[QUOTE=StackerBA;20597529]There's an estimated 1.5 million people in the city of Philadelphia alone.
Any stats on people that are not alone, sir?

anyone know what 2/4 3/6 lists are like on saturday night?

[QUOTE=jasonb;20602673] The Greater Philadelphia - South Jersey metropolitan area consists of five counties in southeastern Pennsylvania - Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia, and four counties in Southern New Jersey - Burlington,Camden, Gloucester and Salem.

The metropolitan area's population (US Census 2001) is 5,116,830 which represented a growth of .3% from the estimated 1995 figure. The Greater Philadelphia / South Jersey metropolitan area is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United States, ranking behind New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

so in total including all the suburbs thats a pretty big player field, they should get more tables

Trip report / general observations.
Played at Harrah's Chester today from 1 PM until 7 PM.

1. 10 seat's a joke. Avoid at all costs.
2. The tables were a lot nicer than I expected, but that WSOP logo is a pain - seeing whites from the 2-3-4 and 7-8-9 seats can be difficult.
3. Tables are WAY too close together. Don't see them fixing that, either.
4. Mini cans of self serve soda was a really nice touch.
5. The $3 fries-as-big-as-your-head was awesome.
6. My biggest pet peeve about the operation - A shorter, stouter floor gentleman working the front desk needs to go immediately. Several of us watched incredulously as he argued with players, berated 2 dealers, and either couldn't or refused to answer basic questions. Example: "Hey, floor told me to go to table 21. Where's that?" "Good luck, buddy, your guess is as good as mine (said with a sneer, turning and walking away)". Or, "hey, there are open seats on 3-6, could you please call some names from the list?" "You know, every time you come and ask me a dumb question like that it takes time away from me actually filling those seats." No lie, it was astonishing. It was like anti-customer service. The guy was not only completely over his head, he was genuinely angry at all the players coming up and asking him questions, like you could tell he was thinking "what the heck are people doing coming up and bothering me all the time?" IT'S YOUR JOB, DUDE! Don't like it? Work at something that doesn't involve customer service. I give this yahoo 2 weeks. On the flip side, many props to [name removed], who I think is the floor manager. He was great. Polite, gracious, unflappable, swiftly moving, fixing everything in site as it fell apart around him - you could tell he knew what he was doing. With him there it will absolutely get better.
7. Dealers - Didn't have a bad one in the bunch. No mistakes, moderate speed dealing, no problems. Not sure what you folks have seen, but worked fine for me.
8. 3-6 LHE. Ugh. All the rocky regs from Harrah's AC are now here - what a bummer. Yeah, yeah, I know it's Saturday afternoon, but every 55 year old family man off for the afternoon nit in the tri-state area was here. Played at one table for 25 minutes. Here was the action on most hands: bet, foldx6, bet, small blind folds, big blind checks. In that half hour the most guys I saw in any pot was 5. Most pots were 3 or 4 people, with instafolds after the flop when people missed. For about 15 minutes there was one guy who came in who was a reliable fish and once he left to play 1-2, so did I. Never again.
9. 1-2 NLHE. Much, much better. Best of all worlds, at least at the table I was at. Everyone allowed everyone to limp in for 2 bucks, and people actually bet for real post flop. Good mix of players, loose aggressive, loose passive, one tight aggressive, a couple of people that thought they were playing limit, and a couple of calling stations. I didn't win but I was the most card dead I've been in about a year. I also didn't lose much because I got to see a lot of free cards and could get aggressive on the exactly 3 pots where I actually had a hand.

Regardless, the room was hopping. Waited a half hour to get on limit, but only 5 minutes to get back on 1/2. Maybe it's because I grew up in Philly, but it felt like a huge home game, especialy in the 1/2 game, with a great mix of South Philly and Delco characters. Anyway, the room is not nearly as bad as some people have said - it's a solid place to play NLHE. I live 10 minutes away from this casino and I probably won't be going anywhere else for a while. DP is 35 minutes no traffic, and forget A/C. If the 1/2 games stay like this I will definitely be playing here long term.

I am writing this at the table. I am currently sitting in a super action packed 10-20lhe game. Time charge is $5/ half hr same as ac. That is all.

This still amazes me. Any thoughts if they will expand?

Now I don't work for the casino or have any affiliation with it so this is just my opinion. I think that after the other big poker rooms in the area open (Parx and Sugarhouse) Chester is going to eventually have to reevaluate their poker room situation. If after those two rooms open and they are still over-flowing with customers and long waits they will, again imo, have to expand their room. But that is dependent on their business not declining, which I think it is bound to do after the opening of the other rooms.

Agreed. There won't be anything decided until after the other two Philadelphia area rooms open up. Chester is getting the bulk of the Philly business as it is. DP is getting Baltimore, No Maryland and No Delaware. Sugarhouse may bring in a different type of crowd simply because it's in town and other worries, such as Vine St and rush hour come in to play a little more than Chester or Parx. King of Prussia area residents will have equal distance choices with Parx and Chester..... and maybe less traffic on 76 then 476 depending on the time of day. Because of the New York opportunities, Parx could really grab a lot of market. But, Pa taxes, tighter slots, small comps in comparison to AC, more choices, tightly set up tables, FREE BOOZE, may make the extra half hour drive for New Yorkers to AC their best alternative. Ac is going to have to do something to keep it's market share. Look for parking charges of 5 bucks to go away, more free rooms, better poker rates and bigger and better tournaments. In the end, the players win regardless of what happens. None of Chester, Sugarhouse, DP or Parx will be empty and we, the player, will get more.

Yah I can't wait for Parx, but the traffic is a bit of a concern. 95S to Chester from the city is a breeze; although that little stretch of 676E you need to get to 95 is a mother****er. Of course 476s is terrible too. Standard play right now from work in Bala Cynwood is to take back roads to the city to 95; meh? Parx it sounds like will be a pain during rush hour regardless. I'll probably end up at Harrah's during the week and Parx on weekends.

Took my brother there last night and was my first time as well.

Whole night there was only 25-30 people on the 1-2NL list and the lists seemed to be moving pretty quick. My brother is not a serious player, he just likes to go have a few drinks and play some poker and he plays 2/4 or 3/6. I decide to keep him company at the 3/6 game. We only waited 10 minutes and were able to get seats at the same table. We played from 9-12 last night.

-Agree with others that the tables are too close together.
-Whoever designed how the rake drop is done should be fired, will suck for anyone in 10 seat.
-Wasn't as cold as people have said
-There is a lot of free space near the cashier. Could move some tables over a few feet and still have plenty of room for cashier line.
-Cashier is painfully slow.
-Dealers were not as bad as I had expected, but then again I only played 3/6.
-Floor was so so, not super fast filling seats.
-PLO game was going almost full or full whole time I was there
-Could Use some more waitresses, just not sure where they could walk.
-Overall room seems decent and will be better once they work out all the kinks. Be great if they expanded it however it does not seem to easily be done without knocking down walls or putting tables outside of the actual room.

Agree with whoever said the bathroom might be bigger then the poker room.


I play a lot of PLO and went over to see how the game was and was happy to see it running and hope it continues to. Biggest disappointment for me, The buyin for the 1-2 PLO game is 60-300, where most 1-2 PLO games I have played in are 100-500 for 1-2 and 200-1000 for 2/5. PLO is usually played deeper than NL. The PLO table won't have as much money as most usually do. Anyone who has Played PLO at the borgata or a place like that knows that a 1-2 PLO game could easily have over 10k on it. People will on average probably be buying in for much less. This game will probably be good but played much shallower which makes bad players mistakes not as incorrect.


Oh and we got there at like 8:30pm, this was our first time there after table games and I have always found a spot within 30 seconds, last night drove around for 10 minutes, parking is now a bitch with addition of table games.

I agree. I was a bit annoyed that I could not buy-in for 500 when I played last weekend. But a small added benefit is that we may get more people who understand PLO but are scared off by the higher buy-in into a 1/2 game. The 60 min is completely infuriating though, its just such a waste (and I don't want to here I once saw a guy go from Y to Z)

It was only my second time playing PLO....I liked the fact that I could try the game out in a live setting with only a $60 buy-in. Thanks for the night out. Lost say $60 dollars.

^^^

Would not have played if buy-in was higher.

This room needs more space, it feels like prison due to the over crowding. After time I hope they but the room on the other side over looking the horse track and water. Or just flip flop the horse racing tv's and the poker room lol

Seems like the Boulevard up to Ben Salem will be easier to parx from Bala then figuring out how to get to 95 thru west philly or fighting city line to 476 and then fighting that.

I definitely understand this and of course want the game to be as welcoming as possible for people looking to get into PLO. I also realize that with a 60-300 buy in more new players will try it out. My dream is one day that PLO is half as popular as NL and the room would have 10 1-2 NL and 5 1-2 PLO.

If they made it 100-300 would you have played and bought in for 100? I am very curious about this.

The nature of PLO is that there are on average more people to a flop and it is more of a drawing game with bigger pots then a NL game of the same stakes, with a lot of $60 stacks it really changes the game. Pots already get big fast with the nature of the game. I'm not trying to harp on/put down short stacking etc but here is a simple example.

$60 stack, PLO, you call a $12 raise PF on the button with A K 4 5, 5 to flop,
$60 in the pot. Flop comes 10 J 5

There is pot bet of $60 and a call, it is now on you. You have to put $48 in to win $156, plus possibility of 1 of the other 2 players left to act to call. You are getting anywhere from 3:1 to 5:1 on your money

You have a gutshot to the nuts, a pair, 2 back door flush draws, and a miracle running wheel. with a $48 stack you should prob call here and it would be the correct play.

Even if i give your opponents good hands, with you pretty far behind, your equity is still there: Here are some random hands i gave people, even some that take away outs of yours.

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=7445377
pokenum -o ah kc 4h 5c - td jd 8c 9s - 9d ts js qh - ks qc 5d 3c -- tc jh 5s
Omaha Hi: 528 enumerated boards containing 5s Tc Jh
cards------------EV
K 5 A 4 0.222
9 8 J T 0.226
J T 9 Q 0.347
K Q 3 5 0.205


And this is assuming the other people have hands this good, which they often won't. without making sure every part of your hand is dominated it is hard to get your equity below 20%.

If your stack is any bigger than this it is pretty much a snap fold. If several players buy in for the minimum it becomes much more bingo and less poker.

Sorry for the PLO derail, hoping it might help some people understand why the game would much be better if the minimum was 100 instead of 60.

/end derail

Did they fix the speakers yet? Last time I was there it was annoyingly loud.

Hey guys ... I'm a Borg. regular thinking of making a trip to Chester, as it's closer to my home in suburban Philly. At Borg., I play 2/5 NL and 1/2, 2/5 PLO when available (which is rare).

Can anyone comment on the PLO action at Chester? As those who play at Borg. know, the 1/2 plays more like 2/5 due to the typical $5 bring-in.

Any feedback on the PLO action would be greatly appreciated. Also ... how often does PLO run?

Thanks.

Check the 2 posts that I wrote a few posts up. The action is good as in most PLO games from what i observed Saturday night. I can't comment on how often it runs as i have only been there once. The major difference if you are used to the borgata game is that there will be less money on the table and a shallower game due to the 60-300 buyin instead of the 1-500 you are used to at the borg.

I don't think the music is even on anymore, so they must be listening to feedback. Biggest problem now is line-jumping. Half the open seats go to people on the list and half go to guys just circling around looking for someone to get up. This would drive me ape**** crazy if I were in line.

Yep, there's no control over the room. I find the older 'floor' man with the earing extremely rude.

I was there for six-plus hours Saturday night after midnight. The table I was at was boring as hell.

I really wish they'd do a better job of enforcing their rules and knowing what their rules are. One guy came from a broken game with more than $600 to a $1/$2 table. 3 different dealers gave 3 different responses about whether he was allowed to sit down with all his money. I could care less which is right, but there should be a simple rule, easy to follow that doesn't get screwed up.

I also saw people buy in for $50, which is $10 less than the $60 minimum. IMO, the $60 min needs to be increased. Playing at a table with 5 guys at $60 is a pain in the ass.

Also played with one of the weakest tightest players I've ever seen. Playing tight is fine, but limping with JJ, QQ and AK and then being forced to wonder where you're at is a joke. And that's a direct relation to sitting down with $60.

im assuming the plo game only runs on the weekends? went down last wednesday and ended up playing 2-5nl. i made a list of interest for 1-2 plo but no one put there name down.

Had a dealer on Sunday say that they were working very hard to prevent this. Then, 3 minutes later say to someone at my table, "Well, we need people in the seats since the floor is not seating fast enough. We need the money at the table." What? First, it takes the floor to actually be on the floor to control the room. Second, if the feeling is they need people in seats and "oh well" to the list, they are going to get their customers mad who will choose one of the 3 other poker rooms within a 30 minute drive.

From Sunday evening/night:
1. Dealers are improving. They also are getting annoyed at hearing "Dealers square your Bravos" every 10 minutes. The dealers seem to know that the floor is terrible and they will slowly start to loose business.

2. The cage is still very slow, but had many more people working to cut down on the line.

3. At one point had 3 open seats at our table with no waiting list. About 15 minutes later the list had 8 names on it and we still had our 3 seats. Players (not dealers) began shouting "seat open" and only then would the floor respond.

4. In my six hour session I saw a cocktail server exactly 4 times. One guy at my table waited over 20 minutes for a drink. I told another guy to just go to the bar outside the poker room himself to save time.

5. The floor is just terrible and getting worse. The cocky attitude from every single floor person needs to go. The experiment of taking marginal dealers from AC and promoting them just doesn't work. How hard is it to have the room broken into 3 floor sections and have someone be responsible for that section of the room? I saw one guy last night hardly ever move from the dealer table whiteboard. Lists were not moving when there were open seats everywhere EXCEPT when a dealer (no name as it will be removed) took it upon herself to seat people. At one point she took 11 or 12 of the 59 people 1/2 list into the room to seat them. She eventually pushed to my table and explained that the floor has no idea how to seat people. The floor seemed more interested in talking to their friends then understanding what is going on in their room. If there is every a serious issue I really don't think they have the knowledge to handle it.

6. The Bravo system. Good for tracking players. You can see your name so you know you are getting rated. They should have upgraded and added a dealer swipe so they know the exact times of push, what dealer is where, etc. That would make the "raise your hand if you have not been pushed" announcements. And someone needs to train the entire floor how to actually read the Bravo system. The dealers are updating their boards, but floor has no idea how to read the system for empty seats. And the customers are starting to understand that.

Made some money at the table, so a good night. A better night upstairs at a slot machine that returned by spin by over 500%!

The problem is not the dealers...it is the floor. Rude, incompetent and absolutley no common sense. Why open another 2/5 game with a list of 30 people and 4 tables running when you can open 7 stud that will have 4 or 5 players for and break-up...or 2x I have seen them open 10/20 limit, and it plays short and breaks up in a couple of hours. Supply and demand.

Dealers some good some so so but all in all getting better.

Will still go to Harrahs but also will continue to go to Borgota. Hopefully Parx will be better.

The better card rooms try to spread a variety of games. Games in Poker often rotate. 15 years ago everyone played Stud. 10 years ago everyone played Limit Hold 'em. For the past 5-6 years, everyone is playing no limit hold 'em. But, a good card room should make an effort to spread all the games, not just the current fad, so that when the tide turns to the next popular game, people will know that this room will spread it.

Another reason many make extra efforts to spread limit games is because they move so much faster then NLH. There's no hollywooding in limit. People make quick decisions, especially in a mid limit game like $10-20. So, if it's a raked game, the house brings in more rake. And, whether it's timed or raked, no matter what, the dealer collects more tokes dealing more hands.

Just to give an example - the Venetian in Vegas has gone as far as offering $2 rakes in limit games to try to attract them. Even at half rake, they deal so many more hands, it's worth it to them.

I understand the logic of offering a variaty of games, however, their needs to be some consideration of supply and demand. I used to own shoe stores and I thought it was nice to offer up a shoe in 3 or 4 colors, but given that 90% of my sales were black shoes, i bought 90% of my shoes in black.

Also is there really a need to offer up both 2 / 4 and 3 / 6 limit. I would think the prudent thing would be to offer up one or the other.

With 25 tables and demand exceeding supply for most hours of the day give the people what they want. If you have a bigger room you can offer up the variety, but there is no way that it makes sense to run some of the games they do at the expense of NL holdem, IMO. What will happen when Parx and others open, the NLH player will go their and my guess is that there are not many poker rooms thriving that are not predominantly NLH.

Also rudeness is INEXCUSABLE. Again IMO.