Been reading through the thread back from 2009. Why not offer the "Hybrid Poker Room" with primarily regular dealers and a couple of Poker Pro machines that deal low stakes Omaha variations (Hold-Em, etc)?[/QUOTE]


It's been tried, several places in fact. I even worked in one. After a few months, the poker pro tables were empty almost all the time even if the live dealt games were full.

I got put networking as number one. Lots of folks reject the table because they are empty. If I know I can play with folks in different casinos, I'm more likely to find my game and show up.

1) E-Tables = No Dealers = Your problably off to the Baccarat Pits or McDonalds or Lawyer or Stockbroker whatever your qualified for (pro player maybe) Pretty easy concept IMO I mean...really ?

2) Since I'm not a dealer I could care less about your work environment. I do know that if I was a dealer I sure as hell would not want some of my tips going to a fat union guy with a stogie in his mouth.

The bottom line here is your job security would have been at risk had these tables been successful. (Ya so I'm sure your opinion is totally unbiased and fair...LOL) Obviously since the failure you have nothing to worry about.

That's pretty interesting..... Casino vs Casino bragging rights...

(Prob a tough sell if your the only guy at the table tho but as long as you enjoy it )

I speak as someone who has actually seen the E-tables in use and worked in the PokerPro pit. I tried to interest people in playing them. It would have been to my benefit to get a game going since I would possibly earn some tips. Never happened. This was before I became a dealer.

The upshot of it was several cold lonely evenings spent in a 4 table pit with NO CUSTOMERS. Players would ask me where the real poker tables were and I would point to the poker room a few yards away.

The PokerPro pit was centrally located near one of the main entrances. You would pass it going to the Showroom, where the concerts were held, coming in or leaving the building, it was close to the original poker room at that time.

I have never been afraid of PokerPro tables endangering my job as a result.

They have a niche, cruise ships, locations such as Mexico or North Carolina where they cannot spread card games but electronic games are allowed.

But they just are not competitive when placed close to live dealt games.

I cannot think of any improvements that would cause poker players to want to play on them. anytime they have had a choice between dealers and E-Tables, E-Tables have lost.

BTW, Pokertek is based in North Carolina, is it just a coincidence that NC won't approve live casino poker games but they do allow E-Tables?

uhhh hate to blow a hole in the last sentance, but the NC legislation has approved dealer dealt games. it was the talk of Harras Cherokee last weekend when I was playing...

Hey, that's not bad news, except for the E-Tables.

Where I play (Indiana LIVE), I consider it a slow table if we aren't getting 50 hands/hour.

The (relative) failure of pokerpro machines has nothing to do with the table itself. The problem is fish. Games aren't started/sustained around a bunch of regs.


These drooling old donators don't like the e-tables for multiple reasons:

a) They're lonely old degens, and dealers (especially young female dealers) are pretty much their only social contact in life. E-tables get rid of the cute blonde that smiles and listens to his ****ty bad beat story for her tip. They also like being able to space out and drool on themselves, then have someone there to remind them when to act/what they can do/how much the bet is, etc etc.

b)Percentages. At first glance, I thought showing percentages was cool. Soon after, people started berating runner runners/ 2 outters/ getting it in pre dominated etc. Dumb fish don't want to be yelled at for trying to give you a stack with low equity.... or even worse, they see how bad they're getting it in and stop doing so.

c) Reloads. having to walk over and reload their card/ not being able to throw down cash and keep playing right away.

d) Technology. Most of these dudes rock a jitterbug (if they have a cellphone at all). Computers are scary to them. They can barely remember to put on pants, pushing buttons on a screen is hard to them.

These are some of the bigger points that stop bad fish from playing e tables. "I like the feel of chips and cards" is just code for it.

I think age has a lot to do with it. The electronic tables might take off in 10-15 years when the "old fish" grew up in the computer age.

If regs neither start nor sustain games, why are they called regulars?

Maybe you could just say what you mean and not use the wrong words to express yourself?

Do you find that many people who ask you to explain your comments are frequently "wrong" about how they define common terms?

To save time, maybe you should have footnotes for common words that you define differently from everyone else.

Here I thought that a player who came into the room three days a week and played the same game and enjoyed themselves was a regular.

Now, according to you anyway, I have to find out if they make a profit every year before I can tell whether they are a recreational player enjoying pleasant social interaction in their retirement years or a degenerate.

I like my definition better.

glad to see that out of my entire post (which more or less implies every post you made itt is dumb and wrong), you pulled out the fact that you don't know what a reg is to argue over.

you win Dealer-Guy!


So, if everyone that plays more then x times in y days is a regular (which you should probably define, once a month is pretty regular).... what do you call someone who makes a living off poker? Then, a winner with a day-job?

Except that dealerguy is 100% right.

You really didn't know that someone who plays for a living is called a Pro? Or that a regular customer of a casino is called a Reg? And then attack him because you're ignorant? Wow.

E-tables suck for three main reasons:

1) Fish are 100% convinced that the game is rigged in order to build the pot for maximum rake on every hand. This discourages them from playing.

2) Old guys (read: really bad fish) don't like the "new school" stuff. They want physical chips and cards so that it's more "real." There are actually a lot of people that want this that aren't old, but the old guys seem to be more adamant about it.

3) The personality of the table goes away. As a previous poster said, rules about table talk aren't ever enforced. Every one of these tables I've sat at has just been dead serious players. Just not as fun.


(Note that the 3 of these combined hurts the good players since you end up playing vs. better players. Also not cool).

Still would be pretty cool to multitable or play a variant of Rush Poker on an etable. maybe even network them across a consortium of casinos and have standup machines like the current slot machines on the regular gaming floor.

edit:
And if you could place them with other slots and video poker, imagine the fish that would eventually end up in these games. Video poker already seems to have a permanent spot as a tabletop game at the bar in a lot of casinos where people mindlessly press buttons while drinking some booze, just have live poker as an extra option next to deuces wild and double bonus poker.

I refer to anyone who makes his living off poker as a professional. That would include my co workers and myself.

My posts ITT deal with real world situations, I have actually worked in a Poker Pro pit. Been there done that, if that makes it clearer.

I refer to real world facts that are verifiable. You are offering your opinion based on whatever reasoning (if that is an applicable term) you use to arrive at your opinions.

You only refer to older players, not the general public who have rejected the E-Tables in the vast majority of instances.

If your post is so correct, where are all the young players who frequent the busy rooms that at various times had E-Tables available? Why weren't they flocking to the latest and greatest thing to happen to poker since someone invented the Shufflemaster?

They were playing poker at tables dealt by my co workers and myself.

You post may have some validity in regards to why a small portion of the poker playing public rejected the E-Tables for their own specific reasons.

However, the majority of players rejected them because it's a variation of poker they did not care for.

Yes, I am a dealer but that does not change the facts. Most people who had the opportunity to play either E-Tables or live dealt games chose the games with live dealers and real chips.

And I did define "regular", read the post again and you will even see where I referred to it as a definition.

Uhhh, from playing live poker for many years, regs start the games and keep the games going. Both winning regs and losing regs.

Good point on showing the percentages. The fish instantly see how bad they are playing and cease being fish, or quit. That point alone is extremely in favor of having dealers rather than e-tables.

The rest of your post implies that you don't get out of your mother's basement that much.

Damn, I'm now convinced that E-tables won't cut it. Dealer-Guy is dominating this "table". There's no doubt about it. Lots of great points throughout this thread, but for now I'll bow to the one with the most experience with them.

Every time I read a thread about angle shooting, bet sizes, or people acting out of turn I remember why I would rather play online or at an E-Table. Also you don't have to wait 5 minutes at showdown for someone to table their hand.

"These drooling old donators don't like the e-tables for multiple reasons:

a) They're lonely old degens, and dealers (especially young female dealers) are pretty much their only social contact in life. E-tables get rid of the cute blonde that smiles and listens to his ****ty bad beat story for her tip. They also like being able to space out and drool on themselves, then have someone there to remind them when to act/what they can do/how much the bet is, etc etc.

b)Percentages. At first glance, I thought showing percentages was cool. Soon after, people started berating runner runners/ 2 outters/ getting it in pre dominated etc. Dumb fish don't want to be yelled at for trying to give you a stack with low equity.... or even worse, they see how bad they're getting it in and stop doing so.

c) Reloads. having to walk over and reload their card/ not being able to throw down cash and keep playing right away."


WOW! You just described me to a T! I am a drooling old degenerate donator with no social life. But I like the E-tables for these reasons.

1. Up to 60% more hands per hour. The clock starts on the player's turn and they act or get folded within 90 seconds.

2. Lower cost: $3 rake vs $4 rake + $1 bad beat +$1 tip = $3 vs $6 per hand.

3. My casino had tables set up in the slot machine area. We got many novices who had seen some poker on TV and had the slot mentality that win/lose depended on a lucky seat or lucky machine.

4. Percentages were only shown after all betting was over and the fish payed no attention to them.

5. Reloads: Just put the cash you are willing to play on your card. The reload takes seconds. Cash out when you leave.

6. THE BEST REASON: The nits really get upset when you ship a pot covered with drool, and the felt in front is wet for hours after you leave. At the E-tables all it takes is a bottle of windex and a roll of paper towels to make the nits happy!

But all these points are moot because it seems that there is only a small market for these machines.

It's a shame. I feel it's more like idiots who have to riffle and smash chips around for 6 hrs giving everyone a headache because OMG they can make lots of noise...... It's not poker if you can't unreasonably annoy your neighbor

Rapini I know you bumped for archive but it's a shame.

These tables were great at the exalibur. Hwang and TT taking my money at PL omaha and you got to play more than 12 hands an hour.

I wish the Stud took off

Tables like these ARE AND ALWAYS will be the answer for Stud, Omaha whatever.

Nothing sucks more than playing 15 hands an hour at a casino.

but the regs and degens will swear up and down that they would rahter 15 hands an hour 30 min of it splitting pots is GOOD for the game.....

LOLnits

I've always felt eTables fit best in places that didn't have the ability to support a full poker room with regular dealers. If you only want to have 2 tables on a cruise ship, electronic is the way to go. If you want a table or two in a bar, definitely e table is your only real option. Also if you want to play very small stakes and don't want to mess around with quarters and the like for betting, e-tables again are a good option.

However many tourists go to casinos to play because they want to FEEL like they are playing the role of James Bond in Monaco. Harder to do that on an eTable. That I think is the biggest issue.

No they go to gamble and any idiot in the world can sit down at a poker table get Dealt AA go all in Preflop and make a bunch of money or lose a bunch of money.

The fun games/more skillful games like stud, omaha, HORSE etc take hours to deal and split pots and that's not what this generation of dee-dee-dee NL holdem players who just want fast action and quick gratification.

All vegas is a 90 % low stakes NL holdem because that's what tourists want.

What sucks is the E tables can give them that gratification even faster but never caught on.

Anyone who plays any game other than holdem should BE DEMANDING at least one or two of these tables in every poker room.

(assuming the demand for those respective games is there and will run on a daily basis) WHICH is the real problem

The only reason E tables never caught on is because there is not enough of a player base who plays anything but stupid TV poker (not htat I don't like holdem)

I just have more fun counting all the cardds that are out to determine my play in stud or calculating the 24 redraws i have after a flop of omaha.

Why do people playing HOSE at the 8/16 game at the Orleans and anywhere sperading OE stand for 12 hands an hour....

I don't think James bond has or had any influence over anyone playing poker and if they do it's like .0000000000001 percent of the pker playhing population.

And since the experiment failed (not the tables fault but poker room managers faults)

You are DEAD ON CORRECT about the niche for cruises or bars or whatever.

I feel bad for pokerpro and 20 years from now I do think something like these tables will take off and the company who started it all won't get any credit.