French Lick Casino Trip

Monday evening, my Dad and I went to the SBIR seminar at the French Lick Casino and Resort. It was only a 1 and 1/2 hour drive from my house...but half of the trip was through 2-lane streets and crappy towns. Surprisingly enough, there were very VERY few billboards and advertisements for the casino on the way there. Probably a big indicator of the lack of traffic in their casino.

We got in, dropped our bags in our room, and headed straight to the casino. My dad had found a handful of quarters that he planned on giving to some slot machines. Walking through the casino, we couldn't find a single machine that would accept quarters! For the first time in history, we were upset that we were unable to give up our money. Oh well - to the poker room.The poker room looked nice, there were about 12 tables set up in the room, and everything was pretty clean and new. Of the 12 tables that were set up, only 1 was playing a game, and only 8 players were seated. Lucky for us - they were playing 1-2NL holdem, which was what we were looking for. And we were able to occupy the 2 empty seats to fill the table. I cashed in 200$, my dad cashed in 100$, and we went to work.

My dad busted out early with an 88 v KQ hand on a JT7J9 board. He could have played the turn better, but once he got to the river there was no way he could have laid it down. Ah well :(.

I had worked up a ~550$ stack by 11pm. I doubled up off of some old guy when my 77 hit a 784 flop. 8 on the turn. 5 on the river. He paid me off big with his 66, and promptly left the table in anger.

So it's about midnight, and I limp in with 44. Everybody else at the table limps in (as was extremely usual for this game - these players were horrible) and we see a 664 flop. Bingo! I lead out 10$ into a 10$ pot - I had been aggressive the entire game, and was probably making 80% of the preflop raises at the table, so I was expecting plenty of action. The god-awful player to my left (who always had a pissed off look on his face) min-raised me to 20$. I was 100% sure he had a 6. And i was about 90% sure he'd call my all in, since he's the type to always think the other guy is bluffing. I push all in, which puts him all in for his remaining ~250$. He calls and shows A6, I flip my 44, his angry face gets even angrier. The turn is a 5. The river is a damn 600$ A. I die a little inside.

Despite the awful loss, I was still up about 60$, and continued to play for another 2-3 hours. By the end of the night, I had 140$ profit, 4 coronas (which cost me 5$ a piece...no free drinks here), and a 7$ meal comp for the deli. Not a bad night at all. The poker room in that casino really really needed some improvement though.

1) The dealers were slow, and they switched dealers every 30 minutes. We were maybe getting 20 hands an hour.
2) 6$ table rake every 30 minutes instead of raking x% from each pot. This is absolutely ridiculous. We are paying between 25c and 50c PER HAND with this rake structure. Fuck that.
3) Nobody is even there. Put up some billboards so people can find this place. Driving through 10 hick-ass towns to find a casino isn't exactly easy access.
4) Poker is huge. Absolutely huge. Highlight it, bring people in there, and they will lose their money there and elsewhere in your casino. The way it was run, they obviously didnt really give a shit. The dealers were amateurs, and rules were broken frequently.

In the end, at about 2am, there were 5 players left, and we requested that the rake be lowered to 3$ instead of 6$. The poker room manager decided that this was ok, but would have to check with the other manager when she got back. We paid our 3$ and continued playing. About 20min later, the other manager came to the table and told us that they were not authorized to blah blah blah and we would have to pay 6$ from now on.

The response of the table was pretty much "fuck it, that's too much, we're leaving". Good job, bitch. You got greedy and wanted 30$, and in demanding it, you lost the 15$ you could have collected. Now your poker room is empty and you have nothing to do for the rest of the night.

I cashed out my 340$, and returned to my room where I'd get about 3 hours sleep before going to the SBIR conference (which applies so little to me, and really isnt even worth note). It was a pretty good time, and even with the horrendous table rake, the game is beatable. But those folks at French Lick really need to change some things for that casino to be successful.

The trip did inspire me to visit my local casino - Casino Aztar, and see how I fare there. I'll come back and write a trip report once I've given it a shot.

Until next time...