Poker in Barcelona, Part I - A trip to Gran Casino Barcelona

by Michael Wiesenberg | Published: Jun 28, 2005

Several casinos in Spain offer poker, and many offer tournaments. Poker in Spain is a little different from poker in the United States.

Stevan "goldiefish" Goldman visited Spain and posted a trip report, edited here, to the BARGE mailing list on the poker scene he encountered at Gran Casino Barcelona. BARGE is the Big August Rec.Gambling Excursion, a yearly get-together in Las Vegas of poker enthusiasts who spend the rest of the year discussing poker with the members of the mailing list. Gran Casino Barcelona is easy to find. It is near the beach, in the middle of the area that was constructed there for the 1992 Olympics. This pleasant facility has no craps, but does have several roulette games. (They call it rouleta.) You'll also find baccarat (American-style: against the house) and chemin de fer (French- and James Bond-style: against other players). American blackjack is also played, dealt from an endless-shuffle shoe. There are many slots, mostly mechanical and electronic reel machines, with only a few video poker machines.

The casino opens at 3 p.m. and closes at 5 a.m. The cost of admission is €3, but most hotels have passes for guests, so you can save the cost of admission. (This is the case almost everywhere in Spain.) Those who are not citizens of the European Union must present a passport to gain admission. Casinos are not lenient with this, and do not accept any other form of ID.Once you're in the casino, the poquer room is easy to find. There are four permanent tables, and 10 other tables in an area that can be used for either poquer or house-banked casino games, depending on demand. The casino runs regular tournaments with the help of these "multipurpose" tables.

I arrived at about 9 p.m. on a Wednesday to find three games going: €20-€40 limit hold'em, €30-€60 limit hold'em, and pot-limit Omaha with a €5-€10 blind structure. There was nothing smaller. Based on the current exchange rate, the €20-€40 game was roughly the equivalent of $25-$50. The €30-€60 game broke while I was there and became a second €20-€40 game. I could stay for only one hour on my first visit (I really went there just to check it out, for a possible longer session later in the week), but when I left at 10 p.m., it looked as though the pot-limit Omaha and €20-€40 limit hold'em games would go on all night. The hold'em game is played exactly as it is in the United States, with one exception: The board is spread backward. That is, after the dealer spreads the flop, the turn card is placed to the left of the flop (from the dealer's perspective), and the river is to the left of the turn. Other than that strange little anomaly, it was American hold'em. The game goes slowly, as it took the two dealers I saw longer to read the board than we are accustomed to. I counted about 10-15 hands per half-hour dealer shift, maybe 20-30 hands per hour overall. The players themselves were largely weak-passive, so the game looked easy, and I was anxious to return when I had more time to play. The one exception to the loose-passive play was on the river. It was not uncommon for there to be three, four, or more bets on the river after the turn had been checked. They loved to trap and check-raise, even in situations when checking the turn actually cost the winner money. It seemed to be an emotional thing – they just liked to bet the river more than any other street. As I said, I was anxious to get back there with more time, and I did return the next night and played for just under four hours.

The game is raked, and it was the most expensive hold'em game I had ever played in. The rake is posted as "2.5 percent," but that is somewhat misleading. They took €5 from the first €100 (5 percent, not 2.5 percent), then another €5 from each successive €200, with a rake cap of a remarkable €25 on pots of €900 or more. Pots that large were probably as common as any other loose $20-$40 game in California, but I guessed that the rake averaged just over €10 per hand. That means the house was taking about €300-€350 per hour, and with nine players at the table, this constituted about €35 per person per hour, or about $42 per hour. Compare that to $14 or $16 per hour for a typical U.S. $30-$60 game and you can see how expensive that game was to play. Even worse, there were no €1 chips allowed at the table. So, when players toked the dealer (tokes were pooled with every other dealer throughout the casino), the toke was €5. Generally, players toked only on the very big pots; nonetheless, toking was expensive. The players even toked the waiter the same €5 for a bottle of water. All in all, this was a remarkably expensive game in which to play. I returned the next night at 6 p.m., but with two full tables of €20-€40, I was dismayed to see a long list. I didn't think I'd get into a game, but they had a tournament (€100 + €10 no-limit hold'em) that began at 6:30 p.m., so when several players left to play in the tourney, I got a seat at the one surviving €20-€40 game. As players busted out of the tourney, the second €20-€40 game refilled, as did the Omaha game. I won €360 in three hours in this game. My peak was being ahead €500, and my low point was being down about €120. I won most of my money on one big hand. I was in the big blind with the A 6. The under-the-gun player raised to €40, and five players called ahead of me. I put in the extra €20 and seven of us saw a flop of A-A-2. Of course, I didn't like my kicker. I checked, the under-the-gun raiser bet, and we lost two players. Five of us saw a 4 fall on the turn. I checked again, and this time the under-the-gun raiser also checked. Everyone checked to the button, who bet €40. I called, as did the raiser and one other player. The river was a 6. I checked, looking to check-raise the button, but everyone checked around (I was sad, but not too sad) and I took down the huge pot with the nuts.