Based on past experience what is Thanksgiving weekend like, particularly Friday? More players because people have time off, or fewer players because people are with family?

Less regs .. more fish/part time whales, especially on Friday while the wives are shopping. The night time may be a bit less, especially after Midnight, since there will surely be more daytime activity and Players can start sessions earlier. Be prepared for lots of table turnover (busts and cash-n-dashers) so if the lists look long they might actually be moving faster than normal. GL

Sounds like a good time for me to go be one of those fish!

I live in the Chicago area but generally reserve my live playing for the one or two Vegas trips I make each year. Last time I played here was about 18 years ago. It wasn't The Horseshoe then and was still just an old timey river boat.

But I had the itch and decided to try the 12:15 Saturday tournament. But I didn't do it. I walked in and the stench of cigarette smoke hit me like a sledge hammer. I continued on the poker room which is all the way in the back and by the time I got there my eyes were burning and watering and the smell was nauseating to me. I just turned around and went home. This place is absolutely disgusting and uninhabitable. Only a smoker could probably stomach this place. It wasn't even crowded and I didn't really see anyone smoking but the air hung heavy with it. Needless to say I ain't ever going back

For potential future readers, let me note that I am very sensitive to smoke and did not have the same experience as mrbaseball when I visited. The poker room is non-smoking. I was able to walk with some haste into the poker room without issue.

Ditto. The guy above either is extremely sensitive, had the most unlucky path through the main casino floor, or is being intentionally hyperbolic.

I've never smoked in my life and l only notice it once or twice a visit.

Can't imagine it was that bad on a Sunday morning unless they had some major filtration issues from Sat night. Not sure what 'in the back' means either unless there are two entries from the parking garage/valet. I self park and have a less than 40 yard (?) walk from the security post/elevators past the rewards desk into the poker room the way I do it ... barely passing any pit/slots.

Smoke is not very high on my list of worries when it comes to that room ... and for the most part I've never experienced anything on that list either. GL

Did they reopen the valet parking garage to self parkers? Cause as far as I knew, you still have to walk through the whole casino to get to the poker room. And yes there are two entrances from two garages, but last I saw, one garage was for valet only. That would be nice if they changed it back.

I went here once and the smoke is obnoxious to those of us who hate that smell. Every time I went to the bathroom I held my breath during some parts of the walk. No one hates that smell more than I do though, I'll admit.

Once in the room everything is fine, but the moment I entered that casino I thought that the "no indoor smoking" law in Illinois is the one thing they got right in Springfield. Illinois will go bankrupt, but we wont reek while we do it!

For those who have not had to deal with that smell in years, the Shoe is absolutely disgusting.

Agree with last few posters that the smoke isn’t THAT bad. Sure, it’s noticeable and your clothes will smell when you get home, but you’re not going to barf or get light-headed waking to the poker room.

Hey, hypothetical question: with Rahm talking about casino ideas, and JB's family having in the past had an ownership stake in an Illinois casino, how good or bad of a poker room would a Chicago casino have to have to impact whether you go to the Shoe or a hypothetical Chicago casino?

(I admit this is a pipe dream to some extent. Rivers has no poker room because of the 1200 person gaming limit in the Illinois laws, and slots and table games are more profitable, so lets pretend that the law allowing a new casino also raised that cap)

What's the difference between a 2-5 and 1-2 table here on a Friday night?

I've only been to the shoe once, and that was during the summer.
Thinking of coming this Friday for a long evening session to celebrate the start of my vacation.

Is the 2-5 as much of a "Lotto-shove-fest" as it is at GVC?

Never been to GVC but I would not qualify the Shoe’s 2/5 as a lotto-shove-fest...whatsoever.

Been playing it for about 4 years, 500+ hours a year.

How are games over the winter break? 5/T usually

What can I expect for the Sunday afternoon 12:15 tournament? Does it get a good turn out? Any tips on what to expect?

I'm hoping the holiday weekend this weekend could make it a fairly fun/good tournament.

As far as what to expect you can expect players struggle to ante bc they are on a different planet and also could possibly expect soto to deal bc of theres no dealers anymore and the waiting lists will prolly be a mess...

Lists have been pretty acccetable as of late, IMO.

Seems like they’ve got the dealer-shortage problems solved, too. I haven’t seen them turn away players in about 6 months.

Disclaimer: I only play Fr/Sat/Sun, so idk what goes on during the week.

They stopped seating players last night. Granted it was at 4 in the morning, but I think that makes it worse for people that are waking up and coming to the casino.

On Wednesday they were short dealers but they did a good job of convincing dealers to stay late and show up early so the lists moved quickly after a hour or so.

Other than that they have been pretty good about having dealers ready to start new games lately. Much better than other local casinos in the Chicago area.

Just waited over a hours for a 1/2 seat tons of tables to open also

Probably not tons of dealers.

I was there last night and it seemed like they had lists most of the 7 hours I was there...nothing like CPC or WSOPc but normal-ish lists.

You would think there would be some sort of tracking system for how long lists are and how long they stay that long; especially for holidays and prime time days that aren’t Fri/Sat/Sun (weekdays when most “normal” people have the next day off work...EX: New Year’s Day falling on a Tuesday)

Then Soto could look at 5+ years of data to make a data-driven decision to gameplan how many dealers he needs scheduled for these kinds of days.

...but then again, that would make too much sense and be too practical and efficient.

He does have this information he can go on the computer software type in any date from previous years to see how many games were going on this date and so on... nothing will change unless when customers get their surveys and write negative things thats all Caesars cares about is negative service scores so if you write in bad things that's when things will change if you dont then they thing everything is fine and dandy....

Caesers will see oh there are more players than dealers at the outrageous rake we charge now so we should charge even more. Just kidding, kind of, but sometimes you 've got to be careful what you wish for. Their solution to a complaint can easily be worse than the problem.

With soto running the room most likely it would be worse than the original problem