I miss the Isle. Ill come back some day

How many players registered for Event 1 of the Isle Classic?

So far we have 82 registered for the first event. Should be well over $100K in the prize pool. Hope to see you there.

Great to hear tourneys are kicking.

I'm headed down tomorrow and looking forward to cash game action.

Are the tourneys in the same room but to one side of the area? less cash games than usual or more as people in town to play.

Thanks.

212 entries for day 1. 106,000$ in prize pool already after day 1.

A comment for Mike Smith:

Delays at the tables at the Isle are really getting out of hand. Player buy-ins at the tables, players stopping the action to color up their chips, constant bank fills and counting banks are ridiculous.

Couldn't a lot of that be avoided? Make players buy in at the cage before sitting down at the table. Every other room I have every played does that, including your Florida competitors. I have never been in a room where players are allowed to stop all action at the table by coloring up their chips -- sticking out a couple of stacks of reds in exchange for greens. That is becoming more and more common in your room, and it's extremely annoying. And all of this leads to dealers needing to stop the action further far too often to get a bank fill.

Mike, please address this problem. It's really gotten out of hand at the Isle.

I agree... the player buy ins at the table slows down the game at a tremendous rate. Besides the time it takes for the dealer to count out the money and hand the player their chips, it seems like dealers are calling for a bank fill every 20 minutes or so, and at times this can get extremely frustrating. Like the above poster said, these stoppages along with the bank counts and dealer changes makes for a very slow game. With that said, I absolutely love the Isle and it is the only poker room I play in south florida... In my opinion no other room compares to it.

First buy-in at the cage and no color ups at the table... I agree. Room is run pretty well, although I do notice people sometimes transfer to other tables without notifying the floor when there is a list for that. There also should be more floor people walking around instead of having the brush at the front desk handle so much.

Pretty amazing you guys are talking about this on here.

Friday night this was brought up and i kept an eye on it all weekend. Played Friday-Sunday at this place.

It's a well run room, great service from waitstaff/food service as well as strong dealers. My favorite by far in Florida.

We counted two bank fills issued PER DEALER friday. Dealer sat down and had to reload the bank. Halfway through her down, she did it again. 3 players timed her. It took about 4 minutes per fill till the next hand was dealt. Not her fault but more of an issue with the "process".

It would be easier if a player is called for a table, they are told to go to the cage first. and/or have the dealer hold the persons spot and ask them to go to the cage. OR have a chip runner automatically hit the table with the new player and have the player playing behind while the chips are brought.

All three of these processes would help speed up hands and make it a more fluid experience. Many card rooms around the country have these same process rules established.

The problem is the yellow ($2) chips. The are unnecessary, needlessly complicate things and waste precious space in the bank.

How many fills would be cut out if each dealer had 3-4 additional stacks of red chips and the dealer only had to keep a supply of white, red and green chips in the bank?

Watch how much time is wasted counting the bank due to the yellow chips. A smart dealer only loses ~1 minute. The less smart dealers easily waste 2-3 minutes trying to figure out how much they have in the bank, repeatedly counting the odd yellow and white chips.

The wasted time due to the number of bank fills and dealer inability to count the bank is currently my biggest complaint about the Isle.

Coming back to my Home Base in 2 weeks..... OHHHHH YEAAAAAA

Mike Smith,


1. I agree with getting rid of $2 chips in NL games as it slows down game when dealers count their banks and when players ask dealers to break $2 chip in order to tip dealer or waitress. Please get rid of $2 chips on NL games.

2. Coloring-up chips at the tables slows down game tremendously as some players go from green $25 chips to red $5 chips all the time. Dealers have to stop everything they are doing to accomodate some players who ask for coloring up all the time. Please disallow coloring-up option or have chip runners handle color-up.

3. I visited a harrahs casino in kansas city and they had an efficient set up on how to deal with first buyins to not slow down games. The first buyings was handled by the front desk. So a player got their chips and seat assignments from the front desk. Just have a chip runner next to the front desk with a mobil chip cart to handle first buy-in.

And last 3 items:

1. I asked this question over 5 months ago and nothing has changed yet, what is going with separating bad beat between NL and limit? 3 weeks ago in my table we lost an opportunity to hit the mini because of the betting in a NL game. It would of hit in a limit game. NL players have a big disadvantage over Limit players eventhough we are paying same price. Or give the NL players an option if they want their table to be part of the bad beat jackpot. Better yet have a seperate bad beat for 1-2NL, 2-5NL, 5-10NL, etc.

2. The other night during the graveyard hours my 1-2NL table broke and I ask 1 of the supervisor if we could make it 11 handed on the last 1-2NL table. The supervisor said no. I went to the hardrock for the remainder of my session.

3. During graveyard hours when there are no players coming in and a player requests a table change to another table. What is policy? Say for example my table has 9 players including me and the other last table has 9 players. So by changing table one table will have 8 players and the other table would have 10 players. I tried to be reasonable and waited for 15 minutes to see if any new players showed up but didnt happen as new players during graveyard shift is rare. I was not accomodated for table change so I went to the hardrock for the remainder of my session. How would you handle this allow player to take his business to a competing casino or accomodate player?

Thank you.

First let me say I appreciate and respect everyone's input. However, w/o $2 chips, we would do more fills, not less. They wouldn't be because of player buy-ins, but fills for rake and JP...$1 chips basically. We only count the banks every 4 hours, not every 30 minutes, so I'm not sure I understand the comments about counting banks.
In my opinion, with the location of our cage and the average age of our guests, sending them to the cage is poor guest service. So I don't really have a solution for that.
We had a rolling cart for fills that lasted one day and the State determined we couldn't use one. I would like to put one by the brush stand, but we have our own eternal security issues with that process.
We discussed separating the bad Beats, but it became a moot point when the last 3 were hit on NL tables.
You should have been allowed to play 11 in those circumstances you described and i will look into it.
Very few cards rooms will allow you to move under the conditions you described. Making one game 8 handed to fill the other. That's SOP in a card room.
Hope I covered everything. Again thanks for the comments

Looking forward to seeing you

Constantly interrupting play to allow new players to buy in at the table and to color up players' chips and then to do at least one and sometimes two bank fills per down is poor customer service and cuts into profits, IMO.

I'm not really sure what its called, but the tournament podium (brush stand?) on the right side of the room has no problem getting rebuys for the 5/10 NL game. There's one on the left side of the room as well but it doesn't always seem to be in use. I was at the table (5?) next to it and wanted a colorup from red to green. I was pretty surprised to see the brush go across the room when I was close enough to touch the brush stand. I don't see why just always using both brush stands or hiring an extra brush or two wouldn't be a solution.

Mike, Love the poker room. it's my second home when i come into town now.

Every player that buys in at the table cleans out most of the red. Second or third player buys in within 15 mins, guess what, rack is empty. dealer stops action and has to call brush etc.

True, it happened twice per dealer on Friday at 1/2 NL.

i love the $2 chips btw and agree about needing them.

Mike ... been playing at the ISLE for the last two weeks.. mostly just 5/10 nl. great room and great dealers. you guys seem to hit the nail on the ball when it comes to running a poker room. Hardrock does not get 5/10's going every night and when they do they only get 1 table. So zero table selection. Also the hardrock is dead during the day, where Isle has 2-3 5/10 games going by 1pm.

Only suggestion i will make is the following: NEVER and i mean NEVER get that 5/10/20 game going. The 3 blind game will wipe out the 5/10 nl like it has done at the hardrock.
The poker economy flops up from the bottom. When i was in south florida at the hardrock in sept there was 4 5/10 nl games.. in the main room.. seems like every 2/5 player wanted to take shots. Not that they have 5/10/20 games there are huge stacks and a lot of people go broke because of the varience.. doesn't allow for people to take shots or move up limits (from 2-5 to 5/10). Now i go to the hardrock during the day and see 1 5/10/20 game going and zero 5/10s.

Keep up the good work.

Oh and i am the Canadian kid.. (supervisors have probably warned you about me hehe)

P.S. You can get it all!

Damn canadians trying to ruin high stakes games cuz they're too Bustoed to play

Why not run no 5/10s just to make sure nobody gets busted

Thanks, we do appreciate those kind words and we will consider your comment on the 5-10-20

Mike, what LIMIT games are being spread right now? Either limit holdem or limit Omaha. I am thinking of running up there for a few hands and take in a few races...

mike please consider moving your 3k main event at the end of your april series so those of us coming for the 10k at hard rock can play, right now it conflicts with NAPT mohegan sun

we are running 4-8 Hold'em and Omaha 8 daily

Anyone playing 1/2 or 2/5 Friday afternoon/evening Feb 4th and same on Saturday?

i am headed in town and plan on seeing some flops at my home away from home.

That chilli they have is pretty dang good. Burnt my tongue last time. As long as i could still say "raise" i was good.

Hope to meet you one day - I bleed orange. Tough 4 game losing streak after going 18-0. And tomorrow is at Uconn