I visited the Mirage Poker Room yesterday and learned that the new manager Chris Coffin has fired all of the Shift Supervisors; [names removed], because their positions were eliminated.

In a previous thread I assumed that Mr. Coffin was going to be a benefit to the Mirage. I assumed it was he who had trained the Treasure Island staff and dealers so well. I assumed that in his new position he would be a breath of fresh air and would raise the Mirage Poker Room staff to a level that would allow it to compete with other poker rooms in town that cater to their players. Training at Treasure Island was obviously someone else’s doing.

At the Mirage it now seems the decisions that have been made are geared toward downsizing the room and eliminating what was once grand about it. They have taken out five more tables making it a 20 table room, it was once 31. The empty space of the room makes it look vacant even when it is busy. The two couches that have taken their place are an eyesore and not revenue producing. The room is rarely half full on weekends but there is always a non player half asleep on a couch.

The rooms only happy employees are the ones that are leaving to go to Aria at City Center. All of the other dealers, brushes, management and cashiers are terrified and angry that the place they have worked in for so long is being abused and managed so poorly. Most of the employees of the room are expecting the next day they work to be their last. It seems that the new direction the Mirage wanted to take the poker room, after dismissing Donna Harris, is a downward spiral.

Having worked at the Mirage in the past I have a fondness and always took pride in the room I once worked in. It breaks my heart to see it abused. I encourage more Mirage employees to speak out about this topic and hopefully your concerns will be heard by someone that can correct a serious mistake that has been made before it’s too late.

I don't understand the point of your post other than that the Mirage used to be a big room, and soon it will be MGMs 4th biggest room...
also
you previously posted "I was at the Mirage last week on vacation with my dad. I have been there in the past and thought my dad, who has been playing poker for 60+ years, would enjoy the atmosphere. "
and now
"Having worked at the Mirage in the past I have a fondness and always took pride in the room I once worked in."
these statements eem to be from different people?

I used to work in the Poker room in the Mirage 8+ years ago. I also no longer live in Las Vegas but in California. I vacation in Las Vegas 3-4 times a year and always visit the three places I have worked to play and see old friends. I also stated on page 17 of the same thread that you quoted from that I had previously worked at the Mirage.

I guess the reason for my post is to slam Chris Coffin and the Mirage for their poor choices. And hope that the room will not close in six months. It saddens me to see people that I have known for years suffering because of mismanagement. I find it hard to believe that people that had worked for the Mirage for 20 years, Dennis who was a day one employee, could be told that his position had been eliminated and let go with no regard whatsoever.

The Mirage could become a small room like TI and the 30 - 40 players that play there may have a great time. The employees that are effected by that change and treated like pawns need a voice.

Wow, I hope what you posted is a mistake but I am afraid it is not. I played at the Mirage very shortly today and had to leave after receiving a phone call. I noticed the shift supervisor wasn't there but assumed they were on lunch break. I liked all of them, got along well with them and thought they did their jobs very professionally. They will be missed.

Currently, Las Vegas is in a financial slump, which is WORSE than national average. Mirage is a business and the poker room manager receives instructions. (Those are obvious facts. I am nowhere near Las Vegas.)

I wonder how many other rooms are pulling tables?

It's interesting to see and think about the evolution (of poker and gaming in LV).

Do you all ever see poker being like it was in 1998 or 2001? (#of entrants in big tourn)

It's so easy to say No at this point, but I wouldn't ever rule it out.

Mirage is an aging property that focused on limit longer than most. Limit is dead and the games went elsewhere (mostly to newer, nicer rooms) and aren't coming back. Maybe their selection of employees to RIF wasn't the kindest but the room is half dead and isn't going to get better.

It wasn't big in 2001. Rooms were still closing then. It's not until late 2004/early 2005 that all the new rooms started opening. (Caesars, MGM, PH, Venetian, Riviera, Tropicana, Golden Nugget, ect..ect..)

The Main Event at the WSOP had only a few hundred in 2001. It hit 800'ish the year Moneymaker won it in 2003. 2004 is when it hit 2476 entries IIRC.

That is a shame to hear about the mirage going (even further) downhill. I used to very much like the 6-12 and 10-20 there. For as much as donna harris wasn't liked, she ran a class act of a room for a long time and she was always nice to me. Sounds like the mirage is going the typical way of the vegas poker room... downhill fast due to poor management of the casino as a whole and poker specifically. Sad.

al

I think that was his point...he means will it ever decrease DRASTICALLY back to Moneymaker numbers.

It was 6500+ in 2009 too, right? I think the question was if/when it will get back down to say, sub 2K entries.

With online poker (for now) it won't dip below 4,000 (the WSOP ME) for a while....

I'm headed to Vegas Fi Oct 30 and I can't wait....2nd trip. Staying at Bellagio....75% of play will be at Venetian though. The next 25 days can't go by fast enough

Poker has had no limit booms before, see 1970's; then a, relatively speaking, small pool of players wins all the money and the boom collapses, like all bubbles. I don't think we are anywhere near the end of this boom but I could be wrong. It all depends on how long new loose money keeps arriving. It is of interest that television ratings have dropped substantially; it generated a lot of the loose money. The newbies get burned a few times and go back to blackjack, craps or something else where the edge is known and not human. Many poker players make it more enjoyable to be beat by the house than some grouch or a sunglassed ipod'd statue. It is easy to get lost in the world of poker players and not realize where the money comes from.

Your wisdom exceeds your post count by a couple orders of magnitude.

al

What did Chris and upper management say when you discussed these issues with them? (See B&M Forum FAQ guideline 8. Using the names of the people involved is especially egregious.)

Also, I'd caution the community that this information appears to be unverified and that a review of the OP's other posts seems to reveal some bias against Chris and/or Mirage management.

Great post. I was in Vegas last week, and the town was dead. Granted, it was in the weekdays, but still, Vegas seemed almost like a ghost town. I was walking on the strip at like 1 AM, and there were very few people around.

I stopped by the mirage poker room, and there were about 12-15 tables running. the usual NLHE, some limit, an omaha hi-lo game, and a $75 SNG. i think mirage's poker room is in perpetual decline.

Poker in general is declining. There are very few high-stakes online games running, and the American public in general has gotten tired of the game.

OP sounds like disgruntled employee posing as a frequent customer. LOL.

I have no idea who was let go or why, but as for the room being dead that has more to do with the fact that this is always a slow time of year for Vegas poker. Every room is dead except the Venetian and possibly the Bellagio now that their tournament series is running.

I do not think the termination of said shift supervisors was an effort to downsize, necessarily. I think a good portion of the layoffs were a way for Coffin to "trim the fat". I had more than a couple less than desirable situations come up with the floor supervisors over my past few sessions, and think that the room could use a trimming.

Also, keep in mind that Donna cut 5 tables last year, reducing the the table number to 25. Chris took it a step further and reduced it to 20. The Mirage does not need more than 20 tables. I think Coffin is one of the first people to view the Mirage, in its current state, for what it actually is: an upper mid tier room that caters to a solid mix of regulars and tourists.

He will be adding a jackpot drop later this year. This is key in both catering to its core customer as well as realistically removing it from the faux top tier status that it occupies. Mirage does not genuinely compete with Venetian, Bellagio, and Wynn, which are all non-jackpot houses. MGM Grand does not drop a jackpot either, but that room is 3/4 top tier at best (even though it is one of the only rooms in Vegas that NEVER goes dark).

By adding a jackpot, it will align itself with all other tourist and locals based mid tier rooms and can better promote itself (through the use of jackpot dollars).

The only big room that drops a jackpot is Caesars, and it lost its top tier status long ago. The top level rooms involve 3.5 rooms, and Mirage is realistically not one of them. I think Coffin is realistic, and sees this, hence his reducing the table number and adding a jackpot drop. It will better compete with its current tier once these things are done.

Yes, this is what I meant, and more specifcally, will it ever be pre-money maker where the big buy in live events have 800 or less?

I know that's a vauge question, but I see there being new NLHE blood for some time. Of course people get tired of certain games, and whatever game is popular next should have plenty of noobs.

I'd say iCaesars Palace started losing that status around January 1, 2007. That's when it added the jackpot drop.

The Mirage is going to drive away many regulars with a jackpot drop. I certainly won't play there.

I think one of the problems at the Mirage poker room is that it has/had a cost structure (largely # & type of employees per player) relating to: its origin (1989), the original owner, the original manager and their very successful effort to make it the premier poker room on the strip. Unfortunately, long after it lost that status (Bellagio opened circa 10/1998) the high cost structure remains/remained in place.

I am not disgruntled nor have I seen or talked to Mr. Coffin recently. He has not been in the poker room when I have visited except for once on my previous visit. I worked in the Mirage at the same time Mr. Coffin worked there and I have no problem with him.

I only recently wrote about what was told to me by several employees when I went into the room. When I was last at the Mirage it was just after Mr. Coffin had taken over. I had been told about the 2+2 post and wanted read what was being said about Donna Harris since she was always nice to me and I was sorry to hear about her separation with the Mirage. I chose to voice an opinion just like the rest of the people on this site and my opinion is my own.

I believe that it is a poor move to let all of your Senior Shift Supervisor staff go to “trim the fat”. If the Mirage wants to have a small room then they should make it small and not torture their employees with the fear of unemployment. Furthermore, with Aria opening in a little more than 2 months could it have been possible to offer the people who were let go a position in another room that will be looking to fill positions vacated by people leaving to go to Aria? To me, and this is my opinion, it looks like the Mirage is downsizing and turning its room into TI. Which is fine. TI was and is, to my knowledge, a decent small room. The PEOPLE who are effected by this change without a chance to transfer within the company are my concern. I will surely never play at the Mirage because of the way, I have perceived, that they treat their employees now. When I left it was a very nice place to work.

There will always be a poker game somewhere. There will always be a better room around the corner. I personally would rather not pay into a jackpot pool that I will never win and I don‘t often play in a room with jackpots if I can avoid it. If any poker room is relying on tourism only and not treating their locals or frequent customers well the room will fail. The Mirage now offers $1 comp/hr of play instead of the $15 for 8 hours of play. Another big step backwards and not a way to fill empty seats in a poker room.

One more poker room I won't play in.

Who is this "core customer"? It's not the tourist. The tourist doesn't want to help fund a jackpot that will be won by someone else long after he has left town.

The average tourist does not even know he is funding a jackpot. All he knows is that he can win a jackpot. Where the money for that jackpot comes from is not something that crosses his mind.

No way is this the case. It may have been the case back in the day when there was no cap in the NL games, but almost all rooms now do have a cap in place, and I can assure you, there is no "small pool of players" winning all the money. That assertion is hogwash.

Comparing any boom in poker prior to 2003 is not relevant to today's situation. Where we are now is entirely new ground. The one and only poker boom, in 2003, is in the process of playing itself out, and we'll see over the years to come how things shake out. A pullback from the frenzy of excitement from 2003 to 2006 is understandable, but the question is where will we end up?

The present economic recession notwithstanding, it appears that the poker rooms in LV were over-built. That means many will languish, and others will close (if they haven't already).

The simple truth, and this will be Chris' purpose at the Mirage, is that every room has to find what it is that will draw players in to their room instead of others. And that, is no easy task to figure out. Best of luck to Chris. I was playing at the Mirage way before 2003, and have always loved it. I have sentimental feelings for the Mirage, I suppose, if there can be such a thing for a poker room.

which could potentially make it +EV to continue playing there despite the drop