What section is best location for drink service at 1/3?

Move up to where they respect your drink orders!

It seems that the best alternative parking to the garage is Wellington Station? Is the charge what is listed on the MBTA site?

Here's my trip report, played 1/3:

Obviously the place is gorgeous. At my table I would estimate between 20-25% of the players had never played poker in a casino before. Lots of buying in for $100 and stuff like not understanding what buying the button means. So obviously the game was quite soft. A guy called my all-in raise on the river with an ace high flush, completely unaware that the board was paired. I mean, we've all made that mistake once but not for $400.

One strange ruling, that I confirmed with a floor. Folding out of turn is not only strongly discouraged but is in fact not even binding. The dealer is supposed to push you your cards back until it is your turn. I could see this easily leading to some angles and really upset people. Although it would be a risky angle because not all dealers seemed to know the rule. If you keep folding out of turn, they will ask you to leave for the day.

There's supposed to be a 700 space lot "across the street" at 31 Mystic, price hasn't been announced yet. That might be better than Wellington if reasonable and especially if subject to validation. I haven't checked it out yet.

Also there is the Rivergreen lot. It is off of Air Force Rd behind the Night Shift Brewery. It's free for the first 6 hours and then $6 up to 24 hours. It is about 1.5 miles away and there is a shuttle every 20 minutes. It's a 600 car lot. I parked there on opening day and there were maybe 40 cars in the lot when I came back to my car. There we're about 3 in the lot when I got there in the morning. It does not appear to be well known.

It has been my experience, over 40+ hours of play, that beverage service sucks wherever you are

Affirmative (regarding the Wellington T parking rates).

-Got there at 10ish yesterday.
-Parking garage tons of spaces at that time.
-Waited about an hour for 1/3.
-Game incredibly soft. People not knowing what chopping blinds are etc.
-In for 300 out for 594 in 2.5 hours. Very sustainable I'm sure.
-Dealers were awful(pushing pots to wrong people/trying to give one dude a stack of 600 after he won going all in with like 45 bucks and was called by large stack and one poor kids hands were shaking violently the entire time). But place is new and we had some good people at my table helping them out. Not the biggest deal to me but had one crotchety old man who was really angry about it.
-Servers came around table at least 4-5 times in under hours.
-Not enough ticket redemption kiosks person I was with told me.
-Had to watch cage very closely, the are obviously all brand new as well but also don't seem to versed on basic math.
-Garage full at 230ish when I left.
-Was going to try buffet at 31.99 for the Sunday brunch but apparently special menu until July 7th and its around 40ish right now. Passed.

Overall place is neat and poker room is incredible but not enough for me to drive there or take train from RI when I have TR almost next door. I know it's suppose to be a high end place but for me personally it needs a couple more reasonably priced/casual dining options and some stores that aren't high end Swiss watch makers to at least browse.

So after one week of the new Encore poker room, and having played three sessions of 5-10 NLHE, I have a few thoughts to share….

*The games aren’t that good. I guess the gamblers now have the option to play slots and high limit table games, not just poker.

*The rake is ridiculous. We are paying $9/per half hour at 5-10. TR is $7, MGM, is $7, Borgata if I remember is $6, Foxwoods was $7.

*The dealers on average are the worst I’ve ever seen anywhere. Yes, I know they are new, but I’m just stating a simple fact. Being charged a historically high time amount while a new dealer is wasting time at the table is an aggravating experience. They had quite a gall choosing this rake amount when they are just starting and they have these dealer issues; there are also several other issues yet to be worked out that others have mentioned, such as the wait for chips, service, the cage, comps, etc.

*I will really be disappointed if they don’t run decent tournament events at this place. But last night I overheard a floor person who seemed pretty high up say that if cash games continue to be very busy, they will not have ANY tournaments at all. Ever. He also seemed to say that the so-called tournament area is instead intended for use as the sports book/simulcast area if that bill gets passed in Massachusetts. I understand that tournament tables don’t bring in the revenue as cash tables do, and that they are basically just a gimmick to attract players to the property. But I think they’d be making a mistake if they have no tournaments. There is a slice of the customer base that loves tournaments exclusively and they’d be turning their backs on them.

*A lot about the place’s attitude seems to be that “We are in an expensive place to operate, so we are just going to maximize short term revenue everywhere we can.” As a free-enterprise supporter myself, I approve their right to make their own business decisions. But we as customers should remember this place was given basically a regional state-sanctioned monopoly to operate all kinds of gambling 24/7, serve drinks late, etc., giving them huge exclusive advantages. These kind of advantages could destroy the competition, for example NH charitable gaming obviously has been rocked badly by this. NH should step up to make changes to try to address this.

Monopoly is bad, competition is good. I think we as customers should support the other poker options in New England too, and point out these problems at Encore. It feels crazy for me to say it after waiting literally years for a big poker room to come to the Boston area, but after the first week I am getting the sinking feeling that Encore could make the poker situation around here WORSE.

I have a lot of thoughts in response to this but the first “issue” you have requires no thought. You’re saying that Foxwoods, who has a 5/10 once in a blue moon, charged less time as does TR which sometimes will have 1 table of reg nits and finally your last example is Borgata which is an 8 hour drive away.
Hmmmm
I’m sure Encore will lower their rake immediately facing this stiff competition

Was less than impressed. It's a very nice facility, otherwise everything is second rate. A few observations:

Dealers are horrific. Around 30% of the dealers literally have never dealt poker before and do not have anything close to adequate training. Literally taking 5 min to make change or count a stack. Lots of misdeals, not knowing who to deal in or not deal in, what a missed blind button means, not counting people's bets before pulling them into the pot, not reading people's hands at showdown, etc. This was at 10/20NL. And not like the rest of the dealers were great, just not completely inept.

No good food options. Wasn't impressed with the grill and wasn't able to use comp dollars. Guess I was expecting Wynn quality, just wasn't close to that imo.

Floor people were ok but doing things like starting a must move 4 handed and then moving two players immediately to fill the main game and still keeping our time collection is not acceptable.

The Uber/Lyft situation is completely out of control. I realize this was probably peak capacity but it literally takes 30 minutes for the car just to get onto the property because of the horrible traffic flow. This was not well thought out. This alone means I will not return unless I get a good deal on a room (obv not paying $800 or whatever the current going rate is).

The cage is also out of control. Line out the door.

$1500 cap at 5/10 and 5k cap at 10/20 is not something I agree with and prioritizes revenue for the casino -- and $9/$10 per half hour is too high especially when some dealers only get one orbit per down in.

I'm shocked to hear all these constant reports of bad dealers, when the ones I had on my table opening day were all fine. I guess I just ran real good with dealers that day!

Does anybody have any idea if the dealers in the table games are as bad as in the poker room?

And what is the cause of so much dealer inexperience? Because they were forced to hire Everett residents?

It's a huge room and they obv couldn't hire enough experience dealers. I get that, but whatever training they went through obviously wasn't close to adequate.

I had 1 day, actually a 90 minute period, when I was Uber frustrated with new dealers. The rest of the time I had no issue.
Some people like to complain. The funny thing is, I’m a top notch complainer but Encore is the nuts and despite a few kinks that I expect will get worked out fairly quickly, I am impressed beyond belief with it

Do they validate parking at the poker room? How much play is required to get free parking?

I am surprised to hear that dealers are weak. Vegas property seems to be exceptionally good and I thought they would get Vegas leadership and training to help start up Boston.

Dealers who had no experience paid like $750 for training led by team members of encore.

I didn't experience any bad dealers in my inaugural visit. A lot of familiar faces dealing from the New England poker scene.

I've played hundreds of hours at the vegas property and agree it is world class. Doesn't seem like they were involved at all.

In before jpsychlady turns into a rage monster. (I'll try to get a FAQ started in the OP this week so we don't keep getting repeat questions)

There is no validation at this time. Full price for everyone.

Well they were. Lots of employees are here to help with training and opening

jpsychlady,

Are you affiliated with the Encore in any way?

I would probably be forced to be congenial if so

So you don't want to answer the question?

I am taking great joy in saying this to YOU, all knowing one
This is incorrect. If you play 1 hour or more it will cost you 1 comp dollar to park in the garage

Oh? I thought that was the opening promo that ended today. That's great if I'm mistaken.