Buenos Aires Poker

Upon arriving to BA (Buenos Aires) after my 5 day Uruguay sojourn, I was impressed with the energy and size of this city of 11 Million people. Much different than Montevideo, Uruguay.

I called up a couple of my poker contacts I made in Punta del Este,Uruguay who were from BA and at the tournament over there. Sure enough, that night they were going to have a poker game from 9PM on. While I am trusting second hand info from these guys, it seems that casinos in Buenos Aires either don't have poker, or have a strange form of running the games. Apparently all players at the table have to ante up BEFORE seeing their first two cards in Holdem. Sounds very strange to me and would obviously be at a disadvantage to play in a "blind betting" situation. So...instead the knowledgeable players play in various private club games throughout the city. It reminds me of Florida home games I used to play in when I lived there since at that time there was no public poker in the Indian casinos of Florida (that has changed significantly in recent years).

So...with private information address in hand, I set out for my first BA poker adventure. The address ended up not being very far from my hotel. It was a little disconcerting when I arrived by taxi because I didn't see a number for the address over a door where it was supposed to be, and there are no signs signifying these "poker clubs". Fortunately I had invested in a local cellphone chip and was able to call my contact back who came out to the door to find me and bring me in. It is pretty secure with a heavy locked door and doorman...which is probably what you need for protecting a "home game" setup.

Coming up the stairs it was like I was in some small office complex or similar to small language schools I have seen in Latin America. As it turns out, this 4-5 office mini complex was all for the poker club...and they had a chess room as well. I met "Pato" who manages the club and is a world class chess player who has even traveled to my town of Chicago to play in chess tournaments. I was ushered in to the poker room which was already full and in action. All guys with a mix of ages though half of the players were around my age or older I would say (50s).

You have to have a bankroll to play in this club, because the smallest buyin is 3000 pesos (currently around $800 US). I was able to watch for about 40 minutes before getting a chance to play. It is a very different concept than what I have ever seen before. They play in two hour rounds. Everyone starts the round with 3000 chips (pesos). No one posts money up front as everyone's credit is apparently good until proven otherwise. The blinds are 25-50 pesos (around $8-16 current exchange) which is a healthy blind setup. The action was quite good and there seemed to be a decent balance between tight and loose players. Most of them sure didn't seem too concerned about the stakes or look at the chips as money.

After the current round finished at the 2 hour mark, Pato comes in and they tally up chip status. Those who lose have to pay up the balance of what they don't have in chipcount. Winners get paid cash for their profits over their 3000 buyin. I had only brought enough cash for two buyins at this level...which is short of what you should have for this game. I usually don't want to play if I don't have 3-4 times the minimum buyin available...and in most games I limit my downside losses to 3 buyins, as bankroll management is the key to winning poker players. But in this case I felt the play was soft and I would get my feet wet with my new Argentine poker friends with what I had in my pocket.

Oh...the rake. As you sit down with your 3000 chips, the house immediately takes 300 (10%) from your stack. At first I thought this was quite a high rake...but as I quickly calculated in my head what the Panama poker rooms take as a rake PER POT (5% up to $50!), I figured this rake is actually a bit less than the money that would disappear in the game in Panama. It also moved the game faster and better not having to deal with a pot rake on each hand. I'll have to look at this closer when I have time to compare it with other methods of raking games that I have observed.

I played pretty tight for the first 45 minutes until I could get a good read of all these new poker friends at the table. The game was loose enough that I figured I had better play pretty tight as bluffs were called regularly for big money. There didn't seem to be much "scared" money at the table...and the typical raise was 10 TIMES the blind. That means that to call a raise usually cost you $100-200 dollars! That tightens my game up in a hurry.

I won the first hand that I played and a small pot with AQ that I raised with one caller and flopped the Q...the other player folded to my 3 times blind bet. Then the next two hands I played I lost. One on the flop where my AK raised with 4 CALLERS and no AK on the flop. I got bet out of the pot by a player who had flopped two pair...something like 8-3 offsuit. You learn alot about a player when they call a raised pot before the flop with 8-3 off. You don't mind having 1-2 players at the table playing that way. The next hand I played I had JJ in the small blind. There was only one other American in the game who I had met briefly before starting the two hour round. He had played the round before and then introduced himself before I started playing. He was sitting to my immediate right (you draw cards before the game for seat position) on the button and raised what in this game seemed a "moderate" raise, 3 times the blind. I just called, putting him in AK or KQ, or a medium pair. There had been 4 callers preflop so I didn't think he was bluffing necessarily, but since I was new to all these people, I still didnt have a solid read on him as a player (sometimes I will be more aggressive with JJ when I know the other players better). The flop came 3 small rainbow cards. Since I didn't want the raiser drawing to an AK or something like that, I bet my jacks pretty heavy...don't really remember exactly...but I think like $100 worth of chips. The middle guy folded behind me but my American new friend went ALL IN behind me! I'm figuring he doesn't know my play yet either, so why would he put us both all in with this flop? It took me a couple minutes of thinking and trying to read him. I even asked him "do you have aces or kings somehow?". He didn't flinch. I didn't think he would have any of the low cards on the board, but then maybe he had a suited Ace with one of those low cards? I looked at the pot which was now 450...and with the all in I was going to be looking at winning over $1200 if I called and won the hand. I decided it was worth the chance and called...only to have him turn over the AA! UGH!. OF course the turn and the river didn't improve me and I had just had an expensive lesson from my fellow American player. He's pretty tight and hard to read.

I requested another set of "fichas" (chips) and now I was all in with what I brought to play with cashwise. I felt the game was good enough that I could win back my first buy and hopefully profit still. Without going into further hand details, lets just say I locked in and grooved with the table for the next 80 minutes and by the end of our 2 hour session I won back the 800 of the first buyin plus around $230 profit. To be quite honest, I was relieved to do so and even though they were going to play a couple more rounds through the night, I figured since it was 1AM already and I had traveled all day to get there...I would take my profit and call it a night. I like writing profits in my book...even if it is a small one. And when you come back over $1000 in an hour of live cash game action, it feels like a BIG win.

Now, when play was done everyone once again cashes out...losers paying, winners receiving. I felt really good to take away $230 without ever having to reach in my pocket for my bankroll. After settling up, they all signed in again for another 2 hour session while I waited for a taxi to take me back to my hotel.

While it is a strange system of playing from what I am used to, I came away feeling like I could make some regular money out of this game if I lived in Argentina. It was much friendlier than the regular cash games at the Veneto in Panama City. The players are probably more aggressive and a little better quality overall than the Panama competition, but everyone seemed relatively "nice" playing the game. You don't get many "niceties" at the Veneto in Panama. And the more I think about it, the more I like that you "reset" the game every 2 hours. That way no one can have a lucky streak and just run over the game all night long. And it also protects from the "hit and run" kind of play you see in some public poker rooms in the world where some strange player comes in...wins a couple pots on luck in an hour and then runs with the money. I definitely felt these players were all going to be here for the full two hours...and a couple of them were down 2-3 buys/rebuys. So...I think I will be back there next week after my current side trip over to Mar del Plata for the finale of the LAPT tournament tour this year. I should get a blog report on here the next day or two from Mar del Plata.

Get lucky everyone...just not against me!:)