See You In 6 Months Turlock Poker Room!

It has been six months since I last stepped in the Turlock Poker Room. And can you guess how long it has been since the time before that? Yep, 6 Months! After regularly playing there I just couldn't take it anymore. I've been in a lot of rooms, but this one is by far the worst I've ever experienced. You have a lot options as poker player and I think it is important that you stick to your guns and only support the ones that take care of you. Rake is expensive, and it should only be given to the ones that earn it. So, I only go there every 6 months to pop in and see if they have changed their terrible ways.

So why don't I like Turlock Poker Room? Well let's start with...

The Rake:

When I first started playing there it was a flat $4. At first you'd think, Hey that's $1 less then most places! But in reality it was not. It was a flat $4 no matter how many players were seated at the table. 9 players $4. 6 Players $4. HEADS UP???? $4! If there was action preflop (anything other than a chop) but no flop they still dropped the $4. It was absolutely awful. It pretty much made it impossible to play less than 6 handed which meant the games would constantly break.

Fast forward to a year ago. They advertised that they changed their rake structure. Now the drop has increased to $5 no matter how many players are in, and they only drop $1 if there is no flop. Somehow it got even WORSE! In most card rooms the drop is reduced depending on the amount of players. Also, in the many times that I have played short handed, the floor has reduced it further. Will they do that in Turlock? Absolutely not. $1 dollar 4 handed is night and day different then $5.

Another thing that infuriates me is that they don't let you do a raise chop (AKA the Commerce Chop). They will literally yell at you if you attempt to do it. The blinds are purposefully set up in a way to see a flop and therefore drop the maximum amount. The blinds are $2, $2, with $1 on the button. The players also like to limp in constantly and see flops cheaply and a 4 player limp pot ends up playing for $3. They also don't understand that the poker economy of the Turlock / Modesto area can't sustain that high of a drop. The average No Limit player at the TPR buys in for $40-100. The max buy in is the biggest stack at the table, but people rarely do that. With a $5 drop they are essentially taking an average player off the table an hour which will eventually cause all of their clientele to go broke. The games break extremely fast as people go broke exponentially quicker.

The Promotions:

Usually with a $5 drop, $4 goes to the house and $1 goes to player funded promotions. At TPR, all of it goes to the house and they fund the promotions themselves. It is a lot different than a guaranteed 20% coming back to the players. I don't know how much they are actually putting back into the promotions but I can guarantee you that it isn't 20%. The promotions are pretty bad too. $25 a day royal flush progressive per suit with a cap at $1000 per suit. FRIKKEN TERRIBLE. Why would you cap it? That's what progressive means. Bad beat jackpot 2222-9999 beat $5,000, 10101010-AAAA beat $25,000, and Straight Flush over Straight Flush $35,000. Its next to impossible to hit the big one, and when you do the payout sucks compared to the Bad Beat Jackpots at other casinos. I hate the BBJ, but if you are going to have it just have it be 2222 beat and combine all of the smaller jackpots into one big one. Not exactly rocket science. $65,000 for 2222 beat would be way better. They are not clear about the daily amounts added to the BBJ either. It just seems shady and I know we are getting ripped off compared to the norm at other places.

The $2 Chips:

Who the hell plays No Limit Texas Holdem with $2 chips.... This place frikken does, and let me tell you... It slows the game down a lot. Dealers constantly have to verify stacks, make change for the drop, and god forbid there is a huge chop pot. That is the worst. If you have a big win you literally will have 10 racks of chips. It is difficult to not drop them all when going to the cage. It is so stupid, but they refuse to play with $5 chips. NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS TPR! Get a clue..... On top of it many of the chips are not flush with the others so the rack doesn't feel full, and you are constantly double checking that your chips on the table are in matching stacks of 20.

The Must Move:

Every game is a must move all the time until you get to the main game. It is horrible. Once you get a read on your table and finally get a rhythm going, it is time to move to the next table. I understand 1 must move to the main game, but 4 must moves? You are literally bouncing around the tables. Here's an idea... Fill the Game as people leave. Again most places start with a must move but then it is off after 30 minutes. If the games die, then you can break the tables one at a time. It's not freakin rocket science!

The Wait List, Floor, and Dealers:

Whenever there is a wait list, they take forever to start a new table. Even though dealers are sitting talking in the back of the room they refuse to start a new game until there are like 15-18 people on the list. The floor takes forever to read the names / know there are open seats. I usually have to tell them its open so I can sit down. It also takes a long time to sit down because you have to wait for all the must moves to trickle back to your open seat. The floor people are idiots and the dealers are jerks. I have seen the floor people make the most idiotic rulings, play favorites to people, and make different rulings for the same situations. The dealers talk a lot of crap, will yell at you, and rarely keep the game moving. They are slow and are pretty unpleasant to be around.

They Never Spread Higher than $1-$2-$2

Give me $2-5... BOOOO! Sometimes it gets pretty deep, but no one wants to up the game ever. LAME!

SO what does TPR actually have going for it?

Two things: Location, and soft players. It is very convenient to get to, but all of the other negatives make me happy to drive 45-90 minutes to a better room that offers a bigger, better run game. Most of the players are pretty soft, or rock tight. It is nice when an action player comes, but that is rare. I tend to be the action when I go because they limp fold so often and never 3 bet without AA.

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So rant over and back to last night. Nothing has changed, everything is still terrible and I don't want to play there. I booked a small loss, but I was playing super loose aggro. In my big pot that I lost a guy tanked for like 7 minutes with an over pair on a Jack high flop. He bet $60 and I shoved for $160 with AJ. I was like seriously you have QQ and you haven't called yet? I had AJ and couldn't wait to get it in, but I'm also not a nit. I couldn't believe he took that long. I actually thought he was going to fold for a long time. I was pretty card dead and actually won when my garbage would hit. If I was playing my usual style, I wouldn't have picked up anything and would have folded the garbage I won with.

It was nice to see 2 regs there that I used to talk to when I played there regularly. They got a kick out of me splashing around. I cracked Kings twice, with 85o and J3dd lol and it was to the same lady. She was pissed lol. I also bluffed a guy with nothing on the river in a pretty big pot and he was steaming. Happy to book a small loss being so card dead.

So the cliffs: TPR Sucks, nothing has changed. DON"T PLAY THERE! Small loss. SEE YOU IN 6 MONTHS TURLOCK POKER ROOM!

#Poker #TurlockPokerRoom