A Scouting Report

Yesterday, I made my first visit to The Rivers Casino in downtown Pittsburgh. The Poker Room is right by the elevators for the Parking Garage. It has 20+ tables, and the room is rather spacious. It's good to see they didn't cram as many tables as possible, and have no room to maneuver. Everything is clean and new, which is because it is new. They just opened up the Poker Room three weeks ago. They seem to be using the Bravo system, which is when you swipe your Player's Card at the table for comps. I didn't ask about the comps or rake, but I didn't see anything about a Bad Beat Jackpot.

When I got there at 12:30, they had four tables of $1/$3 NL, one table of $2/$5 NL, one table of $4/$8 Limit, and a list for $1/$3 PLO. When I left at 4:30, they had eight tables of $1/$3 NL, two tables of $2/$5, two tables of $4/8, and lists for $1/$3 PLO, $4/$8 O8, and $5/$10 NL.

However, this trip was different than my other trips. I didn't play any poker. I went with my Uncle, who is a gambler, but doesn't play poker. When we got there, we walked around to check out the place, and then grabbed some lunch at one of their restaurants. The Chicken Cordon Bleu sandwich was good, but overpriced as you would expect in a casino.

We then headed over to the Craps table. I've never played Craps before, but it's my uncle's specialty. He tried to show me how to play. I kept my betting on the simple side, while he had bets all over the place. We ended up playing one full orbit around table. Most of the Rolls were rather quick. Set the Point, roll a couple of other numbers, and hit the dreaded 7. My Uncle's Roll was quick, with him hitting 7 on the 2nd throw. My Roll was also short, but I did hit my Point twice. Only one player's Roll lasted what seemed to be 15-20 throws. He never hit his Point of 5, but he did hit 6 many times. That gave us a chance to get some of our money back, but not quite back to even. I ended up walking away from the Craps table down $85.

Next stop was the 3-Card Poker table. And just like most of my 3-Card Poker sessions this year, the Dealer had much better cards then we did. In fact, the Dealer only dealt one Straight to the table the whole time we were there. My Uncle got dealt a decent amount of Pairs, but nothing higher. I did get two Flushes, but one of them was beat by a bigger Flush. When my Uncle busted out, I was actually close to even. I decided to go Blind for one last hand. Naturally, the Dealer had a Flush. I did end up with a Pair, so I didn't lose my entire bet. I walked away from the table down $40.

While I did my Blind bet, my Uncle wandered off. After cashing out my chips, I finally found him at a .25 Slot machine. He seemed to be winning a little, and wanted to keep playing. So I sat next to him, put $50 in to the Slot machine, and basically lit a match to it. Spin after spin was little or nothing. After my Uncle wasted most of what he was winning, he cashed out for +$20, and we headed home.

Overall, he was down almost $400, and I was down $175. Considering how bad I've been running in the Pit this year, that's not bad. Plus, I've had a good week at the Home game tables this week, with 2nd place at Julie's and +$236 at a Wednesday night Cash game. So this was essentially a free roll.

I'll be returning to Pittsburgh next weekend to actually play some poker at both The Rivers and The Meadows.