Trip report: Horseshoe Casino, Hammond, IN 8-9-08

After the big trip to New York, I wasted in no time in setting off for another trip. Up next, a trip to Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana. The casino underwent a gigantic renovation recently, costing half a billion to complete, and the grand re-opening was scheduled for August 8. As it turned out, the Smashing Pumpkins were brought in to play at the new theatre called The Venue, which is conveniently located only up a staircase and down the hall from the casino. As a Pumpkins fan and gambler, this was a fortuitous combination I could not pass up. So, I hooked up with my boy Q and we were off.

I got to the casino and easily found my way to the poker room. Wow! This is the closest thing I've seen to a Vegas type poker room outside Sin City. 34 tables in all, a very nice front desk/brush area, and a two tiered room (with the upper tier reserved for nosebleed stakes), this place was very nice. Of course, everything was brand new, including the tables, a commemorative set of chips for the grand re-opening, the electronic waitlist, and (unfortunately) the dealers.

The wait list process was a little cumbersome. I didn't call ahead to get on the list and by the time I got to the room there was a wait of about 2o people on the 1/2 No Limit game. Most of these were call-ins though so I was able to get a seat in about 30 minutes or so. Not bad, but they could have easily opened another table or two while I was waiting and there would have been no wait at all. I'm sure that is something that will be worked out with a little more experience.

The dealers weren't so good. Many of them had a very difficult time keeping the action moving, making decisions when a card was inadvertently exposed, etc. One cool thing was that the room has chip runners, meaning the dealers were not selling chips, which kept the action moving. Once the dealers get some more experience, the play should be pretty quick at Horseshoe. There is a lot of space in the room, as opposed to most of the other rooms I've frequented. This is a very good thing!

I sat down about 1:45 pm or so and started playing. I didn't have much in the way of hands for most of the session. In fact, the entire 6+ hours I played, I only wound up showing my cards on two hands. I'll dissect a few hands here for your reading pleasure.

Hand #1. Guy 2 seats to my right has been splashing around quite a bit, raising with a lot of garbage. He likes to talk a lot and is generally your typical table captain. He pops it up to 12 preflop. I look down at pocket sevens in the small blind. I might consider folding here since only one other person had limped into the hand and I'm out of position. But, given the aggressive nature of the captain, I decided to call. Other guy calls. Flop comes down 678 rainbow. Not a perfect hand for a set but beggars can't be choosers. I check, the limper checks and captain bets 25 into our $36 pot. I've got the captain covered and think he's likely on an overpair or just pushing around. But I'm not taking any chances. I push all in for another 100 or so. The limper folds and the captain goes deep into the tank. After a minute or so, he decides to call me and turns over pocket nines. He has an overpair and open ended straight draw. Rag on the turn and the river is an eight to fill me up. Nice pot and suddenly I'm up about $200 or a buy-in.

Hand #2. I'm on the button and about 5 people limp in to me. I look down at A8 off suit. I don't usually play this kind of hand but since I'm on the button decide to see a flop. Small Blind completes and BB checks. Flop comes down A88, bingo! SB leads out for $15 into the $14 pot. I'm disappointed as it folds around to me. I smooth call, wanting to extract as much as possible out of senor SB. The turn is a rag and he bets out another $20. Again I smooth call. River is yet another rag and SB bets out $30. This time I think about it for a while and raise another $90, figuring with $158 in the pot any eight and any big ace are likely to call me here. He goes into the tank forever and finally (argh!) mucks his hand. He shows an Ace as he folds. Dang it, I guess I raised a little too much. But, I've added to my growing stack.

Hand #3. Shortly before dinner, I finally look down at a premium pair in late position, spying AA. I'm in late position and there are four limpers in ahead of me. I raise up to $12 and get 3 callers (yikes!). Flop comes down T73, 2 diamonds. Checked to me and I bet out $20 into the $52 pot. Guy in 3rd position raises it up to $60 and it folds around to me. Did he hit a set? Maybe but I'm putting him on something more like pocket Queens or Jacks. This guy isn't a very good player and the only set I saw him play all night he slow played all the way to the river. I re-popped up to $120. Guy has about $300 behind, a nice sized stack. He fairly quickly calls me. Turn is a beautiful, wondrous, glorious Ace, I'm now sitting on the nuts. Dude checks to me and I bet out another $75 into this $300 pot. He fairly quickly calls. River is another seven, pairing the board and giving me a full boat. The only hand that beats me here is pocket 7s, which I thought was a possibility but I tell myself that's monster-under-the-bed type thinking. He checks to me and I fire out another $75. He's got about $150 left behind and the pot is already around $450. I think I've bet little enough for him to call, especially with such a big pot. He thinks for literally 3-4 minutes before finally folding. ARGGGGH! He was either on his Kings, Queens or Jacks, or maybe a flush draw. Later he tries to tell me he had pocket 2s, meaning he folded twos full of sevens. I don't believe that for a second. I lose a little on a couple speculative hands and finish the night up $430, up over two buy-ins. I like this poker room!

As an aside, the place also features 2 Poker Tek tables, which basically is an automated poker table, meaning no dealers, no chips, etc. It's basically playing computerized poker but you're playing against other people that are sitting at the table. The advantages of this are quicker games, no tipping the dealer required and lower rake taken from the hands. The disadvantage is primarily that there are no real cards, chips, etc. I'll try it out next time I'm there.



Q and I also checked out dinner. The line to the buffet was unbelievably long so we headed for a little Asian noodle shop. It was ok, they had a few dim sum dishes that I am especially fond of. So I snagged some of that and scarfed down dinner. This place could use more smaller restaurants besides the buffet and definitely could use more seating. Next up, The Venue, for Pumpkin-time!

The room was interesting, it was a gigantic theater. I'm sure that the set-up varies from show to show. The night before the Pumpkins played, Bette Midler opened the room. I'm pretty sure the general admittance area didn't exist for her show, hard to see all the boomers moshing it up to Wind Beneath My Wings. I digress.

For the Pumpkins, the entire downstairs was standing room, GA. It probably could have held somewhere in the neighborhood of five thousand people in the downstairs alone. Pumpkins didn't come close to filling it though. In the upstairs, there was a balcony area with what looked like fairly limited seating, although to be honest I didn't really take a good look. The balcony was quite a long ways back from the stage, those seats would not have been good for this show. Interestingly, the floor itself was concrete but during the show when everyone was jumping around you could feel the floor bouncing, almost like it was made of rubber. I kept envisioning the pulsing mass of people collapsing through the floor and landing one story down in the middle of a roulette game or something!

Pumpkins put on an interesting show. They were on stage for 2 1/2 hours and played a few of the hits. They also played a couple of really long songs that literally lasted about 50 minutes or so between the 2 of them. Here is a review of a similar show done the night before that seems like it had a very similar setlist. Highlights of the show for me included classic Mayonnaise, the previously mentioned long rock out to America, and from way back Rhinoceros. Unfortunately, there were some lowlights. First, the sound really sucked. I don't know if it was the room or the band, but at many points you couldn't hear Corgan's guitar and often couldn't hear his vocals. Huh? Second, I wasn't very into the lengthy Floyd cover they did. The acoustic set in the middle of the show was fairly average and the final encore, when the entire band stood front stage and played kazoos was sublime and a little too much for me. Overall, I'm glad I saw the band but it left a bit to be desired.

On the other hand, Q has been a big Pumpkins fan for a long time. He's been a little grouchy the band hasn't played Chicago once since their reunion last year. I don't think this show really helped the cause. I really don't want to be to blame for his dissocation with his favorite band but I think it may be too late for that. Bummer!

Song lyric of the day: "The world is a vampire / set to drain" Smashing Pumpkins

Until next time.

Ace