I stayed at a like a comfort suites or something like 2 or 3 miles from the casino and it was like $70 a night.

http://www.comfortsuites.com/hotel-c...carolina-NC042

Duck, where are you traveling from? Im not headed there this weekend but if you are making it a regular thing Id be happy to chop up a room with you to keep the expenses down.

Sat. tournaments have been fun, but not selling out. Typically around 30 players, so if you get there by 9 am you should be good.

Linville/boone area

There's a Hampton Inn right across from casino; I stayed there Sun nite $79.00/ 2 full double beds; wi-fi-pool; nice; probably as close to card room as Harrahs rooms..

gl

I'm assuming when they say "Prize Structure: Places 1-5 will receive entry into WSOP Satellite Main Event to be held May 13-15, 2011 in addition to the cash prize."

What they really mean is they are taking $5k out of the prizepool and adding it back as seats I don't want?

If its added seats count me in, otherwise I'm not interested in having them take $5k out of the prizepool for a tournament I'm not coming back for.

I got stuck without a room last sat. Stayed at the "carolina" well maintained 60's style motel.spartan but cleab. Clean beds like motel six.$45 .. About half mile frm microtel,

I definately could have done better with the hotel but it was spur of the moment, I booked at like 1am drove up at like 3am then played till check in. Ill do a write up later today or tomorrow on my thoughts.

This is the highest 1/2 win rate I've ever heard. It's really at the upper range of what is possible. Do you have good records?

Very curious what your actual 1/2 win rate would be.

if i can't get a room at the casino, i like the days inn across the street. it's the closest one.

i wish we didn't have to pay for drinks.

Just went to WV Saturday and won $1800 over around 13 hours of play. I keep immaculate records, always have, Im a big stickler about such things. $1/$2 players were generally horrible and Im pleased to find out since I have returned to live, that the situation seems not to have changed. Honestly, I was always shocked by the low rate people said you can expect to win at. I mean I am no superstar and $75/hour was playing super deep and at some no max buy in tables back in the day, but I cannot imagine running at anything less than $30/hour over a long sample even at just the 100bb buy in tables. I will probably try out Cherokee next weekend and see how it compares. In looking back at my live play from previous years, Id say 90% was at $300 max buy in tables or no max tables so that is certainly how I maintained the $75/hour clip. There is also some $1/$2 PLO mixed in there.

I think you sat next to me Friday Night. Table 4, I was on the end, the young guy with a decent stubble wearing a blue sweatshirt. Wanted to say something but I think its kinda taboo to mention such things at the table. If you go down again, maybe we can split a room and or driving, the 10hrs of car was killer

Friday night I had on a Dark blue button down shirt, my name on the table was duck sauce as well. I think I played from 8:30pm friday to 5:30am sat at table 5. Where are you driving from? Going to write up my opinions on the room later tonight (just woke up from sleeping for about 20 hours straight need food).

I'd always heard 10-40BB/hr was the range. So $75 is top of that range.

PM me if you're going to Charleston. It'd be great to meet up and chat. I had 3 hour session Saturday and was up $530 but I was running pretty good. (other than a stack-sucking hand where guy hit runner runner flush in the face of bets on every turn, lol)

Why you playing 1/2 rather than 2/5? Seems like you're donkey crusher at 1/2 but it's not that much harder at 2/5 many places.

Thoughts and opinions on pokerpro tables @ harrahs cherokee nc

Pokerpro does a very good job of blending many of the positives of both online and live play. It however also has it's problems including some of the best reasons to play live or online as well, so it isn't without its own faults and short comings.

Lets start out with the positives:

The interface is very easy to use aside from really needing something other than your finger to press the buttons; fingernail, chips, card all work well. Being able to see everyone's exact stack size, as well as the pot size is very nice to have live. Even though I'm pretty good at calculating this on the fly live, having it there allows me to allocate more time into thinking about other things.

Having a built in time bank is a ****ing godsend for live poker. Nothing can be more frustrating sometimes than those players who take 2 minutes every hand to make every decision. The play on the pokerpro tables is much faster (40-50 hands per hour), especially post flop, with the max time any player can take to act is 45 seconds I believe.

No angling/people trying to get fancy with fake checking/betting. This is self explanatory but the computer dictates has the final say on all actions so you never have to worry about someone checking with a stack of chips in their hand etc. Cuts out a lot of the bull**** that people try to pull live, very nice and subtle positive to the pokerpro tables.

I personally played smaller stakes online, having to pay off large amounts of student loans really stifled my ability to increase my bankroll to the point where I felt comfortable moving up limits. Playing 1/2 live puts a lot of my bankroll at risk as I usually like to have 100 buy ins for any limit I'm playing. For any player who plays 10nl-50nl online and is forced to play live no to try and make a living, not having a minimum rake and not having to tip dealers makes the transition much easier. Going off my own general policy of tipping 1$ per winning hand, and the no minimum rake + the tables ability to take 25 cent increments instead of rounding up to the dollar I'd say I saved anywhere between 150-200$ in 20 or so hours of play. This alone is massive for someone in my position. This matters much less if you are playing 2/5 or 5/10 live, but for someone trying to win consistently at 1/2 live these 2 factors make it go from fairly tough, to very doable.

Now lets move on the negatives:

The biggest downside to the electronic tables is that you won't get the random dead money walk ins/drunks that you do at most normal tables. In most poker rooms you can always count on the occasional random person or drunk to walk by and just get the urge to sit down and play poker (eventually dumping off all the money they sat down with). With the pokerpro tables this will simply rarely ever happen. For a drunk or a random person, going to the cage to put money on their card, then figuring out how to press the buttons (for the drunk at least) is a daunting task that requires much more effort than sitting down and getting chips like in most rooms.

This didn't happen at all to me, but it did on another table. With anything electronic there is always the possibly of hardware/software malfunctions. The downside of this should be obvious, as it could completely ruin play. The pokertek guys spent an extensively long period working on one of the tables to try and fix it. Hopefully this isn't something that happens often.

Final Verdict:

Ultimately for people trying to make a living at 1/2 live and don't have the bankroll to comfortably play 2/5 pokerpro tables are incredible alternative to online play and much better than normal 1/2 live tables. If you are playing 2/5 and up the edge pokerpro tables have is probably much more negligible. As per live vs online, I will always personally prefer online play. I will however say this, if online play was available and I lived close to harrahs cherokee I would definitely try to play live much more than I would if it was a regular poker room (if I was playing 1/2).

Side note: The average player is just as bad as any live casino. I'd say there was maybe 1 player per table that was above average.

I'm driving from Raleigh.

Perhaps it wasn't you, I was going by the twitter photo that I had seen like 4 hrs earlier so I could be wrong.

The lack of tipping is definitely great, as well as the ~30% more hands. I did still see a few people who just didn't know how to play poker sit down, so what you said isn't 100% true. If I'm not mistaken, alcohol isn't free though so less drunks.

Hit me up next time you go though, I'm still currently reeling from my losses (~$2500 below EV on my last two casino trips) but I'm sure I'll muster up the forces to go out again in a few weeks/month.

*edit*

Also I find the table etiquette to be pretty annoying without a dealer. Lots of people not in the hand going "oh man I woulda had top two if I didn't fold" is pretty poor but not much you can do about it.

Also, WTF is up with people who sit for like 4 hands, 25 min break, 4 hands, break, ad nauseum. It really drives me nuts to see someone just waste seats at my table and possibly kill the game because we can't fill the seat and they just don't play.

Oh I know it will happen with randoms coming it, I just mean you won't have anywhere near as many as you normally would. I also noticed the break thing, pretty annoying. I know who you are talking about who you might of thought was me, I think his table name was nitty smalls, wore a plaid white/blue button down shirt, with short spiky hair.

As to the talking about hands thing, It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. If people started talking to much I had no problem telling them to cut it out and they would generally respect my request. I would have no problem calling the floor if someone continued to do it.

Simply put, with over 15 k total stuck online at the moment, 2/5 could put too much of a beat on my wallet if I went on too terrible of a run. I have also always lived off my bankroll and instead of playing 2/5 I would use my excess 1/2 roll, after living expenses, to play big buy in tournaments. I will probably stick to that plan but of course will definitely mix in more 2/5 when I have my online money released.

Nice review there Duck. I am liking what I hear. Table talk issue is definitely annoying but I am definitely not gun shy about letting someone know their talk about what they folded can alter the entire outcome of the hand in question. How many tables did they have going when you were there?

I got there thursday morning at 8am and there was 1 1/2nl running. There was anywhere between 1-3 tables of 1/2nl running during the midday. Evening there would be 4-5+ tables of 1/2nl 1 table of 2/5nl and 1 table of 3/6 limit. From what people who frequent there a lot the 2/5 game is fairly rare. I'm curious as to how things are during the week. If I had to guess there would prob be 1 game of 1/2nl running from noon till like 7-8 then prob 2-3 the rest of the night.

Also this is slightly off topic, but made a difference for me. There is a cooler in the back of the room with water so you don't have to ask a waitress for it. Since alcohol isn't free (ie no reason to drink for me), all I usually get is water and occasionally coffee. So this will save you a few $ from tipping waitresses for bringing you water if you are like me and get a lot of waters (small bottles so I get 2-3 an hour).

If you saw my other Harrah's thread, My bad, I usually search I don't know why I didn't this time. Anyway, looking to go this weekend will make sure and post again to confirm. Would love to talk poker(not at the table) with any regs there, no one I know really knows anything about poker. I sifted through like 350+ posts and wasn't sure about the Headsphones thing, are they not allowed? I just want to bring some tunes in case the tables quite or there is noise or something (First B&M trip.) If the table is talkative I'll probably try to contribute to up the mood.

No electronic devices at the table, so no music. Most of the "regs" there are pretty mediocre at best, I wouldn't bother talking with them unless you are giving them misinformation.

Depending on some things this week I might try and go again either this week or weekend. Will update in case anyone is also considering going. I'll know probably by tuesday night what my plans are.

Mostly just meant any decent 2+2ers, but what about phones? And I haven't seen any mention of comps for a couple hundred posts or so, how does that work, or does it at all now?

EDIT: And thanks for the info 2+2

Yeah the water is super nice since I generally go through at least one an hour. Most of the time I was at the casino, 4-8 tables were full. At 4am and 9am it was more sparse but never dead.

As for the table talk, I sat through one hand where someone who folded just kept saying "man I had K7 if only i had stuck in I woulda flopped 2 pair... blah blah." Meanwhile, significant heads up action is going on and I'm just so happy I'm not in the pot, dealing with this guy vocally killing cards. I told him to shush but I doubt he got the message.