I’m pretty tired from al the tourist stuff I have been doing. I went to Lucky Chances tonight. When I left the Bay Area, it was a pretty high limit club. On Monday night (when I finally get around to writing this, sorry) the top limit game was 6-12 (they get a 20-40 sometimes, nothing higher) and and a 2-3-5 “spread limit” with a $200 maximum bet. New state law, they tell me. The place was mobbed as there was a$100,o00 hold’em jackpot going on (I thought the state had outlawed those, but I guess that changed). The list for the 2-3-5 was forever, and I did not stay.

There are two views of jackpot games, I think. One is that they are good because the players play extra-bad trying to win the jackpot so solid poker will win the money if you simply ignore the jackpot. The other is the the extra $1 drop per hand (or whatever the jackpot make-up is) is a huge tax on the whole table and that any time you pay extra to play, you are making an error.

I have no evidence on this, but I am incliined to believe the latter reasoning. The more money the casino takes off the table, the harder it is for the players to win. Even if they give back a portion in the form of a jackpot, that money (for low limit players) leaves the game and turns into a wide-screen TV or something. And, in my experience, many low limit players play terribly enough whether there is a jackpot or not. Finally, if you really ignore the jackpot, you might spoil one (staying in to make a second best hand when if you folded the result might be a jackpot hand) which would be a minus EV play as well as getting you hated by the table. My vote is to try to avoid jackpot games if you can. (Some on-line sites offer both, which gives you a choice).