Wheeling Poker Room

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted. A lot has happened since to me since then. I still work for the National Pub Poker League, but I have started classes at Mountaineer Race Track for Roulette and Blackjack, which will be starting around the first of the year. At that time I may quit my current position with the National Pub Poker League or I may stay on part-time. I'll decide later or let my boss decide for me.

As I mentioned, the West Virginia race tracks voted to allow table games, including poker. I decided to go to work at Mountaineer, which means I will not be able to play poker or anything else there. But I can still go to Wheeling so this blog is going to focus more on my adventures (or misadventures) at their poker room. I am hoping to get there at least once a week, but I may have to wait to get there that much until I start working at Mountaineer.

But I did make it to Wheeling on opening day (Oct 19th). The room opened at 10am and I arrived at about noon. It was very busy but they were just opening a 2-5 NL table so I immediately got seated. One problem that I immediately noticed was their small cashier. Some of it was first-day inexeperience, and some of it was the lottery commission ruling that dealers could not buy-in players at the table, but it made for long lines to wait for chips. Since we were starting a new table, they sent a chip runner to the table to get chips for everyone but it still took 15 minutes to get things started.

I won't bore you with details, but I was card dead for 5 hours. The best hands I saw in that time were AKs, AJo, A10o, 66, 55, and 22 and the only one that was a winner was the 66 (hit the set on the flop). Ended up down about $300 but won back $60 at a slot machine while walking out the door. The play was what I hoped for, a sizable amount of fish and the players who were threats were easily recognized. I just couldn't seem to get any traction and had to fold often when I went from a favorite to behind on the turn or river. You'll have those days and have to realize that the odds can only get better.

One thing that they have to work on is deciding on some basic rules. One major one that came up was how to deal with a dead button. On a couple occassions, the person who was the small blind ended up losing all their chips and leaving the table. Therefore the following hand they would be required to be the dealer button. I have seen this handled 2 different ways in various casinos, but they came up with a totally different, ridiculous way to deal with it. The simple way would be to move the button to the dead seat and continue the blinds as they were. Everyone gets to be a blind and there are no problems. But an empty seat is the dealer and some people think that this should not be. I have also seen the dealer button skip to the next person at the table (i.e. the previous big blind). With this way, 2 players miss their blinds (1 misses the small and 1 misses the big). This is really not a big deal at a cash table, but it annoys some of the other players. However Wheeling came up with a third way that is totally confusing and ridiculous. The dealer button moves to the next person, but they remain their required blind. And since 2 seats to the left of the dealer should pay blinds, then they are also a big blind. So the seats look like this D (also SB), BB, BB... three freaking blinds!!! The next hand, the person who was the first BB is now the dealer and SB, the other BB is now a SB, and there is also a BB. So the 2nd hand is also mucked up and looks like D (SB), SB, and BB. THe next hand everything is back to normal. So instead of just having a dead dealer and no issues, they have 2 hands with extra blinds and is completely confusing. This may change quickly, and many dealers may not know the rules so it may not happen often, but it was pretty dumb.

I have a bunch of stuff to talk about with Roulette at Mountaineer, but it will have to wait...