I played 3/6l there yesterday. Was pleased overall. Floor needs to get better at filling empty seats. I waited for 15+min to be seated when seats were open at the tables. Otherwise, dealers were new, but competent.

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

So this still hasn't been addressed? I thought 30 minute downs were standard, but they seem to be very random with how dealer rotation works. I guess with pooled tips, it doesn't matter from a tip standpoint, but I'm sure there are more reasons than that to rotate dealers regularly

I stopped by this morning for a look around. Didn't have time to play. It's a very nice room!

All new players are to post when coming to the game. They only post a live big blind. Some dealers are not aware of this. The floor did not make this clear to us until yesterday. We were told on opening day that only limit players need to post and now they changed it to all games need to post.

I am submitting your guys feedback to my supervisor tomorrow to see if we can get some of these things taken care of.

Tomorrow I most likely will be in the poker room dealing. Hopefully I will see some of you guys there.

does anyone know if wifi is available in the casino (or poker room)... and is it free??

WiFi? Probably not. TMobile was non existent and AT&T was very spotty.

I played about 5 hours and there were 3 dealers. Our main dealer "S" had 2 breaks, hence "J" and "R" for a half hour each.

Hey there... New to 2+2, yet reading it off/on for ages.
Waiting to get to HW, yet wondering if anyone knows anything about tournaments?

I have Verizon (alltel) and had NO signal there.

I am mainly a lurker on these boards but I wanted to post on my experience at Hollywood the past 3 days (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday).

Tuesday which was opening day was chaotic as expected. I got there at around 9:45am and I was about 65th in line to play poker. Took about 30-40 minutes to get seated. I don't need to get into too much detail because I expected it to be slow and unorganized. I put a 8 hour session in and left up +785 playing 1/2 NL. The dealers were green peas and were slow as all hell but I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Thursday: Since I am making poker at Hollywood my part time job since I am unemployed, I wanted to feel out the best time to come and play. I figured it would be super busy the first few weeks so I decided to come very early. I arrived at 6am and got seated immedietly as there were only 3 tables running. I played well considering everyone at my table had been playing all night and were tired and making many mistakes that I was able to capitalize on. Anyway, not too many complaints here other than the dealer was very slow and most of them didn't know the rules. By 1pm there was still no wait list and there were prolly 4 or 5 empty tables waiting for players.

Friday: Today was a whole different story. It was such a mess from the moment I sat down at 10am to when I got up at 6pm. Here is how it went from when I sat down:

10am: New table starting up, they allowed the players to buy chips from the dealer. After all the chips were distributed, the floor was called over. "Floor!!!! Need a fill" This was irritating over the course of 3 days because they kept changing their mind on where to get chips from and this aggravated a lot of ppl.

10:30- Fill is complete. Ok lets get ready to play. Dealer: "FLOOR!!!!! uhh we need cards." Thats right, there were no cards. UNREAL!!
10:50: Cards are here. Took dealer 15 minutes to fan out both decks face up, turn around face up and fan again. Flip decks over, fan out, turn around face down, fan again, wash cards, put them in shuffle machine.
11:05: Cards are in the air. We play 3 hands in 15 minutes. Dealer: "FLOOR!!! yeah uh we have 11 players seated"

So needless to say it was an utter mess. After all that, the dealer was horrifically slow and between the dealer changes, counting their chips, sliding that stupid club card (that doesnt do anything for the player at the moment), I don't think we played continuous poker for more than 15 minutes without a break in the game for something stupid. All that alone had put me on tilt and I ended up having a losing session albeit a very small losing session.

The waitlist by about 2pm was about 30-35 deep and it took about 15 minutes to fill an empty seat at my table. At one point we were playing 6 handed for about 30 minutes.

Anyway sorry for the long post, I thought I would just share with you my experience so far. I understand it is brand new and I am a very patient person. Again, it will take some time for everything to adjust but they need to set the rules, set the process and stick to it. It seemed that the floor people and the dealers were not on the same page.

There is probably a lot I didnt cover but if anyone has any questions, let me know and Ill try to answer them as best as I can. Thanks for reading.

Was at Hollywood on Tue afternoon and Wed and Thur mornings. Didn't get to play on Tue as I was 73rd in line. The mornings were no problem though, right in and seated. Games are totally soft, hope it stays that way for a while. Dealers were painfully slow, I think we got in about 13 hands in the hour I was there on Thur. Also, dealer admitted he was nervous and dealing slow as to avoid mistakes. He was clueless though, didn't know what to do with absent players when they returned, always wanted to count all-in bets (told him it wasn't neccessary unless someone asked), etc. Ended up winning $140 in the 2 hours I played.

I'll admit, the pooling of tips is just stupid. Doesn't give anyone the incentive to be good, as they will still get their share. I'm sure it will improve nut I think it will take a while and it won't be soon.

On a side note, played pai gow poker on opening day and a discrepancy came up with a hand. 2 pit bosses, both had a different ruling, so I asked to see the "house way". They didn't have it available! You gotta be kidding, not having a copy of the rules available is just asking for trouble. So I filed a complaint with the gaming board as no one was there to talk to. They called the next day and said that they now have manuals in each pit. Crazy stuff.

I'm going to get a chance to check out this room this week while visiting family in Hershey, PA and originally I was excited about seeing a new poker room in action. But, after reading some of these posts, I am wondering if I should bother as it might turn out to be more bad than good.

I am concerned about the $6 max rake, the low $200 max buy in, the slow pace of the newbie dealers, the numerous dealer mistakes, and the ridiculous flashing name list. I am surprised that a new poker room can't afford to hire a veteran to run the room from Vegas or AC.

I was in AC this weekend and had a lengthy discussion with the Showboat dealers and floor and they are excited that they finally got a poker room manager to push through promotions and make sure the poker room is NEVER supervised by non-poker pit bosses who don't know ALL of the rules.

Even at AC, I had 3 instances where dealers/floor made mistakes (1. letting players keep big chips and even their cards hidden repeatedly, 2. not calculating min raises correctly 3. and allowing players to go from short tables to full tables simply because they were regulars).

I am scared (yes scared) that I will be on the losing end of a bad decision that will cost me a large pot. In addition, I am worried that weak dealers will create an atmosphere of players angle shooting because they know that they can intimidate the newbie dealers.

I am now on the fence about going to this room at all and the only thing that is interesting to me is to see just how bad it is there (plus the weak games). I would love to speak with the floor during some slow times to relay the feelings expressed on 2+2 and find out how their management works specifically pertaining to poker. It seems like every an experienced poker player (not even an experienced floor/dealer) could really help get this room running much better.

A few small tweaks will go a very long way.

Have you suggested to your supervisor that he participate or at least keep an eye on this thread? It seems as if there are a few things they could quickly and easily change to make everyone's life better.

From what I've read about the waiting list and blinking names, it's really unbelievable. This is a pretty easy aspect of running a poker room especially if you have a Bravo system in place.

If anyone goes on Saturday or Sunday in the 9:00-noon time frame, could you please post and let us know what the wait lists were like?

I want to get an idea when/if it's worth it to go on the weekends, since I expect weekends to be pretty consistent (mornings vs. afternoons vs. evenings). For now, I assume that mornings will be the only feasible time during the weekends.

We all have to hope that the other table games remain strong & steady for the next couple months. Come on, let's get that expansion!!!

I don't really disagree with you on the current state of affairs but I've got a couple comments.

I've lived in central PA for about 12 years and my family and I love it here. That said I think it would be difficult to attract someone experienced to move here to run a poker room. This would be the only type job in the area so if for some reason the job stunk you would then have to move again. IN LV or AC there's always another casino just down the street.

So even a mature poker market like AC can have management issues...

So far mostly the complaints I've seen have been dealer errors, slow dearers and table/customer management (seating players, slow fills and setup changes, etc.) and I haven't seen anyone complaining about a bad floor decision that screwed them out of a pot or cost them money.

We've been waiting a long time for this and I think you should check it out as you seem to be a regular visitor to the area because of family. Periodic snapshots of your views might be more enlightening to point out progress the room is making that those from players going there 2-3 times a week or more.

I mean, from Hershey your only 10-15 minutes away at worst.

Agreed!

I completely agree with Tycho's post. Game integrity doesn't seem to be an issue. There aren't angle shots being taken left and right or anything like that.

It's just slowness and some frustration with some really bizarre procedures that don't add anything to the experience and in some cases are counter productive (flashing lists being #1).

I think all of the struggles and frustrations were to be expected. Although my patience ran thin there friday which killed my game. The week money had me chomping at the bit, which had me playing donkeystyle while chasing money I thought should just fall into my lap. My tilt rating was way to bad this week to be profitable. Reading up on Zen and should be back in the swing of things soon.
If you can maintain your composure and be a little extra patient with the room, dealers, and guys who never played outside of their kitchens before it is a good game. (its a tough adjustment from the speed of the online world) The few days I have played there have been 1 or 2 solid guys at my tables with the rest being week money. I plan on being there 2 or 3 times a week (I only live 17 miles away) unless I run disastrously and go bust. Going to check out mohegan next week. I hear their room is real nice.

Speaker system has been installed and was used today a little bit. The bravo system is not working correctly as of this point. We are having a lot of issues with it, but it should be working correctly soon. I am making a list of suggestions to give to my supervisor this week. There are a lot of plans for this room including expansion. The word is that there is 2 more tables coming in on Tuesday. This will cut the waiting lists down by 20 people. I know its not going to make a big difference but one step at a time.

The pooling of tips is seriously rediculous i think as well. Fast dealers should be compensated more than slow dealers. I deal 25-30 hands an hour and i am pooling tips with dealers that are dealing 14 hands an hour... its horrible but should change soon. Harrington in Delaware was only splitting tips for one week before they switched over.

A suggestion i have been pushing with my supervisor is making dedicated poker dealers. I know three people on pit games that have dealt for over 3 years and are not even in poker. The tips should not be pooled and the dealers should go on 30-40 minute sessions at each table and rotate from table to table to produce an even amount of tips for each dealer.

Also if you werent aware all supervisors (floor managers) are from AC and have managed Bally's last year. Other supervisors are dual rates that are experienced poker dealers.

Not sure whether this statement was defending the room or explaining why there have been complaints about the room. Other than Bally's being considered to be one of the worse poker rooms in AC, I have played there a handful of times (due to the bad beat chasers being there) with some unpleasant experiences from the floor and dealers. One aspect that really stood out was the negative attitude of the floor to any sort of questions and just an overall lack in interest in their jobs which leads to poor customer service.

I don't understand people who are unhappy at their jobs and find that the solution is to make sure everyone they encounter knows that they are unhappy.

Does the bolded part mean that the dealers rotate through the other pit games like blackjack and craps either during their shift or on some of their days? I really hope that I am misunderstanding you.

And, yeah, as stated above, that they are from Bally's doesn't provide much comfort. That's not the world's greatest room. Regardless of where they are from, what I really want to hear is something along the lines of "we are listening to our customers and we are doing everything we can to bring them the best poker experience we can."

What city and state is this casino in?

Hopefully that will help. Between that and the cellphone texting system (when it's finally working...) should make for an ok system.


That will definitely make a difference.

Grantville, PA

I was there most of the day Saturday. I got there around 10:30am and was seated and playing cards by 11 (NL2/5).

The one dealer we had was horrible, I think it was his first day, but at least 2 were very good (Mark & Brandon). Also, the floor staff Saturday night was pretty good, much better than the day shift.

Overall, it was a very good experience.

Any idea what the wait was like for the other games last night? I was going to head there today, but might reconsider if I have to wait as long as I did on their first day open (which ended up being around 3 hours.) Looking to play 1/2NL.