Bellagio has dancing fountains with lights and music
Venetian has indooor and outdoor canals with gondolas.
Showboat AC has a view from the poker room of the Boardwalk and the ocean.

And Harrah's Chester poker room has floor to ceiling windows with a fabulous view of.....wait for it.....the state prison across the street.

Hahahahahahaha.

Now, that's brilliant planning.

Rumor was they are going to buy some of that land. I guess the prison is moving?

Not exaggerated at all. However, the guards cited NV. Why wouldn't they cite PA? I bet they don't know their own laws. Morons. And, why wouldn't you be allowed to take a picture inside a casino?

Photography is not a crime.

if you think about it.. it IS brilliant...
if places like venetian/bellagio/showboat gave you a view you'd look outside and see the beautiful scenery think man I should leave here and go outside and do something... casino's dont want you to leave.. so no view..
at chester they give you a view so you see the prison and you're too scared to leave..

Agrees with most things said so far, was a bad opening and had ALOT of issues but that is to be expected, security was alittle rude with people and dealers were not prop trained I was sitting 1/2 so whatever but if i was sitting 5-10 or 10-20 i would be pissed. THey really shoulda offered half rake yesterday as a curtousy because i had a few dealers with less then 15 HPH. I really do see the potential and believe it could be the premier poker room in the area. SO continue to give feedback and support. I think I would have more(negative) to say if I didnt cash out $1200 from a $150 buyin?? game was softer than a carton of eggs. Def more recreational players then delaware who seems to have all the maryland rounders filling up the seats.

Went today for about 4 hours. (11am - 3pm)

The bad/terrible:
-- Waited at the desk for 5 minutes before floor spoke to me. They seemed more interested in telling the dealers to wait in the breakroom for their shift to start. Then he asked if I needed him to explain the waitlist. Dude, I may be a woman, but I'm not stupid. Do I need to waive the Platinum Total Rewards card I earned by playing poker under your nose?

-- Rather annoying to have play stopped just prior to every dealer push. Do they really need to fill $63 worth of chips in their rack?

-- Lovely view of the prison from the room. Also, the windows are on the west side of the building. Even though they have shades, I'm sure it will get blazing hot in that room at some point.

-- Tables are too crowded together. Every dealer bumped my seat during push at the table behind me. How many said "sorry"?? Exactly ZERO.

-- The cage is horrible. I waited for five minutes after the customer in front of me left so the cage person could count, re-count, re-re-count, and re-re-re-count the chips again and again. She counted those chips 8 times! And then said, "Geez, did I pay him too much?" (referring to the previous customer).

-- Floor was very slow in coming to the table when questions arose.

-- NEVER SIT IN SEAT 10! The rake box opens towards seat 10 and knocks over their chips. Bad, bad design.

-- The WSOP logo does make it very hard to see chips and Total Rewards cards if they are flipped over.

-- They need to get some food tables. But, now that I think about it... they have no place to put them if anyone is sitting in seats 4 through 7 due to how crowded it is.


The OK/good:
-- Servers were visible. Never in need for a drink. However, they need to have a place to put trash and the cup holders when not in use. The floor is not a good idea... do you want your drink in a holder that was on the floor?

-- Valet was very quick.

-- Very fishy at the tables. Easy to make $$ today!

-- The ride home was 30 minutes instead of two hours. That's a very good thing!


A word about the dealers. Every dealer I had for the 4 hour stretch was new. They were nervous and very worried about getting everything correct. (Some admitted that.) Most will get better with time, but I had one who just won't make it. His hands shook so bad, I felt sorry for him. But, give these folks credit... most needed a job in this economy and at least are trying to better themselves.

This was Day #2... hopefully, things will get better.

You really need to relax, no casino anywhere allows photography of the gaming floor period! Casinos and banks my man casinos and banks, allow no flash or digital photography of any kind! Is it really that hard for you to understand? I would agree i witnessed sercurity being rude to several patrons but they are well within there rights to question you about your camera. You ovbiously havnt been in alot of casinos. If anything you were wrong.

I've had the exact same thing happen to me at the Borgata and we were just in a slots area.

Most casinos post signs near the doors prohibiting photography.

Maybe. But I couldn't find a law prohibiting picture taking (Or any signs at Chester). Thousands of people take pictures inside of Casinos per year. yes/no?

They opened yesterday at 6 Am.

I would say no. I mean, its one thing to get your phone and take a picture of your chips on the table, its another to hold it up and stand back and take a full fledged picture.

I'm pretty sure it's common knowledge you can't take pictures in a casino.

I got there at midnight, but they said they didn't open till 6.

Someone told me that Phil Hellmuth was going to be there to open up the room, but I have not seen any coverage of this. Any confirmation on this? Yes No?

Maybe. However, they were incredibly rude to say the least. And, even so, there are other pics of this room posted in the thread. And, I have seen tons of pics of the Wynn and other Casino's .... I don't know ... maybe I'm way off here. But, in anycase, to each his own.

They are advertising Shannon Elizabeth in early August. No posters of Phil.

It is pretty common knowledge you can't take pictures in the casinos at least on the East coast. I know when I take pictures I do it on the sly.

As far as the dealers being green, that is a tiny price to pay for having card rooms in PA, it was part of what allowed table games to pass in PA was all the job creation to PA residents.

"worst" poker room is a ridiculous exaggeration. Posting up a simple review is different than posting the same empty statement multiple times, just ends up being trolling.

There are definite negatives, but most will get sorted out over time.

At the 2+2 party at Aria, Lee Jones came in with a nice camera, all ready to take pictures, and was promptly told that he couldn't.

It was quickly escalated up the chain and he was given the OK to go ahead, and you can guess from all the photos on 2+2 that this permission was freely given. But it appeared that standard policy in the Aria was that this wasn't usually permitted.

I came back again tonight and played from 6pm-3am at 2/5 NL. Did well, games are still much softer than Borgata and Taj. The dealers are improved a tad bit but that isn't saying much. The floor is still horrendous. And all the floor people seem to be way overweight and they shove all the seats around when they have to maneuver around tables. So annoying.

There was a deep, big action, 5/10 NL game going tonight. Average stacks were all around $2000 at one point. One guy at the table ran his stack up to $7,000+ from a starting buyin of $300 at 1/2.

I really didn't see the problems some are posting here. I played from about 1 a.m.-3:30 a.m. Monday night/Tuesday morning. Dealing wasn't fast, but it wasn't brutally slow, either.

Won $107 in 2.5 hours. I'll be back regularly.

Today will be there third day open... They are going to have a lot of things they need to iron out. So the complaints about the wait are not surprising. But my experience is good so far and I plan on playing there this evening... Give them about a month or two get things flowing smoothly.

A dealer told me that all PA poker rooms will be charging a $5 rake.. is this true?
If so get rid of that BBJ. It's going to hard to beat the rake.

The dealer is wrong. Pocono Downs is $4. I think someone said no BBJ too, but I can't confirm that part.

By the way, as for the dealer problems - I think the main problem in PA is that dealers aren't allowed to play. So, anyone who enjoys playing poker would never become a dealer here. You end up with people dealing who don't know the game because they don't play it. Compare this to Vegas where the dealers are usually playing on their breaks. It's not uncommon at Bellagio to have the guy who just dealt you 30 minutes ago now sitting next to you as your opponent for 20 minutes during his break. That's why they get great dealers there.

Anyway, I'll be giving Chester a stab this weekend. I hope they have a $10-20 or higher LHE game going...

I saw Penn National is raking 10% maximum $6. I am not sure if they are taking an addional $1 for a bad beat jackpot.

To clarify- I heard from a Parx dealer that I know that the poker dealers (or, perhaps, all table games dealers, I'm not sure), aren't allowed to play in ANY casino room in PA.

Sounds like the AC rules from wayyyyy back, iirc, before they smartened up.

No- new dealer training school.