no, open can be from 3 to 12

The SB is considered completed pre-flop and the pot is rounded up post-flop when calculating pot, yet you can still bet odd amounts at any time. The latter is inconsistent with the first two and slows down the game. IE: If there is $18 in the pot on the flop, you can bet any amount from $3 to $20. If you are going to round the pot to the nearest $5 and aren't going to make the $1/$3 PLO a red chip game post flop you might as well make it a true pot limit game. I mentioned this to the day shift shift manager this past week and his response was, "It's not THAT bad." He pretty much assumed I was some random rec player who had no idea what he's talking about. $1 chips should only play in quantity (increments of $5) unless going all in.../vent.

Maybe Rivers dealers are just better at calculating pot than Horseshoe CLE dealers...

I see the bad beat went. Anyone have any details?

How has the month-end $555 Saturday tournament been? How many runners / how big prize pool? Thinking about making the trip in from Cleveland for it tomorrow.

Usually somewhere between 60 and 80 players. Good tourney with deep structure.

Monthly $555 had ~84 entrants today with rebuys thru the first break (after level 3).

9am Friday. 86s>A2s on a 3457x board...I can't remember if they said it was hearts or spades.

The loser of the hand is supposedly a big degen who will likely lose it all out on the floor. He got over $80K. The winner of the hand is an average skill level regular. Not sure how many were at the table, but I know it was the only table going in the room.

I hate the whole idea of the bad beat. It's like forcing me to buy a lottery ticket every time I win a pot. It was less awful when it was a 0ev "lotto ticket", but now they're pilfering the BBJ money to pay for all these promotions that the large majority of players aren't even eligible for and calling it a giveaway. It's not a ****ing giveaway if the casino isn't putting up a single dollar. On top of that they pressure the winners to give enormous tips.

Ever since the BBJ, my 2$ tip I used to give is now 1$ per pot.

Could somebody tell me how many runners the Saturday $225 gets? Is it still running this week with that charity tourney later that night? Thanks!

I have mixed feelings about the bbj. As you said, in theory a bbj is neutral ev, minus whatever tip you choose to give the dealer and the taxes that will be applied to your winnings. That being said, it's super high variance, and if you play all the time, it might be several years before you receive any of that money, if you ever hit one at all.

The plus side to it is obvious: It brings in a lot of players, particularly average and bad players, who would not otherwise be in the room, making the room softer and easier to beat. If you hear how often the bbj is brought up at the tables by droolers, I don't know how anybody can argue with that.

As for the promo money being given away...I don't know how often you play, but the way they are using the bbj money is awesome for regulars and pros. The only bad thing about last month's drawings was the fact that some people played like rocks for 80 hours a week, playing 1 hand/hour if that, just cashing in on drawing money. That being said, plenty of pros that actually know how to play got to cash in on the drawings, and it was a very nice rakeback. They have a $30K freeroll coming up, which I'm guessing no more than 100 people will qualify for, making the value of it at least around $300, plus the $100K in May is going to be a very nice bonus to the people that can make a deep run.

Oh yeah, and the pressure to tip big when you hit the bbj IS absurd, I agree with that. It's an idea that's perpetuated, and you hear it everywhere in the casino. Personally....If I hit, I'll tip decently enough to not bring negative attention to myself in the eyes of the dealers, but nothing close to the 5-10% bull**** you hear floating around. If I hit the main share right now for $40K, I'd probably give the worst dealer in the room $100, and somewhere around $500 to the dealers who are really good, or with whom I'm close with.


I don't play the $225, but I'm usually there on Saturdays and it's often between 70-90 runners I believe. No idea if it's running with the Lemieux tournament or not.

Just found this thread. Glad to see there are some decent regulars at the tables. Ill be down soon, as I just turned 21. What should I expect player-wise? How good? Any great whales? etc.

I would want less regulars and more fish.

I like having a challenge to improve my game.

And robbing a bank successfully is awesome for the robbers. It kind of sucks for the bank though.

Anyone who averages less than 15 hours a week is the bank.

This word get's thrown around too often.

Also, If I won the BBJ, I wouldn't tip more then ..... I'm not even sure.

I really did not like this promotion as it's basically taking money away from the casual players and distributing it to the players who put in a ton of hours. You needed to play 20 hours to get 1 entry, then you got an entry for every 2 additional hours you played. That means a person who played the required 20 hours had one entry while the handful of players who put in 70 hours a week had 25 entries. The "rock" you probably are referring to won $500 - $1000 at least 13 times since those drawings began.

The behind a promotion should be to try to bring more casual players into the room. I have no problem somehow giving back to the players who put in tons of volume, but to basically take money from the casual players and distribute it to the high volume players without the casual players having a chance at it was ridiculous.

What does 1,000 points on your rivers card get or equate to ?

800 points = $1

Thanks!

Sure, everybody does...thankfully a lot of the regulars are still pretty bad.

I mean sure, anybody who plays less than 20/week lost a lot of value in their $1 bbj drops, but it's obvious that Jim and whoever else makes decisions for the room wants to incentivize volume, and there's nothing wrong with that imo.

Why do you think I typed both 'regulars' and 'pros'. There ARE a number of guys in the room who make a living at poker exclusively, so what else am I to call those people except for professionals?

I feel the same way about the bbj. I'd have to just make a decision on the spot.

What is the logic behind making every promo designed to bring in casual players? The bbj already does that. How much more 'fish traffic' are you going to generate by running promos that don't favor heavy grinders? I mean, you can do things like splash the pot and high hand of the hour (and I'm sure they will run those things in the future) but these drawings generated a ton of rake for the room. Quite a few guys were putting in between 40-80 hours every week, and while I agree it maybe makes the games a tad more tight/reggy, the room got the traffic it was looking for. It's a nice chunk of rakeback for the guys who plug away hours on end.

And fwiw, nobody won more than 10 of the drawings in total. If I'm correct (and I think I am) 2 people won 10 of them, one person won 9, and a bunch of people were in the 3-7 range...The person who won 9 really didn't have that many hours in (30-50 a week) so he really ran hot!

The freeroll tourneys they are running are gonna favor heavy grinding a bit less. Just get your hours in (at a very minimal requirement) and you'll get entries into tournaments that have a pretty good amount of cash.

To wrap this up...What they are doing with the promo money is awesome. They are varying it up, running all kinds of different things to benefit players, which is so much better than just having the bbj and royals, which you're lucky to get a piece of either of those over the course of a year, even if you're a full time player.

Well they are using the bad beat drop as their promotional budget so it's rake. Some miniscule portion like 20% of the Bad Beat drop is actually going to the Bad Beat jackpot that the person getting <20 hours a week is eligible to win at any one time. So they want me to pay for their promotional budget and pay the majority of the salary for their employees too? **** that.

I'll ask, but I'm pretty sure they won't let me opt out of the bad beat drop. That leaves tipping for me to opt out of. You know what would happen to a poker room in Vegas that was raking $6/hand at 1/3? Nothing! Nobody would go there...

What's the difference here? They use the state to threaten to shoot any competitors so I can't walk down the street to a room with reasonable rake.

They're running all kinds of things that benefit players putting in 50 hrs/month. So it's great for those players, but terrible for all players putting in < 50 hrs/month. I'm pretty sure a profitable poker room needs people who play less than 50 hrs/month.

I have no problem if a room wants to increase volume with promotions benefiting regs. But use the goddamn rake money to do it. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to get back the jackpot drop. Before you could. Now you can't. Rivers just effectively increased their rake to $5.45 max taken at a greater than 10% rate. The 2nd item is clearly a violation of state gaming rules.

But as Dantes said, we can at least control tipping. If they're going to take 45 cents extra per pot that I can never see, then I can tip $1 on half as many pots as I used to and it all washes out for me. I'm sure that the tips out of the freerolls will make up for my lost tips.

How often does 5/5 plo run on wed and sat?