Thanks for appearing in the thread, Dave. I appreciate your (and by extension, Hollywood's) concern about players' issues as well as your attitude of hoping to improve the room. To respond specifically to your comments regarding my post:

In other words, from the floor's perspective, pot-raked games >>> time-raked games. At the very least you explicitly admit this is true for days where the room is giving away $ from the promotional fund. If that's the room's policy, so be it, but please be aware that many regulars, including me, are prejudiced as a result.

For example, a few regulars of the larger stake games basically got frozen out of games for ~2 hours on Saturday during the promotions despite having their names on several lists. These regs have paid more than their fair share of $ into the promotional fund via 2-5 NL and 2-2 PLO. Yet, the room would apparently rather cater to the slew of 1-2 NL and 4-8 LHE players who come in only to take advantage of the promotion and who probably contributed very little (if anything) to the promotional fund during previous weeks. In that sense, it's not really "their" $ being distributed to them, as you frame it.

Of (I think) 31 tables running during the peak of the promotion, there was exactly one time-raked game, the 5-10 NL which I mentioned in my post we had wanted to switch to 5-5 PLO. There were only two 2-5 NL games running despite, iirc, a pretty large waitlist. Just one extra 2-5 game (which would have been promotion-eligible) or one 5-5 PLO game rather than the 20th 1-2 NL table or the 7th 4-8 LHE table would have been plenty to accommodate demand for larger stake games and would have still accomplished the stated goal of trying to give a very large number of people the chance to receive promotion $.

I took a screenshot of bravo around midnight on Saturday. This has become all too common a sight for people who want to play games that aren't 1-2 NL or 4-8 LHE:




Notice that there were still several hours to go in the promotion at the time of the screenshot. At that point, demand was basically 100% met for promotion-seekers but quite insufficient for everyone else, particularly PLO players.


A lot of things in that text box are true (including the floor having been very accommodating many nights in the past) but some of that is also now outdated. Like I wrote in my post, several times over the last few weeks a 5-5 PLO was never called despite a big list (12+). The player referred to in your post was not at the casino or planning on playing any of those nights, but I'm 100% confident a game would have gotten off and gotten off right away, anyways. Players would have told the floor as much if asked. My suspicion is that the floor made the assumption that the game would never get off w/o the presence of a particular player, which even if true in the past is usually not the case anymore.

Usually, at least a couple people on the list will have a very good idea of whether a game would get off or would be willing to do an interest check themselves; I'd recommend consulting them if you're unsure whether a game will get off if called. The floor can also of course run its own interest check.

Another thing frequently stated by the floor is a concern that a currently running game (such as 2-5 or 5-10 NL) might break if 5-5 PLO is announced. I don't believe this should matter if literally 8/9 players at a table would prefer to play 5-5 PLO rather than their current game. To the floor's credit, such a switch was made the other week (and the 9th guy ended up going to the new table, anyways), and a lot more people were happy than were upset. I understand there may occasionally be rake-based objections to such switches happening, but I believe that the increased customer satisfaction (rather than aggravation) is +EV for the room over the longterm.

Even if the floor hasn't had any bad intentions re: 5-5 PLO (which I am inclined to believe after reading your post), a definite consequence of all this recent stuff has been several players being less willing to come to the casino for 5-5 PLO. It seems to me like that could have been pretty easily avoided and that's why I felt compelled to post, among some other recent frustrations with how the room has handled things.

Hi Dave,

Thank you for joining the 2+2 community. I'm sure that your presence here will be great for both players and your room. Before you post again, I'd like to make you aware--as well as remind the community--of our guidelines regarding poker room representatives.

The first step for any poker room representative is to be verified by 2+2 user Bobo Fett, who is the advertising director here. He'll go over in detail with you the options of paid advertiser and non-paying representative.

If you choose to be a paid advertiser, you will have free rein to post anything you'd like about your room in this thread. If you choose to be a non-paying representative, you will be able to answer questions that community members pose about the room such as rules, procedures, customer service issues, etc., but you will not be able to make posts of your own accord and you will not be able to provide answers that might directly or indirectly serve as promotional material.

If you have any questions, please send me a private message or post in the Moderation Discussion Thread at the top of the LCP main forum. In the meantime, please contact Bobo Fett to be authorized.

Thanks again for becoming a member of the community!


Regards,
Rapini

Hi Rapini, can you verify with Bobo Fett, this process was already taken care of.

Thanks!

Will do. Thanks for letting me know!

Awesome! Thanks, Dave. I look forward to your help as you're one of the sharpest guys in the room. Just as some players are concerned with their 5/5 PLO game et al, I am concerned with the non-existent MTT life in the room and I hope you can work in a fair, reasonable yet regular MTT with a guaranteed prize pool > $xxk. I'm a firm believer that quality > quantity with regard to MTTs and that having one great monthly tourney we can look forward to (and you can give away vouchers for, promote the room etc) is way better than a $50 tourney every weekday. I'd love to support the room again and you're one of the main reasons why.

-Nick




.

anyone have any details of the OPC in december?

Here is the schedule. Their Facebook page says structures will be posted soon.

Hey guys, wanted to let any of you know who may be traveling from out of town to join us in December for the OPC that we have worked a Poker Rate at a local hotel in Hilliard. Here is the link to utilize:

http://www.holidayinn.com/redirect?p...801505&GPC=HCT

Hope to see you in December!

I guess that link doesnt specify price....we are told we could obtain a rate of $99 a night.

Awesome! Are we allowed to promote this in other threads (the Ohio casino threads for example?)

Dave I hope they allow you to market this series to nearby markets.

-Nick

OH Restaurant is now not allowing carry out orders more nights than they're actually allowing them. They claim it's because of "business levels" when a quick look around the place usually reveals no more than ten customers. It also might be the only restaurant in the country where there is an unattended lobby for long stretches of time while the restaurant is still open. This place is straight out of a Kafka novella.

Worse, there's a rumor going around that they're considering a new policy where poker players can only use comps on dine-in orders (no carry out). This would be a disaster for the poker room. It would require players to be away from the table a significant amount of time if they wish to eat at the OH.

Less players=less rake + greater chance of tables breaking=less revenue=bad for everybody.

Hey Nick, I doubt I am allowed to promote the event within this forum as we dont pay the advertising fees within the site. However if you are asking if we are able or planning on marketing this event to nearby markets, we absolutely are. I reached out to the competing websites to make sure this series is placed on their schedule of events, and we are exploring other areas to reach out to try and bring some players in from other areas. We are hoping to be successful, hence the poker rate at the nearby hotel, and we are hoping to be able to give some other options as far as that goes as well.

This is something that we view as unacceptable. Worse yet, these are the types of things that affect our customer satisfaction scores and are out of our immediate control.

With that said, I know that I have spoken to Jay recently on this very topic, and that he is in direct conversation with our AGM to come up with solutions.

I fully understand the importance of having ways to get food while playing a long session. I also understand the importance of keeping people in seats and not having to leave those seats for long periods of time to get a meal. I can't promise that we will have a solution overnight, since again, this is something out of our immediate control, but this is a priority item that we are currently working on.

We did try the food cart outside the room, and to my understanding, while moderately helpful, this isn't the long term solution that we are looking for.

I'll do my best to keep you updated on this front.

I can't even imagine how low the morale has to be at that place for the servers. A salary employee forcing tipped employees to turn away customers when business levels are almost non existent.

Thanks, Dave. Very glad that the room is aware of and working on this issue. It's actually a pretty big deal to me as the OH has by far the best and healthiest options of any of the available dining options for my personal tastes; I know a lot of other people feel the same way.

So true.

Does anybody have a guess as to the number of players they'll have for the black Friday bounty tournament? Any idea on blind structure ? Thanks!

Here is the structure for the Black Friday tournament. 20K chips, 30 minute blinds. Not sure what to project as we have not run an event similar to this, so I'd hate to project, but we are hoping to fill the room!

Ante Blinds
1st Level - 25 - 50
2nd Level - 50 - 100
3rd Level - 100 - 200
4th Level 25 100 - 200
5th Level 50 200 - 400
6th Level 75 300 - 600
7th Level 100 400 - 800
8th Level 100 600 – 1,200
9th Level 200 800 – 1,600
10th Level 200 1,000 – 2,000
11th Level 300 1,500 – 3,000
12th Level 400 2,000 - 4,000
13th Level 500 3,000 – 6,000
14th Level 500 4,000 – 8,000
15th Level 1,000 6,000 – 12,000
16th Level 1,000 8,000 – 16,000
17th Level 2,000 10,000 – 20,000
18th Level 2,000 12,000 – 24,000
19th Level 3,000 15,000 – 30,000
20th Level 3,000 20,000 – 40,000
21th Level 4,000 30,000 – 60,000
22th Level 5,000 40,000 – 80,000
23th Level 5,000 60,000 – 120,000
24th Level 10,000 80,000 – 160,000
25th Level 10,000 100,000 – 200,000
26th Level 15,000 120,000 – 240,000
27st Level 20,000 150,000 – 300,000
28nd Level 25,000 200,000 – 400,000

Flying in for game on Saturday, 5/10nl going to be getting off on a Friday?

Dave does the $20K guaranteed prize pool in the Black Friday event include the $100 bounties? What time does registration open? A few of us planning on making the drive up from Cincy. Thanks.

Thanks, Dave!

Can I apply to be on the "Structure Committee"

I miss 250/500 & 500/1k!

-Nick

Yep, add 500, 1k, 10k, 100k bb and that's a legit structure.

Yeah, pretty much. 1200/2400 would be great, too.

Dave, thanks for popping in here and I appreciate your willingness to listen to players. I also agree with Nick that the MTT situation could be way better, and it's frustrating that there isn't a weekly tourney above $120. Cincinnati seems able to sustain two weekly events above $200 and a much bigger monthly event. I would come to the casino a lot more frequently if it had bigger events like these. (And I'm glad you have some bigger-buyin events coming up; I can't do the Black Friday one, but I look forward to the OPC events in December.)

Also, the structures of the weekly tourneys, as they currently are, are really frustrating. I know these are one-day events and that some players don't want a super-deep structure, but the Sunday tourney (which I've played a few times recently) is structured in a way that combines the worst of deep-stack tourneys and short-stacked nightly tourneys. I actually sent an email to the casino about this a couple weeks ago and did not receive a reply. I've pasted it below (and revised a couple small things).

* * *

In the last few months, I have been a regular player in the Sunday 12:15 NLHE tournament. It is the biggest weekly tournament in town, and it has a structure that could be excellent, It fails to live up to my expectations, however, because (in my opinion) the levels are very awkward, beginning needlessly deep-stacked and quickly devolving into a frustrating shove-fest. I wanted to share some tweaks that might make it better.

1) Please add a couple levels to make the blind structure advance a little more gradually. In particular, 500-1000 and 1200-2400 would be much appreciated. Going from 400-800 to 600-1200 and from 1000-2000 to 1500-3000 essentially means that you must hit hands in the hour stretching from 600-1200 to 1500-3000, especially since starting stacks are 30,000 and alternates are still being added almost up to that time. The rapidly climbing blinds essentially make the early levels irrelevant, and all of a sudden at least two players are all-in on nearly every hand. That's very frustrating if you've spent the previous three hours patiently building a stack. I've continually had this problem where I try to play well and build my stack in the early levels, then bust at around 4:00-5:00 anyway because that one hour didn't go my way. Rapid changes of fortune are part of the game, but they can be softened with a better structure. I've heard other players complain about this too.

2) I know that adding extra levels would increase the length of the tournament, so to compensate, I would propose just cutting the 25-50 level at the beginning and starting at 50-100. It's fun to play deep-stacked, but there's no reason for a daily tournament to be 600 big blinds deep. Also, I feel compelled to play this level, even though most pots aren't big enough to mean anything, because I know I might be sitting there as an alternate for quite awhile if I show up late. Starting at 50-100 would make the hands meaningful from the very beginning. It would also mean people bust out of the tournament a little more smoothly rather than everybody busting out from 4-5pm, and the earlier pattern might actually save the dealers a bit on hours worked even though you'd be adding a couple levels later. Finally, cutting the 25-50 level would allow you to color up the green chips at the break, because the 300/600/75 level would be Level 6.

3) Just eliminating the practice of having alternates and seating new players immediately would be a big step forward. It would take a little bit of extra work on your part, but it would mean that people can just sit out the first couple of levels if they want, without sitting around and waiting.

The alternates thing is frustrating. People who show up should be seated immediately. It should always be the house's goal to get players in seats ASAP and keep them there. It's like a slot machine - you want your customers sitting for as long as possible.

Didn't notice 1200/2400 was missing, that too. Make the first 6 levels 20 minutes with no 25/50.

Not saying I disagree with you on the alternate situation. But a casino might want the player in the seats and there for a long time perhaps at a ring game or an actual slot machine or table game.....but not at a tournament.