MGM Grand Ballroom. 70 additional tables set up.

I'd say a 2P start time for afternoon events should be OK, that would get people over the bridge EB by 1-130P? Definitely tough to run anything at say 3 or 4P since that would put you right in the middle of it.

Would love to see a $1k PLO event too.

Any chance of running SNG satellites for the Main Event that week?

$1K PLO is definitely do-able. There will definitely be main event SNGs offered. We will also offer cash SNGs at different price points from 9am-3am.

Personally I think this is a great week to run it. Starting the Monday of Thanksgiving week, a lot of feds/contractors are taking leave and really that runs right through New Years. Maybe the Fri/Sat immediately after might not be packed but I think you'll be surprised. Lot of folks stick around the area.

I actually think this is a fantastic weekend for a poker event for multiple reasons... one of the biggest being the availability of hotel rooms...

And the local NFL team plays at home Thanksgiving night.

70 wow! Will you use your own dealers or PTC (or similar)?

Overall I am going to give the room a B-. Floors were super friendly and helpful and the dealers seemed very competent. I did have to correct one who was going to let a seat changer post a live SB behind the button. Downside is that I waited for an hour to order food and I never even saw the food person. So I left. Also the room is pretty meh - don't understand why it isn't cordoned off from the slot machines more (I mean I know why since it is MGM but still - not the best). Room promos seemed super generous.

We have relationships with many traveling dealers, and will hire the traveling crew we have used in the past. We will need around 100, so if you know anyone, tell em where you heard it!

Sorry you didn't like the room better. Any suggestions on how we can improve (besides food service)

Aaah yes.... yet another reason....

Don't get me wrong - it is fine. I was talking to a dealer and he basically said that any suggestion has to go through 8 tons of bureaucracy with corporate. So when I naively suggesting just hiring more food servers he sort of chuckled. Like I said - room seems super well run you are just at the mercy of MGM. I do think that spreading only NLHE is a slow march to death (as opposed to LHE) given how the money flows, but I am well aware that I am not going to win that argument.

Full disclimer: I have worked for MGM for 11 years, and it's the best company in the gaming industry for poker,

The answer you received from the random dealer was as far from accurate as possible. Hiring Food runners has been difficult here. It has been an extremely high turnover position, and replacement takes about 5 weeks on average.

I have tried to spread Limit Holdem at every level, from 4/8 up to our regular 60/120 game. It hasn't been successful. If you or anyone you know wants to play Limit, please come play. We welcome you with open arms.

The room being "connected" to the rest of the casino, if you can even really call it connected, is a positive in my opinion. There's at least a handful of people who mosey up and watch the games over the course of a night and some even ask questions and give it a try.

From everything I've heard and read, Canterbury Park is LHE heaven because NLHE isn't allowed (except in that weird tournament/cash game hybrid format). While I agree that LHE is the more sustainable game out of NLHE and LHE, there's no way you'd ever get a majority of players wanting to play LHE in a room that is allowed to offer both.

JG, I am assuming you will be running 7PM tournaments as well. It would be nice it they can carry higher guarantees.

Also, for bigger events Single Table/Multi Table satty's would be nice.

I don't think we will run a nightly event over the weekend. We will have a nightly super satellite for the main at 6pm, and a possibly nightly turbo at 8pm.

give the food runners small carts so they can carry more than 3 orders at a time?
and just out of curiosity, Why are you having a hard time retaining food runners?

also, allow us to table change via Bravo, like what Maryland live apparently allows?

Any possibilities of multiple rebuys in events since you will have 70 tables and additional staff? I thought the reason you did that in your dailies was space issues. Why else would you limit people to only one rebuy?


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That's more a decision about the image and cost of the tournaments to recreational players. Knowing that a pro/reg can unlimited rebuy is a turnoff to most. Regardless of the reality, the perception is that a deep pocketed pro gets an advantage that way.

Carrying more than 3 orders drastically increases the wait time for food. When you take 7/8 orders the first few people to order will always wait a minimum of 45 min to an hour for food.

How so?

What if the dealer dealing that table decides he/she only wants to deal holdem? Sounds terrible

Are you confident in that perception? I'm not saying it's not true, I've just never heard of that before. Plus, a lot of pros/semi-pros even have their own cutoff points for rebuys. There was a $1500 PLO event (catering primarily to their 5/5/(10) PLO players) in Delaware Park (a much, much, much smaller casino) the year before last. Had a rebuy period of around 7 hours, ended up with around 50 entrants, and 80 buys total. A recreational player won it, and the most buy-ins any pro put in was, I believe, 3.

Again, not saying you're wrong, but in my (admittedly low) tournament experience, most players - pros and recreationals alike - limit themselves to 3-5 buy-ins MAXIMUM.

Sounds like an improvement to me!

(friendly sarcasm sadly based on personal experience)

You see no issue with tables playing different games at the same time?