Has there been any word on when tournaments will start? I am guessing that it will be after the hard opening, which is now Friday?

At least a month before they give any time frame on tournaments I wad told

This was on their website...
http://www.hollywoodcasinocharlestow...ino/Poker.aspx

I guess that means it is official that on Friday they go 24/7 (or at least the official goal)

I wonder if its at noon or 8pm or some other time... Like I said before, I would be willing to go for some opening festivities, if there are any.

It wasn't 90 minutes; it was 25. Remember, they don't start calling names and seating people until 8:00. People missing their names being called is the only thing I can think of that makes sense for me to get called up that quickly. But I wasn't arguing.

I was the 5th person to leave my table from the time I sat down until I left about 12:30.

When I sat down it seemed like the main focus of the table was not to get involved in a large pot. Lots of limping, passive play, and small bets. Typical PF raise was $5-7 regardless of the number of limpers. Post flop bet sizing—on average—was small, and bore little relationship to the size of the pot.

It reminded me of being in the Showboat early in the afternoon when the games are just getting started, and a bunch of limit players join a NL game while waiting for their limit game to start: they still bet like it's limit.

Early on, the guy on my right straddles to $5; and when the dealer announces my straddle to $5 on the next hand, there was an audible groan from about half the table.


When I sat down? $175-225.


--klez

thank you Klez!

The goal is certainly to go 24/7 on Fri., but that's still just a goal.

I think the key thing to note here is that they don't give the hours for Fri. and beyond.


Asking them that question at this time will probably get you the very definitive response of: "We don't know yet."


--klez

Your welcome.


--klez

I just cant wait till Friday and there will always be a game open when i want to play. Thanks to Klez for the great live reporting and the info. Hopefully people will read that before posting about the same stuff like whether they personally like the rake vs. time issue. Bottom line is if you dont like it keep going where you used to play. As for me, I will make sure I re-raise enough limp,limp,limp, raise to 7$ pots like those who have played there are saying, so I can beat the time or rake whatever it is.

With the timed rake are you paying for the upcoming 30 minutes or the 30 minutes that just passed?

This makes sense.

As good a job as C-Town has done getting the room up and running in such a short time frame, they still have a ton of work to do:

1. They need a cage in the poker room, which I overheard a floor saying they were going to build.

2. Though they are swiping player's cards at the table, and supposedly recording your time, they still don't know what the comps will be yet.

3. They need dealers, and to finish installing the remainder of the tables.

4. There's probably a dozen or more things that I don't even know about that they need to get straight.


I would expect no movement on tournaments until they get the cash side completely up, and are satisfied that it is running smoothly.


--klez


Oh, yeah: they had a couple of young ladies working as chip runners, though at the 1/2 tables you could rebuy from the dealer for up to $100.

Don't interpret the grand opening stuff to mean that's when the poker room goes 24/7: they are two separate things.


I walked through the table games area before I left about 12:30am.

The minimum bet on everything I saw was at least $25. BJ was $50 & up.

There weren't many empty seats.


--klez

Alright since I live 5 minutes from the track, and I played there for a few hours on Saturday night I'll comment. Keep in mind this is from Saturday, it appears they had more tables running sunday or monday
1. Some of the dealers sucked, some were good and had obviously dealt before. One guy didn't know how to high card. For the most part they were pretty damn slow.
2. I camped out in line at like 5:45 to get my name down at 7:00. I probably actually sat down at 8:30. They had 6 tables. 2 3/6 limit, 2 1/2 nlhe, 2 2/5 nlhe. I played 2/5, the rake was $6 every 30 minutes. I was going to play 1/2, but I wasn't early enough in line, the 1/2 tables filled up immediately. I was number 28 on the 1/2 list and number 18 on the 2/5 list, so I got to sit immediately at 2/5.
3. I believe the min/max are 60/300 for 1/2 and 200/500 for 2/5.
4. The tables, chairs, and chips are all very nice. The setup of the room is nice. There are bathrooms and a smoking section nearby.
5. Rail drinks and draft beer are free via cocktail waitresses that came around frequently and did a nice job.
6. The staff was very helpful. I said get me 3 chip trays, so they did. I gave them 220 reds and said color me up so they took my trays at the table and came back with 11 $100 chips immediately.
7. You had to go downstairs to the main cashier's cage. The line was 60 people deep when I stopped playing around midnight. I tried to cut in line and got caught, so I just left. I went back Monday to cash the chips in around noon, and the line was like 30 people long, so I waited.
8. The 1/2 game looked like the softest game ever. Tons of women and dirty old rednecks. The 2/5 game had mostly younger people, one or two old guys who weren't very good. In general, the people weren't really good but they certainly weren't terrible. Pretty easily beaten. I won $800 in like 3 hours. I plan on playing 1/2 in the future just because the people looked so terrible.
9. To my knowledge, the grand opening is this weekend, and they should be fully staffed/licensed and be able to open up tables based on the demand. Apparently the state of WV is taking forever to issue licenses, and many of the dealers were on temporary licenses. I would not expect any tournaments to be run within the next few weeks.
10. These games WILL be soft, there are a ton of degen gamblers here, and I've played in all the terrible ass home games around here, and there are really like zero good players.
11. As for blackjack, the table minimums were far too high for me, and I don't know if I could have gotten a seat without waiting for an hour and shoving myself through spectators. However, they have a lot of blackjack tables, just no dealers behind them. Like 30.

In conclusion, it's pretty ****ty right now. Its very nice, but if you want to go there and play efficient poker without waiting in lines, then you should probably wait a couple weeks. I'm going back tonight since I live beside it, I'll probably get there at 6 or 6:15, and if I can't get on the first 2 1/2 or 2/5 tables then I will be leaving. Camping out in line just to get your name on the list is not worth it. If I had to guess, I would say they will only have 6 tables going again tonight, but I could be wrong. They have said multiple times they will be opening more tables throughout the week, but it was 6 on friday and saturday. If I head out there tonight, I'll update this post.

Does anyone know of the 10-20 limit games are raked or timed? I cannot seem to find this out when calling.....

The limit games are pot raked

10/20 limit is raked 5% up to $6

You don't pay time when you sit down; you pay at every dealer change.

The first thing every dealer does when coming to the table is collect time. Some were asking players not in the current hand to get their $6 ready before the dealer they were replacing had even finished with their final hand at the table, in order to speed up the process.

In that sense, I guess, you're paying for the upcoming 30 minutes.


--klez

According to klezmaniac who posted earlier itt, they had 10 tables open last night (right, klez?). Hopefully it will be at least that number tonight.

I work less than an hour drive from CT, so I may check it out this evening too.

Keep in mind, my comments regarding this were about a specific table within a specific time frame.

When the guy came over from 5/10 and started straddling for $25, he got action both times I saw him do it.

When he busted me it was late (for me), and I had an hour drive ahead of me, so I decided to pack it in.

If this had happened earlier in the evening, I would have reloaded and fastened my seat belt.

YMMV



--klez

Klez, Straddle for 25 at the 1-2. I now know who you are talking about

It seems every night they try to add another table or two. I would expect at least 10 tables tonight. 11 or 12 would be nice.

And props to HB for noting the stakes at every table.


If I was going up tonight—or any other night this week—my goal would be to get there between 6 and 6:30. Yeah, it sucks standing in line for that long, but you'll have plenty of company and conversation, and a decent chance of getting a seat when they start.

If you want to play the lowest stakes, but are comfortable playing higher, bring the money to play higher: you have a better chance of getting a seat.


--klez

My new friend.


--klez

Are the tables going into their permanent location are do they have them somewhere else? If they're in the poker room, how many tables do you think they could get in the room?

The 27 tables that are assembled (only 10 running) are in their permanent spot. The poker room is a floor in between the simulcast area and the grandstands.

There was talk by the casino in earlier months that they 'had the ability to expand if demand was high'. You can read into that however you want. But there's basically no way to fit more than 5 additional tables in that area without knocking down walls.

My futile hope is that there is such a demand over the next 3, 4 months that they realize they should make a mega room (80-ish tables) and start building it somewhere outside the current facility.

I think charles town races has been open since the '30s. And the grandstand area building that immediately borders the racetrack, from what I guess, seems to be the oldest area of the facility. (You can tell it looks like a renovated old building, bathrooms really dated etc). The rest of the casino that has slots and table games is much newer looking. Those areas look like they were built in the late '90s or early '00s. In terms of decor, those areas can almost hang with some vegas strip properties, certainly better than older AC joints.

God I hope they're thinking of a mega room.

Here what we know so far:

http://www.charlestowncasino.com/poker/

Buyins: Min/Max are 60/300 for 1/2 and 200/500 for 2/5. Not sure of others.

# of Tables: Currently Open 10-12 tables. Adding more daily as dealer licenses are approved, opening night is either Wed or most likely Friday. Conflicting info on when they go to max 24/7.

Hours: Poker room hours are 8pm - 4am currently until Friday 9th July. You can start getting on a name list at 7:00 pm.

Spread: Most recent spread (July 5th) was: 4 - 1-2 tables, 2 - 2-5 tables, 2 - 3-6 tables, 1 - 5-10nl, 1 - 10-20l

Rake: No limit games are time raked at $6 per 30 minutes collected at dealer change. Limit games are raked at 10% at $10 up to $60.

Bad Beat Jackpot: There won't be any for a while.

Tournaments: There won't be any for a while.

Wait List: Same as most rooms.

Comps: They are swiping cards and tracking time but not awarding comps yet.

Smoking: Poker Room in Non Smoking, smoking area is close by.

Other need to knows:

1. All equipment/chips/cards are top of the line. Individual adjustable seats, auto shufflers, etc.
2. All rail drinks, beer (natty light), water, soda is free. Anything above rail is cash.
3. Bathrooms near by.
4. Room is very nice, but a little hot. 79 degrees on Saturday Night.
5. Cashing chips in is a pain right now, you need to go down stairs and wait in the table games lines.

If the 10/20 ever goes, I hope they don't still with this.

That would be odd to do time on the 1/2 NL games where most people are used to and prefer a rake, and rake on the 10/20 where most players are used to and prefer a time charge.

If they do it this way, they are certainly going out of their way to do whatever they think will take in the most money the quickest, without caring about the player base.