I wonder about that too. Angrist brought up a good point a while back (not sure if it's in this thread). The main poker casino in our area has a HUGE BBJ that just hit for 550k last month. That place was shoulder to shoulder packed every day all day hntil that thing hit. $1/hand and it was sucking a lot of money out of the game. The hope is that more players would account for that but the reality was that most of them were there just to hit the BBJ and really weren't there to play poker. So there were a lot of tablet tools sitting there giving no action and only playing PPs. Was hardly worth it.

I think I'm pretty much done with that place for awhile. At least until I investigate some of the other games around. We're lucky. We have an almost unlimited supply of games to choose from.

I think it is unlucky. The different suppliers hardly compete wrt. rake/promos/quality of staff. Having lots of small card rooms means you have to hope the one you're in will have a whale or two stop in rather than the place 10 miles down the road. If there were fewer rooms, you'd more reliably be able to get a good table change rather than have to change locations altogether.

Daytona has the best promotion structure AINEC and I don't know why it isn't mimicked.

$2 taken for promos, no bad beat, and $500/$1000 high hands every 30 minutes like every weekend. During the week it's usually $300 every 30.

Most other rooms either take $1, fund a BBJ, or have sh*t high hands like $100 every hour that literally no one notices.

This impacts traffic greatly, daytona, which is in the middle of nowhere, has more 2/5 games going than many SFla casinos combined. There are a lot of other factors to this but the promo is surely one of them. It is pretty much a guarantee someone at your table will hit $1000 in a Saturday night session. That is good for games.

It's also good for games in that the money stays in the player pool. Someone who hits $500K BBJ is not giving that back to the 2/5 player pool. Very likely they are never seen again.

How this applies directly to WR:

I logged over 1K hours at Daytona, and the promotions made up a smidge over 10% of my total winnings. Yea it's basically rake back, but that's still crazy to think about.

Well, that one pot flips you to a $387 winner. So that tells you a little bit about how much confidence you can have in small samples of winrate.

Long sessions can lead to burnout and lead to you playing at off-peak times. I personally have no problem with a 12+ hour day at the casino when I've got a free day. But it's hard to keep focused without a dinner/stretch break here and there. Leave when you're feeling tired, distracted, or otherwise off your game. Not because you're up a BI or two (unless you're prone to changing your game deep, in which case the real solution is a strategy one).

Basically any book by Ed Miller is good (haven't read The Course yet). There are a couple of good threads in the books and publications forum, as well as reviews. Check those.

The best way to evaluate where you're at is to look at strategy. Post in threads, post threads of your own. If you're making good decisions the wins will follow eventually.




Yea, I think that was ITT. The BBJ packed the room (good for the house), and brought players in while making them wait in the pits for a seat (even better for the house). But it killed the action as more and more players nitted it up trying to hit. Hurt the traffic everywhere else. I'd estimate that it also decreased the average pot size, which increases the rake as a percentage of the pot too. I don't like that room for a number of reasons, including the low BI cap and perception that it's "the best place for poker" in Detroit, which brings more $2/5 and higher players that sometimes get stuck at $1/2 waiting. (And their food sucks.)


The rooms that run 30 min high hand drawings, bonus payouts for any quads/SF, or other promotions out of their BBJ seem to drive more action and are better for our WR. It gets that portion of the rake back into play better too as it's much easier to take your $200 quad payout in chips and just top-off or rebuy than it is to donk off a $30k table share.

Yup. I've argued this about our local charity rooms for years. Some have regular donks/whales though and are almost always worth it. Others are very hit or miss.


Yup. That's what I've seen too (and posted while you were typing). One of the local rooms here does $1 BBJ, $1 to "other promos" that includes a progressive HH (rolls up if it doesn't hit, starting value based on the number of tables), bonus payouts for Quads+ when the HH isn't running, and now a weekly drawing where they pull a ticket every half hour for $250. How do you get tickets? Win a pot > $20. Encourages action.

Where is it you guys play that had the 550k bbj

Motor City Casino, Detroit Michigan.

Quads over Quads had the bigger jackpot. But if you have Quads vs a straight flush, that's a different smaller jackpot because .... reasons?

Two things:

1. It's great if you know where the reg whales are at. You get a lot better shot at them. As Angrist said there are some who are playing every night in a two table room. $$$$. Also there's a lot of them that wouldn't be playing anywhere if it was just the casino.

2. I'm comparing it to a situation like some of the Midwest states where there isn't a game for 200 miles. If I don't like the game I'm
In I can pick up and go somewhere else and I have 6-12 options depending on where I start out.

Orlando tho

.


Florida is a unique poker market sure and Orlando creates and even uniquier market but Daytona knows how to create traffic and the stats are easily visible by checking bravo on a Wednesday afternoon or a Saturday night. Their 2/5 table counts are close to Tampa's which has more of the Orlando market closer to it, it's own wealthy huge metropolis to pull from, and a casino status which surely adds in the traffic factor.

Do not want to derail this thread and get banned by Garick but these promos are so underrated (even bemoaned) by most pros who have no idea the value they bring to a room.

No other room I have played where so many people were there for the promo, so many husbands/wives/friends trying for the first time, so many people winning $500-$1000 bucks in a small room all around you. It decrease the barriers of entry into the game (you can win $1K without knowing how to play poker!) and keeps people coming back.

If motor city was giving out $1K every 30 minutes in that tiny cramped room they had, the waitlists would be 100 deep.

All of this adds value to your WR bc it increases traffic (more novice players, more rakeback going back to pool, more table selection, etc.)

Agreed. It works at MDL similarly, and absolutely it affects winrate. Rackback can be something like $2-$3/hr in rooms that shovel a $2 drop back as a regular high hand feature.

Have only played a handful of days in Daytona. A well run room. Every whale when asked where they are from answered Orlando tho. (very small sample obv.) My guess is a significant effect when the new room opens.

I love Daytona, living in Melbourne now and its killing my hourly.. Daytona is such a better field of players to give action.. Melbourne not so much

lol. in the game I just got home from I overheard the dealer say to the Houseman "80 and 600"

the 80 represented tips for his down and the 600 was the rake for that hour. =×

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better be uncapped 5/T or something.
Game prolly isn't beatable otherwise..

10/min rake yo

Yen?

MIN?

I guess at 30 hands/hr, $10-20/hand rake ... ok.

But **** playing there.

$10/minute

There are 3 BBJ around $300K 'near' Chicago (Milwaukee, Detroit, Toledo) but you may see a trend in the direction of 'high hand' promos that works so well in FL. Toledo has done a very good job of driving some Summer traffic using the promos. They are raking 5/2 ($20 min) which is a change from the 'standard' 5/1 of 6/1 that we see.

There was a ton of money to be made at Motor City when their BBJ was over $500K. 'Lottery' players were flocking into the room. 1/2 players who didn't want to wait any longer were agreeing to start at 2/5 while waiting for a 1/2 seat ... and losing their BIs pretty quick at a table they didn't belong at. Even the PLO action was better since a lot of the nits left the table to mine for gold at NLHE.

Plenty of threads where the state rake really should make us feel very lucky here in the USA with max $6 pretty much across the whole country. GL

What, you don't like $14 rake per hand?

I assume he means Melbourne Florida, so named because it's first postmaster was an Englishman who had spent much of his life in Melbourne Australia.

So, same/similar rake, reg pool not as wealthy.

Unless there is also a Daytona Beach in Australia that smells like an outdoor porter potty, then there might be further confusion.

I now have 11.5 BI

Lets say I have $7500 to $9000 saved up, and for the next 6-12 months I get $1800 a month for income, which is enough to cover expenses and save a couple hundred. What If I am willing to put in the work to become a solid winner, what is realistic at 1/3,2/5,5/10 nl capped and uncapped?

Your only rolled for 1/3

my guess at a realstic winrate for 100bb capped 1/3 is 12$-15$ per hr. could be 20 or more if the structure is good, players are bad and you are awesome.

no clue at uncapped.