I agree that in a dealer room, tables can be nitty/quiet as well. But on average, I just don't see that at Foxwoods or Mohegan (live) at near the frequency of what I encountered playing in the PokerTek room at Mohegan.

As another note, I live near Boston and it's 90+ minutes to Foxwoods/Mohegan. If a casino opened up here and only offered PokerTek tables, I would play on them in a second. There was not one negative I could think of about the software and the tables besides the collusion/discussion/one player to a hand issues that I previously mentioned.

This thread has been very informative. My wife and I were planning on staying at the Harrah's in NC on March 19th. This was to be a stop over on our drive home from Florida. The main reason for staying at Harrah's was so that I could play live poker. If I want to play poker on a computer I can do so on my laptop in my room. As there is no live poker at Harrah's NC I will be canceling our reservation and staying somewhere else.

What an interesting blog. I heard someone in a Full Tilt cap talking about it. Anyways I was there on Saturday with my wife (we usually play video poker).

Anyways I think I heard something to the effect like at this time we dont offer any credits on the poker tables, but that after 30 days they would look into it or something like that. I play mostly slots and we get reward credits out there, but I didn't understand why these new video poker machines would not offer any credits . As Diamond Members we have come to expect our Credits !

Well I think its was Eric or Deric that said that these were not video poker machines but Live poker that just happeed to run on a machine. I watched for a while and realized these games were REAL Poker games not just a poker machine. I realized that I needed to play a bit more poker online before I wade into playing other people for real money

Anyways the players seemed like they were having fun, The staff from poker pro were informative, and the suits at harrah's actually seemed excited about it. Maybe next time we come up from Atlanta ill be ready for the poker room

I live in Atlanta, too. I haven't played in Missippippi in 8 years..only on the internet. I couldn't take the drive anymore. I'm glad they've got this at Harrahs, but I'll have to think twice about driving to play on a computer screen.

For what it's worth, I played 1/2 all Saturday night and we had a great table. Chattin it up all night, good guys (and ladies). I would say cancelling because the cards aren't live would be a mistake. I won't even play online, but I REALLY enjoyed the Poker Pro Tables...

Thanks for posting.

I was there Friday, and was wondering if Saturday was busy. I also enjoyed the game; I think it's a decent balance between live and online.

The problem I have with this type of live play is the lack of information available during the game. For example, watching how a player handles their chips, if they look at their cards after a suited flop to check for a flush, looking to see if there hands are shaking when they bet etc...

If they are staring at a computer terminal there is far less information available to me when I have to make a betting decision. As I am a far better player live than I am on-line these small factors play a big part for me.

Playing on a video terminal at a table is no different from putting a bunch of people in a room full of computers and having them log on to a poker site so they play together. Just because you're sitting next to someone doesn't make it live poker for me.

AAce,

I understand what you are saying.

It is true that you lose tells you would get with the way people play with their chips. I have logged 1000's of hours of live play on manual tables. I can't remember any "shaky hand" tell that has ever helped me. I've made 10'000's of decisions, very few of those based on some tell by the way someone touched their chips. Of the decisions that were based on a physical tell, the vast majority of those are not related to clay chips. This may be different for other players, just talking about my experience.

The majority of useful and reliable reads I get are from body language and betting patterns. None of this changes on PokerPro.

I would love for you to give PokerPro a try and then tell me what you think. Almost all agree its much better than what they expected.

Yes, you lose the "chip tells". But I for one dont get much from that particular tell, and the other benefits of PokerPro outweigh that one in my book.


Appreciate your comment though, and again would love to hear back from you once you try PokerPro.

Cheers

Lou
PokerTek, Inc.

Trip Report for Saturday Night (second night of operation).

I drove up Saturday as a spur of the moment thing. My wife and I had seen an early show of the Watchmen and were trying to come up with something to do Sat night, but she'd had a rough week and I think just wanted to relax so nothing we came up with was generating much enthusiasm. But when I'd originally found out about the poker room opening she'd suggested we drive up Saturday, and and check it out, but we nixed the idea because there were no rooms at the casino for the weekend and because, since she doesn't gamble, I thought it would likely just suck for her.

But, when nothing else sounded appealing saturday, I reraised the idea of driving up and checking it out. My wife wasn't up for that either but said, why don't you go ahead and go? So there I am, at seven pm on Saturday night, hopping into the car for the three hour drive up to the reservation.

After stopping for food and gas and shuttling from the parking lot it was probably a bit after 10:30 before I got into the Casino. I was a bit shocked to see that the main room is a smoking facility, but luckily there is a separate non-smoking section to the casino and the poker room is in the non-smoking section.

On the downside, I didn't see any signs to the poker room and had to ask direction twice (although I'm told there is a sign, I just didn't see it.)

After some miscomunication about what I needed to do to get signed up caused me to stand in three different lines, I had my card loaded and was ready to go. Around 11 pm there were three completely full 1/2 NL tables and two mostly full 3/6 limit tables and I was put fifth on the list for the NL game.

After about 15 minutes the list hadn't moved at all, so I sat down at one of the limit tables, and then was called to the NL table before I'd even played a whole orbit of limit, so the list ended up moving pretty fast.

I didn't see any of the 400 dollar pot averages the poster mentioned from Friday night, but from the table chatter it sounded like the other two NL tables may have had more action (and been livelier and more talkative in general). I played for eight hours and the average pot size was about 69 dollars over that stretch although keep in mind that much of my play was well into Sunday morning, so not exactly peak time. Also the players at my table said it was playing really wild between about 7 and 10, so I may have just been unlucky with my timing or table selection.

One odd quirk about the software, it seemed to be reporting a pace of hands per hour higher we were actually getting. Although the software apparently reports a running average just based on the last hour, I checked it frequently, and it consistently reported a higher hourly average than I was getting over my entire session.My actual average for the eight hours I played was 36.3 hands per hour. I missed about 3-4 hands on bathroom breaks, but not enough to affect the averages.

The poker room bathroom is very convenient, btw, easy to get in and out while only missing one hand or none at all.

Although there is no alchohol at all at this casino, somebody at our table mentioned that there is an upcoming vote on whether to allow it ... I have no idea whether this is true or not.

As far as the games go, although not as incredibly juicy, at least at my table, as reported in the first trip report in this thread, the game was still much softer than the games I'm used to playing in at a local underground card room. Overall, the table was pretty passive. Continuation bets took down the pot surprisingly often, but there was still a decent chance of getting paid off pretty well on a big hand. Bet sizes were pretty odd, with random massive overbets, and pf raises anywhere from 5 to 12 dollars with your occaisional random 25 dollar bet (into a limped pot.) There were also plently of pots with 4-8 limpers, so the game had something for everyone. Also, a surprisng number of decent sized pots were won by second or third pair, or worse.

One guy was up to a thousand bucks not long after I sat down (on a hundred dollar buy in, he said) and by gum he sat there for another five hours until he gave it all away. Another guy cashed out up a thousand, so there was definitely money to be made.

I had low variance, and dropped a buy-in at one point but never dropped much below that, and walked out up 170 dollars which was within 10 bucks of my high for the session. Also, I scored a free PokerPro hat from the Poker Tek folks.

The tables contracted as we hit later on Sunday Morning, and the 3/6 limit died at maybe 5 am. When I left at 7:45 am on Sunday, we were down to eight players on the final table of 1/2 NL.

The game, apparently never quite died on the Friday Night/Sat morning shift, according to one of the poker room floor people, but I'll be interested to see how late the games run on Weekdays and wether or not they typicaly run around the clock.

The three hour drive back after the drive up and eight hours of play till almost eight in the morning was kind of brutal, but I really enjoyed playing some legal poker in NC.

Great TR Zetack. Thanks for playing and glad you had a good time.

Lou
PokerTek, Inc.

I am not sure I agree with this. I found that once players had a minimal comfort with running the software, there were still "tells" to be had. Lou mentioned body language, which is definitely still there. But I found that counting out best and raises also indicated a few things for certain players. It's important to remember though that new players often struggle initially in getting comfortable with betting/raising, so I tried not to use this information immediately when a new player sat down until I thought they were not a novice with the tables.

One thing I forgot to mention in my other post is that the pace of play was VERY refreshing for the typical 1/2NL game. When the Mohegan electronic room opened as competition to Foxwoods, it was like a breath of fresh air. Both were time charge at the time, with Mohegan $0.50 cheaper per hour IIRC. But at Foxwoods, you were lucky to get 30 hands per hour, and may downs you only got 12-13 hands for a 1/2 hour. With the PokerTek tables, everyone was on a clock all the time, and there was so much less Hollywood-ing going on.

regarding tells and playing by feel; I am not an online player and having been playing B&M and private games for 15 years. I consider myself a feel player and actually rely fairly heavily on tells. I trust my gut and go with it.
I was concerned with how the digital tables would effect my game on friday when I went to Cherokee. and here is the short answer, there are easy calls/raises and easy folds and then there is the tough grey area in the middle that I rely on feel to determine. 99% of the play at cherokee was so black and white that i didn't have to engage my brain at all. The few times I got stuck with a decision on fourth or fifth street, facing a bet, I chatted up my opponent and trusted my gut.
Maybe if the game was harder or higher in limits, I would be missing my tells, but as it was, it felt like regular poker to me.

These tells still apply at these tables. When 3 diamonds hit the flop, everyone still puts their hands on the screen to suitcheck their cards; and when some people go to bet, their hands still shake while they press the screen to bet....

Anyone played Monday or today? I was wondering how the weekday traffic is.

Wow this is great news! I had no idea. I think they've been saying they were going to get a poker room for about a year or so now. Glad to see it finally happened! The thought of any legal poker in NC makes me all tingly!

I have to admit when I think about live poker it seems wrong without live chips and live cards. I'm not 100% sure why though. I think it's mostly just my preconceptions based on how it's always been.

I'm anxious to give the PokerPro machines a chance. At least I won't have to keep up with how much is in the pot and eye ball villain's stacks constantly to keep a general count.

I'll have to try to plan a trip over there in the next month or two.

Great trip reports guys!

This forum is amazing. I joined earlier this week and I am very impressed with the posts on this subject. It seems like everyone who posts has something of value to contribute.

As it turns out I will not be canceling my reservations at Harrahs NC. My wife says that our room rate is just too good to pass up.

Given the circumstances and the feedback on the automated tables I'm sure I'll probably end up playing poker during our stay. We will be at Harrahs on March 19th and I will not be able to post my thoughts on these tables until March 22nd. It will be interesting to find out if my opinion changes after I return.

One note on Prop Bets:

When I was there Saturday night, a guy was bragging about the sweet prop bet he had had going with another player earlier in the evening. For 20 dollars a pop, the other guy won if a 2,3 or 4 hit the flop, but this guy won with the WHOLE REST OF THE DECK! He was certainly pleased about his "4-1 edge" over the other guy.

Since there are no chips in play this guy and the other guy were passing cash back and forth across the table. Unfortunately, after about ten flops, the floor made them stop. I was disapointed to hear the floor is going to discourage this degenerate kind of behavior that will really loosen up a game.

On a side note, the guy at the table was pretty skeptical when I told him that not only was he not a 4-1 favorite he was actually a dog in the prop. Even after I gave him a quick primer in the math, I think he was just humoring me when he said he got it.

Any Monday or Tuesday players?

Good news. I hope you enjoy the trip. Look forward to your thoughts on the Harrahs Cherokee poker room and PokerPro. Please PM me all the bad stuff and post all the good stuff in this thread

Bobaby, I will get more details, but I do know they had about 30 hours of table play both days (so on average 3 tables ran for 10 hours, 2 tables or 15 etc). 1/2NL and 3/6LHE. So there were games running both days.

Cheers

Lou
PokerTek, Inc.

Thanks Lou,

I hope to be back this weekend.

bobaby

Bobaby

A little more detail..

On Monday and Tuesday about the same thing. 1/2 NL and 3/6 game start at around 11AM. Second 1/2 game starts in late afternoon. Games ran well into the AM. I think the last one broke around 3AM.

So pretty good action for new room and beginning of the week.

Lou
PokerTek, Inc.

Thanks Lou,

A couple of us will be there all weekend. It's supposed to rain in the Carolinas, perfect for poker. Hopefully, a 2/5 will get going Friday and Saturday.

Looking foward to the marketing campaign. I think this room will really take off.

Glad I stop by this forum once in a while as i had NO idea that cherokee now has poker. never tried the electronic tables and although I do like the aspects of playing live with a dealer, chips, etc. I'm going into this with an open mind. Plus its waaaay closer then Mississippi. Looking forward to checking this out as I was planning a camping trip to smoky mountains in april anyway.

Smokies are beautiful. Camping and poker are great combo. Lose your roll and still have a place to sleep

Thanks for giving PokerPro tables a try. I predict you will not hate them.

Cheers

Lou
PokerTek, Inc.

Good action on Thursday and Friday


Thursday
- Three 1/2 games starting around noon. One broke early, one ran until 1AM and another never broke and ran into Friday around 6AM.

- One 3-6 LHE game ran 5PM until around 2AM


Friday
- One 2-5 NL ran from 7PM until around 3AM (bobay.. I assume you played in this, how was the action?)

- One 3-6 LHE started at 9AM, ran all day and did not break until 4AM

- Two 1-2NL started around noon AND third one started around 8PM. 1st one broke around 2AM other ones ran until around 4AM


Dont know whats going on up there today, but I suspect its pretty full with 1-2, 2-5, and 3-6LHE. All in all not bad action, imo.


Poker in NC.... who woulda thunk it ?

Lou
PokerTek, Inc.