My trip to Boomtown...New Orleans

I like to travel at times to find soft games with low rakes at local or nearby casinos. It is unfortunate that Harrah's New Orleans, Imperial Palace-Biloxi, and the Beau Rivage-Biloxi do a time rack(that is you have to pay six dollars every thirty minutes) they do this instead of raking the pots. Sucks huh? Today, I went to Boomtown, which is located on the Westbank of New Orleans in an area called Harvey, to play in their 1-2 NL game. On Wednesday evenings they have a NL tournament which is a $50 buy in(guessing at the amount), you get a few hundred in chips the blinds go up every 20 minutes and they start at 25-50, your basic crap shoot! I played it once and have not done so again, I got called down by a lunch box with pocket fives on a board of AK77 what was the river? Yep, FIVE! Geez, I can ramble huh? Okay, so usually after the tournament they have this 1-2 NL game which is filled with the winners of the tourney, locals of the westbank and some of Harrah's employees.

They rake, 10% of the pot up to four dollars, the game is not jackpot eligible, the minimum buy in is $60 and the max is $200 or half the big stack. Patience and a sense of humor got me through my three hour session, many of the lunchboxes were "eventualities"(yep, eventually they would go bust)

I have one story to tell, of the many that I witnessed, it was my fourth dealer, Angie, I was under the gun and straddled (I believe this is the worst bet in poker, but I wanted to induce action, I also got into a very good discussion about straddles and why they are better in looser games, next time, eh?) Everyone called to the button who put in a weak raise of $12 dollars...small blind and big blind call, at this point 7-2 is okay to call, but I have several behind and someone might be savy enough to raise to take down a nice pot thus far. I looked down at 67 of hearts, I called...no more raises and it was a family affair that saw the flop. The flop was 5d 8s 9s, "GULP!" Checks to me, I put in $50, two callers behind me and the big blind raises all in for another $110. Yikes...I put him on a variety of hands and thought that he might have the same hand as myself and may be freerolling, but why would he push all in? Nah, maybe a set, two pair, or the flush draw...I call, (I only have$150 left) hoping to get one of the other two too see the value in it and either push in themselves or call. A shorter stack did push in and we went to the river, no spade, no higher straight scare card, nor did the board pair. The big blind said he had a set, the short stack just mucked and I take down a huge pot. I played for another hour and got out of there.

Hope you enjoyed that, it feels good to get in with value and hit a great hand and get paid off. If you are a local, Boomtown has a seven table room, they normally spread 3-6 limit or 4-8 half omaha half hold'em. On Wednesdays they have this 1-2 NL game, but I understand they also have it on Fridays and Saturdays, I will check this out. The game is soft for the most part and if you are a tight aggressive player you will be successfull 80%(made this percentage up) of the time. The dealers are awesome...on the swing shift look for Angie, Tuan(Tim), Sean and Ciro, they do an excellent job.

Next time I will ramble on about my trip to Baton Rouge and their four table poker AREA, at the Belle and I will talk about my trip to Vegas, detailing four poker rooms, The Venitian, Ceasars, The Mirage and The Wynn.

Until next time stay nice as rice and mello as jello! Smile at the lunch box and think to yourself, "Gosh you are good for the game!"