Just had a talk with the new poker room manager and it looks like the Wynn will be spreading a new 6 max cash game as of this upcoming Friday August 10th starting at 8pm.

It will be a 2/5 game with their standard buy in structure of $200-$1500. He said they are open to spreading 5/10 6 max as well with their standard uncapped buy in structure if there is interest. The Wynn will be the only casino on the strip running anything like this. Has anyone else seen/heard of any 6 max games spread elsewhere?

The new management seems to be trying to make positive changes with the players interests in mind. They have been receptive to player feedback with the new $3/hour comp system and the implementation of the button straddle this weekend.

I played in the games last night with the button straddle and the games were excellent. They certainly had more action and there were a surprising number of players (not only regs) that were happy to put on the straddle and embrace the new straddle option.

I feel like the 6 max game has been a long time coming to live poker and excited to see it finally being run somewhere and thought everyone should know.

But the down side is prob like 2x rake? lol

it'd be good just for the table space

I think they are doing it as timed rake

it's gonna be overrun by laggy online pros, rite?

this, fish in general like to play at a full (9 player) table.

I would go visit vegas to play in that game, what would hourly rake be though?

lol @ the crowd this will bring... the games will be pretty crappy for the most part. Most of the players in my live games start to whine once we get to 7 handed for more than 5 minutes.

Wynn has been making great strides recently under the new management, but this is a mistake. Rather than promote 6 max games they should encourage players to stop sitting out when the table gets short. 6max has been tried and failed in Vegas 2x already that i personally know of. Wynn should instead provided players with an incentive to play and maintain short games while they wait for the table to fill up once again - this would be virtually the same thing, encourage better games, and assure that tables don't break. Its really simple... lower rake + extra comp points for maintaining a game while short = training nitty locals and tourists who are afraid to to play in shorter games.

Once they implement my suggestion and they begin to retain a player base that is open to playing short handed games thanks to incentives, THEN it is time to roll out 6-Max tables.

PS: As a player I would prefer to play 6-Max, Wynn should not encourage this though, it would be a bad business decision.

I really like the new changes. I played with the button straddle last night and it's actually the most fair straddle I've encountered. It's not a Mississippi straddle, it starts under the gun and action proceeds in turn. If no one raises the action skips the button and the small and big blind have to act. If there is a raise before the button then the button must act on the hand before action moves to the blinds. It's much like a kill in a limit game. This way it's not debilitating to the blinds like the Missisippi straddle is and not way overpowered for the button like the hard rock straddle can be.

As to the other changes, I really like the new management. They have shown a willingness to listen to players and make changes. 3/hour is great and even if the 6max game doesn't take off, which I think it has potential to, you can't fault them for being proactive.

Poker rooms that let the players set all the rules usually don't end up doing well. Obviously the room needs to listen to suggestions by the players, but at the same time it needs to keep its own long term interests in mind.

Players for the most part are too short sighted to think about what is beneficial long term. Semi related example:

Years ago I opened the pokerstars software suggestion thread in the internet forum and was reading the posts by all the regulars suggesting things that essentially made it easier for them to play as many tables as possible with the least amount of effort. I made a comment along the lines of "why don't you just ask them to transfer you the losing players money instead to make it even less effort". Obviously I was flamed, and very well still might be today, but the point was, they were really only helping the site collect more rake and make the games worse.

This move by the wynn isn't the same thing since they aren't making the whole room play 6 max, but it wont last long. They are taking a small player pool and dividing it. I don't know how much 2/5 they get, but it very well may kill it off entirely. Fish are going to play the 9/10 handed games. But they will be harder to start without the game starters which will be playing the 6 max games. By the time the 6 max players realize their winrate will be higher in the full games despite them specializing in shorthanded games, the fish may have already left, having grown tired of playing with the nits and/or waiting for seats or a second game to start up.

+1 to what *TT* said. Just provide more incentive to keep playing in a shorthanded game. As ****ed up as the Rio was this summer, whenever a table would start the floor would have it run rake-free until 6 or 7 players showed up.

Ultimately this comes down to a business decision in terms of how much rake Wynn can generate from these shorthanded games, and ultimately I don't think this is going to be a good decision as a majority of recreational players are regularly intimidated from increased action. Shorthanded games drives up the hands played and makes people more nervous. Increases the "I'm getting hunted by sharks" mindset. etc etc

lol I was just there last night/this morning...pretty sick room, wish I would still be around while they start this thing up (as 1/3 though )

+1 to the +1, although the table I was at seemed to think the button straddle was a bad thing, with one guy I who I think plays for a living, or at least tries to, saying that it tightens up the game. He I said the opposite is likely true,( sometimes it actually does a bit), he actually made fun of me, lol.

Anyway, the Wynn is trying a lot of things to bring customers back, and I am all for it. 6M may fail, but I think it's worth a try, and it's not like they lose a lot if it doesn't pan out.

button straddle just kills the fish quicker, so i'm also of the opinion it's kinda bad. but to each his own. some fish love it.

This is AWESOME!

Ah, so this is better that the implementation I see here in Florida, where if somebody straddles from the button action starts with the SB, which is just plain ignorant.

So if you got guys that want to straddle from UTG and the BTN, who gets precedence?

See my post above, its been tried before in LA and also twice in Vegas, it has never succeeded to date.

This is short sighted thinking. Many players flock to these games but because they don't adjust well, they lose... when they lose they stop playing that game, or even stop visiting that room and revert to their old game that they could "beat". This is a vicious cycle in vegas, one after another the games that allow a button straddle chokes on it's own success because the player pool is not large enough to handle breaking players that quickly. Remember that when a straddle is on it increases the size of the pot by 2.33 (assuming a 1 - 1/2 blind structure and a capped 2x straddle), which in turn increases pot sized bets incrementally which requires deeper stacks to play optimally. This is why when Jeff Hwang and I created the PLO game structures at Aria we did not allow a straddle in the 1/3 game... the buyin cap and min buyin was too small to optimally compensate for a straddle where as the 2/5 and 5/10 structures can compensate because the min buyin and cap (or lack of a cap) is big enough to accomodate this concern.

Case in point, the Hard Rock used to have a "Trash Talk Tuesdays" game which was really popular for a while, all the midstakes players would show up every week. Then slowly the weaker players stopped showing up because they couldn't adjust properly to the straddle, they would lose too much too quickly compared to their respective regular games. Of course these players who stopped coming around were also the ones who requested and often promoted the game! Think about it... how many poker players do you know who are willing to say they quit a game because they don't know how to adjust properly?

WSOP has a replenishable economy. Players who go bust are there for a short period of time before they return home, while new money arrives every day. Vegas isn't like this at any other tie of the year, there is not enough new money coming into the poker economy to replenish the losing players when they quit. The problem is that when the losing players quit a game, they also tend to quit a room. Wynn is trying to build a player base, not drive it away.

Wynn's new management should just look at the history of the old 1/3 NL game which played with $3 chips for example. This game was loved by the Wynn staff and the regulars because they found it easy to count pot size while using the $3 chips, but tourists and weaker players were at a great disadvantage. Over time the weaker players quit playing in this game, the market died - and the weaker players never came back to Wynn, they started playing elsewhere in locations where they lost more slowly.

Long story short:

1) Adding features to a game that give stronger players an edge, and break weaker players faster (like a button straddle) is good only for the good players, and it is bad for everyone else including the poker room. As a good player I LOVE button straddles, but as an executive in the poker business I know that this is bad for the game.

2) Button straddles and 6 max games are fine for the 5-10 and up NL players, they can generally adjust accordingly (and if they cannot then they can generally afford the hit). But they are not good for the main games of 1/2, 1/3, and 2/5 in Vegas where the player pools cannot be regenerated quickly.

3) Short handed tables = lower rake yield and higher staffing costs. Not smart for a poker room that is trying to build a player base.

PS: Why is it that Wynn is doing this at the 2/5 NL level, and not the 5/10NL + games? That makes no sense at all!

amen brotha!

It's not the fish who are afraid of playing short...

Live poker is too slow for 9-handed nlhe IMO. 6max is a good adjustment that needs to be properly sold to have any shot at succeeding. LA seems like a better place to get the ball rolling, but gl Wynn.

Button straddle is awful for nlhe.

6 Max will never last as a live game

I didn't see anywhere in the initial post where it was said that Wynn was moving to exclusively 6 max games. It's not. I don't see why you would judge the value of spreading a game on whether or not it could viably run for 10 years or even on if it would run every day.

Aside from the series the Wynn doesn't often spread a PLO game, but if you came in and asked to start a list they would. Does this mean they shouldn't spread PLO because it wouldnt go everyday? Afaik as of Friday this is the only casino on the strip where if wanted to walk in and start a list for a 6 max game they would accommodate me. Explain to me how having that option is a bad thing or a poor decision on managements part?

Eh 6 is a mistake, even though in a perfect world that would be best. I just don't think fish will like this as much, and once a player or 2 sits out the table gets too short. Instead they should just make every table 8-handed. On average 1 person is always sitting out, so 8-handed would be more like 7-handed, which would be nice.

omaha should be 8max if not 7max.

also not allowing the utg straddle at aria omaha is ridiculous as well. i played that game plenty and it is a nonsensical management decision

Why do people think this will piss off players? There is obviously going ot be 2 lists....a regular 2-5, and a 6 max 2-5....if local nits dont want to play 6 max they get on the regular list. Should be $3 rake with no chopping....I think it's a great idea.

agree w/ *TT* (have we played?)
interested in seeing how this one turns out

I <3 6m