taking over anything anytime soon.  The dealers at the club have nothing to worry about yet.

I know that Commerce also has live games and Sit-N-Go video tables so I’m going to check those out next.  I hope they’re better than this one.