In town for a couple days. Got in tonight. I know its a monday at 10pm but is it standard at CAZ for there to be no 20-40 or 40-80 going and seemingly no list? First time to CAZ, do those games go at certain times or only certain days? Games in question are 20-40 holdem 40-80 holdem and the mix game 40-80 or 75-150 or whatever it is. Info would be great. Thanks.

Which tournaments are good at CAZ?

They have the daily 11:15am ones, $45+15 plus a $750 overlay. Who is playing poker at 11:15am in Phoenix? Retired people and poker pros? They seem to have a terrible structure. You start with 2k in chips and after 40 min the blinds are 100-200.

The Tue and Wed ones have basically the same structure but you start with 2.5 or 3x the chips (with dealer tip). It says they add $150. Is that $150 for each table or just one overlay of $150 into the entire prize pool?

Then there's the monthly big stack, bounty and "last saturday of the month" tournies. I won an entry into the $300 big stack one a few months ago from KO's in Scottsdale and it was good.

Is it worth playing in the smaller tournies at all? How many players are in those usually?

If the tourney doesn't have antes, I wouldn't bother with it imo.

None

Randy?

I was hoping to drive up to CAZ Saturday and play some 5-10blind spread limit.

Any idea what time in the afternoon the game might run?

John Mayall is appearing at the resort November 12. I haven't seen him since the 60's when he played The Fillmore East.

I'd like to know if anybody's interested in getting a group together to go see him. He only needs to be 5% as good as he used to be to be worth it.

Edit for a 'tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au_2ssij9Xk

Make that 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFh3hK6Cy9c

Not sure about the tournament action, but the cash games sure seem to be dying. $6 rake, and zero promotions, and they wonder why it's slowing down.

Word on the streets is that a new CEO was brought in a few weeks ago. I wish they would let me run this poker room. There are so many opportunities to improve this place, and yet nothing seems to be happening. Any other regulars have thoughts on this?

Dealer told me yesterday that they stopped doing the splash pots and monte carlo promotions. LOL so they're now dropping two for the jackpot yet they're getting rid of jackpot funded promotions? All you jokers who like to say how 100% of the jackpot comes back to the players want to chime in again, because surely they're skimming money from the poker room to fund other things.

Also, the newer/bigger TVs that were promised to us don't seem to be appearing, nor do the $1/hr comps we're supposed to be getting.

I'd guess it's up and going by 2pm at the latest.

Mark

If the CAZ cash games are dying then it means poker is dying in AZ. CAZ is clearly the biggest poker room with all the action over 4/8 so if people are leaving there there's no where else to go really. I doubt it though, with football season starting there should be plenty of people going there.

I was there last night for the 7:15 tourney... the dealer said it's the most dead he's ever seen it. 18 cash tables running and 91 players in the tournament, which normally gets around 130 players evidently.

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Who's grandpa designs these tourney structures? NO ANTES!?! What the hell kind of a tournament never has antes.

On a side note, some lady tilted the **** out of me when i shoved 88 preflop in the tourney and immediately says "good luck on your all in!!!" before anyone has done anything (please stfu if you are not in the hand). I run into 99 and have 2 bb left. I lose a 35% and then she does the "pat the table twice" thing in my direction when i bust out... wtf?! grrrrrrrr.

</vent>

Years ago, before Moneymaker and the poker boom made poker 'better', if you didn't get to CAZ on a Sunday before 11AM you wouldn't get a seat. The lists were 30 names deep. Now you can get there a half hour before game time and get seated, no problem.

Thank you TV poker, online poker, NL poker for your help.

Now come on Howard, we both know the biggest killer to the poker economy in the PHX area was the casino's selling out the poker players for slots, BJ and other gaming opportunities. Just imagine what the PHX scene would be like if the compact had not happened, or at least not at the expense of poker.

You probably shouldn't play tournaments, or poker in general, if niceties such as this tilt you. She has every right to say what she did, and isn't breaching etiquette in the slightest.

Aside from that, yes, last night the room was dead. Maybe tonight with the game going (GO VIKINGS!) we'll get some people in there.

Three straight years of a crappy economy, market saturation, promised programs not being implemented, (STILL waiting on food credit),rake overcharging, and newness wearing off may have a bit to do with it too, among other things.

it was one of those situations where i knew she meant no harm, but it annoyed me anyways. Perhaps because everyone was so terrible and I was bored. Of course I said nice call/hand and good game as politely as possible while losing. It was merely internal tilt.

I guess I just don't get the whole "tap the table twice thing" when someone loses two straight hands and busts out. Like what exactly is the point of that? I thought people only did that to signify the other persons hand was good while mucking...?

No doubt. But think of what it would be like now if they had not sold out. Before the compact we were well on our way to being the number one poker city in the country. Hell, Johnny Chan bought a house in Fountain Hills so he could be close to the big LE games that ran at the Fort. Some of the biggest LE and NL/PLO games spread in the world were spread here. The poker economy here was booming big time, and this was all long before the Moneymaker effect.

The poker economy was a ghost of its former self post compact, pre Moneymaker. A lot of the games went underground and sooner or later faded out as players moved to LA or LV. We would be a lot better off now, if they hadn't sold us out back then.

No. The "tapping the table" is a general acknowledgement to the poker gods, the game and the brotherhood of players. It means a lot of things, none of them negative... "GG, bad luck too bad, you played well but got hosed, I feel for you bother, etc, etc".

Nobody could expect the tribes to turn down BJ and more slots. Sure, the economy hurts but look what spread limit did: There used to be many (8+?) 5-150 games, then they went to 5-500 and there are fewer and fewer being spread. That's the closest CAZ could come to 'the game that people want to play' thanks to TV poker and look what it's done.

They are taking a fortune out w/ the $2 JP drop and saving it for the football pool season that they claim per the flyers will 'cost' $95,000/wk. So no promos during the day and fewer overnight. If I were them I'd ditch the football pools and lean more to The Fort's approach.

And telling us that hours on our players cards will have some value and then not delivering is absurd. I am hearing complaints from players that I've never heard before, from ppl who I never thought paid any attention to what the game costs them. That's an accomplishment right there.

Yep, the root of the problem is not the games being spread, or how things could have been if they had only...

The root problem is senior management that thinks they know better than the players what is good for their games. Ego and pride are real problem "I have been doing this for 20 years and I know more about this than you so STFU!".

I will give the Fort credit for trying and doing somethings that are great for the players and the game as a whole. But they fall down hard when they try to force people into things that just do not work for the average recreational player. If you really want to get the full benefit of all their promotions/benefits you better be willing to spend every free minute there.

So Howard I ask you what is the reason we will go sit at a poker table for 6+ hours a day? Its not because we know Fred and Mark will be there, its because some guy we have never seen before is going to be there. We hope that we have an edge on the guy just stopping by for a couple hours after work, that we can profit from them sitting in our game.

So when the Fort or CAZ (or any room) makes it seem like players are losing something by not being there "all the time" they are discouraging players from coming in the first place. I don't know how many times I have overheard conversations that went like this...

"Hey lets go over to the Fort for the MTT"
"Nah I don't have any bounce chips, you know you have to play cash before the MTT right?"
"Well forget it then, lets go to the club instead"

Now we know "you don't have to play cash" before the MTT, but we all know you are at a significant disadvantage by not earning those 3 hours of bonus chips before entering the MTT. So the urban legend is that have to play. Then when you consider that you are only presented with 3/6 and 4/8 LE as a general rule, its just depressing to consider it.

Oh well rant and rave, its going to take a perfect storm for CAZ or the Fort to change their ways. AZ people get all fired up, but they just never doing anything about it, its the nature of the place.

The Fort has retreated into its turtle shell. They do everything for their loyal players, their regs, to hold onto and reward them. CAZ can adopt some of the promos they have (heavy emphasis on SOME) w/o penalizing the drop-in player. More promos for the JP eligible games: High hand, Aces cracked, Spin the Wheel, Splash pots, Monte Carlos, w/e they can think of. And I'd take the drink tickets away from the floor people. Those drink tickets never get into the hands of a 4-8 player. If you read the other AZ thread you'll see that Gila has halved the price of beer and put a bar in the poker room. That's something I thought should be done at CAZ a long, long time ago.

Add in 'Ladies Night' and 'Party Nights' (cheap booze), things like that, would pump up attendance. But no. Now I have to hope that I don't get into trouble for these posts.

Yet another reason I like that virtually no one in PHX can put a face to the Percula.

The change from the max 150 rule to the max 500 seemed to happen around the same time that the economy started going in the pooper if I recall correctly. I think the economy had more of an effect on that spread game drying up than changing from 5-150 to 5-500. But that's just my opinion. There is something to be said though for stringing out the money as long as possible on the table. The last thing a room wants is to start a game up, have people bust out faster than they can get them in, and have the game break up. Hmm... Maybe Howard has a point here. And yes I did just make an argument against him, make an argument against my argument, and then change my mind in the span of about 15 seconds.

This analysis is right on the money imo. What they are doing is creating an artificial barrier to entry for recreational players. They feel as though they are getting the short end of a deal, so why bother at all? This is a very bad thing.

I think there are (3) factors that have led to the decline in the number of SL players.

• First, Howard is right, the new betting cap does suck more money out of the player base. This was especially true the first couple of months after the change.
• Second the economy started to tank and did not really ever pickup. I know several of my favorite fish were rolled by the housing market in one way or another, so no surprise when they stopped showing up in games.
• Lastly this is also about the same time the strip mall rooms offering real NL started to take off. Many of the SL players started spending more and more time playing NL. Some went el'busto in the true NL format quickly to "never be seen again", some went back to the casino, and some just play less in either venue.

As long as there is a continued interest in poker and people to take seats I am not too worried about the betting cap, and frankly would prefer to see it gone all together. The newbie's will lose at 1/2 or 3/6 and that money will ebb and flow in. Their losses feed the higher stakes games. As long as they keep coming, the structure is safe.

Edit to add:

One of the things that kind of artificially inflated the market here was the two main rooms located in more affluent areas, where a new player does not always start playing at the lowest levels, instead they are willing to jump in at higher and higher stakes.

I think we are going to see a slow down overall in "new players". Poker has become a part of everyday social activity. Its almost to the point that if someone doesn't know common poker lingo they are considered "stupid". It has lost a lot of its "fad" phase. There are still lots of lottery dreamers out there and that will prompt people to keep trying their luck for some time to come. When the general population gets in better financial shape and have more disposable income, things will tick upwards again. Many of the recreational players are on a budget, that they either don't have now, or are stuffing into the bank in case they lose their job.

Hmm, I'm going through Phoenix next week. Guess I'm not stopping to play after all...