Is it true that Encore won't be running tournaments right out of the gate?

Wynn in Vegas is 1/3, 2/5, 5/10, 10/20 no limit games
Known for a deeper buy in 2/5 game with a 1500max
Sometimes three blinds games occur such as 10/20/40NL

I don't think what they spread in vegas will end up being what the spread at Encore. I would expect there to be plenty of limit and stud games here while there are none in vegas. I remember playing 15-30 limit at Wynn in vegas years ago so they'll definitely spread whatever fills the tables.

Somerville managed to get $150,000 a year from Encore for road improvements and stuff? That's great for them. Yes, the customers of Encore will cause many major issues. But having people drive through your area and perhaps stopping into gas stations, coffee shops, etc... will help them as well. This also might drive up property value.

From my personal experience around Boston for a few decades there are so many bottlenecks like right after a Boston College football game, multiple intersections where major roads meet without traffic lights, various times of day like 8:30am or 5:15pm when people are all arriving at an office or departing, and so much much more.

The solution? They are forced to hire police details. There is one huge garage in the Boston Landing area and around 8:30am and 5:15pm when everyone is coming and going that it becomes a parking lot outside but once they were forced to hire 4 officers to direct traffic all was fixed. Ditto BC being forced to hire dozens of officers for a few Saturdays every year pre/post game. All these intersections where people would block the box because they're just bad at driving but no one seems to do it when an officer is standing there and things flow smoothly.

I would anticipate Encore will have to hire a few officers outside on the major roads leading up to the entrance and then inside by the garage and other areas they'll have to have attendants and other people helping the flow in/out, etc... I talked to a few people who went to the job fair at the Hynes Convention Center and they were definitely hiring garage/parking people which means they'll probably be charging (that sucks) but at least there will be people hopefully helping with traffic.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/busine...oston-1627302/

It seems that the company made significant moves. Above and well beyond other companies who have experienced this type of stuff.

Hiring an independent third party to conduct the trainings. Hiring the former police commissioner to review all claims of anything wrong. Setting up a system for employees to be empowered and report all misbehavior not just harassment. I remember one company I visited that had this and I asked them what kind of stuff gets reported, they said any and everything like if you see a co-worker always sleeping on the job or they steal office supplies to people banging each other on the job, etc...

Removing and hiring all new people for certain roles. Vegas did their thing and fined them 20 mil and they continued with business as usual. I love how it is always an undisclosed future date because no one wants to have deadlines.

Stud still a thing on the east coast?

I remember back in the day, they were the last ones to abandon it...I just imagined that it must be dead by now.

I think they should definitely have a 1-2 game with a $60 min and $200 max buy-in because that seems to not intimidate beginners. For some reason new players don't really understand effective stacks and if they're playing $85 and you have $650 in front of you they think you have all this extra power to bully them like it is a tournament or something else.

They can also have a 1-3 like 150-500 buy in or some other larger game before 2-5. I really feel 2-5 is starting to enter people who play poker often territory and 5-10 is people who take it pretty seriously.

Anything to get people to sit down and try poker...

I would organize a low limit mixed game with big bet and limit betting but I hear most low stakes players just want to play hold'em so that probably won't fly.

The right way to do it these days is have 4/8 limit and 1/3 no-limit be the smallest games. Here in DC, Maryland Live tried going the other way with a 1/2 game (and even a 1/1 at one point I think) and it didn't work out, so now both Maryland Live and MGM National Harbor have 4/8 and 1/3 as their smallest games.

No one will be intimidated by 1/3 that wouldn't have been intimidated by 1/2.

I agree. 1/3 NL 100-500 buy in, is the way to go. And then go up from there.

It worked for Richard Dreyfus in the great movie “Let It Ride.”

I love that movie

I'll have to watch it before Encore opening weekend.

"I'm glad **I** don't have to walk around this place with that kind of money!"

As long as there are people over 60 playing poker, there will be stud. It still goes at the woods. It's not a strong as it used to be but nothing down there is.

As far as the lowest limits, considering they have 90ish tables, I think if the lowest limit is 4-8 they're going to lose out on the 2-4,3-6 crowd and they'll need them to keep the room busy. Sure, it will be filled with fossils, but they rake the same. You need those low limit folks as regs. Retired guys need somewhere to go to talk with the other old guys and watch Fox news and if the limits are too high for them that's a significant number of tables that just aren't running.

--> You think that a poker room that's a couple T stops north of Boston proper will have trouble keeping busy when it opens.
--> You think that there's people who will play 2/4 or 3/6 but won't play 4/8.
--> You think that there's so many people who will play 2/4 or 3/6 and not 4/8 that they could occupy a significant number of tables in the room, enough to make the difference between busy and not busy.

I don't think any of that is correct. Maryland's experience over the past 6+ years has told us that the opposite is true: Horseshoe Baltimore offers 3/6 and Maryland Live and MGM National Harbor offer 4/8. The latter two rooms are busier by an order of magnitude.

Wait...you're saying those MD rooms busier because they DON'T offer $3-6?

Not exactly, although I suppose it's possible. I'm saying that they're no less busy than they would be if they were to offer 2/4 and/or 3/6. HB offers 3/6 while MDL and MGMNH do not and MDL and MGMNH are much busier than HB.

All of those properties are on Bravo if you're interested in comparing.

It's about the customer base.

The cost of living in the surrounding area of the Encore is very very high.

Likewise. Whoever wrote the script new a thing or two about degenerate horseplayers.

Only reason Stud doesn’t run more often is 95% of poker players are too lazy to learn the strategy to play it. It has WAY more action than Holdem, and actually involves paying attention and not single calculations of knowing your odds. The $150/300 game dwarfs any other game in the room at Foxwoods.

Hopefully Encore runs HORSE

what is the best T option getting to this place? Don't really wanna take the orange line with large sums of money LOL. What about an uber from south station?

If you're on the red line just go to assembly and Uber from there.

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Actually the orange line goes to assembly. The shortest Uber would be from Sullivan Square on the orange line. It's only a mile so you could even walk from there, in theory.

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--> You think that a poker room that's a couple T stops north of Boston proper will have trouble keeping busy when it opens.

When it opens? Probably not, but later, on a tuesday afternoon? hell yea.

--> You think that there's people who will play 2/4 or 3/6 but won't play 4/8.

Yup, not only that, there's some people that will only play 2-4.

-->You think that there's so many people who will play 2/4 or 3/6 and not 4/8 that they could occupy a significant number of tables in the room, enough to make the difference between busy and not busy

Go the the woods on a weekday afternoon. What's running? 2-4, 1-3 stud, 1-5 stud. I'm not saying it's a make or break thing, but pricing out the low limit recs is not good for business.

And FYI Rapini, yea, I think all those things. That's why I made the post.

I'm with Monty on all these points, FWIW.