Showed up here last Wednesday for the first time to get a feel for the scene/software. Bought in for $100 @ 3:30pm and cashed out for $1,365 around 1:30am. Came back the very next day, and the crowd was far less since it wasn't tournament night. The people there must have been the regulars since they all knew eachother by name.

Went up $300 then got hit with a few suckouts and decided to pull the plug down $300 after 4 hours. Late night this time.

I dig the live element, but 18+ is strange. It is annoying to hear the crybabies whining after every hand, but online poker is not an option anymore. I don't like to listen to music in headphones while playing, so you just have to deal with those elements.

Food is decent. Diverse crowd. If you haven't checked it out yet, you might as well. Better than driving to Baraboo.

will be there tomorrow for sure; probably sometime around 3-4pm, it doesn't take long to set up an account correct?

will be playing the 7:30pm $55 MTT and then cash before/afterwards, would love to get a .50/1 plo game going if that'll interest anyone to come

Is there a posting anywhere on when the tournaments are? Also how much they are and the structure?

http://www.ho-chunkgaming.com/madison/poker.html

I don't know the structures though.

Short TR as I was there yesterday for the first time.

I got there around 4:15pm and got myself a rewards card/account at the guest service desk and made it to the poker room about 4:30 pm. When I got there, only 1 1/2 nlhe game was running and it was full of regs (tho most weren't good). By the time 6pm rolled around, there was 3 cash games going with a waitlist for a 4th up.

The tournament started pretty much right on time, about 7:35 (supposed to be 7:30). Was a $50 + 5 (so only 10% fee=good) and it got 69 entries which I thought was great. The structure was also pretty good, I'm not sure about the other tourneys they have but this one was a 10k starter with 20 min levels and went...
25/50, 50/100, 100/200, 150/300/25, 200/400/35, 300/600/50, 400/800/75 etc. Tourney paid top 12 I believe with 1st getting 1050 and 12th-10th getting 80ish

20 mins may seem short but with it being all electronic, you got in a ton of hands per level so it seemed fine.

I busted late level 6, right before the first break, std ak<jj spot for piles of chips...went back to cash.

Ended up getting crushed by the deck which was w/e, its fine, I was impressed by the room though, got in ~200 cash hands in about 4 hours of play which was pretty sick imo. I'll def be going back there

Who were you? I was one of the "regs" at the one table when you first got there. I'd like to think I'm one of the "good regs"

First table I was at seemed pretty solid all the way around for the most part, 2nd table was def a ton more fishy.

I was Josh btw, big 20 yr old dude in a blackhawks shirt playing awfully ...who were u?

haha wow I was two to your right at the first table, talked to you about Rockford Charitable Games for a while. I didn't play the tourney, just played cash until about 9 and left. I was the one whining about my 8 buyin downswing while the virtual deck turned my $500 in profit into $117 lol

Oh yea yea, Taylor right?

Sounds like you got smashed by the virtual deck like i did lol .

Prolly cya around sometime soon, gl on the tables

Yep I'll be there basically every day, gl to you too.

That rake sounds outrageous for electronic tables that can play 2x the hands per hour of a hand dealt table.
I guess they figure the terrible players won't know any better and the good players will make enough off the terrible players that they won't care?

The rake is bad, but no tipping. The genius part is pulling on the quarters for a $1/2 game. Rakeback is $5 per 200 hands dealt in (about 4 hours).

Woohoo! I live in Indiana, and my best friend lives in Madison. I thought of visiting him, but with the thought that I would have to forego poker while I was there, because there weren't any casinos in Madison.

I haven't tried iPoker yet and am somewhat apprehensive about it, but am willing to give it a go. I was originally an online player so that's nothing new, though I'm finally getting used to live.

I've read up on a couple threads comparing this room to the Poto, but they were old enough (started in 08) that neither room had been updated yet. How would you guys say the rooms compare now?

I'd play .5/1 PLO, but it looks like it'd be all regs from 2+2, lol. = -EV for me. What about PLO8? I would think that, since pots are auto-calculated, that it would become a practicable game. They're even spreading it at my local casino now, live dealers and all. (But it's only 15-20 hands per hour. That's the downside.)

Yes, these electronic tables are the perfect solution for spreading games such as PLO8 which would benefit from the greatly increased hph and never a dealer mistake. They can also do board games (7 card stud, etc) at what I assume would be a lightning pace compared to human wrists. The supply is there. The problem is a lack of demand. Wednesday night's NLHE $50+5 donkament consistently gets 70 starters and moves 20 alternates through the turnstyles, but I've only managed to get in on a single $1/2 PLO game so far. From what I see, the direction of the poker room is to schedule more advertised NLHE tournaments. I can't blame them. The fish LOVE donkaments. I'm not sure what needs to be done to "open the store" on some of these alternate games.

Welcome to live poker. 3+ players per flop is probably below average at a 1/2 game and what you're describing seems like pretty poor game selection. Educating the fish on potsize and how incorrectly they are playing is very bad for the game and your bottom line. Not having alcohol in the room is a huge minus as it limits the "entertainment" factor for recreational players. TBH these games sound very bad

Thinking of driving up this thursday. How late will the games run on a typical thursday night? Whattabout Friday during the day and night?

Thanks

I don't usually play nights so I can't really attest there, but they have been having trouble keeping games going lately. Just got back and it was 4 handed at 4:30pm. I also heard the game almost broke on Saturday night around 9pm, which is not a good sign. Once they start advertising for all the tournaments traffic will pick up I think.

DeJope has a Groupon for $10 off of the Gamers Grille plus $15 slot play for $15. If you're going to be eating there anyways, you might as well use this.

I was at their website and noticed they added a crapload of tournaments for pretty much every night of the week. I'm just wondering if anyone has been there since they've added these tourneys, and how the turnout has been?

I've been for a few of the Wednesday tourneys which seemed to be getting stronger and stronger. I'm just afraid that all the added tourneys will kill the Wednesday crowd and spread people out too much so there's never a huge turnout.

I went up there today for mad money Monday ($30+$3). It started at 1 and there was 27 people that ended up playing in it I believe. I thought it was a good turn out for a Monday tournament. Does anyone know how many chips you start with and the blind structure for the megastack tourny on Thursday?

I've been there several times and I really like the tables. They are normally fairly week and you do get about 45-55 hands in an hour. One downside though is that it doesn't seem to stay all that busy. There is normally 1 full table and 1 feeder table with 5-9 players at it. The players seem to cycle through fairly quick to, if you do start at a feeder table it's normally either full or you are on to the full one with in an hour.

Was there Saturday afternoon. Floorman was taking notes on the board cards because "players had complained about the amount of draws" or something like that. He said that if he can statistically prove something is weird, that they would call the company.

bahahahahahaha what a joke. I've been playing there a lot lately and people are always whining about the crazy **** they see on these tables. Most of them are either old fish or are on downswings during said complaining.

I've gone on multiple 5-10 BI downswings there and the tables are legit, people are just paranoid because it is a machine. I've seen just as much "crazy ****" with a good old fashioned deck of cards.

I've played there a few times now. Some of the screen names are hilarious. Mr. Poker; "Inter"; Dan the Man; Mclovin. Mclovin?!

Has anyone played the Saturday noon tournament? What is expected field size?