I figure when they start tournaments there will be slightly lower demand for cash. Figure most tourneys start earlier in the day. Say at 10am they have 30 cash games running and then start a tourney with 180 players, taking up another 20 tables. Still have 24 tables they can open through the day and then as tourney tables start breaking they can be used for SNG or another, smaller tourney or just open them as cash. The lists might get a little longer, but I doubt it would translate to much of a wait.

Director of Parking Affairs, jpsychlady.

Did the dealer mention when they were opening the lower limit Blackjack tables? While I don't play, a colleague of mine mentioned not being able to play due to higher limits than he was expecting on the one Friday night he visited Encore for the first time.

No. But I also didn't ask (I don't play against the house unless I'm traveling with friends who want to play and even then I usually just watch). I am surprised to hear they've already swapped out the tables.

I was playing with a poker room staff memeber at another location today. They told me that tournaments are begining in September and will be held in the ballroom.

What do Free Credits mean? How do they differ from Points and CompDollars? Can you use points to buy anything?

Free credits are for slots/video poker. You have to activate the free credit on the machine, put in enough cash for one play, and then each time you play a hand, you get reimbursed from the free credit at the end of the hand.

So say you want to play 25 cent video poker, playing 5 credits a hand to make sure you get the 800 credit payout for a royal. You can put $2 into the machine, and play a hand. At the end of the hand, you will have $1.25 transfered from your free credit to your stack.

The ballroom? That’s a very interesting new piece of information. They’d certainly be able to run some larger tournaments in that room. Anyone have any idea on buy-ins / guarantees / when the schedule will be posted? I’ve been assuming that they will run a similar schedule to what runs at the Wynn in Vegas but with so much more space they have a lot more options.

When I log into the red card page I still see all 0s everywhere. Oh well

For what it's worth, I asked a shift manager about the ballroom shortly after opening and he said that the Functions department wouldn't let Poker have one of the ballrooms.

I went to the Red Card desk to ask about Tier Matching one time each the past few days and every time they had zero info and a few people had zero clue what I was talking about even when I showed them the webpage. Basically the best response was we'll have all the info on August 1st when this actually runs and you have to come back then.

Sounds like a casino to me! Thanks for checking.

Is Encore allowed to run 5 card Omaha?

Yes. I've seen an interest list but haven't seen it go yet.

I was able to start shorthanded 20 stud games Friday and Saturday nights. The stud appears to be struggling a little more than I thought a week or two ago. That said, the Saturday game ran all night and into Sunday morning. My understanding is that the stud player pool has been pretty hard on the dealers and management isn't interested in subjecting them to the abuse. It's a bit double-edged because there are many inexperienced dealers in rotation and perhaps they could use a bit more training in the routine of collecting antes (and time). The initially high time charge contributed to the problem, but Encore adjusted dropping to $8/half across all midstakes games (HOS). But the reality is no casino can just hire all the seasoned dealers. Growing pains are inevitable.

I was able to start short 20 holdem on Saturday as well. It's a half-kill game, as it has been very consistently at both FW and Encore. The players were very familiar and the game filled and was good, getting short around 2a and breaking at 5a. It's not better than what's been at FW the past 18 months but it's not worse, either.

This happened to be one of the hottest weekends of the summer. I think this is just ebb and flow. Fall weekends, with football back and people staying in the city more, will see some boom times.

Here’s a fun red card riddle:

Comp dollars before yesterday’s session: $9.58

-played for ~3 hours yesterday
- parking validated
- no food/shopping purchased

Comp dollars currently: $2.84

Anybody have a guess?

Taxachusetts!

Yes I want to come up there next month but if the OE O8 or Big O doesn't go I may just go to Parx keep me posted

I actually saw 2-2 Big O on Poker Atlas early Mon at like 4am and it stayed there until Mon dinner time before disappearing.

My buddy is a pit dealer and he tells me the floors could care less about rating people. He said the red card is essentially a joke.

Once I log into the website and hit My Profile I see

Point Balance
Free Credit (Global)
Free Credit (Las Vegas)
Free Credit (Boston)
CompDollars

I threw $20 into a penny slot machine I have had some luck on with free credit at some Vegas casinos and I managed to play for 20 mins at the full max 150 credits ($1.50 a pull) before I lost it all but in that time I earned 23 points which now show up in my Point Balance. What is that vs CompDollars? Slots vs Pit?

I have played a little Pai Gow ($50 min most of the time and $25 min rarely) and made a few CompDollars and those show up very quickly after you finish playing and those still haven't showed up on the website yet but they do show up when I stick my card into a slot machine.

I did pay for a friend's parking using 1 CompDollar at the parking payment kiosks in the garage once and that did subtract 1 CompDollar from my account.

Is it a security issue that once I stick in any Red Card into a slot machine you simply have to hit 'Show' under CompDollars to see balance? No PIN needed. Some other features requires the PIN. I've seen so many Red Cards on the floor, still left in slot machines, at poker table cup holders, etc...

I noticed that too in regards to pit bosses rating players the general lack of care and what a joke the Red Card is too. Glad you have a friend that works there to confirm it.

Over the weekend a few of my college buddies went to the Encore for the first time and I met up with them to catch up and they hit up a $50 min roulette table and this was the only one we saw that was not packed. This was the lowest table min too. You essentially have to bet $5 on each number but outside bets like red/black, odd/even, first/second/third third, etc... were $50 min. The entire pit was completely packed, not one single seat anywhere for Blackjack, 3 card poker, Ultimate Texas Hold'em, even War!!! Yes, $50 min War was completely full with people betting $200 a hand on a few seats. The pit never bothered to ask my friend for his Red Card, only when I mentioned it to the floor did they do it and they prob thought I was annoying them.

Later one of the girls managed to squeeze into a $50 min blackjack table and again she bought in for $500 and they could hardly care to rate her. I was a little appalled by this. Even if it is a joke, at least pretend you want to do something or care.

It's Wynn/Encore's MO to not bother rating minimum players, they don't care about the fleas and they're not shy about that fact. In Vegas if you're betting below $25 they won't bother taking your card. Now sure, $50 isn't $10, but it's clear that they don't need to provide any offers to people who are minimum players, I mean just look at your description of how busy the pits were! In the Boston market, a $50 player is a flea to them.

You can cater to an upscale crowd and still provide good customer service to all your patrons. That’s just ****ty customer service.

Oh yes, I agree that is their MO and that is ok but pretend to care. When I walked into Bergdorf Goodman in NYC the clerks could instantly tell I probably wasn't ever going to buy anything but they did offer me a 'My name is Jennifer and I'll be over here if you need any help' courtesy and then went back to doing whatever she was doing after she categorized me as one of the fleas. I was actually there late Mon around 11pm and it was still very very crowded at the pit games but there were way less slot players vs weekend nights.

It is always about the flea one day being able to afford to be a regular player. For the few mins I was watching my friend at $50 blackjack I noticed all kinds of funny superstitions by the players that had me cracking up. The sucker bets like match the dealer and insurance were heavily offered and many players always had $5 on match the dealer and would buy insurance. Fascinating to me.

Just want to share a concerning experience that occurred in the 25/50/100 NL game.

After a hand, a player politely informed the dealer about a flaw in his dealing technique (or whatever) that allowed him to see the exact combination of hole cards dealt to another player at the table. Good on the guy who gave up a huge edge in the name of fairness, but it's very concerning that this was allowed to happen, especially in a nosebleed game.