GameMiscondct and the Chief Disciple took a ride down to East Chicago/Gary/Hammond, Indiana to play some Texas Hold'em at the Majestic Casino in Hammond, Indiana on July 24th, 2006. I was in Chicago on my day-job business, so me and Game-O decided to play some poker that evening. The casino is a riverboat variety and it was about a 30 minute drive from Chicago to Northwest Indiana. This part of Indiana is pretty blighted and GameMiscondct warned me that we would not be enjoying the scenery with the drive.
They had a nice sized poker room for a riverboat. I think they had about 30 tables. It seemed that a lot of time and energy was being spent on running a poker tournament rather than focusing on the cash games. We put our names on the board and got a quick bite to eat. The little eatery outside the poker room kind of sucked because only one-person was working the whole thing. GameMiscondct got seated first at a poker table and it took me a good 30 minutes to get seated after him.
The managers of the poker room were pathetic and not following their own rules. A couple of players had gone to dinner and had exceeded their time away from the table. One woman had 3 absent buttons. Players at the table were pleading for the woman's chips to be "bagged up", but the manager would not do it. I jumped into the fray and essentially called the guy incompetent. I had been waiting long enough for a table and Mavis was not back from the salad bar after 2 hours. The manager threatened to show me the door (for pointing out the rules) and at that point, I quit my tirade since I wanted to play poker.
The game of choice was 3/6 limit hold'em. The dealers were OK, Nothing flashy. The players were essentially a tight/conservative group. I'm not sure if this is a Midwest trait or not. I have always found California Card Room Games pretty wild and loose. These guys played as tight as a wet boot.
Game-O managed to build a decent stack and decided that the crap tables were calling him. I stayed at the poker table and grinded it out for a couple of hours. The waitresses were nice, but you had to pay for drinks. This was not Vegas.
I was about to record a losing session until the final hand, when I picked up Ace/Jack suited and raked a $100 pot with runner-runner flush. I cracked a guy's three queens. Then, I promptly got up and left.
It was great playing poker with GameMiscondct and it was nice to feel the felt again and stack the chips. But the managers of the poker room were pretty unfriendly and the threat of being ejected for speaking my mind when an injustice was committed was unacceptable.
I was dropped off in Chicago around 11:00pm. We had fun because we manufactured the fun. As far as the poker room experience, on the poker scale rating system (with a royal flush being the best poker room experience), I'd have to give the Majestic Casino a rating of one-pair (see picture above). We're talking a quantum leap from Florida poker, but a far cry when compared to Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
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