I spoke again to the senior manager that I mentioned in an earlier post and had a nice talk (mom was feeling ok today and insisted that I play). A MAJOR development is that I was assured the $1/hr on players cards is NOT being taken out of the promo fund, it is being paid entirely by the casino. That means, for one thing, that BBJ eligible tables are no longer subsidizing the time games, a really big plus. I mentioned that that would really pump the promo fund (and I'm going to have to say that I'm paraphrasing bec I don't remember the exact language) and was reminded/informed of a couple of things: A decent sized chunk is for the tourneys which is revealed in the scrawl. Good for tourney players. A lot of promo money gets spent on graveyard. I mentioned that most poker rooms w/ promo funds increased promos in graveyard but at least there were fewer players to hit them. It appears, however, that a significant amount is going to that. I also noticed some flashing new promo signs but didn't look into them. Seemingly the room is looking to put out more promotions.

The main issue that we talked about, though, is the menu prices. 'Apple pie, $5.50 add a scoop of ice cream, $3!, good grief. The poker room has had no part of this but it has become apparent to those that are responsible that they have over-stepped. I played at 2 tables today and heard a few times players say that they were never going to order food in the room again. Another knows a waitress and said she told him her pay has gone down $200/wk. The manager told me that the people responsible know that there is now a serious problem. I'm really paraphrasing now because the manager expects the issue to be addressed in the player's favor in the next few weeks but was concerned that the entire fiasco is going to make it look like it was some kind of bumbling mistake which players would place on the poker room staff.

I said that the opposite would be true: That it would appear that management was able to adjust rapidly to make the players experience as good as they could make it.

I do not think that I would'v been told to expect a change in the next few weeks if one was not coming so I expect an acceptable improvement.

Lastly, I know that this manager reads this thread. I know that at least one more senior manager also reads it and they take what's said in here seriously so all discussion we have is reaching the right people besides ourselves.

I'd also suggest that if players have any sort of problem that they should ask to speak to senior management in the poker room if they feel that they need to.

Thanks for your feedback on the new rakeback situation. Once the menu gets notched down a buck or 2 for each item, everyone should be happy.

Since management do read this thread, I really hope they start offering better structured tournaments on the weekends. Even the monthly deepstack is crap going from 4-800, to 6-1200, to 1-2k. Wheres the 75/150, 8/1600, 5k-10k? these are surely needed to help the more skilled players succeed in what is still a turbo tourney. He should know, coming from the Venetian how incredibly structured the deepstacks and even their Nightly tournaments were in comparison. Would love to see a 2-day deepstack tournament 1x per month as well as more deepstack MTTs with 30 min levels that do not SKIP important levels. Offer less starting chips and add more blind levels is a much more advantageous situation for the skilled tournament players that have nowhere but Vegas and Cali to go 2 right now.

Do they use BBJ funds for marketing expenses? I thought all the money was supposed to go back to the players.

I thought it was common knowledge that CAZ uses its BBJ fund for all sorts of promotions and marketing expenses.

Didn't they once pay Phil Hellmuth an appearance fee out of the promotions fund?

Finally, if there really are managers reading this thread, they should make an account and contact user Bobo Fett in order to become authorized representatives so they can answer customers' questions on 2+2.

what sucks is they get 400 for the garbage end of month tourney .
every tourney in phoenix area is crap they have everyone
brainwashed thinking the end of month is the best !
the only tournament worth playing is state champinship
that structure looks good.oh well just drive to vegas .the 4hr
drive is worth it to get away from the crappy tourneys here in town.

I was kinda thinking the same thing! Would be a great way for management to take full advantage of their captivated audience vs some random regs playing the go between.

(No offense random regs who are excellent about helping to relay info for those of us who care!)

The best part about playing any tournament anywhere is listening to the people who complain about how tough or terrible the structure is.

Not all tournaments are the same, but many players try to play them all with the same strategy. Therefore, all tournaments are the same. DUCY?

Frankly I don't blame them for not posting bec it can take up a lot of time. There are 2 points: They are paying attention to what's posted here and they are always willing to speak to players in the poker room. Some of you might want to give that a try, I'm comfortable in stating that anybody that does will come away feeling that their ideas will be given careful thought if not immediately satisfied.

I also want to give props to the new manager. The former manager was hardly to be seen but the new manager is regularly walking around the room and is easily approachable. Smart move.

Initially that was the belief, but i think it was clarified later( in this thread) that Marketing paid for the Hellmuth appearance at the State Championship.

That's unfortunate that the player's funds go to marketing. 100% of the bbj funds should go back to the players in the form of promotions like the bbj, aces cracked, etc. so that in theory paying the bbj drop is neutral EV. Though in practice depending on what games, tourneys, how you play, etc. will affect your EV with the bbj funds.

If they are already reading this anyway, and they are willing to stop and take the time to talk to individuals that approach them while they are on the floor working, wouldn't it make more sense to answer questions and comment on feedback here, when they can choose when to do so, vs while they are busy attending to their floor duties tho?

Just a thought. A two minute typed response will be much quicker than a 15 minute + conversation and they can do it on downtime vs busy on the floor time. Multiply that out over doing it for 3 or 4 different individuals with the same questions vs one time in a post.

That's a valid point of view but it's up to them if they want to do it. TBH, I don't know if I would or not.

To be clear...as i understand it:
The Marketing Department paid for the Hellmuth appearance. No player funds were used in that instance.

Even if they didn't spend any of it on promotional advertising, etc, they supposedly take a "management fee" and so it would never be zero EV.

Well it's obv never going to be 0EV but it's better than holding 800k of our money and it never going below 5-600k or so.

Someone last night told me they took out levels from the deepstack tournament (not sure if that's true or not) and it was already a fast structure before. I have also heard rumors that wpt had tried a couple times to host a tournament and TS didn't want it.

I just don't understand how the new floor guy from the V isn't helping. The player pool is here for some good poker/tournaments. When they have the AZ tournament it is full for that week, even when they had the 100k JP the poker room was almost full every night, and it's still full on fri/sat. Then they raise food prices which idc about, but everyone else is bitching and the waitresses will be suffering the most out of that.

The new poker room manager is doing what he can to improve things but he has to run everything up of the flagpole and get approval from multiple levels of bureaucracy to make any changes. So we need to give him time and a chance to make things better. As far as the WPT, it would be next to impossible to have them (or any other tour) host a tournament at Talking Stick because it is illegal in Arizona to set up any tables outside the poker room. I saw that the WSOP is holding a circuit event at Harrahs AK Chin in February 2015 that will last for 2 weeks and culminate with a main event deepstack tournament. Should be some good tournaments.

They would have enough room for a WPT event. The local room sets up about 20 to 25 tables for the tournament, and squeezes a limited number of cash games into the remaining space. Two day 1's and they had lots of alternates and ended up with over 700 entries. First was over a million on a $7500 entry. I think CAZ has a bigger room than we have here. It would work, but CAZ probably didn't want to pay the WPT fee and lose the cash game revenue for the week.

I've been told the local room loses a fair bit of money during the WPT, but the owner liked hanging out with the poker celebs. He's passed away now but the event continues anyway. Who knows how long that will last. Most venues do WPT's to drum up business but since the local room is packed much of the time, that's not much of a motivator.

I think you are missing the point, the literal space may be there, but they cannot legally add any more tables to the room or to any other space elsewhere on the property , even for a "special" event as per regulations on gaming positions set forth for each casino in the state. your state/location may be less stringent on that level. TSR has 46 poker tables to work with. Period
Not sure how Harrahs is planing to run that circuit event with 10 poker tables...

Quoted to make a change, the Kill trigger has officially reverted to $200 in the 20/40 OE game effective July 17th.

They used to have 50...46 is the choice of the casino how to allocate their tables allowed, not a hard fix on poker tables by regulators.

The point i was trying to make is that poker tables can't be set up outside the poker room such as in one of the conference rooms in order to accommodate a tour event. The major casinos that host big tour events do not use their poker rooms for the events, they use conference rooms. They can keep their poker rooms running for their normal cash game activities. Talking Stick doesn't have this option and i doubt they are willing to allow a tour to come in for 2 weeks and take over the poker room for their tournaments to the exclusion of everything else.

In the past, Harrahs has set up tables in a ballroom to host large celebrity tournaments etc., so I'm not sure where this "illegal in Arizona" thing is coming from, unless it's a regulation that has recently come into place.

Even with the 1-event exemption my local room has for the WPT, I doubt they use 46 tables for poker INCLUDING the tournament tables.

CAZ has the space, they just don't wanna pay the freight.

have been told by numerous people in the industry that it's part of the state compact that allows gambling on indian property. it's nothing new. has been in place for years.