Played last night in the new room, MUCH IMPROVED, in the old high stakes slot area. Still no Bravo system and on a Friday night struggled to keep 2 tables going of $1/$2 but a very welcome change.

^^^i agree 100%.

open area now and not jammed away in the back corner.
spoke w/ jerry (one of the room mgr's) while i was there last and he mentioned he was working on getting alot more games spread (PLO, stud, & mix games were mentioned) as well as higher limit games going (30/60 & 40/80 LHE and 2/5 & 5/10 PLO/NLHE). he definitely seems intent on getting back players from the 'shoe.

i, for one, welcome our new poker room overlords

Is the rake still 8+1 for NLHE? Want to play there when I'm visiting family this summer, but $9 per pot is too much for me.

It is $8 or $9, I think still $9, which is standard for Illinois unfortunately. Then again the upside is pretty promising based on talent. The only lower rake around is the Horseshoe at $6 I believe. Joliet rooms offer an $8 rake if $1 means that much to you.

Played a couple of sessions this week and the volume of players is down perhaps because of summer or because the BB hit on Monday anyway I love this room for convenience and competition BUT I may be back to Harrah's in no time. The dealers at Hollywood, for the most part, have NO control of the game and no sense of moving things along.

Last night for example, it was taking 5 - 6 minutes a hand for anything that got flop action. They are letting a one guy, who is both a reg and a fish, watch TV and "hollywood" (pardon the pun) through any hand his is in. Other guys are sharing cards and chatting away like a home game which is all well-and-good except I am trying to play some hands and win some money. The dealers also let some clown expose his cards three times during the night in the middle of hands with multiple players and action pending to demonstrate how the flop or turn hurt him and then do a 30 second F-bomb diatribe. BTW, this guy knows better and if he follows 2+2...dude you are good but not that good...control yourself.

I hate to abandon the room because I am making a fortune there this summer but I am not sure I can take the dealers any more. The management seems to care about the room but are they numb to the lack of interest many of the dealers show. Harrah's dealers are 5 times better.

Do the LHE games still run?

I'm thinking about goin there for my first time on a Sunday in August after paintball. Do they ever get 2/5 nl going then?

It's been a while since I've been there but they almost never get a 2/5 game going.

I'm here now the wait list is awful!!

This!!!
Bsaw five hands this game is out of control bad each hand is taking 6 mins at least!
Players are god awful and call everything cannot wait to get paid!

Played again last week for the first time in a while and nothing has changed. Games still move unbelievable slow. The rake is huge so not getting many hands in is really bad and ultimately I left after only 2 hours. Why invest in a new room and then pay no attention to how the staff behaves it makes no sense.

I guess it is back to Harrahs which has it's own problems but at least the dealers and staff are engaging and the games move along.

Went on Thursday for the first time in along time, First time since the room moved.....Nice room.....Nice chairs....chips were clean....one dealer was lost but the rest were good....I won.....rake sucks..........50 cents/hr comp..

Has anyone played in the Sunday tournaments that are a part of the Hollywood Poker Open promotion? Is there any value in them other than the 5 seats they give away to the May $700 satellite? What have the turnouts and payouts been?
I was thinking of playing today, but I haven't logged enough table time for the free roll. Is it worth the buy in?

Thanks in advance for the info.

I qualified for one a couple of weeks ago. There were cash prizes in addition to the seats. I think the seats are paid for from the promo rake (which is in addition to the bad beat jackpot drop), so in theory, the entry is worth more than the $100 +15 face value (or over $5.75 per hour if you play exactly 20 hours).

Keep in mind that if you are putting in the qualifying time at 1/2 NL, you're facing an $8 base rake with an additional $1 promo rake and a $1 bad beat drop to boot. Oh, and then you might also tip the dealer. Most of the players may not be that good in Aurora, but it's very challenging to outrun both variance and the monster rake at the same time - especially given the absurdly low $50-200 buy-ins. (In getting the short buy-in guy to stack off, you risk $50 to net +$37 after rake, drop and tip.)

As for the tournament, the room was crammed with 12 or 13 to a table. Most players bought the unadvertised add-on and re-bought at least once. There are some pretty good dealers, but I found many to be slow, some glacially slow. Some of the dealers did not have more than a couple of weeks experience. Two of them could not even pitch cards to their left. Instead they placed each card in front of them and slid it to the players in the first few seats. Misread boards were not uncommon. I saw two pots initially pushed to the losing player.

Given the average dealer's slow pace and the large table size, the blinds initially went up once or even twice per orbit, making the tournament somewhere between a turbo and a super-turbo. Without a rebuy, don't expect to last to the first break without getting some cards early.

The room management doesn't have many poker players, so be prepared for some odd rulings. More than a few players were hiding higher value chips in their hands or behind their stacks. Some players were hiding their cards with their hands or behind their chips. A few players would not even stack their chips. There was total inconsistency on what constitutes a betting action and what is the effective betting line. One reg would routinely pick up a stack of chips, extend his hand over the table, and then, after gauging the reaction of the initial bettor, announce either a raise or call. Another, without verbalizing, started to push his full stack in, got it past his cards, then declared it was just a call after his opponent said "I'm all in, too." The floor sided with the angle-shooting regs each time.

The better dealers addressed most of these issues (not, however, the messy piles & dirty stacks), but most dealers and the room managers would not. The only consistency I saw in rulings by the managers was that the rulings were consistently in favor of the regs at the table.

That said, I'm told that Elgin is worse.

tl/dr Cliffs: Poorly run tournament is +EV if you have the hours in and bring at least $120 for a rebuy and add-on. If without the hours, you're looking at ~$250 investment to play in what is close to a super-turbo. How much do you like variance?

If anyone has an extra entry into this Sunday's tournament and looking to sell, send me a PM.

I sold my 2nd entry a week ago for $450. I don't think I would pay the $700 entry fee for this tourney. The poker room manager says that the starting stacks will be doubled to 10,000. However, they will use their standard structure which doubles the blinds every 20 minutes except for 2 levels. By the 3rd hour (1000/2000) it will be shove or fold. Good luck if you play.

Played $1/$2 NL last week and not much has changed other than they finally have an electronic wait list (tho not Bravo). Dealers are still slow and majority of the players weaker than they think they are. Big problem for me the few times I play here is there never seems to be much money on the table. Perhaps I just hit the wrong times but I would be nice to see more than one or two other players with more than $200 in front of them.

Limit seems to be the game here and now the Limit Omaha.

nope its always like that, $8 rake and everyone short stackin.....brutal....i quite cause its like that all the time.

Trying to start a mixed game on Monday half LHE/half LO8 sometime in the afternoon. Room managers have an interest list going so call and get your name on it if you would be interested. Would be the first mixed game at the Hollywood so this would be huge!


When I asked about starting it they looked at me like I was crazy and I said give me some time and a clipboard. We had almost a full table interest within an hour. Management couldn't believe it....I could run that room better in my sleep.

I'm Out, dont ever see myself returning.

I'm looking for a 10/20 LHE game near the city. Without Bravo, I can't really check in on this place, but I've heard that they do run it often. Can anybody confirm this? Furthermore, what is the game like? And how bad of a wait?

Wait can blow. Up to an hour or longer even with call aheads up to an hour allowed. 10/20 half kill LHE runs everyday. 20/40 half kill on Tuesdays and O8 10/20 half kill on Tuesdays through Sunday. Games are super soft but the rake in those games at 6+1 blows.

Sent from my SPH-L720

Game is going to start at 6pm on 8/12.

Sent from my SPH-L720

if anyone wants to swap a few percentages for today's ( 12/1 ) big tournament, send me a pm. we can go over details at the poker room.

for the last tournament with the hpo added seats, i swapped with 4 and shipped a total of $2200 to 3 cash regs an 1 tourny reg.

I decided to give this room a try for $1/2 NL when I was in the area despite the warning of the high rake. $200 maximum buy-in.

Unfortunately, as previously reported, the $8 rake is still in effect, including immediately taking the small blind away when cards are dealt. It looks strange to see the naked big blind out there by itself.

I was quite surprised that I initially found the players in the feeder table to be quite tight. Nobody raised above $8 pre-flop. Once I got the main table, the raises and play were a little more standard.

I don't like the concept of the feeder table, but it worked decently for this room. There were never more than two $1/2 tables going at once on a Saturday night, although there were several higher limit tables.

I found the players to be friendly and polite, the dealers to be okay (except that one or more really seemed to take a long time to look at the cards at the end of the hand before pushing the pot to the proper player) and the management friendly. I particularly liked the dealer named Fay.

I had a fun time playing this room. Even the room itself was pretty nice. And there were opportunities to order food in the room. However ... the one huge "however" is the rake. It is difficult not to think about how much one loses from every decent pot. If management were to make a more reasonable rake structure (including not snatching a buck pre-flop), this room might get a lot more love ... and business.