Yeah, so I'm done with this room.

I show up yesterday at about 2pm looking to play 2-5 for a good 10+ hours, and when I show up there's no 2-5 running. Okay, so I grab a bite to eat and sit 1-2, where there's an open seat, until they open a table with my name on the 2-5 interest list. I'm 4th or 5th on the 2-5 interest list.

I play 1-2 for a couple of rotations, and am playing my big blind when I get a text from the poker room saying my seat is available. I look up and sure enough, the list for 2-5 is flashing and there's a dealer starting to sit at table 1. I keep my eye on the table, which hasn't formed yet, and decide to play to my button. When my button hand hits I wind up involved in a hand that takes a few minutes, doubling up.

So I rack up and head to the 2-5 table only to find it full, with my name removed from the waiting list. I ask the floor guy what happened, as my name had not been called once, nor had anyone seemed to make any effort to make sure that the people whose names were on the top of the waiting list got a chance to claim their seats before they were filled by people lower on the list.

IMO that shouldn't happen. I only delayed for about 5 minutes, and until my button hand started the table didn't look like cards were anywhere close to being in the air. The floor knew I was on the list and knew where I was playing, and it wouldn't have taken but a couple of minutes to go around and see if we wanted to take our 2-5 seats or if we wanted to forfeit them. I was involved in the hand for all 3 of the hands that I played after the table was opened (lots of limping at 1-2, who knew?) and didn't feel I had an opportunity to get up and inform table #1 that I wanted to claim my seat.

Anyway, I ask the floor guy what happened and he's apologetic, saying that usually it takes a while to fill up the table and that this time it just filled up right away. I say okay, but it didn't seem like anyone made any effort to round up the people at the top of the list, particularly if they're playing lower than they signed up for, which in my experience is SOP when opening up a new table.

I felt cheated out of my seat (and my 1-2 seat had been filled since I racked up, of course, and now there's a 1-2 waiting list so I have to wait even to play that) and took a moment to sit down and watch football, putting my name back on the 2-5 list (by then I'm lower on the list than I was when I arrived) and expecting to calm down. Instead I felt myself getting more and more tilted at the mismanagement of the room in general, decided that even if I did get a seat I'd be too tilted to play well. So I cashed out, went to the podium, asked that my name be removed from the list, and politely informed the guy why I felt I had been screwed, informed him that that was just the latest example of what I felt had been a pattern of incompetent mismanagement over the past year that I've been playing there, that I can take my business elsewhere (I'm about an hour drive from the Hollywood, and about 75 minutes from the Horseshoe in Cincy), and that I was unlikely to return. I didn't raise my voice, and was responded to only with "Okay" at every point I made.

I'm not a high-maintenance customer. I'm an easygoing guy that never yells at dealers, never yells at other players, and who, when I get frustrated, tends to take it out on myself more than others. The worst I'm guilty at the poker table of is the occasional snark, and then only when I feel like someone beat me when grossly misplaying a hand (which I admit is a bad habit). I shouldn't be someone who feels compelled to write something like this, but my god this room has been poorly managed.

I'm a winning player, so my absence will probably not be mourned by other winning players, and I'm well aware that one player's departure means almost nothing, but when other options are available I just can't justify heading here. Yesterday, after leaving, I drove straight down to Cincinatti and proceeded to play there for the next 7 hours. My experience at the Horseshoe was a breath of fresh air after spending the last year playing in Columbus.

Much ado about nothing imo - management has actually made a lot of strides lately and they do typically round up people on the list who are currently seated (which is why the monitor will list your current table on the interest list). It seems to me like you missed your opportunity over several minutes to claim the seat after they sent you the text that it was available. One of my top pet peeves about the room is actually the too lengthy amount of time one gets to claim a seat (which was no exception in your case). Frankly, you should have instructed someone you were locking up a seat until your button then gone back and played several more hands.

I wouldn't tank a room simply because my seat was lost when i didn't claim it right away.

This. It takes 30 seconds to mark your seat with a rewards card or a chip.

It helps if the floor makes an announcement "We are starting the 2-5 game on table xxx, read list of names, come lock up your seats or loose them"

Then while opening the table if you are about full 50% make a last call, "Last call for 2/5 on table xxx if you are not here we will give away your seat"

I mean if you are a service organization you serve your customers.

That's their standard protocol.

This time there wasn't a last call. I don't even know if the names were listed when they opened the table. I think what happened was just that that they informally announced to a few of the players that were sitting around waiting that the table was opening up, and enough of them sat down right off the bat that they didn't feel bothered to follow the standard protocol of announcing that specific players were in danger of having their seats given up. This to my experience is very consistent with their poker room's leadership's personality as a whole. They try to accomodate people, but by being wishy-washy about their actual rules they never seem like they're in control. They're like pushover parents who don't want conflict with their kids and wind up vaccilating between being far too lenient most of the time and then having to over-correct when **** gets real.

In any case there was definitely no last call or warning that my seat was going to be given up. I didn't feel like I should have had to claim my seat with a chip or my card, and as I was involved in all three remaining hands I played at the 1-2 table, felt like getting up in the middle of the hand to claim my seat while still holding cards and intending to make acts other than folding would have been very rude to the other players at that table.

I'm not tanking the room because of just this one incident obv. I've been playing at the room for the past year and have been consistently annoyed with the management there, mostly in the form of straightforwardly wrong (or at the very least, extremely inconsistent) floor rulings. To the people that say they see improvements in the way they're running things: well, I don't. If it is getting better there, I don't see it, and I think my annoyance with them is justified. Since I've got another option where I live (just 75 minutes away instead of 60) it's an easy decision.

(Also, I know it's just a sample size of 1 afternoon, and an NFL Championship Sunday to boot, but the 2-5 seems way softer in Cincinatti anyway).

Protect your seat...as well as your hand.

1st time here today. All seems to run well. 6+1 rake is worthy of complaint. Not much else so far.

What happened at the meeting tonight?

Any word on when WiFi will be up and ready? Saw on Twatter a few days ago that they were in the process of installing...Can't come soon enough! lol

Wifi should be up and running within two weeks he said. I was on the players panel on Tuesday along with 5 other players. The discussion lasted 4 hours and the room manager was very willing to make some changes/ideas we discussed to improve this room. Overall a very constructive meeting with some good changes on the way. We will be having these meetings quarterly and can also email him at anytime with concerns.

I only get to the room about once a month or so, but I'd love to see more money in regular promotions and less to the huge bbjs. I mean, a 200k bbj is awesome and all, but if you could cap that at like 50 (which is still a nice big number to win) and run regular promotions to return that money to the players, that would be nice.

Agreed, but incredibly unlikely to happen; people show up far more for the silly massive bbj that they have little to no shot at, than a more even distribution of small sums.

This was brought up at the meeting and I believe the distribution has changed to 25% to bad beat, 25% to backup, and now 50% to promotions. Also the idea of a diminishing badbeat qualifier was discussed(starting at quad 10s and going down every week until it hits)

Any discussion on capping NL buyins?

Yes--I anticipate caps are on their way unless there is an outpouring of support in favor of maintaining the status quo of the 100% rule. If you want the 100% rule to stick around, I'd encourage you to try to communicate with the poker room manager.

Also if you want to continue to kill the action in the room, ask to keep the 100% buyin.


If you notice the capped rooms in Cleveland and Cincinnati have more games going than cbus...

I play in Cleveland 4-5 days a week. Capped buyins (especially only a $50 min) is awful for the games. Four or more players with 25 BBs or less is terrible. The max cap 100% is literally the main reason players should want to play in Columbus compared to Cleveland.

Making it 50-150bb is probably the most fair to all levels of players.

The caps that are being discussed are 1/1 game at 20-100, 1/2 at 100-500, 2/5 at 300-1000, and 5/10 at 500-2000. I personally don't care if they ditch the 100% rule or not but I would be happy about the mins being raised a little bit at the 1/2 and 2/5 games.

Any word on possible PLO min/max changes?

$500 max at 1/2 PLO would obviously be a much bigger hinderance than 1/2 holdem due to the $5 bring in. Right now it's $300 max or biggest stack at 1/2 nl and $500 max or biggest stack at 1/2 PLO, so hopefully the powers that be don't mess things up and forget to differentiate the new min/maxs between the two games at their respective blind levels.

I'd personally recommend something like 200-1000 at 1/2 PLO and 300-2000 at 2/5 PLO, but I can live with whatever is best for the game as a whole and with whatever attracts the most players.

I like those holdem changes though, especially the increased min buy.

Yea it was discussed that the $5 bring in at 1/2plo makes it play pretty similiar to 2/5 PLO and since it plays so similar the 2/5 PLO might just be scrapped and replaced with a 5/5 PLO game as a time rake game and possibly an option to run it twice on time raked games(5/5plo and 5/10nl). I would imagine they would make the cap 1k on 1/2plo since it plays like 2/5.

I would love to see a 5/5 PLO time raked game. Hopefully this suggestion comes to fruition.

Are you a player or a casino owner? Number of games are irrelevant from a players perspective. 1 great game > 10 short stacked 100bb miserable games (See Cincy's 2/5 games. They are dreadful. Every single one of them) 100% buyin has killed ZERO action in Cbus room. If anything it has enhanced it to this point. Pitts kill action, not 100% buyin rule.

Im fine with the cap at 200bbs, anything less is gambling. Columbus poker / Cash games have been a deep stack culture for years during the club scene. Capping games at 100bb would be a travesty to the room.

This was one change that seemed to be a "must" with everyone at the meeting. Would be surprised if it is not going on the reg in a few months. All changes take time.

Hats off to the PR for taking the time to listen to players and show 100% effort in making this room climb to its potential.

Nope not a casino owner, but the number of games are indicative of the health of the poker economy .

If 2 city's roughly the same size as cbus have more games going at the same stakes then there must be a reason or reasons. In my opinion one of those reasons is that the 100% rule busts the fish faster making them unwilling to come back! or unable to come back. The good games may be fewer and harder to get into.

# of games is indicative of interest in the games being offered! and health of he economy.

I couldn't agree more. The Columbus poker economy thrived in clubs for 10+ years with 70-75% buyin rules. The high rake has single handily killed the games. Moderate winners have turned into break even players, small winners into losing players and losing players into big losing players.