Please do, I'm thinking of driving up from York still (my friend bailed and when my alarm woke me up this morning I was still so hungover from last night that I decided to just not go, and now I'm having second thoughts)

I don't want it to be a waste of time to drive the hour or so each way though, so I'd like to know how packed it is :\

Looks like they have waiting lists for 2/4 and 3/6 with open seating on 5/10 lhe and 1/5 stud. No NL today!

Games going on about 10 of the 12 tables. I see a few familiar faces among the dealers and players.

I checked the Penn National website but couldn't find it -- what time does the gaming start on Tuesday assuming all goes well today?

Quick trip report for you guys:

Stopped in at Noon today on my way home from golf.

Brag: Really nice room. Clean, well lit with a good number of TVs. Played 5-10 limit. I never played limit before other than at one or two home games. Game was really soft. $230 profit in 2 hours.

Beat: Rake was $6 in the 5/10 game. You have to pay for drinks.

I had a good time and will return often. The NL games will debut Tuesday.

This afternoon they had 4 tables of 2/4 LHE and 4 tables of 3/6 LHE, both full with a waiting list. There were 2 tables for 5/10 and 2 for stud (1-5 spread with a $1 ante.)

The room is nice and the drink service was fast. Which it should be with 3 waitresses for 12 tables. Bottle beer was $4 and draft in a somewhat small cup was $3. Water, soda and coffee were free. In another thread about PA casino (Rivers I believe) there was confusion about waitresses accepting chips for drinks. They definetly accepted chips at HC@PN today with no problem.

Since NL won't be spread until Tuesday when they open for real I put my name on the 2/4 list and got seated in about 45-50 minutes. I then watched paint dry for a couple of hours before I had to leave.

They are using an electronic swipe system at the table which I assume to be the Bravo system. The floors were good and seemed to be in control but the front desk seemed a bit 'awkward' getting their act together to fill empty seats.

I had 3 dealers over the course of 2 hours (had the same dealer twice) and they were all definitely green and a couple of them were nervous...and slow You can see the way they handled the chips and cards everything is new. The last dealer was a female who seemed more confident but she was the only one with exposed cards and the worst procedures in awarding pots etc. She maybe shouldn't have been quite so confident.

Even though they were selling chips from behind the front desk (odd the way they were handling that) you had to snake your way though rows of slot machines to get to the nearest cage. This is the biggest flaw in the design so far.

I have to run to a meeting. I'll post later if I think of something else.

10 AM

LOL. I found the website; I couldn't find the start time on the website. Thanks!

I got there today at noon for the test opening. Nice Room! The dealer I had did quite well for being a new at it. I asked him about possible tournaments in the future. He indicated that they just don't have the space for them right now. We might have to wait on the expansion project. Unlike Delaware Park, it appears Hollywood will not allow "straddle" betting. That's OK with me,I'm not a fan of it anyway. As another poster mentioned, we had to walk far across the casino floor today to get to the cage. They need to work on that. Overall a good experience. I plan to go once or twice a month.

Went today, played 2/4 from about 3-"close". I was not only card dead, but when I caught starting hands, nothing happened. If anyone from here was at the table where we were talking about 7s and diamonds hitting all the time, I was there in the 6 seat. Sat with $100, was down to $10 at one point, worked back up to $50, and left with ~$40. Room was very nice, the staff was pleasant, although some of the dealers really need to work, and it was unfortunate because the one dealer that I thought needed the most improvement (of the four we had) was there for a huge majority of the time. Were they not rotating dealers properly? She had what seemed like a 90 minute down, we got another dealer for what seemed like 20 minutes, then she came back to deal until almost near the end of the day, then the same other dealer came back for the last 15 minutes or so. This aspect seemed incredibly disorganized.

All in all, was a good experience. Probably won't be there often simply because of money, but I hope to get there every once in a while for some games.

Agreed on both highlighted points.

For as much training as the dealer supposedly went through, their procedures were all over the place. Maybe I'm more sensitive to that since I follow so many threads in B&M on 2+2 where experienced dealers and floors explain the proper way to do things. For example one dealer would pick chips up in his hand to pile in the pot instead of sliding them.

Our dealer rotation was also strange. First kid was dealing when I sat down and was there for at least 45 minutes, second guy was around for a standard 30 minute down, then original kid came back for another down before being relieved by the lady dealer who I mentioned in my other post that made several mistakes in the first few minutes.

I don't want to sound too negative, I'm sure these are all things that will smooth out over time.

Yeah I have no doubt things will get better, probably sooner rather than later. In my opinion, no amount of training and classes will 100% prepare any of the staff for an opening like that, and I think over the next few weeks/months things will flesh out a lot and it will be like any smaller room someone is used to playing at.

I'm just glad that even though I'm sure the staff knew things weren't going 100% perfectly, they all still were in high spirits (that I saw, at least), and tried their hardest. I honestly can imagine a lot of places that things could have been worse.

I was there from 2-6 today and played 5/10 limit. Nice day, finished up about $170.

A few random thoughts:

• I'm shocked that they actually spread 5/10. Hopefully one table will run semi-regularly, what with all the NL that is coming.
• Very nice room, I was impressed. Attractive, spacious, laid out nicely. Nice tables.
• Agreed that the chip situation seems weird. Buy chips at the front desk and then cash out waaayyy over at the slot cages. Hopefully they have plans to install a dedicated poker chip cage, although that might have to wait for the expansion.
• I was afraid they would have some sort of lame-ass sign up system like a whiteboard or something. Thankfully they have a Borgata-style system with multiple screens. They don't announce names, though, you have to pay attention to your name flashing on the screen.
• I like how the Players Club check-in system is built-in to the table, very slick. The dealer uses the little computer screen in the table to keep track of which seats are filled, so the front-desk can always know when there are open seats.
• I agree that some of the dealers were a little green and nervous, but give it a week or two and everyone will get in a groove.
• I was impressed by the floor staff. Very friendly and knowledgeable. There were a ton of them, but they probably had everyone there for Test Day.
• $6 max rake really sucks.
• The tokes are shared between ALL dealers, including the pit games. So you can't toss in a big tip to reward one particular dealer, it doesn't really work that way. But that's not a license to be a douche, though.

ye godz, 1 1/2 bets at a $2/4 game? Am I going to have to treat PA poker like I'm going to treat PA and NJ and NV blackjack (with a boycott, until 6:5 BJ gets reset properly)?

I asked one of the floor staff if they have plans to do some sort of player survey, to ask people what sorts of games and limits they are most interested in playing. He couldn't say for sure, but he thinks that something is in the works.

If you ever play there, please ask the front desk or the floor staff the same question, so they'll do it just to stop the nagging.

There is a BIG open space in the back right side of the room. That would be an ideal place to put a cage.

Something else I forgot to mention.

A floor person told me there is nothing setup currently for a time/comp system. I assume that something will happen eventually (since the dealers ask every new player for their card to swipe it).

So even though there is no comp system yet, I think your hours are getting "banked" for future use. But I'm not 100% sure about that.

According to WGAL-8, all proceeds from table games during that test run will be donated to the Grantville Fire Co.

Ship it!

Just looking for some info...Is the poker room 24 hours? What are the waitlists to get on a table morning, afternoon, and night?

Thanks

Phatman23

Poker room is 24 hours, and waitlists are unknown right now, as today is the first day it is in full operation (it supposedly opened at 10 AM)

Just got back from a short session this morning. Here are my observations, both good and bad:

Good:

The tables are very nice.
Auto shufflers in every table.
Cup holders in the rail.
Nice felt.
Well lit.
A little bit of natural light from the doors to the racetrack if you are up front.
Good chairs.
Lots of floor people running around trying to help the very inexperienced dealers.
Buy chips at the podium.
Decent selection of games on the board (2 stud games, 1/2, 2/5 NL and 3-6 and 10-20 LHE were on the board this morning, 10-20 did not go, one of the stud games did)
Bravo system is up and running and dealers actually know how to use it although they are a little slow at it.
Nice looking room.
Not very loud; good acoustics.
Drink service was attentive.
No food allowed in the room. (This can be a pro or con; I have no view.)

Bad:

The dealers. Oh my. I've been following the threads for Rivers Casino, Meadows and Penn National at CT and everyone mentioned some dealer problems. I am pretty sure one of my dealers today has never played poker and barely knows the rules. The mistakes made today by the dealers were fairly egregious, including:
-after a turn bet got no callers, turning the better's hand face up and dealing the river
-after a river bet went uncalled, turning over the better's hand and pushing up the five best card hand
-after a player exposed his hand on the river after the completion of all action, the caller turned over his hand; dealer quickly scooped the caller's cards into the muck without reading them (no harm no foul in this instance, luckily - but there was no chance the cards could have been read by this dealer in that amount of time)
-dealing the first card to the button instead of the small blind at least 3 times
-taking rake from an uncalled turn or river bet
-asking "what is a straddle?" after being asked if a straddle was permitted
-brutally slow. Not exaggerating. Restrooms are about as far away as they are at Venetian. I folded in turn preflop UTG +2 and made it back in time to see the turn card. Yes, I washed my hands.
-they have been instructed to put an absent button at a player's seat if they miss a hand so that they don't deal a card to that seat. So it goes like this, if seat 5 is empty and button is seat 10: Deal a card to seats 1 through 4. Stop at 5 and realize the player is not in the seat. Stop dealing. Reach into rack and get absent button. Put absent button at seat 5. Continue dealing.
-I will omit the technical stuff like handling of the deck, stub and mucked cards. Suffice it to say Dealer Guy and or pfapfap would have their heads explode.

I'll be back, but the dealers have had months to get up to speed and it is clear that they are not.

No reason for any of these mistakes.....after months of training they have to at least have a clue....where do these dealers get off dealing not knowing anything about the game or respect for it....someone takes a bad beat the dealer laughs, have a clue of the game please!!!!

Was the rake really $6 and if so was it 6 on sixty or like 4 on 40 and 2 at 100 just wondering how it was taken....rake monsters

they have been instructed to put an absent button at a player's seat if they miss a hand so that they don't deal a card to that seat. So it goes like this, if seat 5 is empty and button is seat 10: Deal a card to seats 1 through 4. Stop at 5 and realize the player is not in the seat. Stop dealing. Reach into rack and get absent button. Put absent button at seat 5. Continue dealing.

This sounds like the correct way to do it.

10% to $6 max, so once the pot was $10, $1 rake.....$60 pot, $6 rake.

Pretty rough to know that if u win 10 pots it's 75 out of your tray with tips and all....not sure why some casinos have $4 and some have $6...if there's a bbj that will drain the game

If they have any plans to initiate a BBJ, it better not be on top of the $6.

If we're stuck with $6 anyway, I could live with a $5 + $1 type of deal.

I'll bet that ship has sailed.