Just got back from the soft opening of Holdem poker at Harrahs, NC.

The room is very nice; (restrooms right in the poker room - cashier just a few steps away)
the PokerTek folks are great!

I like the tables, more hands-per-hour, but still a live feel.

The 2/5 table played big, $275 average pot.

A lot of soft players in the room; a few good ones.

bobaby

Woah....this is great news...

Any 1/2 being played?

My initial trip report for Harrah's Cherokee
I am enjoying a refreshing pint of Asheville Brewing Company's Shiva IPA as a bask in the afterglow of what i assume was the first legal session of poker in the State of North Carolina in a long time. I mention the beer because Harrah's Cherokee is a dry casino. brutally dry. painfully dry. Okay onto my trip report.
Kenny, Steve and I arrive at 4:30. We shook hands with all the Pokerpro reps, got our cards, and sat down to play some 1-2NL HE. They were spreading 1-2NL, 3-6Limit, and 2-5NL(which never happened). The do have the power to play Omaha and Stud, but decided not to put those on the list for opening day. The cards were in the air shortly after 4:30! legal poker here we are!
First, let me say that i had never played on digital tables, and these Pokerpro tables are MUCH better than advertised. With Vegas straddles, blind chopping, call button for brush, hand history of last 2 hands, and your poker stats at your fingertips, it was really enjoyable. Although i did slid into the blackjack pit and buy a stack of $1 chips to riffle and give as tips.
Now for the action,pretty classic cardroom 1-2 action, with one big exception, the floor was herding slot players into the poker area to get a piece of the action. So video poker slot players kept sitting down, buying in, going broke and moving on. very nice, very nice indeed.
did I mention no alcohol, everytime one of the younger poker kids would sit down, the first thing he would say to the cocktail waitress was, "beer me." and the rest of us just shook our heads as the waitress has to explain the terrible history of the Eastern Band of Cherokee and Alcohol. oof.
Action was pretty standard and I worked my stack up to 36o without showing down much (although one of the fun pokerpro features allows the winner to flash a single or both cards if all fold to him). I then sat out to get a bite to eat (no fun eating in Harrah's, cept for a passable nathans hotdog). I come back and kenny had been torn apart by some new fellow seated to my left. Holy crap he has a $1000 stack and I was only gone for 15 minutes (and max buy in is $300). Kenny gets up to take a break and I immediately decide to jump in his seat (direct left of aggressive big stacker). For the next 3 hours Steve and I go head to head with Ronald the crazy gambler. He opened for $25 or $50 only. He called repops almost always (including all-ins with complete rags). If it got checked to him on the flop it was always $100 to go. After an hour he was up to $2000. this guy was fun. gambooool fun. I finally double up against him and I'm up t0 $1000! then I roller coaster down to $200 and up and down until my final tally of $870. not bad for 6 hours of play.
How is this for a sick statistic that you wouldn't know without a pokerpro machine. Average Pot for the 6 hour I played was: $400. 1-2 NL and the average pot was $400. with a max buy in of $300. wha? that was fun.
favorite hand was Ronald opens for $25, nice lady who plays slots goes all in for $85, old man who I thought was tight repops to $250 all in, and Ronald makes the call with 6-4 suited. Lady has A-5 suited, and old tight rock show 6-4 suited. mental note, old rock, is crazy gambler. and of course, the 6 comes and they chop that poor ladies money.
Overall, much more fun than I expected. Frankly, The digital tables were the best part. Even a grizzled old dude who never used a computer before, figured it out in five minutes. No tipping dealers. Oh Yeah, Rake...rake was 10% up to 5. which wasn't brutal. considering no tipping the dealer. and it also raked .25 and .50 on small hands instead of min of $1.
I will be back.

Yep. The 1/2 tables were busy. They were 3 going while I was there.

One 2/5 was running; it didn't last long, but played like a more like a 5/10.
One guy was making it $25 preflop every hand he played.

They also had a 3/6 limit game going. It seem to keep 8-10 players.

The software is already set-up for Omaha and Stud, as well as tourneys.
Being a Harrahs casino, they have rights to the WSOP.

Where in NC is Harrah's?

From their website: map.

of course the pokertek people were great. They are trying to push their lame electronic tables onto you.
Live poker is not about staring at a computer screen and clicking buttons.

while I understand the spirit of what your saying, After living 5 plus hours away from a legal card room for many years, those digital tables seem like god's gift to a card player.

Nice trip report, sardu. I can't wait to head over there.

What's the rake at these tables?

NeverMind. I found it.

10% to $5 bucks. the computers calculate by the .25. and no tipping.

Draidin,

All of us at PokerTek are enthusuastic about PokerPro, a product we have all worked very hard on. I am glad to hear our people are sharing that enthusiasm and making PokerPro customers feel appreciated.

I absolutely respect your opinion but want to understand it better as well.

What is "live poker" about ?

Are you suggesting that the major attraction of live poker and the reason most people play is because of the sensation of physical touch of clay chips?

My opinion is that for most people live poker is about any one or most likely a combination of these four things.

1) making money
2) intellectual challenge of skill game
3) action of the gamble
4) competition

If you agree that the above four things are the main reasons people play live poker, then where does PokerPro fall short for you?

If you disagree with the above list and believe that main reason is the touching of and playing with clay chips then your post above is irrefutable, as PokerPro absolutely takes that away.


Lou
PokerTek, Inc.

Lou,

As someone who played more than a few sessions at Mohegan before it went back to a live dealer room, I can just say that in my mind, the PokerTek game is just different.

I liked the tables and the games and even had a higher win rate on them for 1/2 NL compared with my other sessions at Foxwoods and now the live Mohegan room.

That being said the games had less chatter, and the gambool just wasn't there. People tended to be eyes down the whole session and rarely interacted with the other players. Without a live dealer present, there was also no one to enforce table talk rules in multi-player pots, which on more than one occassion affected the play/outcome of several large pots. This likely would have happened anyway, but the result was that it caused players to be more liberal about discussing their hands during play which I felt was a negative. People next to each other would also show their hole cards to each other from time to time; again, with no one there to police. For me, not a big deal, these were bad players. But some other players were definitely turned off by it and left.

I have not played on a cruise, at Excaliber, in Montreal, or anywhere else there are PokerTek tables, so my experience may not be the norm.

I too want to have fun, play a skill game, make money and gamble, but when faced with the choice of a PokerTek room or a dealer room, having played in both, I will still choose the dealer room all things being equal. Double my win rate, half the drop/time, or other-wise give me a better edge (session stats?), and I might change my mind.

That's insane.

As much as I enjoyed the PokerPro tables, and the fact that we now have legal poker in the Carolinas, i do agree with ungarop on the table-talk issue.

Some players would say what they folded, state what they thought players hole cards were. With no dealer present, I could see where this could become an issue.

Overall, I still enjoyed the poker room in NC. The room was layed-out well.
The Harrahs staff did a great job, as well as the PokerTek team.

In addition, this is all we have in the Carolinas as far as legal poker goes.

I hope it goes over well. Some of the issues mentioned can be tweaked.

bobaby

You'd be surprised how much those quarters add up. $5 rake @ 10% with no minimum is no bargin.

Ungarop.

thanks for the feedback... thoughtful and useful.

I wonder about the less chatter / gambool observation. I've played on plenty of manual tables that are dead zones full of nits. I am sort of a social person and these tables drive me nuts. The individual players at the table at any given time will set the mood be it on PokerPro or manual

I have noticed that new PokerPro players are bit a more focused on the screens when they first start playing PokerPro. Ususally after a bit, they get comfortable with the game flow and revert back to their normal personality. These are just my observations.

Your comments are appreciated and astute.

Lou
PokerTek, Inc.

Will they be offering a poker room rate or comps?

Probably most players will agree with you on this; but if you are from the Atlanta area, you have to drive 4 more hours to get the live dealer, so it's a lot closer of a choice at the very least.

They didn't offer anything Friday. Eric, a Harrahs rep, said they planned on starting a "small" comp system.

Yea, they said they would look into it after 30 days.

One Harrah's rep said something like, "if you are good you can get your comps from the other players"!!

With an attitude like this, and if they think they can get away with it without any decrease in play, they will not add any comps. Don't hold your breath.

I heard that too; we may have been at the same table, 1/2?

If the average pot is $400 in a 1/2 game then yes, it is a huge bargain, especially with no tipping and more hands per hour. You can't calculate the value of rake in a meaningful way without considering other factors.

You wouldn't happen to be a dealer, would you?

Yea, myself and sardu were at the $1/2 table that had the average pot size of $400! We were there since the very first hand until about 10:30-11PM.

While I was on the bad end of variance - losing two 85/15 heads up all-ins preflop, a 4-way all-in preflop where I was 55% to win, etc. - I was still thrilled to be sitting at that table! Sardu made out much better, though had to sweat out some swings.

I was the one asking about the comps since I figure I will be sitting there during a good bit of my off time, which is fairly significant.

Check out this pic of the average pot size stat from Friday night: