Skycity

  You always said
  The cards would never do you wrong
  The trick you said
  Was never play the game too long          Bob Seager

    Auckland got its first (and only) casino in 1996. Not long after it opened my wife and I went and checked it out, just to see what it was like. I guess we must have enjoyed it because we've been going there maybe two or three times a year ever since. Back then there were no poker tables at the casino. Some of the gaming machines were poker machines, where you get dealt a poker hand and try to draw a prize-winning one. There was also a table game called Caribbean Stud Poker, where patrons play against the house like they do in Blackjack. But there were no live poker games available, not that I was looking for that at the time. Generally my wife would play on 'the pokies' and I would play Roulette, or occasionally try my hand at Tai Sai or the 'Winning Wheel'.
   They installed poker tables on the mezzanine floor sometime in the early Twentyfirst Century and I finally got around to trying it out in 2008. The poker primers that I'd been reading inspired me to go and try my hand (so to speak) at casino poker games. So, after a couple of stiff drinks at the bar I went and bought in for $100 and joined the $1/$2 cash game. After getting over my initial nervousness, I found it quite enjoyable. Although it was my first ever casino game I probably wouldn't remember much about it if it wasn't for a particular incident.
   I'd been playing for a while when I picked up a small pocket pair. Two other players saw the flop, which was A A X. There was a bet and a call from the other two, and I called as well. There was more betting on the turn and the river, and for some reason I kept calling. I don't know why I thought my two pair was good in the face of two players' aggressive raises but I did, and both my opponents turned over aces. This was an embarrassingly bad play but it was made much worse by what happened afterwards.
   One of the players who'd turned over trips was astonished by my stupid call. He proceeded to address the table at length about how he couldn't understand why I'd do that. He spent some time carefully dissecting the hand while I sat there and tried to shrink into the back of my seat. He never actually addressed me and he never actually called me an idiot, but he might as well have. I was well aware of how bad the play had been, but he was just making sure that everyone else knew. Not long after that I picked up AJ suited and raised. Mr Analysis then re-raised all-in. I thought for a bit , then called him. I think it's fair to say that a good part of my decision to call was a desire to get even. He turned over pocket sevens, and by the time we reached the river I had nothing and he had a full house. That was the end of my first casino game. Not a great start.
   I went back up and played three more times over that summer holiday period, with mixed results. It was a while ago now but I do remember flopping an Ace high straight at one stage, and also seeing my pocket Queens become trips on the flop and then quads on the river. I also recall one game where one of the players was a big-stack maniac, raising nearly every hand and annoying the hell out of everyone else. At this time the poker area was very busy, with a number of different levels of cash game being played and regular low buy-in SitnGo tournaments. They were even playing Omaha cash games for a while there.
   I came back to play some more casino games towards the end of 2009. Skycity was running a prize draw promotion on Wednesday nights and my wife was keen to try and win the big prize. So we went up to the casino on a number of Wednesday evenings over the holidays and I took the opportunity to play a little poker. By this stage the blinds in the lowest level cash game were $2/$3, so a $100 buy-in only amounted to 33 big blinds, rather than 50.

   The great thing about casino games is that you get all the fun of a live game without the hassle of having to deal. The dealer does everything for you, even keeping you informed of whose turn it is to act. All you have to do is concentrate on your game. What's more, there are a lot of gamblers around, which is generally a good thing for someone who knows a little about correct play. Of course the down-side is the rake. From my reading I understand that Skycity's ten percent rake is on the high side, and makes it difficult for anyone to win in the long run.
   By the end of 2010 I was playing in regular tournaments at a local pub, so I gave the casino a miss. However, I did go up there in January 2011 to check out the Monday night tournament that some other players had told me about. First I went up to the casino on the weekend to get all the details, and confirmed that it was $20 buy-in and $20 re-buy. So I turned up on Monday night and bought my tourney chips along with maybe 50 or 60 others. I was somewhat surprised when I sat down at the table to find that nearly everyone else had a bigger stack than me. That's when I learned that players could buy in for double the starting stack for an extra $10; something that the cashier I'd spoken to on the previous day had neglected to mention. Much to my disgust, I started the game at a disadvantage and eventually got knocked out after going all-in with KQ. Then when I tried to re-buy I found that I had to use casino chips rather than cash; something else I didn't know. Luckily for me one of the other players helped me out and sold me some of his casino chips which enabled me to re-buy. The tournament hadn't been going for an hour when I ended up all-in pre-flop with KQ again, and lost again.  It turns out that there was also a variable re-buy and a two-level add-on available in this game. If I were to buy-in, re-buy and add-on for the maximum amount it would have cost about $100. Very far from the $20/$20 cost that I been told about! That was my one and only Skycity poker tournament.
   It was not long after this that I started playing online. I was now in a position to play poker at any buy-in level I chose, which allowed me to start a proper bankroll management plan. No more expensive buy-ins for me. So on the odd occasion when my wife and I went to the casino, I stuck to the roulette. Except for one occasion last year when I decided to have a 'just-for-fun' game; one that I would play with my gambling money, not my poker bankroll. By this stage the 'poker zone' had been moved to a new location; a much smaller room on the other side of the mezzanine, tucked away out of sight. I guess the poker boom was over. The blinds had also been increased to $2/$4. Even though I bought in for only 20 big blinds I did very well in this game, coming out after a couple of hours with nearly $600. That was my best result ever in any poker game in terms of actual payout.
   Despite this success I haven't been back to the 'poker zone' and don't intend to do so any time soon. Since then it's been moved again: it's now in an even smaller area with only a handful of tables in a sort of sports bar arrangement. If I ever play poker at Skycity it will be when I have a large enough bankroll to support the buy-in, which is still a very long way off indeed. At the moment the cheapest available game is a $60 weekly tournament, which is way beyond a comfortable buy-in for me. Even so, I consider it to be a medium to long term goal to one day play poker at Skycity again. Meanwhile, I'll be rubbing shoulders with the other gamblers at the roulette tables.