Me and a buddy drove up to the poker room in Seabrook NH tonight to check it out. Here's a short informal review...
The scene was pretty quiet on a Monday night. They advertise 52 tables, and I was told that the place is packed on the weekends. Apparently due to NH law, which is pretty crazy in my opinion, No Limit Cash games are illegal, and limit cash games are only legal up to 1/2. The standard 1/2 you ask? Hells no! Here the SB and BB are 1 and 2 respectably, and then the betting on the turn and river street
remain at 2. Can I get a WHAT THE HELL? The games offered were Hold 'em and Omaha Hi, both whack $2 limit of course.
On the tournament side of things, there were constantly moving NLHE SNGs for $30 + $10, $75, and $150. (Not sure what the vig on the 75 or 150 were, as I didn't play them). This is obviously a HIGH vig, but to be legal in NH some money has to go to charity. So every so often they change the charity, and some of that 10$ vig is going to wherever they choose.
Also offered are the larger tournaments with buy-ins from $100 - $250 starting at 5, 7, and 8. The 5 o clock tournament had over 100 entrants (and was the cheapest buy-in), but the 8 pm tourney had under 20 (and was the $250).
I chose to participate in the $40 (30 + 10) SNG, which played 10-handed tables (yuck). Starting stack = 3000, and blinds at 100/100 (SB = BB for the first limit). Blinds went up every 10 minutes, which amounted to 8 hands for the first level, and after 11 minutes the starting stack was worth 15xBB. I felt that this basically made this a crapshoot (worse than a super turbo online), but did end up chopping with one other player for 1st/2nd, me taking 100 and him taking 140 as I had 2xBB and he had 8xBB, and I figured I'd take the extra money he was throwing me instead of playing a push/crapshoot. I had a pretty good run of cards, getting QQ, JJ, and AKo in the first 30 hands or so. I was also playing very aggressively PF from the Button and Cut-off, so when I did land these hands I ended up taking down some good pots.
All in all, a disappointing trip, although I did end up +60, I wouldn't return. Where oh where is a 20 year old supposed to play B&M in central Mass?
