I've played at Aria a dozen times or so, and now that 5/10nl is running more consistently I plan on playing there a lot more once the summer donkament tour ends. I really like the room and Lemongrass is yum yum. I think it's great you guys are having open communication with your players. Couple suggestions-

1) I agree with making the games 9-handed. It's so much more comfortable at the table.

2) Get a few smaller food/drink carts to go alone with the big ones you have. Some people (like me) don't like putting their drink on the poker table so it would be nice to have a couple of small carts that don't get in the way as much.

3) Put some more boxes of tissues around the room.

4) The idea of posting games online is excellent, but it would have to be accurate up to the minute, since outdated information would lead to a lot of annoyed customers. And if you could put your name on the list from online, ye gods, that would be super sweet. I don't know if this software even exists, but it should.

5) I'm guessing this is beyond your control, but Skybox should really be open past 10pm.

Great in theory, horrible in reality, IMO. The board would get spammed hard.

Could set it up so that one has to log-in to sign up, and you have to be verified by the poker room in order to get an account, and if you abuse it (ie constantly signing up for games and not showing) you lose it.

That could work. If they don't want to set up a whole new account system, they could have you use your MGMMirage player account.

PokerFink,

Great questions! Here are your answers.

1. Nine handed tables is being discussed with more enthusiasm than before because of the responses in this thread. Our goal is to give the players that play in our room what they want within business reason. The thought of nine handed tables is not out of the realm of possibility. I would like to know what everyone thinks about making 2-5 NLH and up nine handed. I will get with my people and come up with the solution soon.

2. Smaller food and drinks carts is a great idea. We ordered a limited amount of the bigger ones because we wanted to see how they would work in a full room. I believe the carts we have now are not as efficient as we thought they would be. We are going to have to make a change. However, I do not know when the change will be made on this. I have to get with our carpentry crew for this solution.

3. Boxes of tissues. DONE!

4. Huge and innovative! Idea has been thrown around. This will happen at some point. I hope it is with us.

5. Skybox to Go is not out of our control. We are sending them all of their covers. The great thing about this property is everyone works together. We all have a common goal to be the best in the world. I sat down with the Skybox people two weeks ago and let them know they need to be open later and reduce their prices for poker. They agreed and they will now be open until midnight Sunday-Thursday and 2am on Fridays and Saturdays. They have also put together a poker menu with reduced pricing. It should be finalized within the week. We set it up to be like value meals. There are also healthy options and soups to choose from.

Hope this helps,

Adam

Love that idea, and ideally it would apply to all tables. I honestly don't know why Vegas rooms tend to be 10-handed in the first place...every LA room is 9-handed and it works out just fine. 9-handed means more tables can open and more rake for you.

Here is another vote for 9 handed tables. I like my personal space, and sitting at a 10 handed table insures that I will be bumping elbows and rubbing legs with two people on all but the largest tournament tables.

Nothing worse than being stuck on a 10 handed table with two 300+ pounders on each side me (please gawd don't let them be buddies that high 5 each other!), time to rack up and leave... And gawd forbid I build a big stack and don't/can't color up, nothing to do but build towers knowing that the first big boy that drags his gut on the rail getting up or the first semi drunk to bump the table, or big pot winner does his TV celebration, is going to send my towers flying all over the place.

The link to the tourney structures does not send us to the structures. Has the website been updated and I am just not finding it?

Tom

Another regular here and figured another vote for 9 handed tables couldn't hurt.

I'll will also cast my vote for 9 handed tables. Lack of personal space is one of my pet peeves of live poker. Playing at Aria would be much more comfortable 9 handed.

Just wanted to give props to the Aria poker team for coming onto 2p2 to interact with players, it seems like a really fantastic idea. Not that I've even played in an American B&M or have any authority on the subject matter, but still, great job.

I was in Las Vegas a few weeks ago to get married and I made a point to come to the Aria just to see the poker room. I did not play...well......because I was getting married. However, I am returning in two weeks and if I knew the tables were all nine handed, I would be far more likely to come and play at the Aria during my WSOP trip. Even better would be a six handed max table with a 3 dollar rake....I am assuming the standard rake is 4 dollars at the Aria.

Just my two cents.

More props to Kat and Adam for reaching out to the 2+2 community. It appears a lot of locals frequent this site and could work with them to help make Aria one of the better rooms for us tourists to visit!

I'm looking forward to the 2+2 party in July and staying there for the weekend.

I was just in Vegas for a friend's wedding and didn't venture out to any other poker rooms than Caesar's Palace...Part of it is because all 3 days I went, I was crushing the 1/3 game, which I had heard was a "hard" game or at least harder than others in Vegas...

I'm going to have to visit Aria's room when I come back in July just from the reading of posts in this thread.

Much love to Aria for reaching out to the poker community on 2+2.

Yes please!!

I would love to see this in place in time for my Aria WSOP stay on June 18th!

Thank you Kat and Adam for all the replies.

Actually, Adam, maybe you could give us the argument against 9-handed games.

I come up with one: the nittiest of nits whining that the blinds come around faster as they sit waiting for aces.

That's all I come up with, and getting rid of those types isn't a negative.

9-handed equals more money for the house (faster hands=more hands). The debate should stop there, from your end.

But the fact that it makes your customers more comfortable is gravy.

I think the argument is that the shorter a game gets, the more likely it is to get to a point where players refuse to play (since many dummies won't play short, and "short" to them can be 6 players). So a 9-handed table will get to that magical number sooner than a 10-handed table. And it's an absurdiculous argument.

Here's another vote for 9-handed tables.

Kat/Adam,
I saw that the ARIA classic structures were posted. Thank you for getting them up. To comment on them, I will say that everything thing from the starting stack (10,000), and the blind structure, ARIA is really behind that of the Venetian, and slightly behind Caesars as well. I just think either more starting chips, or add a couple of levels to compete with Venetian would have helped at least my interest in your triple entry tournament. I understand it being ARIA's first big event, you may not care to compete with Venetian or Caesars, but from a player with lots of options at that time, it would have been nice to see something different and more appealing.

already love the room. 9-handed would be icing on the cake.

I agree about the tourney structures. They're just not that good. The $300 doesn't bother me that much (and a 25/50 level would make it perfect), but the $1500 structure is just plain bad. Blinds start too high, stacks not deep enough (or any combo of the two), and the levels aren't long enough. I do like the semi-slow blind progression in the middle though.

BTW on the $1500 sheet it says this:

1.The first day's level will last thirty (40) minutes.

I assume it's 40 minutes, but for a $1500 buyin it really should be an hour.

I've got a suggestion, not so much for the poker room but for the casino in general. The covered bridge from the garage to the casino always smells like a sewer. I think their must be dumpsters beneath it. It's pretty unpleasant and it would be a good idea to enclose the bridge or move whatever is causing the smell away from where people walk.

How about making the NL tables 9 handed and the LIMIT tables stay as 10 handed? The blinds are so small in NL that the nits should not care. The tables becoming shorthanded so fast will be great for all the NL action junkies. The rake won't be faster than a 10 handed LIMIT game -- lots of time for the NL kids to stare each other down and do fake chip counts etc.

Let the NL players play 9 handed if thats what they want.

YES ! Thats what the money grubbing creeps at some Harrahs poker rooms have figured out. More $ for the casino. Wonder where that money comes from?

Question(s) on this...

- If staying 3 nights, does the 5 hrs/night need to be spread out over the 3 nights or can it be accomplished in one or two sittings?
- Does a tourney buy-in (either to Aria Classic or a daily tourney) count towards the 5 hrs/night? If so, how exactly?
- Same question on the 2p2 party... my assumption is that a tourney buy-in would count the same as your answer to the above and the cash games there are treated as normal cash games?

Oh, and put me down for another vote for 9-handed tables.