I had the buffet Sun night around 8pm and it was $38.99 and there was a long line only to get in after 15 mins (it did move pretty quickly) to see 70% of the tables were empty and basically the hostesses and cashiers were just super slow. The menu they had up is missing a few things from the last time I was there but maybe it is different for Fri + Sat nights when it costs a few dollars more.

While I was in line the head manager was just hanging out near me and I did ask her a few questions about possible reservations and who qualifies for the VIP line, etc... she acted shocked like anyone would care to ask about the buffet. VIP line is for those staying in certain luxury suites at the hotel only or they must have some kinda pass given by a host/pit boss. Reservations are no go and they don't plan on doing that. I asked about the menu items and she said I could speak with one of the chefs/cooks when I got in but I never bothered. I figured she should know.

From right to left as you enter the buffet:

Salads : 3 different salads that all looked very fresh but I am not a salad expert.

Breads and Cheeses : I tried some prosciutto and a little cheese and an onion roll and they were very good. Quite a variety.

Soups : 3 soups like Clam Chowder, Chicken Noodle, and one other one and one of the cooks was pouring water into it to thin it out which was weird he would do that outside vs in the back.

Deserts : A lot of variety and I tried so many and they were all very nicely done. The ice-cream/frozen yogurt/gelato roulette wheel thing is quite cool and probably the busiest section of the buffet.

Asian : 3 hot dishes like Mongolian Beef, Chicken Lo-Mein, etc... a soup section to customize your miso-soup, a few dumplings and shu-mai steamed section. All very bland.

Meat : Tomahawk was thick and tough. Hanger steak was much better. Didn't try sausage, turkey, chicken, etc... there are two lines for this area and always go to the one on the left as everyone stands in the one on the right w/o realizing there is a left one as well.

Italian : Some kinda customize your pasta area and two hot dishes already made.

Seafood/Sushi : Oysters Rockefeller seemed like they were not in the oven long enough. Crab legs/Shrimp cocktail was a busy area full of people piling up. Sushi were the smallest pieces of sushi ever and everyone who was grabbing them with the tongs would make them fall apart on the way to the plate. They only made like tuna/salmon/veggie/California rolls and I wasn't expecting gourmet sushi or anything but this was the cheapest rice/seaweed ever. The fish/veggies inside the rolls were ok. There is also steamed/grilled salmon and cod and they looked good.

Waitress : much much faster than last two times I went and very fast on refreshing drinks and clearing plates but the place was at most 40% full and I feel like they're either slow or understaffed and I'm not expecting too much already from a buffet for attention.

I played two blackjack sessions at Wynn Vegas 7-8 weeks ago. Avg Bet $100-120 for total of maybe 6 hours. I’m showing zero points and zero everything on my Red Card. This almost sounds dirty. What an awful way to do business and gain consumer trust. Room is great but man those business practices along with the “delay” in syncing with PokerAtlas (which is complete bs imo) is shady at worst or incompetent at best.

This might be another of their totally mis-managed IT systems that do not work on the website. You 'must' go to a Red Card location or view the comps earned in pit games or at a slot machine under CompDollars using the 'Show' button. They said they are 'working on it' but could take a few more months. I am completely befuddled by how something like this can take that long.

I actually got through to someone high up in hotel reservations one time and asked they kindly send me an email confirmation of my reservation as they said they would when I made the reservation a while ago and she asked to confirm my email and then said I am sending it right now while we were on the phone and we stayed on the phone and I never got it and she sent it again a few more times and I never got a single thing after 10 mins. I gave up after that.

You definitely got rated for that Vegas play. This is just their incompetent IT as PF said.

Please do report back when you get the CompDollars balance from that because 1-200 for 6 hours at BJ should result in some good comps. I do know they all use a different formula based on speed of dealers, whether they pay 6:5 or 3:2 on blackjacks, number of players at your table, and other factors. If you got less than $50 in comps, I'd be a little upset but you can get as much as like $150 maybe more, I am just guessing.

For reference, $100 for 6 hours at BJ would get you ~60 points at Foxwoods.

If you got 20 hands/hour at a full table that would be $2000 wagered for < $10 points. Getting $50 after 6 hours of this would be just enough to pay for 2 buffets. Not the good old days of Benny Binion putting out a big spread for gamblers but better than nothing.

Wow - yikes. I wonder if there was any follow up on that.

When I am sitting in seat 7 I am always wondering if seat 2 can see my cards because sometimes the dealers pitch them pretty high and that is the spot I am most concerned about this (assuming a right handed dealer which is most of the time).

Even with my poor eyesight if the dealers pitch just a little high and I am in the 2 seat I can see a flash of something so I'm sure some eagle eyes can do well in this scenario.

back when the floor gave points by feel,with a little strategic tipping and schmoozing that would've been 500 points..

Yup I miss the good ol' days.

I wish this was not true. The Palms in Vegas is doing horribly financially. I'm sitting there playing some min bet Face Up Pai Gow when a middle aged American gentleman and what appeared to be his son came up and started wagering big like $500/hand. They had wandered over from Craps or Baccarat with chips in their hands. I was waiting for my friend who was staying there to come down and I wasn't going to be here long and it looked like neither were they as it seemed they were waiting for mom. They proceed to lose a few thousand in 15 mins as the dealer gets 4-5 amazing hands in a row. As we all get up they ask the pit boss if they could get 3 buffet coupons and line passes and the guy had to go to the computer and look something up and came back 3 mins later and said the guys did not play 'long enough'. Like they gave good action, just not good length of play was his tone. These guys were very nice and just said, thanks, maybe next time and was actually going to drop him a green chip for just checking for them but I think at the last minute they realized this is insane. If that was me, I'd probably lose my temper or ask for a supervisor. I stayed for this because I was seriously curious what was going to happen and right then and there I knew why they were doomed. At Zappos your entry level customer service rep on the phone is authorized to ok any returns, exchanges, and refunds etc... this was a case of someone up top saying use the program to figure out if it is ok to give out what comps if any and that was probably the beginning of the end for these guys.

Casinos reward people who generate profits for them. The pit boss was being responsible in checking the computer. If they had spend several hours player Craps or Baccarat, their profile would have shown it and he would have been happy to provide the comp. Instead, it probably showed they just bought chips and wanted to look like they had played. Even at $1000/hand for 15 minutes, the house edge would have had them generating only $400 in revenue. At a rate of returning about 20% in direct comps, it wasn't enough to cover 3 buffet dinners.

Since most people don't ask for comps after 15 minutes of play, it is possible that they were in the system as comp hounds, trying to game the system. Years ago before Bravo systems, OMCs would get seated at a table, play 1 or 2 hands, then wander off for an hour or so, come back to play another hand or two and continue until they met the time requirement to ask for a free buffet pass.

As for Zappos, they can resell the shoe or return it to the vendor for full refund. The casino can't say, "I know you want to play Pai Gow, how about watching this video of someone else losing and paying us for it."

Yup you usually get comped on your theoretical loss not your actual loss. And I don't know where you got $400 from but it's more like $200 ($1000 * ~2.5% * ~8 hands), but he was wagering half that so for him it was really $100... which further makes your point. The days of pre-corporate casinos are long long gone.

What are OMCs?

Go read the rumnchess thread in the main CCP forum, which was recently bumped by mr. rumnchess himself.

Old man coffee.

Can you post a link to the thread?

"Old Man Coffee" - casino slang for a tight/cheap old man.

OMC = Old Man Coffee, a term to describe a tight older player coined by Alex Livingston, who recently finished 3rd in the WSOP main event.

The 2+2 post where he coined the term is here:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...-poker-647725/

That whole main post is gold.

Ha yes. Brain fart. I was at the Orleans in a 15/30 O8 game and it got short handed to 5 handed with me, 3 very bad clearly intoxicated players, and an OMC and he refused to post his bb and sat out so I got to play 4 handed with 3 guys who just played loose passive for the next 2-3 hours and the whole time I am thinking this OMC is too worried about trivial things to ever maximize profits in a poker game.

Just spoke to someone who is there now and they are doing the Tier Matching today and will take almost all NE area casinos but will also offer a little something for MGM/Caesars. They do require the physical card to be with you. I want specific #'s... but don't have those yet.

It seems they give you FreeCredit which is for use in slot machines up to $500 depending how high your status/tier is with another casino.

That brings about my next question for the slot experts. Which slot machine(s) should I play at Encore to maximize the cash out of this?

Jacks or Better optimal strategy is the standard play here.

Also, Encore is bringing a little bit of Vegas to the East. Dealers are allowed to play at Encore with restrictions. You can play the games that you don’t deal so poker dealers can play table games and vice versa but not within 8 hours of start of their shift or for 8 hours following their shift.

Quick TR from the night of Saturday, 7/27. I had reserved a room a month or so ago at $899 a night but checked the website and saw the same room at $499 with a $100 resort credit. I called reservations and they changed it for me with no problem at all. When I checked in, I had been upgraded to a "Signature Suite," which was fantastic.

I played 2/2 PLO for 6-7 hours. Good action at my table but ridiculous action at the table across from mine where evidently there were 4-5 stacks of $2k+ not long after the table opened. I am relatively new to PLO, but I felt the game was really good, with only 1-2 "good" players and the rest very questionable. At some point a foreign gentleman (German, I think) sat down next to me with over $4k. He had moved from the other table and I asked him why the hell he would move away from a game like that and he said he moved because 20 minutes prior he had over $6k... Obviously PLO is that kind of game, though. I was up around $1200 and 30 minutes later I packed up down $250. I am very anxious to go back.

I left the poker room around 1AM and when I walked through the casino to get to the elevator it was JAMMED. My wife said blackjack mins went to $50 by 9PM, but it was impossible to get on a table anyway by then.

Yup that's what the website says. It'd be good to know which cards get what amounts though.

Video Poker for sure, whether you prioritize EV or variance.

If you're interested in maximum EV, play 1 of the Jacks or Better machines listed here: https://www.vpfree2.com/casino/encore-boston-harbor . This would require minimum $25/hand though.

For minimum variance, I would still stick to Jacks or Better but play a smaller denom machine (which will have worse EV).