The Meadows

I arrived at The Meadows early afternoon on Friday. It's a Racetrack/Casino about 30 minutes south of Downtown Pittsburgh. They've been open for a few years, but they just got Table Games and Poker in early July.

The Meadows is a two floor Casino. The Casino and restaurants are on the Main Floor. The Lower Floor has the Poker Room, the Racebook, and a 24 lane bowling alley.

The Poker Room has 26 tables. The room is rather large, and they could squeeze a few more tables in there if they choose. The selection of games is what you would expect. When I left at 10pm, they had three tables of 2/4 Limit, one table of 3/6 Limit, ten tables of 1/2 NL, one table of 2/5 NL, and one table of 5/10 NL.

Since the Poker Room is new, so are the some of the dealers. Only one dealer that I encountered needs more training.

There are two unusual House Rules. The first is a Traveling Button, which I've seen before. It makes sure that nobody has the Button for two consecutive hands because the UTG has to post an extra blind. I understand the idea behind it, but it just causes more confusion then it's worth.

The other House Rule is something that I've never seen before. If there is a flipped card during the Deal, it is considered a Dead Card, and replaced by another card. However, it doesn't become the Burn card. They still Burn & Turn, which changes the order of the Deck. Everyone who doesn't know the rule asks the Dealer about it, and the Dealer says, "Yeah, that's the rule". And with the newer Dealers, flipped cards are more common.

As for my poker, I ended up playing two shorter sessions of $1/$2 with a dinner break between them. In the afternoon session, the table was what you would expect on a Friday afternoon. A lot of passive play. Some players were very tight, some were rather loose, but all were passive. I won various small pots, and lost some too. For most of the session, I was between +$50 and +$150. Towards the end, one of the loose players on my direct Left started catching cards, and I started missing everything. My stack slowly bled down to +$20 when I left for dinner.

In the evening session, the table was just as passive as the earlier, but much more tighter. The cards for me were a little better this time. The biggest difference was I didn't really lose a pot of any value. I just kept slowly building my stack. I did flop a Straight against what I assume was an Overpair. I flopped an Open Ended Straight Flush Draw against Top Pair. After a couple of raises, he folded on the Flop. I also made a Hero call with A-high against an "I Missed. Go Away" River bet (I love being called Unbluffable.) Overall, I ended up leaving the table up $264.