Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveC95818
The gut reaction should be....we don't have COMPETENT staff. With all the S**tshow antics this room has displayed since opening, would you want to play a meaningful poker tournament here?
I understand your concern, but I'll be honest that I think it's overblown. I've been playing in the poker room since the room opened in 2015. I've gotten to know a lot of the staff, and I've worked out how the room is operated. There's five kinds of staff in the Twin River poker room. Let's look at each and how they do:
DEALERS - I have said before that the dealers are generally adequate. There are a few that are excellent. The are a few that are terrible. Even today, they have a lot more new dealers than most poker rooms have, and this does result in slower games. Errors occur in lower-limit games perhaps slightly more often than you'd like to have, but generally the dealers get better. I'd rate the dealing pool as average. The room is, however, more tolerant of truly bad dealers than they should be.
FLOOR SUPERVISORS - This is the area where the room is hurting most, particularly on graveyard and to a lesser extent swing shift. There is remarkably little experience in the whole lot of supervisors. This is undoubtedly due to Twin River's insistence that the supervisors work in the pit as well. This results in the room being staffed by pit supervisors who happen to do a little poker. While they sometimes make bad decisions, these are generally correctable if the floor manager can be brought over. The bigger concern is that the supervisors have a pit supervisor attitude and don't understand how to work with, pamper, and flatter poker players. So many of them are totally taken aback when a poker player questions them or (god forbid) asks for something. They really need an attitude adjustment. And they don't always feel an urgency to fill empty seats. And it does not appear to me that the floor managers really have the authority to discipline them. I'd rate the floor supervisors as mildly below average, certainly not as bad as some of the charity rooms in RI, NH, and MA. They are not of the quality of Foxwoods or (especially) Mohegan. I'd note that both day shift and swing shift has experienced poker floors who have run real tournaments before.
FLOOR MANAGERS - These are the shift managers of the poker room. Like the floor supervisors, they generally also work in the pit. That being said, there are some more experienced floor managers who have worked in poker. Swing shift has two very good ones, and there is a good one on day shift as well. The floor managers on graveyard are generally knowledgeable but all have attitudes. While the floor managers are in charge of the shift, their ability to discipline their staff is limited, and they might admit that in an unguarded moment. Quality varies, but is generally good. Swing shift quality is excellent, and at least one of them has substantial major tournament experience. Day shift is good. Graveyard is so-so.
CASINO SHIFT MANAGERS - Calling them "Casino" shift managers is misleading, they are only in charge of table games. But anyway, there is one on each shift. Generally, they do not come in the poker room very often. They generally don't want to be involved in the day-to-day operation of the poker room and want the floor managers to run it. They are only involved if there is a major issue (theft, some fights, a major dealer disciplinary matter, or a customer issue that can't be handled by the floor manager). These are the people who can make a difference when it comes to who is assigned to work in the poker room....learning who they are and speaking to them nicely can pay dividends over time with staffing issues. However, even they don't make fundamental changes in how the poker room is run. Generally, they are good people but don't really directly affect how the poker room is run operationally but have huge effects on staffing. None of them, to my knowledge, has real poker experience.
TABLE GAMES DIRECTOR - I've never actually met this person, but I'm told it's a "he". Apparently, he is the one who can make changes. In 2 years, I've never seen him in the room, but the floor managers do say he comes by once in a while. My knowledge of what he does is limited, but the floor managers make it sound like he is the ultimate authority. All rule changes go through him. He was the one that expanded the room and got the phone charger. He is also the one who apparently doesn't want tournaments and has structured the way that everyone works in both poker and the pit. I give him kudos for opening a poker room, but he doesn't give poker all the attention it needs to thrive.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think a good poker tournament can be run if the right staff is put in charge. I'd tell anyone who asks that their best bet is to take an experienced floor manager who knows poker and make them the poker room manager and give them the authority to make changes and add the tournaments. Will this solve all the problems overnight? No way. But I think it would be an improvement. They need to start thinking about what will happen when MGM and Wynn open. They don't want to be behind the eight ball when those places open.