any word on tournies

No word on tournies.

Also, no T-Mobile coverage in the poker room. Others at the table with Verizon reported no issues with coverage.

AT&T Wireless coverage was good also.

At 5:30ish today, here is what the board looked like:

3/6 LHE 2 Tables 39 on list
1/2 NLHE 7 Tables 89 on list
2/5 NLHE 2 Tables 46 on list
1-5 Stud 1 Table 17 on list

They also had interest lists for 5/10 LHE (18 on list), 10/20 LHE (6 on list), and 2/4 O8 (8 on list). Since all tables are being used and full, none of these games will run today unless the room thins out significantly. I didn't stay and play, but it seemed to be getting more crowded when I left. I assume a lot of it was the afterwork crowd.

Non-poker table games were mostly full, but you could probably get a seat/spot at any one you wanted within 20-30 minutes. All the minimums seemed to be $10, 15, or 25.

ming

Tournies will most likely start after the expansion due to be done in January. Poker room will be a lot bigger and a lot more tables.

As far as the $6 rake.. we have asked the general manager about it already and he stated that if someone is willing to pay $6 for something, then why should we charge $5?

Wanna know why the dealers are bad? Simple... (this is from one of upper management as well). Whoever didn't excel in other games they were thrown in the poker room. Some poker dealers that actually know what they are doing hit the poker room as well though.

I have been dealing poker for years and i am in the poker room some days this week, but they put me on roulette a lot of the days as well because frankly everyone sucks at roulette. It's hard to open a casino in the middle of bum **** and expect the dealers to be perfect even after 80 hours of training.

Give the poker room about 6 months and it will be very nice. They will weed out the bad dealers and bring in the good dealers as time passes.

If you guys have any questions at all please just let me know. I have a lot of answers that i have or can get.

Also just so everyone knows... all dealers in the poker room are fresh out of training. Hollywood did not bring in other dealers from casinos... and if they did they were put on the dual rate supervisor position and you will hardly ever see them deal.

One huge messed up part about this poker room is the dealers split tips... and i dont mean with just poker... i mean they split their tips with every single dealer in the casino. Hopefully this will change asap.

I got there at 930 and I was about 60th in line to get in. When I left at 430, there were still tons of people in line to get in. I played 3/6 HE limit.

there were 2 guys at my table relaly mad that the 10/20 game never happened. There were likely 10 players for it in the first round through the doors, but they didn't promote it, and didn't get a real wait list up for it. they filled all the tables up right away, and any game that wasn't up and running does not stand a chance of getting going with a free table for a few days at least.

The tip pooling should last about a year according to one dealer we asked. It is easily the worst tipping system ever. Also, dealers not only can't play in their own casino, but they can't play in the entire state.

I think the PA gaming board nixed free alcohol at the beginning of slots, so that's a built in annoyance. As I'm "local" and will drive home after sessions, not crash in a hotel room, this bothers me little. HP Casino is also the only one I've ever been in with a self serve soda fountain on the floor.

the 1-5 stud got going right away, and was right behind my table.The first big dustup with arguments heard through the room was at this table. It was over someone mucking out of turn. Not to be stereotypical, but go ahead and guess the avg age of the table....

In the span of 6 hours, I saw 2 dealers. They kept going back and forth. that seemed weird to me.

All in all, I want to see an actual O8 start up and get the NLHE tourneys going, then I will really cut up my AC cards. For now, a lot of kinks need worked out, but I'm just so glad this day finally came in PA, I will tolerate some kinks.

They took the 10/20 game off the table they had reserved for it right when I asked to play in it. They said that they had no one to play in it. Instead it became a 1/2 NL game. *sigh*

Is that counting the people already playing? Or were there 7 full tables of 1/2 NL, PLUS 89 people waiting?

I got there at 5:45pm last night. It took me about 20-25 minutes to get signed up for any games. I only signed up for the NL2-5 game. They finally texted me at 9:45 to tell me they had a seat for me.

I knew it would take forever to get a seat, so I had left much earlier.

What's the Rake for the 2/5 games there? Also anyone know what the max rake for 1/2 is? Comps?

The rake is the same for all games, $1 per $10 for $6 max.

Yuck! MS@PD is $4 max! 5 dollar per half hour timed on 2/5 and above.

I'm glad that I'm about equal distance between both room. I know where my action is going.

I got this TR from an opening day player. He lives 10 minutes from Hollywood and solved the long wait by going home.

I played from about 4:30-9:00... the whole casino was a zoo. We went around 1:30 to put our names on the list. We realized it was going to take awhile (there were 60 names on 1/2 and 30 on 2/5) so we left and went to my apartment until about 4. When we got back it was good timing because we were close to the top of the list.

The waiting list is setup terribly right now. They don't even announce the names... when a seat opens up the names on the top of the list that have an available seat start blinking. This might not be that bad except the list was 80 people long and 95% of the guys whose name is blinking didn't wait 3 hours for a seat and aren't there. The name blinks for at least 5 minutes before they move on to the next person even though it's obvious that person isn't there. I'm sure you'll see what I mean when you go. But basically what happened was every table had 2-3 seats open and weren't being filled quickly. Most players were just encouraging the waiting players that were walking around the room to sit down and screw the list b/c the list wasn't doing it's job and filling players in.

The dealers were pretty bad and very slow which got annoying. The floor seemed pretty good and answered most questions but they seemed overwhelmed with it being the first day and I don't blame them - the place was crazy. The players were bad as I expected which was nice. I played 2/5 and won $675. Basically all of it came from 1 hand where i reraised with QQ and a guy called with QJs. Flop was Q43 I bet small he raised I just called and he shoved the turn drawing dead.

The room was nice I was impressed with it. I might not go too much for the next month to let the beginning rush die down a little bit... And let the dealers get more experienced and hopefully the floor has the waiting list setup better. But after that I'll definitely be there a good amount of time.

I'm guessing that they don't do phone calls to get on the list? Also, I saw someone posted that they text him? They will text you when your seat is open?

If any 2p2er is down there today/tomorrow could you give a few updates of the lists throughout the day? I'd like to see how it fluctuates from early morning to late evening.

I was thinking of heading down Fri morning and spending the day down there, but don't have any idea how long it would take me to get on a 2/5 table.

Stopped in around 6:30 after work. Didn't get a chance to play because the waiting list was so long. 1/2 had 44 people on the waiting list which someone said was about an hour but I have a feeling it would have been longer. The 2.5 waiting list had 27 people on it. Seemed crazy at the casino. Definitely hope they go through with the planned expansion.

just finished my first session there tonight. I was 45th on the list. Floor told me it would be a 45 min wait -- more like 2 hour wait! They said they could text me when my seat was open, but later learned that that system is "down".

Overall, a good experience. Obv dealers are painfully slow, but made no major mistakes. The buy in range is $40 -- $200, which, coupled with a $6 rake, made for a table full medium stacks.

Also, it was nice to be able to walk right out to the race track!

I was there at 8:45 last night, and there were around 60 people on the 1-2 waiting list. I got a table around 10:15. Some of the people that were there earlier said they were waiting over 2 hours. Around 10 the list was moving fast as a lot of players were leaving.

They had:

9 1/2 NL tables
1 2/5 table
2 3/6 limit tables

I think everyone will agree that their reservation system needs a lot of work.

I'm sure that it will improve, but will it take weeks or months? Gonna have to wait and see.....

A friend and I decided to head up there last night and got in around 11pm. We put our names on the 1/2 & 2/5 lists. The 1/2 (9 tables) was about 25 people deep while the 2/5 was only about 12 deep and showed that it was playing on a single table. Shortly after I saw two tables listed for 2/5 and the top nine names started flashing, I was around 11th on the list. Around the time I noticed this I was informed by security that I cannot sit at a slot machine without playing but I could go sit in the cafe to the side. I went over there for three minutes or so but couldn't see the waitlist so I got up and walked around and saw that the 2/5 list only had five names on it and mine wasn't one of them (but my friend's was.) I tried to figure out what happened but the only answer I could get was 'You didn't come when you were called*' which was a little ridiculous but I just had them add me back onto (the bottom of) the list. About 15 minutes after this encounter I was called for 1/2 and was able to buy my chips and get seated in a couple minutes.

For the 2.5 hours I was there we had one dealer who got a ~20(?) minute break somewhere toward the end of my session. He talked through every hand which was good for him and good for the players too (e.g. 'three players to the flop', 'pot's right', etc.) It allowed for us to catch a couple mistakes before they were problems as once he missed a player in the hand but since he went through the routine we were able to stop him before he put the turn out. Overall, despite being slow, there were only a couple issues. Once, when he was cutting the deck his finger caught the top card and he flashed it. I saw him look around to see if anybody had noticed and then he got ready to deal. I stopped him and told him I had seen it at which point he hand shuffled the deck (though he might have grabbed the pre-shuffled deck after that, can't remember). The other issue is a bigger deal and I should have pointed it out or at least talked to him/floor about it. He had a habit of scooping up the board cards with the winning hand, even if it hadn't been exposed. So he ended up exposing a lot of hands that didn't show down

There was another incident with the other dealer that was even odder. I got AA utg and made it $8, getting called in two places. The flop is KxTc9c and I put out $20, the first caller folded and the second one put in five $5 chips. He was at the other end of the table so I couldn't hear if he had said anything but I don't think he did. At this point the dealer looks at him and says, 'you've got to make it $40'. He looks a little confused but then puts in the other chips. At this point I pushed all in and he called with his last $70. I'm pretty convinced that he was intending to call and I would've expected the dealer to have made him take the extra chip back but who knows maybe he said 'raise' and I missed it.

Finally, I saw about a dozen variations on posting there last night and I have absolutely no idea what their rules are for it. Some people came in without posting, others missed their blinds and then posted just a live $2. Of course people didn't make it simple by getting up (not leaving) after their big blind but before their small. Anybody know what their rules are for posting?

Overall, I had an enjoyable time and while I saw a lot of mistakes it seemed to me that everyone involved was willing to listen and interested in making it enjoyable for everyone.


*called just means your name is flashing, they apparently have a system where you can get texted when you're up but they told me not to bother since it wasn't working reliably

Dealers are working hard on improving. Played a little today and some comments if anyone there is listening:

(1) The flashing player's name system of calling a player is causing more problems than it could ever solve. Call out their name. I can't think of a single good reason why you wouldn't call out their names. There is a reason every card room I have ever been to in the country does it that way -- it works.

(2) Dealers have clearly been told to be customer service oriented and part of that appears to be to say something like "congratulations" to the winning player. That's great at a blackjack table but at a poker table for every winner there is at least one loser. Please consider whether the guy in seat 4 wants to hear the dealer congratulate the player in seat 5 for his win.

(3) Your rake is ridiculous. You know this and you don't care, but consider raising the game stakes to where players have a chance to beat it. 1/3 NL with a 300 buy in and 4/8 LHE as the base games would be a good start.

(4) The worst decision you have made so far is to force dealers to pool tips with the pit dealers. Communism failed for a reason. The increase in revenue for the dealers going from 10 hands per half hour to 25 hands per half hour is probably about $0.50/hour. That's not much incentive to improve.

(5) Dealers are trying hard to learn and today at least our dealer was actively interested in learning and asked us to help him when he made mistakes. Being open like that is a good first step to improving. Kudos to them for that and to management for giving them the freedom to learn from the players, if that is what is going on.

(6) Dealers were specifically instructed by the floor to not sell chips to players. About an hour later a player was told by the podium that chips had to be bought from the dealer. So, yeah, pick a rule and stick with it.

(7) Empty seats don't get filled. Our game almost broke as a result. Probably related to the flashing name system.

I hope to see the room thrive and some bigger games get going. Only time will tell. I was very excited that a room opened within an easy drive of my house. I hope someone is trying to improve the room and not just coasting on that $6/hand rake. An authorized 2+2 rep would be a nice step so there would be some way to talk to the room in an open way.

I agree that this is good as long as the players know what they're talking about. I'd say that was about 50/50 last night.

I'll suggest this to the floor on my next visit and would encourage others to as well.

Oh, this wasn't nuanced stuff. More like "hey, the button hasn't acted, don't deal the turn yet" and "hey, the guy who won the pot, do you want to include his cards in the deck when you shuffle them" and "ummm... they can't check preflop UTG, they have to either call, raise or fold."

Stuff that was more sloppiness because he was trying to go faster and didn't have his routine down. But it was good seeing him try to go at "game speed" rather than just plodding away terrified to make mistakes. It was more "hey, I'm gonna speed up; as a result I'm gonna screw up, help me out here guys."

I thought it was a refreshing approach.

A friend of mine played 1/2 yesterday, and she said they hardly ever had a full table, in spite of the long wait list. She told me there were times when they dropped to 5 or 6 handed.

This wait list situation needs to be cleared up soon.

I also agree about the idea of a floor person being a 2+2 rep, like the Borgata has. Everyone who reads this -- please make such a suggestion to a floor person next time you're there.

Was there today. There were empty seats available here and there. Was playing 3/6L and at noon they opened a second table. It was full "once in awhile" and when we hit 5 players, the floor halved the rake. Floor was surprised that they were running 2 tables as no one wants to play limit, most play 1/2 NL, even though the history of the casino is 2 days old.

Our dealer kept to the same table, with a break about every 90 minutes.

Around 3, there were open seats at about each table.

Computers were not working at noon, don't know if they ever totally right, they were working on it. Main desk had issues, but they are not only seating tables (not always right) but handling chips.

Staff seems friendly.

Was there today. There were empty seats available here and there. Was playing 3/6L and at noon they opened a second table. It was full "once in awhile" and when we hit 5 players, the floor halved the rake. Floor was surprised that they were running 2 tables as no one wants to play limit, most play 1/2 NL, even though the history of the casino is 2 days old.

Our dealer kept to the same table, with a break about every 90 minutes.

Around 3, there were open seats at about each table.

Computers were not working at noon, don't know if they ever totally right, they were working on it. Main desk had issues, but they are not only seating tables (not always right) but handling chips.

Staff seems friendly.

Policy on the a new player at the table seems to depend on dealer. Some ask for a post, some do not, that is a training issue one way or the other.