im looking for a nice card table with 10 chairs and a shuffle machine for my basement , do you think hollywood will be selling any when harrahs opens up april 1st.

harrahs in joliet officially opening may 4th

Interesting, anyone know how many tables, rake structure, etc?

8-10 tables, all I know.

Heard Empress has a BBJ now
-Pot has to be 30+
-4 min to the flop
-Quad 5's is the min

is it true that empress kicked in a whole 500.00 to start there bad beat jackpot. thats really nice of them. karma is a wonderful thing. SUCK IT.

Not sure about the minimum of 4 at the flop but the rest is what was explained to me this week. I am not a fan of the BBJ because I don't spend everyday there like 80% of the players so my odds of getting paid off on the additional rake is very low.

I do like that they have at least added an electronic list, as primitive as it is, so you can at least see your wait. I look forward to the new room and if they do a nice job with it I can't see how they don't crush Hollywood.

lol, would love to see that peice of **** room completely fail.

I LOVED the 10/20 limit game at the Hollywood. I don't suppose that ever runs anymore though.

no, never

I occassionally take a half day off of work and go to Joliet Empress/Hollywood during the week around noon and play 1/2. Alot of the same regs there everytime I go. Many of them are older (50s-60s) so I am guessing they are retired? They seem to play fairly tight though, which is good. There is a wide varity of middle-age and younger reg players too that seem to call opening rasies with any two.

With that said, I cannot figure this place out. dumb question but... What is the correct opening raise here with a 99s+ and suited braodway cards? I know that is a generic question depending several factors but its seems like when I raise to $10, I get 4-5 callers one of which inevitibly hits two pair or a str8 with 8-5 off. A $20 raise is usually too high and folds around. So is $15 the right amount to get action without getting "sucked out" on too often?

Also, how much should I be looking to win each pot or should I not look at it that way but rather my results for the entire session?

Last question: What is the best style to play here - LAG, TAG, TP?

I usually buy in for $200 and have had several good days (up $200-$300+) but overall am a losing player here (mostly because of tilt issues and a limited amount of time I can play - I try to get in as many hands as I can while I'm there. I force/spash around many hands that I should not even be playing.)

I have read this entire thread and saw a few of you say this place is very beatable. So any advice on how to beat it (related to my questions) would be helpful.

Can you hear that..........that's the sound of a real poker room getting ready to open in your city. Welcome harrahs thank you for rescuing us. I'll bring my iPod.

Went to empress/hollywood for first time to play 1/2 and started a list for 2/5 but no players wanted it. I finally got my seat at 1/2 when a player busted on an all-in pot, another player guessing a reg was waiting to get in, sat in his seat and insisted the player wasnt coming back which was a huge fish. Anyways player did come back and player that sat down wouldnt leave. 10 minutes into play he is in a hand in which he is called on the river and tells the caller good call its yours. He hold his hand and didnt muck it till the other player layed his down and told him that he folded and he wants the pot. This player is a Young reg. named Alex wearing a Atl baseball cap. Then berates the players that say it was a cheap play by him. If you play this guy watch out cuz he will angle play every chance he gets.

i also played here for the first time last night. This is single handedly the biggest abortion of a poker room i've ever seen in my life.

-floor is rude and completely inappropriate
-at one point, player briefly argues with floor about a terrible ruling delcaring the player's hand being dead. Not only does she kick him out of the room she clearly states to him "ok you can leave now, go lose your money at blackjack" out loud for the entire room to hear. The guy that lost the pot had never played before, and clearly didn't know what he was doing.

- dealers are clueless, talking during hands, telling players to turn cards over, missing bets and raises, terrible form while dealing the cards (flashing cards), counting out bets and all ins when its not asked or necessary, constantly having empty racks, talking to other dealers between downs, all kinds of nonsence

-dealers talking out loud at the table to another dealer about how the harrah's poker room is opening in a couple weeks and this is almost over

- rake is ridiculous at 6+1

-it says on the brochure in order to win the bad beat pot you have to have a players card so i ask the floor if this is true. She responds, yes if you win you have to get a players card, i ask what happens if you don't have one, she says, "well you still win, but i have to spend a whole bunch of time typing all kinds of stuff into a computer and create a card for you" Are you that effing lazy that you can't create a players card for new players???

-there were two main tables running and one feeder table, at one point one of the main tables breaks for no apparant reason leaving 2 players sitting there alone waiting for players, well after 15 minutes the floor decides to take 7 players off the feeder table and move them (breaking the feeder game that had 8 players) all of this while there are 2 open seats in the other main game

-there is zero reason why this room shouldn't be successful, there has got to be at least a million people within a 30 mile radius of this casino. The casino itself is very nice, very clean, easy to get to. The poker room is in a very good location, close to a reasonably priced food court thing, close to the bathrooms and cashier, plenty of nice tv's to watch sporting events, with music lightly playing in the background, and outstanding drink service. You pretty much would have to make a conceited effort to have this room fail, don't worry though, they have done everything possible to do so.

I played for about 3.5 hours before i couldn't take it anymore. There were probably 6 dealers and 3 floor staff. I if i were running this room, 7 of those 9 people would be terminated immediatley, it truly was that bad.

The worst part about this room is that the dealers and floor don't know dick about poker so they make their decisions based on what they "think" is right. Which usually means favoring in the side of the reg. or in favor of the player whom they like more. They judge by profiling.

.

and last night they broke the feeder to create 3 tables of 11.......ELEVEN!!!

The room is a joke - clearly - but it is the best option in the area until the first week of May. You would think with the flood of online players needing to transition to live games they would put some effort into stepping things up. Sadly, this room runs like the Hollywood Aurora which is awful as well and will likely get crushed by Harrah's.

I just hope Harrah's doesn't crap down its leg with the launch of their new room. While I love to play at the Shoe I find their floor to be a bit off-putting as well due to their success although I think the dealers are very solid.

B2R, I've heard a few things from a source I got, they ain't planning on leg crapping.

I would seriously bet that upper management doesn't even know what has happen in the online scene. They are totally inept and clueless.

They put a tv up showing the waiting list. I got a big LOL when I saw its an ms excell spreadsheet. They couldn't even buy the correct software!

this happened once when I was there though it was 2 tables of 11. Then a wait list started. I think it was to let a dealer go home early... good for that dealer.

The best way to prove a point to someone is with money, their service has always been horrible, we now have an option. So Hollywood SUCK IT

thanks for the big pretty billboard telling everyone you comp poker players that is on I 80, wow , all of a sudden you care. isnt harrahs comp rate double what yours is. May 2nd should be busy in downtown Joliet. How much did that Billboard cost . One more thing, do you guys have tournaments like Harrahs is planning on having ?

seriously , thanks for the candy and thanks for all of the attitude over the years. also thankyou for the rediculous rulings ive seen. do you guys have a shuttle from your place to harrahs. can you turn the volume down in the poker room now , oh dont worry about it , i can use my head phones at harrahs.

Sounds like its a good thing I didnt go there last night, as Im slightly closer than the Horseshoe...looking forward to Monday.

9:30 the line at Harrah's forms, 10:00 the door's open, and 10:05 everyone at Empress's poker room gets fired.