is now open for business. Official open today (8/8/2012), but unofficially opened yesterday to "friends and family".

I heard there is an abundance of silicone

I'll be visiting in the next day or two and will give a TR.

There is definitely a lot of eye candy. Only 14 poker tables though, quite a reduction from the 28? they used to have at Garden City.

Nice place, strong perfume scent. Too dark and nowhere to sit while you're waiting. Food at the tables is expensive. No free coffee/water station.

anyone have experience with the texting service when they have your seat? went there for 2/3/5 and was about 40th on the list at 1 PM. Was told they would text me when they have my seat. didnt get a text

40th person? Wow. I want to go there but it's not going to be worth driving from Marin to be put on a sick list like that, unless I can call and put my name on it.

Played there again tonight, extremely busy.

Yes, lots of eye candy. The servers wear outfits straight from Vegas, plenty of cleavage and hot bodies.

15 games of poker going, 14 poker tables and a 100/200 played on a Cal table. It looked 3 or 4 handed. A 5-5-10 going, a couple 2-3-5 and 1-2-3 games, three 3/6 games, Omaha 20/40, couple 15/30, 2 or 3 green chip games. Lists are very long. Cal side games were bustling all night.

Many were there to check the place out, and I imagine after the newness wears off it won't be quite so packed.

Its a beautiful building, run by the same incompetent management staff. The shift managers basically wander around doing nothing, I saw several of them the last few nights. So does the Top dog. The decisions they make concerning spreading their games is baffling. No idea how they have managed to keep their jobs, at least most of them. Couple of the Shift Mgrs are quite capable.

You have 14 poker tables, with an additional game being played on a Cal table. 15 games total. Why on earth would you open a 100/200 limit game that is shorthanded?? That game benefits who exactly?? Not your loyal customers that frequented GC over and over. No, it was played by high limit Bay regs. Omaha 20/40?? really?? Spread a game that basically killed off the 15/30 game at the old place, not to mention the lineup of regs that play it. I've watched these clowns throw cards, expose cards, curse, berate the dealer, then stiff them. Real class acts. not to mention its a slower game. That's the first game I would have axed. In its place, spread a much more popular 1/2/3 or 2/3/5 NL game, a game with a large list of people that want to play. Nope, lets spread a game with a player pool of 20 consisting of people with no class. Nice.

5-5-10?? Again, why? So you can attract the Bay players that never frequented GC?? The ones that you bent over backwards trying to accommodate, giving them shirts and other stuff?? So you can say..."ooooo, we have a 5-5-10 game". Who gives a flying F??? Myself and many others patronized the NL games and limit games several times a week. How about spreading some of those games?? No, we have to wait on a ridiculous list, while you cater to people that haven't stepped foot in your other casino in forever, or accommodate the classless bozos playing Omaha.

I play there because I like the dealers and floor. Yes, at times a ruling is screwy or a dealer sucks. Happens everywhere. The lineup of games is ridiculous. Dump the Omaha, dump the 5-5-10, dump the 100/200 for the 4 people that were playing it. Put down more NL games that appeal to the largest amount of people. Put down another green chip game. Get a mobile chip station or something, I swear I waited at least 10 minutes before I got my chips.

The food is hit and miss. The drinks and food a bit pricey, no more free coffee or water. Parking is a mess, good luck there. Valet $10. The scent is a bit strong but pleasant enough. Bathrooms sparkling clean and upscale. Epic Bar very energetic with the beautiful light fixture above. Sports Bar will be very popular during football season, be nice if they run some food and drink specials as it isn't cheap.

Nice room, enjoy playing there once you finally get on a table.

There are plenty of plausible business decisions for why they could be catering to those other players at the expense of small stakes NL.

Such as: a poker room operates 24/7/365 and though it may not seem like it to you, a huge portion of that time there are no lists and plenty of empty tables. They need to fill the tables at those times as well - and that 20 player pool Omaha group might be the ones there playing a full-game on a Tuesday morning at 8am, playing all day and night. While these NL players who pack the lists on evenings and weekends are nowhere to be found because there is a grand total of one short-handed no-limit game running.

Another consideration is trying to take the bigger games away from the competition, which is why they'd run 5/5/10 and 100/200.

Or they could just be idiots. However this assumption is all too frequently made when management anywhere makes a decision people don't understand or agree with. What's more likely: that a company worth many millions of dollars that just successfully opened a gorgeous new casino in San Jose is run by bumbling ******s - or that you simply don't understand or agree with their actions?

Anyone who played consistently at GC can attest to the questionable decision making that has taken place previously.

Yes, its a beautiful casino. I'm not calling the owners bumbling ******s. Those guys aren't idiots by any stretch. I'm talking about the daily management team. Let's be honest, any casino/card room can make money. Why do you think only 2 are allowed in San Jose??

There are 14 poker tables. Those can easily be filled up by your regular games that you already run. Blue chip, green chip limit games. 1/2/3 and 2/3/5 NL with a deep stack thrown in. 15/30 and a 30/60. This menu will fill up those tables consistently, there is plenty of poker players to do this.

Empty on a Tuesday morning, thus making these other games viable?? If you make your regular players wait all day for a game, because you have 1 or 2 running instead of 3 or 4, then yeah you might find open tables at those times.

We'll see how it goes after the initial rush wears off. You may be correct about open tables and short lists. Time will tell. However, I stand by my management comments. Shift managers are worthless, save for a few of them. These places are a license to print money, no matter how many empty suits are employed to act as shift managers. I've played at the old place as much as anyone.

I never counted the poker tables at GC, but by my recollection it was around 18-20 in recent months. At times in the past they spread poker on some of the Asian game tables, but I have never seen that since they got the number of tables increased.

It was only late on a good Friday or Saturday nights that GC actually got games going on all its poker tables. They were able to keep lists short because they could always start another game when the lists got long. Except for busy evenings and when tournaments were going, they seldom had 14 games going.

Have they increased the number of Asian game tables that much? Or do they just do not have room for the poker tables because they were planning to put some in the top floor room that has not been approved by the city?

They also have purple $1k chips...

I played at Garden a lot, and plan to play here a lot. Anyone wanna be friends?

Depends. Are you the perfect 10 california games floorwoman w/ double d's that was working this afternoon? If so, we can not only be friends, we can get married!

Mini trip report:

I wasn't involved with any situation that required a floorperson to make a decision but it would be hard to imagine a level of incompetence that would overcome all of the other wonderful things about this place.

Gorgeous casino. Perfect location right off of the 101. Plenty of parking. Long wait for a seat even though I went relatively early (was expected). Lots of space between tables. Loads of eye candy. Food at the deli was expensive but very good (like $16 for an Odwalla and really tasty sandwich).

I'm definitely going back and on first impression, far far prefer it to Bay 101. Which has a really old-school, bingo hall sort of feel while M8trix is hip and opulent.

Anybody hating on this place, imo, is either shilling for another room or has a serious bone to pick with the owners. I'd give it a 9/10. It would be a 10/10 if not for the long wait to get a seat.

Aaaaaand the 5/5/10 was really soft. Could be because of the novelty factor bringing in a lot of recreational players though.

I wrote up a short analysis/description of the casino in MLSHE:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=302


That's ******ed.

I play the 20 40 O8 regularly...this game goes through the night when all the holdem players leave so that would be one reason for it to be a viable game for the casino.

The O8 and a 15 30 usually ran at the same time at GC. Perhaps the proximity to Bay 101 will kill the 15 30 LHE, but I doubt the O8 is killing it. There are only a few players that overlap between the games (me being one of them). Personally, if I am playing LHE then I would rather play larger and being next to Bay 101 is going to make me go there...has nothing to do with the O8 game.

Any 5 5 10 anywhere on a regular basis is great. How can you hate having a decent limit to play. At GC all you could get is a shallow 2 3 5 500max.

Personally, I would love a room that can maintain a 2/3/5 deep, 5 5 10 deep and 20 40 O8 +/- mixed game. If I want a decent LHE game then Bay is minutes away.

GC had 15 cash game tables. M8trix has 14. M8trix isn't spreading tournies so it is basically the same and once the new opening rush is gone it will likely not be much different than GC. Although, I hope that larger NL games can me sustained.

For the record, I would think that any good poker player would want to support as many types of poker games as possible and choose the best games to play in at any given time.

On the LHE last night, all they had was 3/6, 6/12, and 10/20. No 8/16 or 15/30 and only one table of 10/20. Made 40+ BB in three hours at the 10/20 so it was good to me but not liking no 15/30 game.

I finally stopped by to take a look. Very nice looking facility, but not enough parking. At 4 PM on Friday I was able to find a place without too much difficulty, but there were not many non-valet spaces left.

They were talking about building a hotel on this site. Where is there room for a hotel?

I was thinking of trying to play a little, but they only had 2 3/6, 2 6/12 and no 8/16 games going with long lists. They definitely don't have enough tables.

The tables are spread very far apart, so there definitely would be room for more tables, but I think the issue is cameras. Each table has a camera above it. To add more tables on the ground floor would require adding more cameras and repositioning the current cameras. They are probably going to hold out for approval of the 8th floor tables. They will not add more tables on the ground floor unless the city definitively refuses to ever allow poker on the 8th floor.

My understanding is that they were only going to use 4 tables total on the 8th floor.

Are you saying that there were less than 45 tables total on the ground floor?

I did not count the tables. As I recall they had around 18 or 19 poker tables at the old GC, and except at the busiest times they always had vacant tables.
At 4 PM on Friday they would have 3 or 4 vacant tables.

If they have 14 now, 4 more would get them back to 18 which is about like the old GC. The problem is they are attracting more high limit players, so they don't have tables for the lower limit games.

I did run across and check Bay 101. Bay 101 had 5 3/6 table and 4 6/12 tables with 10 to 15 on the list.

What the deuce....no one is picking up the phones at M8trix, either at the poker desk or the cali-games desk. Not so inclined to drive over if i cant call-in and put my name on whats likely a long list. I know they just moved, but seriously, how does a room like that not have a functioning phone system?

Place is packed right now... up to capacity tonight. they had people waiting at the entrance like it was a nightclub. kinda funny.

I got in around 3-4pm luckily found a parking spot... did well at the 2/3/5. Played about 8 hours.

Try a sandwich at the lotus cafe.. I've had 2 and they were both good.

I ordered a meal from service and it took almost 2 hours and was terrible.

Most of the floormen are cool. One or two need some work.

How long did you have to wait for a seat? I was there around 330 and was around 30th on the list. Told me they would text me when the seats available o I went to bay 101. Got a text at 220 am saying my seats has been cancled

Went there around 3am and they had two short 15/30 running. One shut down around 5am. Was kind of empty that late. Service was horrible.

Their game selection is awful. They seem intent on running bigger limit/NL games, which makes no sense. Its a great strategy if you want to run off all of your loyal players, and your biggest player pool, over to Bay 101.

No 8/16, replaced by a 10/20. Very little 6/12 and 3/6. 1/2/3 and 2/3/5 are fewer so that they can have TWO 5/5/10 games?? Omaha, really?? TWO 15/30 games?? The pool of players for these games is much smaller than 3/6, green chip games, and the smaller NL games. But who cares about those people?? You know, the ones that have played at the old place forever?? The ones that would love to play in the new room?? The ones that can't get on a table because there are fewer games for them? Lets cater to the new players, the one's that showed absolutely no loyalty to the old place.

So the short handed 15/30 breaks. I doubt that happens with the other games. Nice move by the M8trix management, which consists of a dictator and a bunch of yes men. What a joke. I enjoy playing there, like the people that work there, but these guys make it hard to want to play there.

I can understand catering to the needs of higher limit players in a real casino where these individuals may dump a substantial amount in the pits to the house but I never really understood why they bend over backwards for them in a California card room.
Perhaps they tip well.

Feel free to explain.

The 15/30 game is the most profitable game for the casino.

Also, Ray Zee once told me that where the big games go, the small games follow. There are several examples of this in history, Bicycle->Commerce, Mirage->Bellagio, etc. Once the big games moved over, the old cardroom basically died out.