Yeah but are the games that great from 5am-2pm during that food comp promo?

South point 2/5 sounds nice. If that was a regular game I might actually grind their freeroll next time around.

There will be 1 game, maybe 2 (if you're lucky) besides the daily MTT and you'll be subject to the "Hey everybody!! I'm a pilot...ask me questions please!" reg.

Excellent advice.

The big problem with promos is lack of game selection (casino-wise).

If you just need those hours at a casino, you're forced to play there whether or not the games are good. That being said, it is still adding up to +$10/hr to your base hourly if you grind them efficiently. Its very likely that a lot of the promo grinders are losing at a base rate of -5 to -$10/hr long terms. The promos will barely keep them afloat.

If you're a very strong player who will do fine in any line up, your base hourly in the promo games will likely be $10 to $20/hr long term accounting for lack of game selection. With added promo value, you're looking at $25+/hr which is pretty good for grinding 1/2. But at this level, obviously you'll be technically sufficient to be playing 2/5+ for potentially the same or higher hourly. Promos do decrease variance and increase motivation to get hours for those who are a little bit lazy and very sensitive to variance so there's that.

I do a lot of random promo grinds throughout the year when I'm in the mood so I have a decent idea of the room environments and an ok sample size of over 100 hours in most of the low stake promo rooms.


For what its worth, here are my base hourly rates for the promo rooms, not including any extra value from the actual promos and freerolls

$19/hr at flamingo over 200 hrs
$13/hr at southpoint at almost 200 hrs
$8/hr at ballys at almost 200 hrs
$21/hr at treasure Island at 60 hrs
-$16/hr at Harrahs at 150 hrs

In terms of average game quality, I'd rank from best to worst
1. Flamingo
2. Ballys
3. Harrahs
4. Southpoint
5. TI (now closed)

As a side note, I'm dropping out of this month's promo grind since I got the PLO bug back in me. I'll hop back in and out of the thread when I get in the mood to play so more promos. At this point I'm close enough to diamond status that I'll most likely finish it off grinding WSOP.com.

I thought you were pot committed to the flamingo Nov freeroll though! I envy ya for getting out. I still have another 35 hrs of hard time to put in at flamingo this month.


It's so funny my stats are flipped with yours at flamingo and harrahs

$4/hr at flamingo 154 hrs
$80/hr at harrahs 109 hrs
$7.50/hr at ballys 29 hrs

Game quality at these places has been so drastically different from afternoon to evenings.

Also it definitely feels like my winrate will never converge in any meaningful way with how varied the lineups are and how long it takes to hit a good sample size.

With my probably too loose/too aggro style it seems like I may as well be playing PLO too.

All the OMCs leave before 6pm. Its been a while but my experience was that playing late at night in a promo room was basically like cheating.

You get the extra money without having to deal with the **** games. Games tend to be good at 1am regardless.

Diamond is so useful, most local grinders feel a bit naked without it (and most laugh at me upon hearing that I'm just now qualifying). It's worth a lot of money.

But there's no point in quoting hourly rates here to judge game quality. Sample sizes are too small and honesty too variable.

It's this simple: any place can sometimes have a good game; evenings are better than days and nights are better than evenings; the more tables going, the better the selection.

Make your own appraisal and decision before getting pot-committed to these things. I'm staying at Harrah's and gave their room a try last night; did an hour and quit (13 to qualify). I tried SoPt for 10 hours and quit that (120 to qualify). I did 5 hours at Flamingo first day of this month and quit that (80 for their freeroll). Honestly, I can't find one worth the tradeoffs (which include that horrible feeling as you near the end, as you're setting your phone alarm for 3 hours and 45 minutes or whatever, cause that's when you're done, that you're working a crap job).

Here's the thing: talking to the super grinders, they LIKE the tight, low-variance games. One told me he hasn't lost $500 in a day in years (buys in for $200). He likes being a reg, likes the staff who all know him, likes his fellow grinders (that's allowed), likes meeting people from all over the world, likes his free food, likes his free time.

Okay. They're doing what they want, minding their own biz, not hurting anyone, not lying, cheating or stealing (bluffs don't count), let's not be too judgmental.

But if you're playing for the actual fun of the game, these places probably aren't for you.

Some of those places also have weekly freerolls. I planned to play the 15 hours at Flamingo to get the Friday freeroll, but before I got the full hours I had been lucky and won $400, which is all you can win in the freeroll. So I called it quits.

OMC, where are you choosing to play 1/2 or 1/3 instead of these promo rooms?

I feel like if you are full time and can't yet afford 2/5 this is probably your best bet for making the highest overall hourly but I don't have much experience yet in non promo rooms to fully commit to that statement.

Something we all forgot to mention earlier is the great gift wrap up points at caesars poker rooms. Normally you earn 100 pts/hr but they had a promo about a month ago for 10x points so I averaged about 450 pts/hour over my play so far.

If you can find a time when they have that 10x multiplier promo going that is worth about $6.66/hr extra for 1/2 I'm pretty sure. The catch is you can only cash in those points a couple times per year at the end of each year.

where can you search for that information, never seen that mentioned anywhere.

After checking, I realized I had 17000 gift wrap points. Does anyone know if they reset to 0 every year or do they accumulate to the following year if not used?

I also did a few promos in Vegas (soon I'll check my numbers for comparison reasons). I did them at Monte Carlo and MGM mostly (when they had a bi-weekly freerolls.

That 10x GGWU was for just one month, and attracted a lot of grinders to C's for 2x on that 10x. But did it make the games worse? How much of that $6/hr in bennies was lost to a drop in game quality? Do you have any awareness of how much it costs you to have someone in the game off whom you won't earn? As I said, I put it at about $4 an hour. You don't have to use that number, but come up with one and include it in your calculation.

The market is fluid. If one place really, really has a decidedly better promo, it will correspondingly attract grinders and nits and their presence will kill most of the promo's EV.

If you're a low-limit grinder, play everywhere, find a place you actually like, for access, for the dealers, for the food, maybe for some grinder friends you've made, then pot commit (you probably will want to settle on one joint for the home court advantages that go with being a reg).

I'd say it's like this: to the extent you are a true grinder and can beat the game outright, seek out the best games with the lowest drop.

To the extent you're a nit (I say that gently; hopefully it's just a starting point), play the low-variance high-drop promo games and then play the freerolls to get the promo drop, and hopefully a bit more, returned.

Just recognize that the cost of playing the promo grind, including the cost of spending time at poker tables but not really playing (more like communally folding), can be taxing.

Being on the clock can be taxing, too. I once checked my hours, it was 13.5 for a 13 hour freeroll, told that to a grinder, and he said I was a half-hour dumb; he was right.

I mean I totally agree that the games suck during the day. Plenty of tourists at night though at most of these promo rooms. Often times I'll notice 0 to 2 other freeroll grinders at my table during the late evening hours. Also with 3-4 tables going they tend to spread out.

I think it's important to pick only a few rooms and not try to grind every freeroll every week like certain sleepy nits do. This way you don't have to play the terrible day games to get hours.

I think when I move away from the freeroll grind next month to mostly 1/3 and non promo 1/2 games I will probably have higher EV in the game, but slightly less overall EV, but I will gain the freedom to pick my schedule more.

I'm going to try playing non promo rooms in December and see how it compares.

Bally's game is fine atm, but these sorts of posts are only going to attract promo grinders on the overnights.

You lose great gift wrapup points every year. Pretty sure I'm not going to drive a thousand miles to pick up my 30 bucks worth of crap this year.

As far as I can tell there are no Shell gas cards on the gift wrap up now. That sucks if true.

I don’t know about the availability of gas cards, but the freeplay exchange rate surprisingly got better!

Last year 30K gift points = $100 freeplay vouchers

This year 27,500 gift points = $100 freeplay vouchers

Previous years it was 35K gift points = $100 VISA Gift card, gas card etc.

As long as you can return 78.5% or so at video poker with 1X play through then you are ahead of the game.

Hint: there are machines with 99.5% pay tables

u only have 8 more days to grind status using wsop.com your dec play will get credited next year.

Oh yea good point. Better step it up Zefa!

Thanks, was wondering what the current exchange rate was for this year.

I just called and no gas cards this year. He didn't have the details of the free play either.
I will only have 25,100 points, what is the formula for free play?

Is 2750 for $10 or you have to have 27,500 points?

I won $1000 free play earlier this year at westgate and hit 99.2% back on .25 video blackjack, varying my bets according to a money management system I use.

Damn, had no idea wsop.com worked like that. I thought I had all of december to get it. I think I need around 2000 points so I'll put in some volume this month and if i'm short, I'll just dump some money at slots in december.

Smallest increment is $50, so 13,750 for $50 freeplay.

At the cash out point you need to tell them which casino you’ll use the freeplay at.

Cromwell has full pay JOB at 25c level.
(And no this is not a good way to grind TC, because it credits TC at 1 TC per $50 coin in. )

Thanks, I guess $50 free play it is. And some random crap with the rest.
Everything that looks decent, I already have a better version of.

I am not sure if it was mentioned above but I just called about GGWU tomorrow at Bally's and you can get Simon Mall Visa cards that can be used for gas, grocery, etc. anywhere.
$10 card is 3500 points. So I will happily do that vs any free play.

Unless you hate the ideal of playing through free play the expected return on even the worse VP seems to be a better return. Also when done you’ll have cash.