There is no website that tracks its history. If my observations that are now 6 months old are still accurate, 250-300 is a reasonable estimate.

Can you call the poker room to be put on the waiting lost before you get there?

I usually have a few hours to play and on weekends it seems like I'm waiting half an hour to 45 minutes sometimes

This is why I play in Vegas for 4 days rather than CAZ!! I live in the far N.W. valley of Surprise, 4 hours flat from the Vegas strip. without traffic I can arrive at CAZ in 48-60 mins, then I have to wait never less than 40 mins, many times much longer to get into the games I want to play..

Welp

phil_hellmuth ‏@phil_hellmuth 14m
I'm hosting this $1 MILLION prize pool for $1,000 buy in Aug 15 -19 at @TS_Resort: http://www.talkingstickresort.com/an...mpionship.aspx … #TurnAToothpickIntoALumberyard!

Got 384 runners today. I haven't played all of them this year but I can't remember the last time it didn't break 250 runners so pretty comfortably a 30k+ prize pool every month.

Also good time to suggest Talking stick does away with cash add ons at the table. Come up with the full buy in + fees amount and charge that at the cage like most everyone else in the business.

It gives players an accurate receipt of expenses, and more importantly it helps with the transparency of where the funds go since it's on record exactly how much the room collected. Also, offering poker players to play Keno to get extra chips is pretty laughable. Maybe others don't mind the added -EV gamble, just my opinion.

I think I may have suggested this a long time ago, but since there are new people in the room reading this more now, figured it might be a good time to bring it back up.

Keno never made sense and is always a cluster**** and justs adds to the confusion at the start, especially for alternates.

Word on the street is next year's State Championship is 15 million guaranteed*





*if 136363.636363 entries

Insert Ed McMahon "Hey Oh!" gif..

(Sorry original post doesn't warrant Google search + paste)

You understand there is rake, yes?

Yes, I am aware....but then I couldn't imagine what .63636363 of a person would look like....

15 mil gar. Hmm hadnt heard. Must be month long re-entry days. Maybe a payroll deduction?
Im one of those re-entry doesnt coincide with the words- state championship. But alas no one cares of such integrities anymore.

I really want to play this year as I didn't get to last year

The thing is I hate tournaments and it would require me to take Monday and Tuesday off of work which are my
Busiest days

We shall see but I've never played in a big trny

Pretty Optimistic

After 16 years of existence, the poker room at Talking Stick is run pretty well IMO. In fact, I think it is one of the very best in the country. That being said, there are lots of policies in place that could be changed and, since I'm told the new Poker Room Director reads this thread I'd like the thoughtful posters here to offer some suggestions that they would consider a plus for both the room and players. Not just bitching and whining, ok? I'll start:

1. Keep a plentiful variety of phone chargers in the room.

I realize that in the past they have been stolen/gone missing but, so what? They are cheap now and, having players leave for this reason is terribly shortsighted.

2. Consider having a plaque with reduced rake for reduced players at the table

I know you want to get a full rake even if the game is 5 or 6 handed but, making the players ask for a reduction is wrong. It should be automatic as it is in most places. You might lose some rake but, you will keep many games that would break otherwise. Also, the players resent this. It's the elephant in the room, guys.

3. The chairs need to be replaced.

Ok, maybe just redone/reupholstered, I'm not sure. I know it's expensive and there is no way to show the bean counters that players stay longer when they're comfortable but it's time for some upgrade, no? Some players have bought their own $100+ cushions but, most players choose not to spend the dough.

That's it ( for now). Hoping for participation but, prepared for snark.

I will never* go back until they use a reasonable poker rate process. Of course, I'm a once or twice a year visitor, so weight that accordingly.

*Unless the rack rate is ever cheaper than what I can find elsewhere, which I expect to be true exactly never.

My biggest suggestion for an easy, cheap way to make the room better is to standardize the rules which are currently different in the high-limit and low-limit games. It's pretty silly to have different rules regarding such things as whether racks are allowed on the table, to deal in a walking player or not, to allow deck change requests, etc. I have my own preferences in each instance what the rule should be, but regardless of what it is I think the rules should be consistent. The dealing in walking players in particular results in a ton of misdeals (and possibly some angling) in the high limit games when the dealers forget to deal in someone not at the table.

[QUOTE=dinesh;44123828]I will never* go back until they use a reasonable poker rate process. Of course, I'm a once or twice a year visitor, so weight that accordingly.

I'm a local but, you're right. This policy is bizarre.

This falls under the whining department, I was there recently and had a major senior moment. In short, I dropped a roll of $100s more than likely by the sportsbook bar and poker room in my way out the stick.

When I realized this when I got home, I doubled back to the Stick with the slim possibility that it was found and turned in. When I got there, the poker staff put me in touch with security and promptly a security fellow went over the details with me and called the eye in the sky to go over the tape and see what may have happened. I was asked to fill a report and given a person to contact in a few hours to see what the tape might show.

It was pretty safe to say that I was pretty annoyed with myself for being careless and distracted when putting the money away. At that point, I was fairly satisfied with the effort that security would put in to see what happened and bring some closure but frankly I had close to zero expectation that the roll would be returned at this point.

I was told to contact the person on the business card in a few hours and we would take it from there. After leaving a couple of voice mail messages and sending an email summarizing the previous interaction, I NEvER heard back from the Stick.

This was profoundly annoying and left a sour taste about the casino. It was my fault that I lost the roll but don't give me lip service of what you are going to do in this situation and then blow it off.

Happy early xmas to whomever found it.

Better chairs would be nice. FWIW I was told last year that they were buying new chairs and they got the same chairs, good grief. That's if they were new at all which I'm not sure of btw. The Fort has no games and great chairs, Gila River has much fewer games and great chairs. I'm now an old and my bottom gets to hurting so I'd really, really like new chairs. Slim chance, tho, imo.

-------------------

In other news, good job in knocking down the BBJ fund by some 400K+. They are running splash pots constantly and have the spin the wheel promo. That will likely stop come football season but a lot of money has been put back into the poker economy.

------------------

In other, other news a well know reg hit the big end of a minimum BBJ w/ the following board:

A-K-K-?-K. He held AA and had to think that he'd lost when the final K landed bec how could the K match the Ace? Well, it did bec the other player had A-K. What are the odds of that? They used all of the Aces and Kings. That ought to pay double.

Why charge service fees and dealer add on fees for the points challenge tournament??

Its not enough that we paid $5 for every single tournament we played in for that 3+ month period toward fees and prize pool for this tournament that we have to shell out an additional $30 in fees + the good old "mandatory tip" of $20 (which is double what even the daily tourneys cost).

So, in summary, congratulations players for receiving entry into the "Points Challenge Tournament", and thanks for already paying rake toward this, now go ahead and pay us an additional $50 to play in it. Even worse, there is zero information posted about the actual size of this prize pool but still please go ahead and prepare to show up and pay the fees and we will then let you know what you are playing for?? This makes no sense on so many levels...

(Even if I missed that the prize pool amount is posted somewhere in the room, since it isn't online, this is still just an added money grab from the tournament players. Sorry if I'm out of line and this is just a whine, but...)

Couldn't agree with you more. They advertise it as a FREE roll tournament but $50 ain't free in my book!!!!

Gonna head out during the tournament this month...

Anyone have any insights on room rates/availability? Last time I called poker rate was super vague and dependent on occupancy iirc.

Thanks!

I don't play tournaments but, this seems blatantly wrong. Have you asked the Tournament Director/Poker Director about this?

They also advertise the state championship as a guarantee...