Yup, national chain/franchise called Topgolf. They just signed to open another one in Gilbert near the San Tan mall. They will have over a hundred bays, food, rooftop bar, etc. Interestingly, they claim that only 50% of the people come there for golf, so the marketing must be strong. Opening in June. I predict a lot of gamblin there.

It's gonna be a visually dominant structure. Not sure Talking Stick Resort would want it right there if they had thought it out. Now the new rooftop sign makes more sense.

The mixed game is going to stop randomly for 30 minutes at a time for prop bets so often.

looked up this topgolf deal and it looks pretty damn fun...it will basically but crackerjacks driving range out of business almost imo.

I will definitely have to check it out

The TSR website has some additional tournament information thats been added to it. Forward looking dates, payout percentages and fee break downs. Nice improvement. Dealer add-on is called a bonus and doesnt say where it goes, must go in the jackpot...

The winter classic rebuy wording is unclear to me. Rebuy only below (chip count), and before 6th round. Is that meant to read only below or at the end of the 5th round. Would be a chip dump thing if its the former. Didnt recall last years.

those are the same old tournaments on the website. nothing new there. and the winter classic tournament structure is all gimmick. they will never learn which is why things can only get better with the new poker room director.

Yup, I am aware of what tournaments those are and all of em going back to the last century.

I was just mentioning someone had been in and added some new info. Like yes, the same event will fall on these future dates. This what the payout percentages will be and here is where the rake goes.

The fact that yes they are the same and no nobody cares about keeping the site up to date with tourney info I have ranted about before. If a web rooms web revenue manager did that they be lookin for work elsewhere. Yes tourney rake is revenue.

Wow that top golf thing actually looks kind of cool. I wonder if they will use trackman or a legitimate program like that for the games.

I agree. There is so much potential there but the current staff just doesn't get it or they just don't care. Probably a combination of both. Thank god they are bringing in someone from the outside to run things.

Best news of the day.

I don't know Tom personally...but i've played at Venetian a bazillion times and recognize him being there all the time during tournament series and cash games. He was always a nice guy and ran everything smoothly and efficiently. I anticipate in the next few months some great modifications to the tournaments ran here, and just smoother operation in general.

If you guys are just speaking from a tournament perspective than I'm
Not going to comment since I don't really play them. But comments like the quotes above are pretty short sighted. Caz has se
Of the best floor people I've dealt with anywhere and I think more than 1 could have made excellent poker room managers.
Hopefully the new manager does just as good as I think they would have.

i play both tournaments and cash games and i don't agree with your assessment of the competency of the floor people.

They are friendly and smiley to you because they are hussling for tips. There is only two people there who realy do a great job and want everyone to have a good time , be treated right, make great decisions and do it for the love of the people, room and game and not just for personal gain.

That's way too cynical. Some are better than others but as a whole they are very good. I had my preference from among them but CAZ obv wanted something else.

I love the "poker rate". Book your room at some ridiculous price, play 6 hours, have the supervisor call the front desk, if they have a bunch of vacancy they'll reduce it to like $69, if it's sold out it will stay at the original ridiculous rate, if it's kinda booked up (but not sold out) you will get some sort of discount. Rinse and repeat each day of your stay.

Genius.

Did this actually happen to you? If so, that is terrible, but that is not how I heard it was supposed to work. I have never done it though. It would be nice to hear something official.

I called to book a stay for 4 nights and avg night was like 350 and so I called poker room and this is how Ron (I believe that was his name) broke it down for me.

I get it that spring training is a big deal, but that policy is pretty whack imo.

i booked rooms for around 200-250 ish during the car auction, 3 nights, and never had a problem getting it for 69$

I'm all for a series, which implies at least a week. But there is no room for this right now, you can't essentially cancel cash games for most of the day for a week or more. I'm one of many cash players who play every day, when a big tourney is held it's torture waiting till 1 or 2 in the afternoon to get in a game and often not the game you wanted.

The reason the state championship is held in August is that it's a very slow time for the hotel and room, and it's a staggered multi-day event that still virtually shuts down cash games until the late afternoon. They can't so that for an entire week or more. They have plenty of exhibition space, they need to find a way to use it.

I'd love to see a multi-week or even month long series of tournaments that culminate in State & Womens championships, and include lots of formats including 6 max, mix game tourneys such as 08, Deuce, HORSE, etc, But paradoxically it's going to be hard to get out of towners to come in to play tourneys if they can't get into cash games. Once you get knocked out of a tourney you might have days until your next one, and if the poker room is out of commission for half the day, how fun is that?

The day floors do cash, the tourneys are primarily handled by tourney specific people. I've been playing almost daily here for over 7 years, in every game rate spread all the way up to 100-200. I've also played mid-stakes and high stakes in all the top rooms in CA, NV, and smaller ones through out the west. And J.Locke has far more experience playing all over the country than probably you and I put together.

I agree with J.Locke, the day floors here are excellent, the best I've seen. They aren't perfect, so maybe you hit a bum ruling, or misunderstand why the ruling was correct. Post what happened and maybe we can shed light on it.

I don't tip the floor for favorable rulings, I tip them for appreciation. In fact I've tipped them after they've ruled against me I've never seen the day floors make a ruling to favor a reg or a tipper. They pretty much treat everyone the same, very well.

And I would never want them to favor me. Poker players can be superstitious, when losing they often think they might be getting cheated, or taken advantage of. As I moved up stakes I realized how any signs of favoritism can be so bad and corrosive to the games. We want people to be comfortable playing the games, or we won't have any games, esp. at the higher stakes.

But I do have a one-time story of a floor (not the day floor) favoring me with a biased ruling at CAZ. A few years ago I was playing in a full 40-80 game. One of our favorite action players walked in. He loved playing short so I told him the other two guys in the list would happily play 3 handed with him, but he tells me the floor won't start it. Another reg and I call the floor over and tell him he should start the must move, these 3 will play. He tells us he's held off starting it to help us, so the other 2 guys (who were very tough playing regs) would not get his money.

At that time I had never tipped that floor, so no idea why he would do that. But me and the other guy, another tough high limit player, told the floor to never do or say anything like that again, and to do the right thing by starting that must move right away.

Just to echo what DC said, I don't tip the floor people to get rulings jn my favor nor do I think they fish for tips at all. Generally I tip them for good service and often it's a win/win situation. Examples, they frequently save my food comps when I forget to pick them up and pass them out for me. They don't do this to get a tip but because they are nice. Obviously they know my name so when looking through them it probably jumps out and is a nice thing to do. So I tip $2-3 and they saved me $5, everybody wins.

They start a game and go get chips for whole
Table so we don't have to wait in line and we get out few extra hands as a result so again tipping is win-win.

Even if you don't tip the floors they still treat you nice and fair which is all you can really ask for.

you must be special because i have never seen a floor person go get chips for the whole table much less one player. i've also never seen a floor person bring anyone their saved food comp slips. i play there several times a week minimum. I play lower level stakes so maybe they treat the high stakes players better.

Anyone know what's going on in the garage by poker room? Couple cop cars and won't let you go up only park on bottom floor of garage

I'm not a high stakes guy either, and I haven't been to CAZ in well over a year, but there have been one or two instances where a brand new game would start, chip runners would be busy, and a floor person would get chips for us.

So I can confirm it has happened.

It's not really 'better', imo, it's that there are far fewer of them and therefor easier for a floor that stops up at the front desk to pick up a higher limit player's food ticket if he's been told that one has printed out or if he happens to glance thru them. But if you want any floor will gladly get it for you if you know that it's printed but you don't want to leave the table. All you have to do is ask.

As far as getting chips for the whole table (and I've had floors get me my chips very many times if they are nearby and the chip runner is not) you should bear in mind that not that many higher limit games get going so it's really not that big of a deal for the floor to get them and leave the runners to take care of the rest of the room.

Plus they get tipped more by the high limit players if we are to be completely honest about it. They rarely get tipped by lower limit players except when a BBJ hits.

Lol you called me cynical but now you say the same thing, they are tip motivated

Not the same thing at all. That they are tipped more by high limit players is to be expected. But to say that they are simply hustling for tips is not true. The floors will provide the same service for lower stakes players simply by being asked. As an example I once mentioned to a floor that it was sometimes a pita for me to run up to the desk and ask for a table change to which I was answered 'just call one of us, we will do it for you.' They know what their job is and most of them do it well. To expect them not to hope for some tips is unrealistic and acknowledging where most of those come from is simply being honest.