Quote:
Originally Posted by Angrist
Went the other day and was talking to one of the dealers about that.
Guy that manages refuses to put dedicated dealers or floorpeople up there, or let them keep their own tips. Complains about the room "not making any money" as an excuse not to do anything.
Room needs a bigger and more obvious sign that it's there from the main floor. It can stay a little out of the way (it's a good selling point that there's no smoke wafting in) and still be fine. Needs dedicated dealers. They should be able to be about 10% faster without hassle immediately. They need to change their "procedures" and stop washing the cards and doing two riffles *before* putting the deck in the machine. Wasted time for another 10% or so. That's 20% more rake immediately. Should get rid of the posting for new players. Get either chip runners or let people buy at the table again. Un-cap straddles and allow BTN straddles to drive more action and attract players.
They've got a nice facility, nice tables and chairs, beautiful casino, the works. Betting BI cap than MCC for the $1/2 game. There's no reason that room shouldn't be packed all weekend and "busy enough" during the week.
So, there are lots of issues with dedicated dealers for the poker room when the room is as slow as MGM's.
1) NO dealer is going to want to sit dead for half their shift if the only tips they're getting are the ones given to them directly while they're dealing. Right now, if you work the poker room at MGM on a random Tuesday afternoon (starting at noon), odds are you're going to be on for 30 minutes and off for 30 minutes of every hour until at least 2 PM. After that, you'll be lucky to deal 60 minutes of every 90 minutes. That's a horrible work rate for day shift dealers and I can guarantee keeping their own tips would work out worse for them than splitting tips with the rest of the casino as they do currently (especially knowing the day shift dealers are dealing 1-2 NLHE exclusively and are probably looking at $1 per hand tip if they get a tip at all). Or even worse, they schedule 4 dealers for the room right at noon when it opens (because someone will say "You never know when we might be busy") and then you have dealers only getting the chance to make tips for 30 out of 120 minutes. Again, no dealer will sign up to only deal poker with all the unknowns of such a slow room.
2) Having no dedicated poker room manager is a horrible idea. Mike O'Connor is the VP of Table Games and he has little or no interest in the poker room because a busy room or a slow room does very little to impact the profitability of tables games as a whole and his personal income is partially based upon the profit gathered from table games. They'd had some de facto room managers over the years (Brooks was there during the day 5 days a week when it opened, followed by Ray, Rich, etc, etc). The rotating poker room floors with no real poker room manager is awful. Currently Lou thinks he's in charge because he set-up the current weekend tournaments, but he's an idiot too (and don't ever ask him for a ruling if you want an unbiased answer...the ruling will go in favor of someone he considers his friend long before getting the right ruling).
3) Your suggestions about changing straddles would possibly differentiate MGM from other poker rooms in the area, but it's a very minor change that is not going to impact the number of players in the room. If the average 1-2 player has been going to MotorCity for the last 5 years, they're not going to all of a sudden switch rooms just to be able to button straddle or straddle for 10 in a 1-2 game. It might create more action for the people there, but I can't see those changes bringing in people.
4) Chip runners in a room with 9 tables would be pointless. 95% of the time you can go buy more chips and still get back to your game in time to play the next hand. We're not talking about a 40 table poker room where chip runners are necessary. Also, you can't complain about the dealers actions slowing down the rake, but then want to be able to buy chips at the table. Both slow down the game and hurt the rake.
My biggest complaint is the room doesn't open until noon. I'm a daytime poker player. I also like to play 6-7 hours when I play. This is impossible to do at MGM, which is why I started going to MotorCity when the room started closing. I play from roughly 9:30-4:30 when I play and then get home for dinner with the wife and kids and to get the kids in bed. I just can't do this at MGM and I know it's cost them a number of their daytime players who want to start before noon during the week. It also leads to a mad rush to be in the first 10 players in the room for that opening table, because if you're number 12, it could be 2 hours before another game opens or two people leave the first table. It also means that no one shows up looking to play at 12:30 because the know the first table is full and they don't have a chance to get a seat. It's a vicious cycle that could be stopped if the room wasn't closed in the morning.
