Poker Tek Digital Table

[El Guapo 8]

OK so I finally got a chance to play on the poker tek poker pro tables that are in Folsom, CA at the Folsom Lake Bowl Card room.Let me begin this by the fact that I am kind of a poker pureist if there is such a thing, I have been playing since I was a kid and sneaking into card rooms since I was 15. So I like chips, I Like cards I like the general nuances of the game that is inherant in traditional poker play. I will tell you a little about my night before I talk about the tables themselves. We get there Sunday night after a buddy's wedding at about 10 PM and there is on 2-3 NL table going, full with no waiting, I am with a buddy who runs a card room up North in an Indian Casino, so he really wants to play on the table to see if they should try to get some at the casino. 2 Regulars walk in right after us and the let us start up a 2-3 NL HE game short handed w/ 4. First hand I pick up QdQc fl;op comes ccc all unders, I bet he calls, turn is Kc I have 2nd nut flush. Check Check. River blank, he bets I just call he has ac. lose about 60. Next hand JJ. I raise standard, get reraised to 30 or so, so I reraise to all in, He thinks calls and asks if I have AA, he has KK and I blew a quick 200 in 2 hands. Now maybe I played the JJ too fast, but we are 4 handed....so I can live with that. then what happens for the next hour is amazing I pick up a total of 16 pairs 88 to KK, every time except on the flop come almost all overs. I picked up one pot with 88 where noone hit. Even the KK came AJx, and I was able to get away from it at least. And they showed cards a lot so i know I was getting away from them good. The whole table was amused by my predicament, but happy because I probably looked like the biggest fish in the world. I finally get my lowest pair 22, and see a flop, flop comes Q3Q 2 clubs, I bet, player to my right calls. Turn blank check check. I put the guy on a flsuh draw, I bet enough to put him all in, about 3/4 pot he calls with 55, was very suprised by that call. So we break the tables for a midnight $40 2 table sitn go. I have lost about 340 with premium hands. Oh I forgot about the 4th hand of nigh after I rebought, still 4 handed. I was playing against my friend heads up and I flop the at the time nut str8. I bet he calls, card puts a possible larger str8 on the board so I play cautious and turns out that card gave him the absolute nuts and me the 2nd nuts. I felt like Daniel on last years high stakes game. Called off my chips the same too .So now to the tourney; 2 table 20 with alternates, poker tables in folsom can only hve 8 players max for some reason., with blinds at 25-50 I call from the small blind with Qd3d, flop comes 10c 4d 5d, player bets half pot, I call. Turn is a 2s, giving me open ended str8 and flush draws, he bets, this time about 1/4 pot. I call, river is Q. He bets again about half pot, I call and he gets pissed that I river then Q, gets moved to a different table and starts bitching to my friend that "some guy" called off 3/4 of his stack with nothing, when in reality it was 1/4 of my chips and all he had was a pair of 10's and he bet small enough to let me call.We get to the final 8 and I am 2nd in chips with about 4000, there is one guy from the other table that has 14,000 and everyone else has 1000-2000. So he basically says that he is going to go all in every hand. So I let him and fold every hand until he knocks out people to get to final 3 wich is payday, he ends up doubling up my opponent 3 times and gets knocked out then I cannot make enough happen and got 2nd for about $200. So I do not feel as bad about my earlier losses since I made up half. After the game the opened up a 1-2 game that we played to about 4 in the morning and I won back about another $40. (Side note: The night before we had a bachelor party and we had a small tourney that I won and then last night my friend had signed me up for a corporate tourney that $40, but with one rebuy and I got third in that and one $100 and $300 lighting transfore from ewing supply house, so three top 3 finishes in 3 days was kinda cool even though they were small tourneys)SO after all that how do I feel about the poker tek tables........ they are the wave of the future for tournaments, I really enjoyed it for that tournament was run without problems, it was very fast, lots of hands so even though the blinds went up every 15 minute you got probably twice the amount of hands that you would have gotten if it were regularly dealt. Now as for cash games, I did not like it as much, but I liked it much better than I thought I would. I would play on them again, but if there were 2 similar cash games going I would play with cards and chips. We counted hands, we got about 30 - 35 per half hour 8 handed, so pretty close to internet speed. Took me awhile to figure out tells and things like that so if it starts going that way it will be interesting how tells change. A few players bought chips from the cage to play with at the table. I would probably bring in some from home if I played that game a while, but the nice thing is it promotes some very fishy donkey play. SOme guy called off all his chips to my friend, about $250 worth on the river with a gut shot straight draw. We were dubfounded. He did not even have a pair and there wasn't enought in the pot for any call at all let alone a huge over bet.So I hope that was somewhat imformative, there was a lot more and my hands are cramping. If you have any specific questions just post it and I will try and respond.

[TB17 0]

Good report.

[El Guapo 8]

Wow I am really suprised that nobody here had any comments about these tables...they seem to have been pretty contreversial to this point.

[JoblessBast 0]

I don't know about the tables being controversial, but I've been eyeing PokerTek's stock for a few months now. I would agree that the tables' technology seems to be "the wave of the future". I think there's too many benefits for casinos that outweigh the negatives.Hell, I'm sure slot players were wary of the newer video slot machines and said things like "it's just not the same as pulling the handle," but check out how those are evolving and selling.The biggest question for me isn't whether the tables will take off, but whether PokerTek can maintain growth against future competition from companies like Shuffle Master. PokerTek is first in, which carries a lot of weight, but Shuffle Master is bigger and has more relationships. What would be really sweet is if one day their heads-up tables start showing up in bars, just like the old Pac Man games. Who knows if that'll ever happen in the US in our lifetime but at least maybe overseas.

[Dogpatch 2]

For tournaments I can definitely see the benefits, but like you said... in a cash game cards and chips would be my preference.

[Balloon guy 158]

I've been watching thier stock for awhile, they are very small right now, but they just picked up some contract for some tables on a cruise ship line, I think these tables are great.

[showstopper24 0]

I've been watching thier stock for awhile, they are very small right now, but they just picked up some contract for some tables on a cruise ship line, I think these tables are great.

i haven't played on them yet, though they sound good, especially for tournaments.i don't think they would be good for cash games, like running the river twice, or something like that.

[snooptoddd 0]

I've played on them, think they're cool ... and I'm a low-roller, so the fact that you don't have to take an extra $1-2 out of every pot you win to tip the dealer means that I could edge closer to being a winning player in live games ...

[El Guapo 8]

Not having to tip was great. They are working on letting it straddle, cannot right now. A problem I see with no dealer is there is no one to control ettiquette. A lot of players were telling other players what they had with multi way pots, that was a little frustrating, where as a dealer would have put an end to that. This is not so much a problem with the tourney because you have a floor roaming and they will stop that, with the cash game, the floor was pretty much waiters for us.I think for televised tourneys it will be great, it will be so much easier to show hole cards and earlier in the tournaments if there is an interesting hand that goes down they could at least illustrate to us what happened even if they did not have a camera on it, because there would be a hand history.I also liked the ability to go back an look at the last hand, like on full tilt, a little exta analysis.

[Suited_Up 2]

Sounds like "Live Computer Poker" is rigged.

[milojones 0]

yeah, ive been reading up on them as well. they definitely are small now, but they are at $10+/- per share and they seem very stable. the fact aht its very low cost now and very likely never going to be worth less than that, with potential to double or triple value in 15 years or less, i think its definitely of interest for a long term investor. i think ill buy a few shares and put them on the back burner for a while.

[JoblessBast 0]

yeah, ive been reading up on them as well. they definitely are small now, but they are at $10+/- per share and they seem very stable. the fact aht its very low cost now and very likely never going to be worth less than that, with potential to double or triple value in 15 years or less, i think its definitely of interest for a long term investor. i think ill buy a few shares and put them on the back burner for a while.

They were at this level before, above it, and just recently were below it. And if they actually get some competition, they very well could be worth less than that. They're not even profitable yet.BUT, I do agree with you on its potential.The other big question I have in relation to these tables: is the poker boom a fad, and are we peaking? If so, how much growth can this company have? If not, how much further can we go? I guess that's a whole other thread...

[vbnautilus 48]

They have a whole section of these now at Hollywood Park here in L.A.. Been playing on them a bunch recently. The interface itself is decent, and I agree with the OP that they are great for tourneys. However, at HP the cash game at these things is really wacky. Seems to attract a lot of internet players who aren't comfortable handling chips, or people who treat it like a slot machine and just want to gamble. A few improvements are needed which I'm sure will come (e.g. the size of the current bet should remain on the individual screens so you don't have to count the virtual chipstack on the center screen after a bet).

[NOFX_PUNK 0]

I think the interesting way to take these tables in the future (assuming online poker DOESN'T dry up) would be to tie them in with online sites, for example if you're sitting at a table at 3am drunk off your ***, some internet whizz kid could sit at the same table and take all your money, and vice versa. In my experience, the biggest differenc playing live and online is drink, if people are drunk online, they have to tell you or you won't know. If people are drunk live, you know straight away, not to mention that the average casino plys people with free drink and as such the sober internet player could probably clear up this way. The casino's would still get plenty of rake so I think they would be happy to oblige as well. The online players would get just as many hands in per hour as they are automated tables so they would be happy with the situation. The rake would obviously be higher for the internet player but the fish potential of the game would outweigh this in my opinion. Anyone else got any thoughts on this?

[Spence 0]

The biggest question for me isn't whether the tables will take off, but whether PokerTek can maintain growth against future competition from companies like Shuffle Master. PokerTek is first in, which carries a lot of weight, but Shuffle Master is bigger and has more relationships. What would be really sweet is if one day their heads-up tables start showing up in bars, just like the old Pac Man games. Who knows if that'll ever happen in the US in our lifetime but at least maybe overseas.

Shuffle Master got invovled with lightning poker. EDIT They changed their site. It's better, still the tables don't look nearly as impressive as the PTEK ones. Lyle Berman is Chairman of the Board at PokerTek, which means he has alot of pull with different casinos. Brian Haveson is the main man over at lightning.As far as potential for growth. There's more than enough, even with a competitor taking 50% of their action.they need 200-250 tables to break even. There's about 10k-11k poker tables in the world. On top of that they can put poker tables places where they were never feasible, aka cruise lines.Disclaimer: I'm long PTEK, plan on holding for 5-10 years.